(Found) Story set in Ireland during armed uprising?

[Brian G Turner]

I seem to recall reading a story years ago, which was set in Ireland during some form of armed uprising against the English. I'm not sure of the period, but I seem to recall muskets in use so the setting would probably be around 17th/18th C.

I don't remember much about it, other than I think it was possibly about a small rural family getting caught up in the uprising, and probably a boy as a main character being shot and killed during this.

One point I specifically remember about it is a mention of place names being changed to English, as part of an attempt to remove the Gaelic language, and I think the commission and people involved in this process are a key part of the opening scenes, and a justification for the "uprising".

I think I read it during an A-Level in English Literature and Language, so it probably wasn't a very long story - either a short or novella - and must have been reasonably famous to have been on the course. I suspect it may have been written in the late 19th century/early 20th century as part of the growing nationalist revival - possibly a connection with WB Yeats??

Does anyone have any idea what the story might have been?

EDIT: If there was a story called "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" then I would have thought it was that, but I can only find a film and poem by that name. I checked to see if it might be one of Walker Macken's novels, but a check of the blurbs on Amazon doesn't ring bells. I think it's the renaming of Irish place-names to English that is a main plot point, but it's hard to single out a book on that alone!

 

[Brian G Turner]

@Jo Zebedee & @Kerrybuchanan - ring any bells?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The only thing that I can think of that fits the English place names is Translations by Brian Friel.

It’s a play from around 1970 but set in the 1830s or thereabouts. A couple of characters are, from memory, involved in uprisings but it’s not the key theme. It’s certainly on many A level syllabuses.

Was there a hedge school in your book? If so, I suspect it’s Translations. Even if it isn’t if the theme of name changing and cultural reimaging resonate I’d highly recommend it.*

*When, in Inish Carraig, Peters refuses to call Rathlin Island Inish Carraig, it’s a nod to Translations*

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Interestingly, sorry, in terms of the Yeats/nationalism theme, Friel is actually from the North. Given what was going on here around then it’s probably more of a nod to more recent tensions that the Yeats period.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Translations by Brian Friel

I don't remember much of it, but the Amazon description sounds very much like it:

The action takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the townland of Baile Beag, an Irish-speaking community in County Donegal. In a nearby field camps a recently arrived detachment of the Royal Engineers, making the first Ordnance Survey. For the purposes of cartography, the local Gaelic place names have to be recorded and rendered into English.

That looks like it - superb - many, many thanks.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Sorry I came to this late, as usual, but I would have been of little use anyway, because the only title I could think of was The Wind that Shakes the Barley...

 

[svalbard]

The Silent People by Walter Macken comes to mind.