Irish Literature

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Ailill

New member
Stewart said:
When I think of Irish literature the names that come to mind are the likes of John Banville, William Trevor, and Colm T?ib?n. But they all write in English. As did, going further back, James Joyce.

I guess my first question is are there writers out there publishing works in Irish? And anothers would be are there classic works of Irish literature written in Irish? If so, what are they?
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I would like to add Joseph Campbell to your list of Irish writers... James Joyce has written works in Irish and so has Joseph Cambell. Ciaran Carson also has written in Irish. In fact if I remember correctly they all have, but have since been translated into English as well.

As for classic works, I know that T?in B? C?ailnge was published in Irish. I had to read it in the Irish when I took an Irish Literature class.
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
Nuala Ní Chonchúir (1970-), not to be confused with Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (1952-)--both gals are poets--will release her first volume of poetry in the United States later this year. I think it's already out in Ireland and the UK, but I haven't checked. Seems interesting but as always with young poets, some of her themes (sex, the brutality of sex, the brutality of heterosexual relationships) are rather unpoetic and belong, in my humble opinion, in the memoir section of your local bookstore. Will try to check her out if I have time, regardless.

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Liam

Liam

Administrator
Paddy Crosbie's (1913-1982) wonderful memoir Your Dinner's Poured Out is being reprinted:

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Dublin, ca. 1915-1930: "a tumultuous and exciting time in the city's history. Paddy Crosbie catches that tumult and conveys that excitement in this childhood memoir of city life. A cast of brilliant characters surround the young Crosbie, all vividly etched into hilarious life."
 
tiganeasca

tiganeasca

Moderator
And, continuing the New York Times series, here is

Read Your Way Through Dublin
Virtuosity and creativity with language are “everyone’s birthright” in the Irish capital, says Tana French, an award-winning mystery writer who has made it her home.

By Tana French
Tana French, the author, most recently, of “The Searcher,” has won several awards, including the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction (twice), and earned a devoted following. She lives in Dublin with her family.

One of my favorite things about Dublin is its relationship with words. History is embedded deep in language here. A lot of Dublin communities are tight-knit, with roots that go back centuries, so the dialect is sprinkled with words and phrases that have been passed down over the generations, even after they’ve vanished everywhere else. In Dublin, “my girlfriend” is still “me mot,” from the Victorian English “mort” for “woman” — long gone out of use in England, but still alive here. And back in the 16th century, “child” meant specifically a girl child; it’s been gender-neutral almost everywhere for hundreds of years, but within the last decade, when I had my second baby, older Dublin people still asked me “Is it a boy or a child?”
Even with so much ingrained history, Dublin’s language is the opposite of stagnant. Virtuosity and creativity with language aren’t seen as reserved for any kind of elite. They’re everyone’s birthright, and plenty of the most lyrical or wittiest or most original phrases aren’t carefully crafted by authors, but tossed into pub conversations by people who would never consider themselves to be literary types. And that creative eloquence isn’t a rarefied thing, to be treated with reverence; it’s cheerfully mixed in with every flavor of mundanity and vulgarity. If you love words, Dublin is a good place to be.

What should I read before I pack my bags?
“The Commitments,” by Roddy Doyle. I can’t think of another book that would do as great a job of putting the rhythms of Dublin into your head. Dublin talks fast, it snaps banter back and forth, it’s funny and cutting and profane, and it has the best insults (I’ve heard people called everything from a muppet to a golf ball to “that bleedin’ gazebo,” and those are just the ones fit for print). If your ear isn’t tuned in, you can miss the best bits. “The Commitments” will take you halfway there before you ever get on the plane.

What books should I bring along with me?
Flann O’Brien’s “At Swim-Two-Birds,” a meta-novel (written under a pseudonym by Brian O’Nolan) about a Dublin student who spends his time lazing around, drinking and writing — except his characters won’t do what they’re told, and his stories keep getting mixed up with each other. It’s one of the great classics of Irish literature: gleefully surreal and chaotic, bursting with the author’s love for Irish mythology, and a lot of fun.

