Analysis: Marie-Louise Sjoestedt introduced the West Kerry dialect and extraordinary concepts from Irish mythology to an audience beyond Ireland
The Irish language brought several foreign linguists and scholars to Ireland in the early 1900s. They were eager to learn the language from native speakers and understand more about its history and connection to other Celtic languages. They visited the Gaeltacht areas and lived with locals on the islands off the western seaboard to become better acquainted with the language.
One of those who came was the French linguist Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (1900-1940). She became fluent in Irish and wrote about the language and Celtic mythology in books and scholarly journals. She also wrote about her visits to Ireland in a French magazine where she described what she saw and who she met on her trips, from Cobh to the west coast and the islands.
Sjoestedt's father was a Swedish diplomat based in Paris and her mother, who was of Corsican descent, wrote essays and novels. After being schooled at home with her sister, she became a student of linguistics and studied Russian and Czech at the Sorbonne university in Paris.
She then turned her attention to Celtic languages and chose to specialise in Irish. She came to Ireland for the first time in 1924 to carry out research for her PhD. During her time here, Sjoestedt lectured in Trinity College Dublin on French language and literature.
Native Irish speakers travelled to France to demonstrate the language in use to scholars in Paris. Among those who made the trip was Seán Caomhánach (known as Seán a'Chóta) from Dún Chaoin (Dunquin) on the Dingle peninsula. He became friendly with Sjoestedt and a recording of him speaking Irish was made at the Sorbonne in 1926.
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Sjoestedt returned to Ireland during subsequent years, where the dialect of West Kerry (Corca Dhuibhne) would become a particular focus of her research. She produced two studies on the dialect: Phonétique d'un parler irlandais (1931) and Description d'un parler irlandais (1938). Celtic scholar Kenneth Jackson described her research on the Irish spoken in that part of Kerry as one of the first important Irish dialect studies.
Sjoestedt was very interested in the people she met in Ireland and she was taken in by many of them. In the 1920s, she spent four months living with locals on the mainland and six weeks with the islanders on Great Blasket Island. She stayed with Máire Ní Ghuithín and adopted the local dress, wearing a black shawl. She fitted in so well that Ní Ghuithín later said "you would think her an island girl". Sjoestedt attended social functions on the island, including a céilí in the house of Peig Sayers.
It was common for locals to give visiting scholars a nickname as a sign of their affection for outsiders who wanted to know more about their history and way of life. Sjoestedt was often referred to as Máire Fhrancach [Marie the Frenchwoman]. Others were similarly acknowledged: the Norwegian linguist, Carl Marstrander was affectionately known to Blasket islanders as An Lochlannach [The Viking], while the English linguist, Robin Flower was known as Blaithín [Little Flower].
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Celtic mythology was another of Sjoestedt’s research interests and she lectured on it in Ireland and France and also wrote about it in academic publications. She gave lectures at universities in France on Cú Chulainn, one of the great legends of the Ulster Cycle in Irish mythology and her 1940 book Dieux et Héros des Celtes. Covering everything from mother-goddesses to chieftain-gods, it introduced extraordinary concepts from Irish mythology to a whole new audience.
The book dealt with the Fir Bolg and Tuatha Dé Dannan, the ancient races that were once said to have inhabited the land of Ireland. Important Celtic festivals such as Lughnasadh, Bealtaine and Samhain were also explained in the book. But it was not until the publication of Gods and Heroes of the Celts, a 1949 English language translation of the book by Celtic scholar Myles Dillon, that Sjoestedt’s book received the attention it deserved. It has been described by an American publisher as "a real classic – a diamond-cutter of a text".
Along with her scholarship on the Irish language and Celtic mythology, Sjoestedt wrote about her trips to Ireland for French magazine Revue des deux Mondes. These travel articles provide an insight into what life was like in the west of Ireland in September and October 1929 through the eyes of an outsider and did not make any attempt to cover up the poverty that existed in Ireland at the time.
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While a great deal of the writing is taken up with descriptions of life in rural Ireland and island life, Sjoestedt also wrote about Irish politics and city life. In Dublin, she wrote about the slums located not far from O’Connell Street and the barefoot children selling evening newspapers in the street alongside women wearing torn tights and green shawls.
Despite this, she found the capital city to be endearing and thought that the red brick houses, which gave colour to the otherwise grey landscape, had a personality of their own. The city could almost be considered an English city, argued Sjoestedt due to the "noble facade of Trinity College" and St. Stephen’s Green which she termed the "English style garden in the middle of the city".
Sjoestedt died in France on St. Stephen’s Day 1940 at the early age of 40. Her innovative research on the Irish language and Celtic mythology laid the ground for other scholars to build upon. In a sign of Sjoestedt's lasting connection to Ireland and its language, she has earned an entry in both the Dictionary of Irish Biography and the Ainm.ie website, the national database of Irish-language b iographies.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
