Abstract
Contextualised within the religious realities of nineteenth-century, the chapter considers how religious translations dominated translation output in Ireland and how they were used to bolster religious devotion. It looks at a variety of religious publications from sacred texts to auxiliary texts for liturgical, educational and devotional purposes. The chapter highlights the participation of members of religious orders in translation and examines how translation supplied literature for private piety and communal devotion and influenced the Europeanisation of Irish Catholicism.
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Notes
- 1.
It was not unusual for Irish papers to contain pastoral addresses from European prelates, as seen, for example, in The Nation’s publication of a pastoral address of the Archbishop of Milan (29 April 1848).
- 2.
In the translator’s preface, Lucas states that the translation is from an anonymous work published in Paris in 1842 with the title De la Prusse e de sa Domination sous les Rapports Politiques et Religieux spécialement dans les nouvelles provinces; par un Inconnu.
- 3.
Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Histoire des variations des églises protestantes (1688).
- 4.
According to the text, the young are impressionable and must be guided: ‘May the young, whose minds, like the budding flowers of the coming year, are yet unfolded, learn in this their spring-tide of life, to love and honour the Mother of God’ (De’ Liguori 1857).
- 5.
One of the first Irish translators of Alphonsus Liguori, J.T. Mullock, explained that the Italian author was the perfect model for regulating conduct and that he could teach lessons of the most sublime virtue in every phase of his life (Mullock 1846, 20).
- 6.
Christoph von Schmid was often referred to in Ireland as Christopher (von) Schmid or as Canon Schmid.
- 7.
In 1844, Russell had identified deficiencies in the supply of Catholic literature in Ireland and claimed that ‘In this enlightened country, possessing a vast Catholic population, wealthy, intelligent, active, and not destitute of public spirit, it would not be possible to select a complete educational course, which could be put into the hands of a young Catholic, without undermining his principles, or, at least, shocking his natural sense of religion!’ (Russell 1844, 412). He proposes a compilation of a series of education treatises, entirely free from ‘the anti-catholic spirit which has so long disgraced our literature’ and hints at the many resources that Catholicism has at its disposal to address this situation.
- 8.
Von Schmid’s tales were published in many different editions in the original German; it is probable that Russell and Kelly worked from Gesammelte Schriften des Verfassers der Ostereier Christoph von Schmid (1842–3) as this work was reviewed by Russell in 1844.
- 9.
Russell was also aware of the French translations of the work and he said that ‘the French translators, who never fail to exercise their own judgement in some shape or other on the book they undertake to translate have divided [the tales] into series, according to the ages for which they appear to be best adapted’ (Russell 1844, 396).
- 10.
Macaulay recounts that ‘[Russell] had never hoped that the pious old Canon’s stories would have any chance of general popularity, and had merely trusted that there was sufficient seriousness and simplicity among the reading public to make them palatable. He explained that the translation had been the amusement of their leisure hours and revealed that long before carrying it out he had amused children, of whom he was very fond, by telling them these little stories’ (Macaulay 1983, 252).
- 11.
There was a strong identification between the translators and the original author’s sentiments so that even the Athenaeum could comment, ‘The present translators have strong sympathies with the venerable Canon, and have placed him before the English reader in the form in which he himself would be best satisfied to appear’ (The Nation, 26 December 1846).
- 12.
Mary Anne Sadlier was an important figure in this process as she was both a translator and writer who published works aimed at the Catholic youth. Following a move to America, the Sadlier family established a publishing house and in 1862, when introducing their juvenile fiction, said, ‘Under this head we intend publishing a series of entertaining and instructive books, which Catholic parents may safely place in the hands of their children. […] Are we to leave the rising generation to receive their ideas of men and things from the brainless, godless bookmakers who are flooding the world with “sensation stories”…? Heaven forbid! […] It is hardly necessary to say that no volume will appear in “The Youth’s Catholic Library”, that is not fully deserving of the name’ (in Milan 2013, 176).
- 13.
Duffy’s catalogue included titles such Blind Agnese; Lost Genevieve; Eulalia St. Aubert; Beatrice Alfieri; Hugh Morton; Walter and Emily; or the Fatal Effects of Disobedience.
- 14.
In fact, one of the Irish devotional authors singled out by Begadon as being exceptional in writing religious works, William Gahan (1732–1802), was also a translator and translated Bourdaloue from French into English.
- 15.
In Milan (2013, 113–114).
- 16.
When Russell and Kelly translated Schmid’s Tales, we are told that they devoted some of their ‘intervals of leisure from more laborious study’ (The Nation, 12 July 1845).
- 17.
In reviewing a translation from Latin by Meehan (Lynchaes 1848), The Nation praised the service he had rendered to the ecclesiastical history of Ireland (18 May 1848). Meehan was famous for his translation of The Geraldines which, according to the Rector of the Irish College in Rome, Tobias Kirby, was presented to the Pope who conveyed a blessing on Duffy for printing and circulating many Catholic works (O’Daly 1847). Completing the Italian circle, Meehan’s various translations were kept in the library of the Irish College for the use of Irish students and scholars in Rome (The Nation, 26 April 1879).
