Norma Borthwick
Ceachta Beaga Gaedhilge II
Irish Book Company, Dublin, 1916.
Binding: 13.5 x 20.5 cm. Sewn paperback, 28pp, illustrations by Jack B. Yeats.
Many of the generation involved in the War for Independence, such as the McSwineys in Cork, learned their Irish through this book.
Norma Borthwick (also known as Nora) was a member of the executive of the Gaelic League, and took sides with Peadar Ó Laoghaire against MaNeill and others in the matter of preferring the colloquial dialect of Munster Gaelic over classical Irish. From Scotland, she claimed membership of the clan McDonald of the Isles on her mother’s side, and came to Kiltimagh in 1898 under the auspices of Lottie MacManus, the novelist and local Gaelic league organiser.
She was the director of the Irish Book Company, which produced this book, and so she was probably involved in commissioning the illustrations from Jack B. Yeats – which are not among his finest works, being quite typical of this kind of production.
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