Imagi-nation in Brendan Kennelly's Cromwell

John McDonagh

Issue 361, vol.91, Spring 2002

The upshot is that one grasps how one’s “nation” is basically one’s “imagi-nation” - a construct.

“Nationalism has to be understood by aligning it not with self-consciously held political ideologies, but with large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which - as well as against which - it came into being” (Benedict Anderson). As opposed to power resting in the hands of the coloniser, in the post-colonial era the colonised now use colonial history to create a paradigm within which their excesses, failures and pretentions are given intellectual and spiritual credibility through the perceived excesses, failures and pretentions of the coloniser.

Cromwell is so buried in Buffun’s psyche that certain elements of his influence can only appear in his dreams. Therefore, Kennelly posits the idea that crucial cultural icons, images and manifestations of self and nationhood exist beyond the reach of our waking memory and in the realms of the sub-conscious mind. Consequently, the poems question the certitude of self-conscious definitions of personal and national identity.

Cromwell appears at random in Buffun’s sub-conscious, correcting Buffun’s image of him and admonishing those in Ireland who labelled him “the butcher of Drogheda”. Cromwell is a multi-dimensional character, equally capable of sincere empathy and brutal oppression. Kennelly portrays a character in all its manifestations rather than concentrating on the few selective traits that feed the creation of myth.

Other “demonised” figures appearing in Buffun’s rogues’ gallery of Irish history are William Of Orange and Edmund Spenser. Literary figure that he was, Spenser helped fix the Irish idiot-stereotype in the English popular imagination - a stereotyping that was to include users of the Irish language (with the native tongue coming to be associated with economic poverty and low social standing). Buffun’s reflections on the nature of this linguistic colonisation result from an engagement with the conflicting voices that necessarily compose a national identity. He is neither a pragmatist nor a sentimentalist, and, while being a medium for their competing vocalisations, he can experience a personal vacuum over the loss of Irish while appreciating the practicality and contemporary effectiveness of English.

Buffun’s imagination is Ireland’s imagination, constructed largely out of memories, images and icons of nationhood that crumble under the weight of sustained critique.

Dr John McDonagh lectures in English at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick.