I dream I am in my favourite pub...

Coffee Break Read Thu, May 21, 2020

Days and nights play out like a loop. It begins with a dream. I am in my favourite pub. Tígh Neachtain, Cross Street. Writers, painters, actors, singers, the whole lot of us, locked in and making merry.

Cocooning with my books

Coffee Break Read Thu, May 21, 2020

Due to the suddenness of the lockdown in Ireland, I found myself suddenly cocooning at home with little or no contact with the bookshop.

Poems for the Lockdown - Bohermore cemetery

Coffee Break Read Mon, May 18, 2020

I WROTE this poem in 2014 after the English poet Helen Mort, who, as well as being an excellent poet, is an accomplished cross country runner, asked me: "And do you run?"

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, May 14, 2020

Leo Moran, singer-songwriter
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Poems for the Lockdown - Eyre Square

Coffee Break Read Mon, May 11, 2020

THIS POEM was written for a poetry competition the Galway City Council organised on the theme of ‘Eyre Square’ and it featured in my fourth poetry collection, The Ghost In The Lobby, published by Salmon in 2014.

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, May 07, 2020

Rev Lynda Peilow, rector, St Nicholas' Collegiate Church

Poems for the Lockdown - Recession once again?

Coffee Break Read Mon, May 04, 2020

THIS POEM was written over the June Bank Holiday weekend in 2008 and featured in my third poetry collection, Frightening New Furniture, which was published by Salmon in 2010.

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, Apr 30, 2020

Fred Johnston, poet, author, critic
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans

Online writing workshops with Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar DuMars

Thu, Apr 30, 2020

THE CORONAVIRUS lockdown has placed huge restrictions on our movements and ceased our social gatherings for the time being, but it has not dented our creativity.

Poems for the Lockdown - Curran's Hotel, Eyre Square

Coffee Break Read Mon, Apr 27, 2020

THIS TRIBUTE to Curran’s Hotel on Eyre Square is from my second poetry collection Time Gentlemen, Please, published in 2008. Curran’s was one of the main venues in the city for Left wing political meetings of all stripes from the 1970s until its eventual closure in 2002.

Cúirt 2020 - a weekend of literature online

Thu, Apr 23, 2020

THE CORONAVIRUS has curtailed Cúirt, but it could not stop it. The city's international festival of literature has moved online and over the next few days, Galway can enjoy a feast of author interviews, readings, and interaction.

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, Apr 23, 2020

Sasha de Buyl, director of Cúirt
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing

Poems for the Lockdown - the Leaving Cert

Coffee Break Read Mon, Apr 20, 2020

THIS POEM is from my first collection, The Boy With No Face, which came out in 2005. If I remember right, I wrote it in 2000. It was inspired, or rather provoked, by walking down St Mary’s Road one evening.

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, Apr 16, 2020

Susan Millar DuMars, poet and short story writer
Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, Apr 09, 2020

John O'Connor, presenter of On My Radio, Flirt FM
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts

Cúirt literature festival goes online

Mon, Apr 06, 2020

CÚIRT INTERNATIONAL Festival Of Literature will become the first literary festival in the world to be a completely digital event, when it goes online later this month.

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, Apr 02, 2020

Cecilia Danell, visual artist, songwriter
A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

What Do You Mean You Haven't Read...?

Coffee Break Read Thu, Mar 26, 2020

Gugai - Róisín Dubh music promoter and founder of Strange Brew Records, chooses Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Simon Armitage - British Poet Laureate comes to Cúirt

Thu, Mar 19, 2020

SIMON ARMITAGE combines an ability to speak to a broad, non-specialist audience – he is one of the few living British poets the bloke down The Dog and Duck might be able to name – with a knack for acquiring establishment accolades.

Cúirt 2020 Reading List announced

Thu, Mar 19, 2020

THE CORONAVIRUS has placed massive restrictions on our work, movement, and socialising, but we can still look forward to the Cúirt literary festival at the end of April, and in the meantime catch up on some reading.

E-paper

Read this weeks E-paper. Past editions also available from within this weeks digital copy.