Abstract
In a multilingual poetic tradition such as Irish, language issues are impossible to disregard and notions of a linguistic community are complex. Writing in Irish is simultaneously a statement of affiliation and a way to accommodate differences.
Aifric Mac Aodha not only seeks to secure the continuance of tradition but simultaneously insists that such is unattainable where the fractured tradition and ruptured continuity bequeath unanticipated freedoms. The liberating detachment from writing in a language which is not one's own and which has lost continuity with its historical development provides a template for encompassing and thematizing the questions of identity and ultimately allows her to declare herself undeniably an Irish poet.