The paperkeeper's tale

At one time when I was in the world of work, I knew about paperkeepers. And at another time, I knew about paper records. I even have dim memories of rack after rack of ancient files in the basement of what was then the Treasury building, running along Great George Street. Some had important markings like 'Secret' and some had great wax seals hanging out of them. But mostly they were just old, dusty and unlikely ever to be looked at again.

So I was pleased to come across the short story illustrated left, a story about the death of a junior paperkeeper by one Máirtín Ó Cadhain, perhaps one of the very last serious writers to write in Gaelic, the last gasp of a thousand year old tradition. A story which evokes the lost world of registered files in their file rooms, before those files were, for most practical purposes, swept away by the photocopier; a story which many old civil servants like myself will relate to.

Published by the Dalkey Archive Press (see reference 1), the name being a nod to another famous Irishman, Flann O'Brien (see reference 2), with the support of the Illinois Arts Council, of all people. I have not investigated the connection.

Published in a parallel text, from which one learns that there is plenty of vocabularic overlap between the Gaelic of Ireland and the English of England. So 'páipéar' is paper and 'Stáitsheirbhís' is civil service. Perhaps I will even get around to learning something about Gaelic, a language of the same vintage as ancient Greek. See reference 3.

A wonderfully entertaining story, even in translation. From which I only share the snippet that the Irish civil service, at that time anyway, was almost a caricature of our own, from which, of course, it had been cut away. Perhaps, having been cut away, it sort of froze in time, froze until its new masters had the time & energy to attend to such back-office stuff. I imagine that the Indian civil service of the same time would also have so seemed.

The book should be made required reading for all departmental records officers.

Reference 1: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/a-tale-of-two-conveniences.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/aryans.html.