"To remember everything is a form of madness." (Metaphor)
Hugh says this at the end of the play. He says that having a good memory, and remembering the past, is basically another form of mental illness, in that seeing the world change drastically in the present while remembering how it was in the past can create a cognitive dissonance akin to insanity.
"The world had cast off its old skin" (Metaphor)
Yolland says this while describing his father's origins. He talks about the fact that in the year his father was born, a new world was beginning. With this metaphor, he describes the world as an animal that can shed its skin and be reborn with a new exterior, a metaphor for transformation and progress.
"I have lived too long like a journeyman tailor" (Simile)
Hugh says this to Owen in Act 2 about his new job at the new national school. He discusses the fact that he wants to have adequate accommodation and salary in his new position, and says that he has lived like a "journeyman tailor," someone who charges a fee for each day worked. He uses this simile to suggest that in the future he wants to have a more stable professional position.
"A syntax opulent with tomorrows" (Metaphor)
Hugh says this to Yolland to describe the beauty of the Gaelic language, the fact that it is filled with a sense of hope and forward thinking, an ethic that is embedded in the structure of the language itself.
Erosion (Metaphor)
At several points, the metaphor of erosion is used to describe the anglicization of the placenames in the area. Erosion is a process of gradual destruction, usually at the hand of the elements, and describes a process in nature. In Translations, it is used to describe the process by which the English are eliminating the structures and traditions that uphold the native community in Baile Beag.
