‘Very Pretty, Signor’: Vernacular and Continental Currents and Clashes

This chapter uses a microhistory of a discussion in 1832 over the relative merits of translations from Italian compared with translations from the Irish language in order to illustrate how competition between translation traditions could be used to bolster and galvanise rival sides. The chapter examines the declared functions and utilities of translations from Irish as opposed to translations from European languages to question how the vernacular interacted with the continental in nineteenth-century discourse. It explores translation trends from Irish and from Italian in order to contextualise this collision point and to understand how translation activities interacted with literary prestige, competition, valorisation and mobilisation on a European stage.