AN introduction to the midnight court

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Professor Seán Ó Tuama describes The Midnight Court well:

The Midnight Court is undoubtedly one of the greatest comic works of literature, and certainly the greatest comic poem ever written in Ireland. … It is a poem of gargantuan energy, moving clearly and pulsatingly along a simple story line, with a middle, a beginning and an end. For a poem of over one thousand lines it has few longeurs. It is full of tumultuous bouts of great good humour, verbal dexterity and rabelesian ribaldry. It is a mammoth readable achievement with little need of gloss.” (Brian Merriman and His Court, Seán Ó Tuama, pg. 158)

Quite simply, as a modern-day publisher might say in promoting a new book: it’s a very good read. Formally, it consists of a Prologue, three dramatic monologues, and an Epilogue. It combines the traditional Irish aisling with the Court of Love poems of medieval Europe. The aisling, dream or vision, poetry was either amatory or political in which a comely spéirbhean, or sky-woman, appears to the poet in a dream. For instance, in the 10-century Aisling Oneguso, the poet sees a beautiful maiden in a dream, with whom he falls in love and is eventually united.

By the 18th century, although the love-aisling was still in use, the genre was more often devoted to political deliverance where the dream-woman was Ireland personified. By this time, the form had become quite stylized in many ways:

• The poet is out for a ramble, often first thing of a bright summer’s morning; 
• He lays down by a stream for a rest and falls asleep; 
• A beautiful woman appears in a dream whose allure is described in lavish and exuberant detail;
• The poet asks in wonder whether she is a Greek goddess or other fantastical figure (usually several possibilities are listed);
• She answers that she is no such creature but, instead, Ireland; and usually with a name such as Caitlín Ní hUallacháin, Síle Ní Ghadhra, Róisín Dubh—or simply Éire;
• She laments the state of the country with its leaders dead or in exile and the foreigners in possession of their ancestral land;
• She foretells (in the 18th century) the imminent return of the rightful Stuart king or that help is due to arrive shortly from over the seas from Spain, France or the Pope;
• The poet awakens, sometimes to the bitter realization that, in fact, no salvation is at hand—it was only a dream.

A short example (generally these poems are quite lengthy) is An Aisling by Aodhagán Ó Rathaille (?1670-1729) from the Sliabh Luachra district in County Kerry. Although too short to exhibit the panoply of features just outlined, the poem is interesting in the context of The Midnight Court, since the featured spéirbhean is the same Aoibhill who plays such a major role in Merriman’s work:

Maidin sul smaoin Titan a chosa do luail	One morning before Titan had brought forth first light
Ar mhullach cnoic aird aoibhinn do lódamar suas,	On top of a fair hill of considerable height
Tarrastar linn scaoith bhruinnel soilbhir suairc—	I met a sweet group of young girls bright
Gasra bhí i Sí Seana solasbhrú thuaidh.	A troop in Sí Seana’s north fort of delight.
Fearastar scím dhraíochta nár dhorcha snua,	A magic mist spread, which was not grey,
Ó Ghaillimh na líog lígheal go Corcaigh na gcuan;	From the harbours of Cork to Galway bay
Barra gach crainn síorchuireas toradh agus cnuas,	The clusters of fruit made every tree sway
Meas daire ar gach coill, fírmhil ar chlocha go buan.	Acorns and pure honey everywhere lay.
Lasaidsin trí coinnle go solas nach luaim	They lit three candles, casting an ineffable glow
Ar mhullach Chnoic aird Fhírinne Conallach Rua;	On Cnoc Firinne’s lofty summint in Conallach Roe
Leanastar linn scaoith na mban gcochall go Tuamhain,	With the group of cloaked women to Thomond I did go
Is fachtaimse dhíobh díograis a n-oifige ar cuairt.	Asking about their mission, if they could let me know
D’fhreagair an bhríd Aoibhill nár dhorcha snua,	Then answered lady Aoibhill whose face was not grey:
Fachain na dtrí gcoinnle do lasadh ar gach cuan	They had lit the three candles above every bay
In ainm an rí dhíograis bheas againn go luath,	In the name of the fond king who was on his way
I gceannas na dtrí ríochta*, is dá gcosnamh go buan.	To wear the triple crown** forever and a day
As m’aisling do shlímbhíogas go hachomair suas,	Suddenly from my dreamy sleep I sat bolt upright
Is do mheasas gurb fhíor d’Aoibhill gach sonas dár luaigh;	Believing that Aoibhill’s good news must be right
Is amhlaidh bhíos tímchreathach, doilbhir, duairc,	But I found I was downcast and shaken with fright
Maidin sul smaoin Titan a chosa do luail.	That morning before Titan had brought forth first light
* Sasana, Éire is Alba.
** Of England, Ireland and Scotland.
(Source: Text: Filíocht na nGael, Pádraig Ó Canainn do chuir in eagar, An Press Náisiúnta, Baile Átha Cliath, 1958, lch. 65; My Translation)

As I said, all this had become rather stylized. Daniel Corkery speaks of an “inbreeding” among the poets of the bardic schools—“a disease most incident to academies.”

