An Chéad Chloch

These eight stories, written for An Claideamh Soluis and published in book form in 1914 are among the most remarkable of the whole Gaelic Revival.

These eight stories written for An Claideamh Soluis and published in book form in 1914 are among the most remarkable of the whole Gaelic Revival. They deal with Ó Conaire’s recurring themes of tragic love, jealousy, betrayal and displacement but their settings are far from the author’s native Connacht.Four stories give imaginative interpretations of incidents from the New Testament. The title story ‘An Chéad Chloch’ (‘The First Stone’) gives the imaginative background to the New Testament story of the woman taken in adultery and how her executioners were forced to leave when Jesus wrote on the ground: ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’ The remaining four are part-fables set in the fictitious land of the Abetines. The exotic settings of the stories and their sense of mystery and latent eroticism did not endear Ó Conaire to the paladins of the Revival but they have relevance to his own career and his view of himself as an artist. This is most obvious in the concluding tale ‘Ná Lig Sinn i gCathú’ (‘Lead us not into temptation’) in which an artist compromises his integrity for gain in order to please the woman he loves.Mar a deir Seosamh Mac Grianna, údar chomh-tréitheach as an chúige in aice láimhe: ‘Níor scríobhadh leabhar ar bith in Éirinn i dteanga ar bith lenár linn atá comh h-éifeachtach leis an leabhar seo.’Pádraic Ó Conaire was born in Galway City in 1882 and reared in Rosmuc in the Connemara Gaeltacht. After leaving school he went to work as a civil servant in the Ministry of Education in London. There he met Irish-language activists (he was a friend of Robert Lynd, Michael Collins and the historian P. S. O’Hegarty) and became a teacher of Irish for the Gaelic League. His works include the short-story collections Nora Mharcuis Bhig agus Scéalta Eile (1909) and An Chéad Chloch (1914), and the novel Deoraíocht (1916). He returned to Ireland in1914 and lived there until his death in 1928. M’Asal Beag Dubh, one of the books for which he is best known, was published in 1944.