Na Mairbh a d’Fhill|Cathal Ó Sándair| €9|An Gúm|ISBN 978-1-85791-982-0 |An tEitleán Dofheicthe|Cathal Ó Sándair| €9; An Gúm; ISBN 978-1-85791-983-7.
Fictional detective Réics Carló brings readers down memory lane, in the 1940s series by Cathal Ó Sándair
In these opening volumes of Réics Carló we get a heady mixture of private detective, science fiction and espionage with nefarious enemies, dastardly plots and heroic exploits. As some might say today – what’s not to like?
by Cathal Póirtéir
The fictional detective Réics Carló was an Irish language publishing sensation from the early 1940s on.
The long running series captured the imagination of teenage readers for a quarter of a century. The books were the brainchild of Cathal Ó Sándair, barely twenty years old when he submitted the first volume to An Gúm, and he continued to come up with adventures of daring-do for his Irish super sleuth.
Although the author worked full-time in Customs and Mail his enthusiasm for writing saw him pen an incredible 120 books. Cathal Ó Sándair died in 1996 and with him ended the career of Réics Carló.
A popular success
I didn’t start to read Irish for pleasure until the 1970s and never came across a copy of a Réics Carló story in my browsing of bookshops In Dublin and elsewhere – or if I did I probably felt that I was beyond the target readership of young adult, if that classification existed then.
He was however spoken fondly of by older readers, often cited as being read surreptitiously under the school desk by secondary school students bored by teachers or subject matter.
The first run of Na Mairbh a d’Fhill in 1943 was 3,000 copies which sold out within months and was followed by a second run of 3,000 to meet demand, followed by a further 3,000. A second and then a third volume quickly followed to satisfy the fans of Réics Carló.
That was a huge success for a book in Irish that never made it onto a school curriculum due to its lightweight content and lack of literary pretentions.
The unique achievement of Cathal Ó Sándair was marked years after his death when the annual award for the best book for young readers in Irish was named Gradam Réics Carló.
Now An Gúm have republished the first two stories in the series, bringing them back into print eighty years after the first one rolled off the presses in 1943.
A heady mixture
I don’t usually review young adult fiction but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a read of the first two volumes of this famous series. The publishers wisely retained the original artwork for the covers and they bring us right back to the 1940s.
The stories themselves are rooted in the imagination of a twenty year old of the period and I couldn’t help but be reminded of the atmosphere in those cliff-hangings cinema and early television offerings like Flash Gordon or Sherlock Holmes.
In these opening volumes of Réics Carló we get a heady mixture of private detective, science fiction and espionage with nefarious enemies, dastardly plots and heroic exploits. As some might say today – what’s not to like?
Of course for contemporary readers the stories are a bit simplistic and dated by now but I found that was part of their charm.
There is a certain naivety about the whole thing but there’s also rollicking and outlandish plots and characters that whisk us through dangerous confrontations, to the ultimate victory of undaunted Réics Caeló and his brave young helper Brian Ó Ruairc.
Na Mairbh a d’Fhill
In Na Mairbh a d’Fhill we find wartime Ireland threatened by survivors of the fabled and lost empire of Atlantis, now intent on world domination by stealing the secret plans for invisible airplanes that promise to be an undefeatable weapon.
Their underground lair lies below an island off the coast of Connemara where they torture the kidnapped Irish inventor of the invisible plane to force him to decode the plans which they have already stolen from Carló’s safe.
Unlikely? Well yes, but it’s good fun from start to finish.
An tEitleán Dofheicthe
In the second story An tEitleán Dofheicthe the invisible plane is hijacked and must be recovered to once more prevent disaster.
The unscrupulous criminal gang and its mastermind intend to subjugate Ireland first before going on to take over the world.
Needless to say Réics Carló is out to stop them despite threats, time bombs and invisible planes.
Memory lane
The stories run to about a hundred pages each and in these reissued editions have a short contextual essay by Róisín Adams, and a brief outline of what needed to be done to update the original text to make it easily readable for today’s readers.
Taken on their own terms and in the context of the time in which they were written they’ll provide some amusement.
In the last eighty years young readers have become more sophisticated and may well find that Réics and his adventures don’t measure up to the standards of the twenty first century—but for those who were fans in earlier years these books will lead them down memory lane.
And there are new readers, like me, who will be pleased to eventually make the acquaintance of Réics Carló for the first time after all these years.
Cathal Póirtéir has specialised in researching, presenting and commissioning Irish interest material in various radio formats and in books, including history, literature and folklore in Irish and English, as well as current affairs and drama.