That rigid turn of mind which kept their literary medium in a strait-jacket for whole centuries, afraid not so much of growth as the dangers that go with it, kept the doors of the inventive faculties severely sentried, and for the self-same reason. The movement of their minds is swift, precise, and often piercing, but one wishes for livelier contrasts, for richer colour, for readier emotions.” (The Hidden Ireland, pg. 82).

Similarly, Piaras Béaslaí writes:

Few literatures have been less coloured by the individuality of the writers than Gaelic literature. It had been originally the product of a separate literary caste, confined to certain familes, taught in schools, shackled by conventions, by respect for tradition, by archaism." ("Merriman's Secret: An Interpretation," Piaras Béaslaí, in Cuirt an mheadhon oidhche, Riseard O Foghludha, pg. 1).

Merriman cetrainly broke the mold. Not only was did he write vigorously and expressively in the everyday speech of County Clare and call a spade a spade rather than an agricultural implement, he introduced a burlesque element into the aisling form itself.

There is not one vision-woman but two: the radiant Aoibheal, the very soul of convention, is teamed with a grotesque doppelgänger, the bailiff-woman—at six or seven yards in height and with features to match, a parody of the beautiful spéirbhean.

In his long opus, he gives only the most cursory treatment, in a harangue in the Prologue that is largely irrelavant to the poem’s major themes, to that staple of the political aisling—the broken-down state of the country because of the disappearance of the native lords and their replacement by foreign hordes:

An uaisle b’fhearr chun fáin mar leaghadar	81	The nobles languish in a foreign land
Is uachtar láimhe ag fáslaigh shaibhre,	82	While the jumped-up rich get the upper hand,
Ag fealladh le fonn is foghail gan féachaint	83	In betrayal ardent, in plunder greedy
D’fheannadh na lobhar is an lom dá léirscrios.	84	Flaying the sick, despoiling the needy.
Is dochrach dubhach mar dhíogha gach daoirse	85	It is blackly baneful and sticks in the craw
Doilbhe dúr i ndúbhcheilt dlíthe	86	That, in darkest despair over the absence of law,
An fann gan feidhm ná faghaidh ó éinne	87	There’s nothing from no one for the purposeless weak
Ach clampar doimhin is luí chum léirscrios,	88	But a depredacious future that is hopelessly bleak,
Falsacht fear dlí is fachtnaí ardnirt,	89	The knavery of lawyers, tyranny on high
Cam is calaois faillí is fabhar,	90	Injustice, fraud and neglect apply
Scamall an dlí agus fíordhath fannchirt,	91	The law is clouded, the scales awry,
Dalladh le bríb, le fee is le falsacht.	92	With all the pull that bribes can buy.

Instead, in Seamus Heaney’s words, Merriman’s concerns are psycho-sexual rather than national-patriotic. The woes of the country are laid mostly at the feet of the young men who refuse to marry (and of the celibate clergy, a subset of the country’s recalcitrant bachelors). The lively discussion of this topic takes up the major part of the poem and is played out in a Court of Love, the work’s second major dramatic vehicle.

Seán Ó Tuama describes in great detail the European antecedants of this artifice, stretching as it does back into medieval continental times and borrowing also from post-Elizabethan sources in England.

