Brian O’Nolan’s “Tales from Corkadorky” and Sgéalta Mhuintir Luinigh

Abstract

This essay addresses a relatively untouched topic in the field of Brian O’Nolan / Flann O’Brien studies: the Irish-language “Tales from Corkadorky” vignettes published during 1941–42 in the “Cruiskeen Lawn” column O’Nolan wrote as Myles na gCopaleen for the Irish Times. This essay builds on the brief existing critical remarks about this series of columns by exploring, in unprecedented detail, Breandán Ó Conaire’s suggestion that the “Tales from Corkadorky” are modelled on the Sgéalta Mhuintir Luinigh (Munterloney Folktales) collected by Professor Éamonn Ó Tuathail and published in 1933. After summarising existing criticism, the essay presents the wider context of folklore collection for O’Nolan’s work in Irish, the background linking him to Ó Tuathail’s Sgéalta Mhuintir Luinigh, and proceeds to conduct a comparative reading of O’Nolan’s use of dialect features and themes from this source material in the “Tales from Corkadorky”. Facilitated by its analysis of the first tale to appear, the essay traces the origin and development of the tale format as it interacts with other recurring elements in “Cruiskeen Lawn”.