- 18.
Vincenzo Fortunato Marchese, Memorie dei più insigni pittori, scultori e architetti domenicani (1845).
- 19.
Alfonso de’ Liguori, Del gran mezzo della preghiera (1759).
- 20.
J.T. Mullock who translated St Liguori framed his translation in terms of an Irish Catholic resurgence around the world and claimed that persecution of the Church in Ireland has led to a flowering of Catholicism in America, Australia and England (De’ Liguori 1847, 7).
- 21.
MacCarthy published translations from the Spanish playwright Calderón in Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine and his translations were listed under the heading Poetae Catholici. He chose to translate Calderón’s Purgatory of St. Patrick because, he said, of the obvious religious links between this work and Ireland.
- 22.
Alfonso de’ Liguori, Storia delle eresie, 1768.
- 23.
See Madeleine Dempsey for a study of how Chateaubriand’s Génie Du Christianisme was altered in translation into English by Protestants and Catholics (1928).
- 24.
In general, the Liguori translations published by Duffy contain very little paratextual information and most of the books start directly into the text with no introduction or no attention drawn to the translation and the additions and omissions.
- 25.
Reviewing the translation in Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine, Mullock was praised for bringing Liguori’s work to the English reader but it was noted that Liguori’s work had been reduced from three volumes to two ‘in deference we suppose to the economising spirit of our age’ and that he had added a supplementary chapter on heresies that had occurred since Liguori’s death (Anon. 1847, 5). Also, despite announcing that he would adjust Liguori’s description of English heresy, errors were still present such as Anne Boleyn being described as Henry VIII’s daughter (Anon. 1847, 8).
- 26.
- 27.
In reality, many religious translations from the nineteenth century contained omissions and additions which were not explained or justified in paratextual commentary.
- 28.
Charles de Montalembert, Histoire de Sainte Élisabeth, Reine de Hongrie (1836).
- 29.
Donovan’s translation was nonetheless the subject of criticism by a priest Mark O’Keeffe who wrote letters to the Vatican and to his bishop complaining about the work’s ‘ugly blunders’. See Ó Súilleabháin (1970, 28).
- 30.
The reviewer of Donovan’s work said, ‘With regard to the translation, to say it is faithful would be its least eulogy; we believe it is exactly in that style which the holy author would have adopted, had he been a native of our own country—there being in it a transfusion of the simplicity, force, and clearness of the original, so necessary for a narrative of multitudinous events—a statement of essential doctrines, and subtle errors—and above all, a triumphant vindication of the one, and a refutation of the other’ (Anon. 1846, 8).
- 31.
Marian works by French authors such as Mathieu Orsini and Édouard Barthe were translated into English by Irish translators and were widely circulated, while works such as Meditations and Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Mary (translated from the Italian by M.D.F. and sold for 6d by Duffy) both resulted from and propelled a growing devotion to Mary in Ireland. Devotion to the Sacred Heart was similarly fuelled by translations from continental languages and contemporary events such as the establishment in 1856 of the Feast of the Sacred Heart and the designation of the Sacred Heart as a patron of Ireland in the 1860s. Begadon notes that while devotion to the Sacred Heard had existed in Ireland since the seventeenth century, in the nineteenth century, it had become one of the most visible examples of the revival in Catholic piety (Begadon 2011b, 374). Translations resulted in the extension and deepening of these religious trends in Ireland.
- 32.
The link was so important that, as Milan has observed, some of these translations even contained a translation of the Dogmatic Definition of the Immaculate Conception in their books (Milan 2013, 99).
- 33.
The review of these translations questions these interventions and says ‘But is this honest?’ (Anon. 1855, 424).
- 34.
The reviewer came to such conclusions by comparing English translations with each other and not by comparing the translations with reference to the Italian original. The reviewer commented that, ‘In making a translation of a book two things are to be considered—1, honesty; 2, prudence. Those who are not under the influence of the former principle should at least have regard to the latter. It was, surely, very imprudent of Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop Hughes, the Redemptorist Father, Mr. Duffy, and Mr. Dunigan, not to agree between themselves which passages they would alter. As it is, one is convicted by another’ (Anon. 1855, 462).
- 35.
Unless otherwise indicated, the translations within parentheses are my own.
- 36.
In another section Callan asks, ‘Is it not then evident that the charge which has been made against St. Alphonsus of dispensing with the necessity of prayer to God and substituting for it prayer to the Virgin is most unjust?’ (232). Callan’s defensive stances on Liguori reflect not just arguments with Protestantism but also different theological positions in the Catholic world; Liguori’s original text, it must be remembered, was originally a response to Jansenism.
- 37.
For more, see Barr (2010).
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O’Connor, A. (2017). Translation and Religion. In: Translation and Language in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59852-3_4
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