The Midnight Court is, in fact, a Court of Love in the typical West European mould. Literary parliaments, assemblies and courts were very much in vogue in western Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. One finds courts of love in Provencal, French and Latin as early as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Later one comes on them in German, Italian and English. In English, the genre is found in abundance from the time of Chaucer right down to Elizabethan times.” (Brian Merriman and His Court, Seán Ó Tuama, pg. 150)

In the Midnight Court, in best the courtroom style, a young woman presents the case for the prosecution, the defense’s rebuttal is in the hands of an old man and the young woman is given the chance for a final re-rebuttal. Aoibheal, the president of the court, then hands down her ruling. The invective is sharp. The young woman’s opening argument is a tirade about being sexually neglected in spite of her considerable allure. She asks why men marry hags and harridans while she and her contemporaries are left on the shelf. She details the various superstitious rites available to her to attempt to change her fortune:

Níorbh áil liom codladh go socair aon uair díobh	291	I could never sleep peacefully in my bed
Gan lán mo stoca do thorthaí faoi mo chluasa,	292	Without a sockful of fruit under my head;
Is deimhin nárbh obair liom troscadh le cráifeacht,	293	It was no bother to devoutly fast,
Is greim nó blogam ní shlogainn trí trátha,	294	Three canonical hours between each repast;
In aghaidh an tsrutha do thumainn mo léine,	295	Against the current I’d wash my clothes
Ag súil trí mo chodladh le cogar ó mo chéile,	296	In the hopes that a bachelor would propose.
Is minic do chuaigh mé ag scuabadh an staca,	297	Often I would go and sweep out the byre
Ingne is gruaig faoin luaith-ghríos d’fhágainn,	298	And my nails and hair I would throw in the fire;
Chuirinn an tsúiste faoi chúl an ghabhail,	299	The flail I’d hide in the gable’s shade
Chuirinn an rámhainn go ciúin faoin adhairt chugam,	300	By the head of my bed I’d place the spade
Chuirinn an choigeal i gcillín na háithe,	301	I would put my distaff in the lime kiln
Chuirinn mo cheirtlín i dtine aoil Mhic Rághnaill,	302	I’d secrete my yarn-ball in Reynolds’ mill
Chuirinn an ros ar chorp na sráide	303	I’d scatter seed on the crown of the street
Chuirinn san tsop fúm tor cabáiste.	304	I’d stick a head of cabbage beneath the sheet.

She ends her jeremiad by threatening to use black magic if her luck doesn’t soon change.

An old man, memorably christened Snarlygob by Frank O’Connor, then jumps up and fierely asserts that she has only herself and her wanton ways to blame for her lack of a mate. Her airs and graces are only a show; behind the facade, she is at heart just a trollop from beggarly stock.

He goes on to detail how he himself was betrayed when he was seduced into marrying a young woman who was already pregnant by another man and how his life has gone downhill ever since.

When his wife gave birth, the neighbors conspired against him to hide the baby from his scrutiny, asserting the child was sickly because of its premature birth and needed to be kept covered against the cold.

Upon finally seeing the baby after much insistence, however, he discovers that it is a healthy boy. There follows a strange segue where the obvious health and vigor of the child prompts the old man, despite being cuckolded himself, to burst into a rhapsody on the benefits of illegitimate fatherhood and the vibrancy of bastards, born as they are from passionate unions.

Is leathanmhar láidir lánmhear léadmhar	599	Many who are strong and altogether fine
Fairsing le fáil an t-álmhach saor seo.	600	Sprang from an illegitimate line
Is minic a fheicimse bríomhar borrtha	601	For love is a lustier sire than creed
Cumasach líonta i gcroí is i gcóir iad;	602	And produces a healthier, heartier breed

He urges the court to allow couples to mate without the bonds and burdens of matrimony.

Leis-sin ná hiarrse a ríon réilteach	629	Please don’t subject millions, O Queen of the Sky
Milleadh meiriad le riail gan éifeacht!	630	To a stupid rule with which they must comply
Scaoil ó chodladh gan chochall gan chuibhreach	631	Awake to a life without a bond or chain
Síol an bhodaigh is an mhogall-fhuil mhaoiteach,	632	The country’s people, mighty and plain
Scaoil fá chéile de réir nádúra	633	Allow them to be naturally combined
An síolbhach séad is an braon lábúrtha,	634	Couples from the peasantry and the refined.
Fógair go féiltiúil trí na tíortha	635	Throughout the land may a new rule unfold
D’óg is d’aosta saorthoil síolraigh.	636	Of sexual freedom for young and for old.
Cuirfidh an dlí seo gaois sa nGaeil,	637	This new law will make the Irish proud,
Is tiocfaidh an brí mar bhí ina laochra,	638	The new race will once again be endowed
Ceapfaidh sé com is droim is doirne	639	With all the prowess of the heroes of old,
Ag fir an domhain mar Gholl mac Móirne,	640	The likes of Goll mac Móirne the bold.
Gealfaidh an spéir, beidh éisc i líonta,	641	The sky will brighten, the fish will bite
Is talamh an tsléibhe go léir faoi luibhne,	642	The mountainy land will bloom with no blight
Fir is mná go brách dá mhaíomh,	643	Men and women will sing your praise
Ag seinnm do cháil le gairdeas aoibhnis.	644	And in joyful celebration their voices raise.

