It’s 1833 in the fictional Irish village of Baile Beag. The part-time students at an informal hedge-school learn Greek and Latin while gossiping about the townspeople’s affairs—who’s leaving for America, who’s slacking in the field, whether anyone will actually attend the English-language national school that’s opening (you have to go full-time, you have to learn English)…and about the English soldiers who’ve arrived in town. The school is led by Hugh the headmaster, a charismatic storyteller, and his son Manus, an unpaid assistant who takes over when his father is drunk and late to class. The students are townsfolk, and include Manus’s would-be fiancé Maire, a bold young woman who wants to learn English and move to America—but might be persuaded to stay if Manus lands a job at the national school.
These lessons are interrupted by Hugh’s other son Owen, who’s home after six years away. He hasn’t arrived alone: He’s brought Captain Lancey and Lieutenant Yolland of the English army with him. They reveal, with Owen as translator, that the British National Ordinance Survey will map and divide the territory, converting the local place names from Gaelic to English. They call it standardizing; Manus thinks it’s linguistic theft, and challenges his brother for collaborating with the English army. Meanwhile, Yolland and Maire strike up an immediate but impossible connection.
As multiple levels of conflict escalate—between Lancey and the townspeople, Manus and Yolland, Hugh and the encroaching English language—both personal and community loyalties are propelled into question. Centuries-old tensions between Irish and English boil over in this exploration of language, politics, and power. With digressions into Greek and Latin, the clash of the Irish and English languages, and the bittersweet tragedy of loving without a common tongue, language is at the center, and in all the crevices, of Translations.