BELEAGUERED BUT DETERMINED - IRISH WOMEN-WRITERS IN IRISH

A growing number of Irish women have chosen to write in Irish for reas ons varying from a desire to promote and preserve the Irish language t o a belief that a marginalized language is an appropriate vehicle of e xpression for marginalized women. Their work explores aspects of woman hood relating to sexuality, relationships, motherhood and religion. So me feel hampered by the lack of female models. Until recent years ther e were few attempts on the part of women to explore the reality of wom en's lives through literature in Irish. The largely subordinate role p layed by women in literary matters as teachers, translators, and write rs of children's literature reflected the position of women in Irish s ociety since the achievement of independence in the 1920s. The work of earlier women poets has, for the most part, lain buried in manuscript s and is only recently being excavated by scholars. The problems of wr iting for a limited audience have been partially overcome in recent ye ars by increased production of dual-language books. The increase in tr anslation has sparked off an intense controversy among the Irish langu age community, some of whom are concerned that both the style and cont ent of writing in Irish are adversely influenced by the knowledge that the literature will be read largely in translation. Nevertheless, tra nslation also has positive implications. Interest in women's literatur e is helping to break down the traditional barriers between Irish lite rature in Irish and in English. The isolation of Irish literature in I rish is further broken down by the fact that women writers in Irish an d their critics operate in a wider international context of women's li terature.