Once again taking the stand, the young woman reviles Snarlygob for his inability to satisfy his young wife and his niggardly treatment of her. In the most erotic part of the poem, she “reels off an indignant and marvellously specific list of his inadequacies as a lover and of his wife’s attempts to overcome them” (Seamus Heaney).

She then goes down her own unexpected byway—why are there so many fine specimens of men walled off from the likes of her because of priestly celibacy? Girls like her have reason to know (wink, wink) that beneath the clerical facade beat passionate hearts.

Is chonnaic mé taibhseach roinn dá ramsach	801	I’ve seen incontrovertible evidence that many a son
Is uimhir dá gclainn ar shloinnte falsa.	802	Could call a priest a father in more ways than one.

This leads into the Epilogue where Aoibheal hands down her judgment. Most commentators see this as the weakest part of the poem where Merriman seems to run out of gas a bit and has no great answers for the problems he has posed. Aoibheal’s only specific ruling is a rather conventional one for the genre that men who refuse to marry be tied up and beaten up. As for the celibacy of the clergy, she says she has heard a rumor that the Pope will soon relent (fat chance!) and the hierarchy will come around provided the faithful are not too importunate.

To his horror, the bachelor poet is the first condemned under Aoibheal’s decree and the women of the court swarm over him to exact the punishment. He wakes up and, to his relief, realizes that the whole thing was just a nightmare.

In spite of its love-court setting, the idea of romantic love is absent from The Midnight Court. What is celebrated instead is a sort of early version of free love. Gearóid Ó Crualaoich sees in this another of Merriman’s twists on the aisling form:

It was not to any merely mortal royal liberator that Merriman looked for deliverance for country and people but to the older supernatural ‘female’ sovereignty of the spirit of the land itself. Thus he seeks to ensure the return and perpetuation of fertility and prosperity for all, not in the restoration of the Stuart or any other line but in the restoration of the primacy of ‘fonn na fola agus fothrom na sláinte’, the basic, healthy, animal, life instincts of the mature, adult, individual man and woman, free from conventional guilt or shame or repression. In effecting this transformation of the Aisling, Merriman liberates Soveignty or Love—in the person of Aoibheal of Craig Liath—from its mythological role and brings it into play on the plane of the psychological and the naturalistic. … Merriman deliberately chooses to move his Aisling away from this heroic plane, not, however, to indulge the affections but to liberate the psyche in a work that is full and fierce and carnal, and that yet is free of all sentimentality or shame.” ("The Vision of Liberation in Cúirt an Mheán Oíche”, Gearóid Ó Crualaoich, pg. 99.)

Ó Crualaoich also attempts an explanation of one of the mysteries of the poem: Why Merriman should see a declining population as one of Ireland’s main problems at a time when the population was burgeoning to unsustainable levels (at least in the laissez faire economic system so mindlessly followed later by Trevalyan during the Great Famine). Ó Crualaoich suggests that the the demographic situation was in the class-colored eye of the beholder:

[I]t was in the ranks of the landless labourers and the cottiers that evidence is found for the most frequent and earliest marriages. With the emergence of class differentiation and the competition for land and other resources, there was a tendency for farmers, tradesmen, the better-off in general to marry later, and there is a sizeable statistic of non-marriage within these groups at the time. The ‘match’, the arranged marriage with all its attendant dealing and bargaining and with ‘every shilling brought into account’, was starting to become more frequent in the relatively higher social groupings of later eighteenth-century rural Ireland. Merriman, perhaps to be seen as rising socially, certainly moving, at least partially, in the better-off circles would have been aware of this and would have noticed its discouraging effect on young people’s marriage prospects as the increasingly market-oriented and class-stratified society developed. Such a class-defined mercenary constraint on the easy coupling of the sexes may well be the social reality that lies behind the young woman’s complaint, which is after all the prime matter regarding which the court of Aoibheal sits.” (ibid., pg. 102.)

Perhaps.

We can, of course, analyze The Midnight Court to death. In the end, it stands or falls as a work of the imagination. “Its author ultimately requires no justifications other than those of his own creative impulses for any assertions in the mouths of its characters” (ibid., pg. 102.). That it has for so long given so much pleasure to so many, and continues to do so, is vindication enough.