Arrival on Irish poetry scene of true original

Literature Reviews Thu, Apr 19, 2018

RACHEL COVENTRY was born in Scotland to an Irish mother, spent her teenage years in Galway attending the Mercy secondary school, and lived for most of the 1990s in north London.

Neil McCarthy - 21st century troubadour

Literature Reviews Thu, Feb 01, 2018

I FIRST heard Neil McCarthy read his poems in 1998 at the open-mic in the now long defunct Apostasy Café, Dominick Street, back when Neil was a university student, Bertie Ahern was popular, and history had temporarily ended.

Photographic reflections on the smallest of the Aran Islands

Literature Reviews Tue, Jan 16, 2018

FOR THE past three years, under the astute curatorship of Margaret Nolan, the Town Hall Theatre bar has been one of the more unlikely but liveliest city venues for art exhibitions with a steady succession of high quality shows.

The poet, Van Morrison, and their native Belfast

Literature Reviews Thu, Jan 04, 2018

AT FIRST glance the reader could be forgiven for thinking Gerald Dawe’s new book, In Another World - Van Morrison and Belfast, is a memoir of Van and his life in Belfast. There is some justification for this, but Dawe's short volume is so much more, and in fact packs one hell of a punch.

A poet of whom Markievicz would have approved

Literature Reviews Thu, Jan 04, 2018

THE RECENT Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets has been criticised on the grounds that the gender balance is skewed in favour of those in permanent possession of a penis.

My advice for Ken Bruen

Literature Reviews Thu, Dec 07, 2017

A RECENT article in the Galway Advertiser noted: "Ken Bruen has been weirdly neglected by Galway’s cultural establishment, having never been invited to read at Cúirt or the Galway International Arts Festival, or received any other official recognition.”

Of witches and mermaids

Literature Reviews Thu, Nov 23, 2017

JUST PICKING up Deirdre Sullivan's Tangleweed and Brine is a pleasure. There is a tactile joy in holding it and when opened, wandering through its pages, enjoying the design and wonderful illustrations by Karen Vaughan.

What Lenin has to teach us

Literature Reviews Thu, Nov 02, 2017

LENIN FOR Today is neither a historical study nor a biography but an attempt by long time Socialist Workers Party member – and leading light in People Before Profit – John Molyneaux to make a case for Lenin’s ideas and organisational methods in the here and now.

Book review: Poets unblinking in the face of breast cancer

Literature Reviews Thu, Oct 12, 2017

IF YOU are a woman, or have a mother, wife, girlfriend, sister, or daughter, the poems included in this new anthology, Bosom Pals: Eight Poets Share Their Experience of Breast Cancer could, some day, perhaps even today, prove invaluable.

Tá scéal san mBéaloideas

Literature Reviews Thu, Oct 05, 2017

THE BLURB on the back of City of Streams - Galway Folklore and Folk life in the 1930s by Caitrîona Hastings, published by the History Press is clear and concise:

The experiences of the Irish in Occupied France

Literature Reviews Thu, Sep 07, 2017

IF EVER evidence was needed to give credence to the cliché that there is more to a book than just words on the page, then The Irish in Wartime France 1939-1945, by Isadore Ryan, is a prime example of a book that talks to you before you pick it up. It exudes an intriguing atmosphere.

Stories that confront, not console

Literature Reviews Thu, Sep 07, 2017

I HAVE, what some of the refined types who rely on the deluxe end of the social welfare system that is Áosdána, would consider a nasty confession to make: though June Caldwell is only now publishing her first book of stories, she has long been my one of my favourite Irish writers.

'I had to write this book'

Literature Reviews Thu, Aug 31, 2017

Prize-winning author Paul Lynch will discuss his new novel Grace — an epic tale about a young girl in famine-era Ireland — in a public conversation with Alan McMonagle at The Black Gate Cultural Centre next Thursday, September 7.

Poetry on the political end of the spectrum

Literature Reviews Thu, Aug 03, 2017

THE NEW poetry collections by Karen J McDonnell, This Little World published by Doire Press, and Butterflies Of A Bad Summer, by Karl Parkinson, published by Salmon, have two things in common.

Richard Ford's happy book

Literature Reviews Thu, Aug 03, 2017

ONE OF the main reasons readers are reverting to reading physical books as opposed to the Kindle is that, despite all its conveniences, the Kindle cannot provide the full book experience.

Colm Tóibín - a classic menagerie

Literature Reviews Thu, Jun 15, 2017

THE OPENING paragraph of Colm Tóibín’s new novel House Of Names is a surprise: “I have been acquainted with the smell of death...So much has slipped away, but the smell of death lingers. Maybe the smell has entered my body and been welcomed there like an old friend come to visit. The smell of fear and panic."

Windows marks quarter century of giving voice to new writers

Literature Reviews Thu, Jun 01, 2017

THE WINDOWS authors and artists anthology, co-edited by Cavan based poets Heather Brett and Noel Monahan, has for the past quarter century been an important outlet for emerging artists, and writers who have yet to publish a first book.

Elaine Feeney - poetry at the edge

Literature Reviews Thu, May 11, 2017

LAST YEAR marked the 35th anniversary of the founding of Salmon press, during which its incredible contribution to Galway's cultural life was fully celebrated. Those heady days of the eighties were brought back to mind when Rita Anne Higgins, Mary O’Malley, and Eva Bourke were given a platform to present their challenging poems to a bewildered, if generally receptive, audience.

Poetry from Warrenpoint to the Kalahari Desert

Literature Reviews Thu, May 04, 2017

THOUGH THERE is much that separates them as poets, Siobhan Campbell and Galway based Aoife Reilly share an unsentimental earthiness about the human body which few of their male counterparts manage to put into words.

Martina Evans - the poetry of untrustworthy dentists

Literature Reviews Thu, Apr 06, 2017

THERE IS a school of thought popular among middle-brow critics of both genders, who tend to prevail in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, and in the literary pages of formerly important newspapers, that poetry should avoid two particular ailments.

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