If I have no time for day trips, what books could take me there instead?
One of my favorite Irish books is “The Spinning Heart,” by Donal Ryan. The novel comprises a series of intertwined vignettes from the perspectives of various people living in a small town in western Ireland during the aftermath of the Celtic Tiger crash. It’s moving, atmospheric and beautiful, and it does a wonderful job of capturing both the time and the intricate, inescapable ways in which small-town lives are interwoven.
For a side of Cork that you probably wouldn’t want to visit in real life, go for Lisa McInerney’s dark, superbly written “The Glorious Heresies,” about a handful of very different people whose lives become entangled when a gangster’s mother bludgeons an intruder to death with a holy statue. If you want glimpses into other parts of the country in different eras, Cora Harrison’s mystery series are fun, satisfying, Brother-Cadfael-style reads. “The Burren Mysteries” are set in 16th-century West Ireland, where Mara is an investigating judge in Ireland’s old Brehon law system. The “Reverend Mother” mysteries are set in the 1920s, against the backdrop of Ireland’s Civil War, with Reverend Mother Aquinas using her knowledge of every level of Cork’s intricate social hierarchy to solve murders. Harrison is great on historical detail and neat plotting.
What books can take me behind closed doors?
“Skippy Dies,” by Paul Murray, is set at an elite boys’ school in a wealthy part of Dublin. Fourteen-year-old Skippy (surprise!) dies, and the rest of the book explores the last months of his life and the dynamics of the school. It captures all the heightened intensity and confusion of being a teenager, and it’s infused right through with the kind of passionate, razor-sharp social satire that you only get when the writer is white-hot furious at the terrible things being done to a place he loves.
“Unraveling Oliver,” by Liz Nugent, starts in the same privileged Dublin, where successful, charismatic Oliver Ryan has just beaten his wife into a coma. The rest of the book explores, from multiple perspectives, how he reached that night. The many voices are all vividly distinct, and Nugent does a wonderful job of capturing not only the layers of Oliver’s psyche but also the complicated nuances of social class in Dublin. “Howie the Rookie,” by Mark O’Rowe, offers the opposite face of the city. It’s a fast, funny, ruthlessly brutal play about two young men in a tough neighborhood whose intertwined lives crash and burn around a dead fighting fish and an attack of scabies.

And what should I listen to while I walk around?
For a wander through Dublin, there’s no way around it: You need “Ulysses.” I’m going to be a heretic, though, and say that you don’t need to read the whole thing. The language is so dazzling and multifaceted that it’s still got plenty to offer even if you just dip in here and there. Read — or listen to — passages about the places you’re passing through, or stopping in for a pint, for small illuminated windows into the city’s past. If you go for an audiobook, try the RTÉ 1982 version with full cast.
Songs are also part of the great literary history of Dublin, and you can’t get a better balladeer than Pete St John. Stick on “Dublin in the Rare Old Times.” And if you happen to be walking through Trinity College, take a few minutes to sit down on the steps in Front Square and read Michael Longley’s beautiful poem “River and Fountain,” written in 1992 for Trinity’s 400th anniversary.

What literary pilgrimage destination would you recommend?
Jonathan Swift was the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, which is one of my favorite places in the city. There’s a door with a hole that was cut back in 1492 so that two warring families could shake hands and make peace, a 10th-century gravestone that covered what may have been the original St. Patrick’s Well, the nave where Oliver Cromwell (may have) stabled his horses because he was being an edgelord … and that’s just for starters. It’s over eight centuries of Dublin’s history, layered into one magnificent building.
For bookshops, you need the Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar. Bob is passionate about books — Irish books in particular — and about finding the right book for every customer. Every time I go in there, he whips out a book that wasn’t on my reading list, but that turns out to be exactly what I wanted. Afterward you can wander up to the Merrion Square public park and read your book under the eye of Oscar Wilde, who’s draped elegantly over a rock opposite his childhood home, looking like he’s about to hit you with a witty quip.
 
B

Ben Jackson

Well-known member
Few works I have read from Ireland:

Poems, Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, Murphy, Short Prose--- Samuel Beckett
A Portrait of the Artist, Ulysees--- James Joyce
The Sea--- John Banville
The Master--- Colm Toibin
Collected Poems--- W B Yeats
Dorian Grey--- Oscar Wilde
She Stoops to Conquer--- Goldsmith
Arms and the Man, Pygmalion, Man and Superman---- Shaw

From Northern side:

Gulliver's Travels--- Swift
Still have writers like Trevor, Murdoch, Mahon, Muldoon, Friel to read if time permits. Very impressed with what I have read from this country thus far.
 
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