Five Irish Writers

Liam O'Flaherty, Kate O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Sean O'Faolain, and Frank O'Connor--as Hildebidle demonstrates, all five authors saw in the Ireland that grew out of the events of 1916-1923 a nation that stifled the creative energies and bright hopes of its youth, and their fiction can be seen as responding in diverse ways to that reality.

After ten years of upheaval -- not only the 'Troubles' in the north of Ireland but also great political and social changes in the south -- Irish writing is healthier, more vital and more searching than it has been for fifty years. This book marks this high point. The writers whose new work appears in this collection range in age from under twenty five to over eighty and differ widely in their choice of subject and theme: but they share a vision of the world and of experience which is coloured in a haunting way by an Irish perspective. Established writers -- Beckett, O'Flaherty, Faol in, Heaney -- have all provided unpublished work; and this is placed beside brilliant new work by younger writers and those with growing reputations. The editors have selected writing in Irish as well as English, and included extracts from novels, plays and short stories as well as poetry. The book is arranged so that a photograph of the writer faces the first page of his or her work. These studies, taken especially by Mike Bunn, provide a memorable exploration in themselves of the personalities of the writers. A book of such striking vidual and literaty impact serves as a timely reminder of the power and importance of the culture of modern Ireland.

An introduction to all the leading Irish writers and some of the lesser known playwrights, novelists, short story writers, poets, placing them in context and providing a list of their works. Commentaries give brief but telling insights into their work. The story of Irish writing is followed, beginning with Swift, and working through playwrights Synge and O'Casey to Beckett and Friel; from nineteenth-century poetry through Yeats to Seamus Heaney and Paul Durcan; in novels, from Maria Edgeworth, through Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O'Brien, Flann O'Brien to contemporaries Julia O'Faolain, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.

Winner of the Sunday Times short story prize Winner of the Edge Hill short story prize A kiss that just won't happen. A disco at the end of the world. A teenage goth on a terror mission. And OAP kiddie-snatchers, and scouse real-ale enthusiasts, and occult weirdness in the backwoods... Dark Lies the Island is a collection of unpredictable stories about love and cruelty, crimes, desperation, and hope from the man Irvine Welsh has described as 'the most arresting and original writer to emerge from these islands in years'. Every page is shot through with the riotous humour, sympathy and blistering language that mark Kevin Barry as a pure entertainer and a unique teller of tales.

New York University's Glucksman Ireland House opened a quarter-century ago to foster the study of Ireland and Irish America, and since then has led and witnessed tremendous changes in Irish and Irish-American culture. Alice McDermott writes about her son's Irish awakening; Colum McCann's Joycean essay is a brilliant call to action in defence of immigrants and social justice; Colm Tóibín's first visit to New York coincided with the first St Patrick's Day parade led by a woman; Dan Barry reflects on Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes; and a new poem by Seamus Heaney written not long before his death. Through deeply personal essays that reflect on their own experience, research and art, some of the best-known Irish writers on both sides of the Atlantic commemorate the House's anniversary by examining what has changed, and what has not, in Irish and Irish-American culture, art, identity, and politics since 1993.

Exploring the lives and works of more than 80 Irish writers—including playwrights, novelists, short story writers, poets, essayists, historians, humorists, and philosophers—this book examines Irish writing within the context of each writer’s life and times, while many curious details, such as the secret scribblings of an Irish rector, are revealed. Among those exposed are the author who turned to writing when he ran a sword through a fellow actor; the writer who stole a priest’s name; and the master of words who became “The Invisible Prince.” With wit and style, this book presents the essential biographical details of an diverse range of literary genius, from Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde, to Flann O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, and Seamus Heaney.

A group of young Irish migrants leave a man called Hopper for dead on an outback road in Australia. They barely know him; no-one will miss him in their world of hostels, wild nights on cheap wine and grinding work on isolated farms. In this powerful novel about the discovery of responsibility, three young people – Fiona, Murph and Hopper – flee the collapse of their country's economy. In the heat and endless spaces of Australia they try to escape their past, but impulsive cruelty, shame and guilt drag them down, and it is easy to make terrible choices.

Irish Writers and Politics R explores a variety of responses, the essays in this collection (the third in the IASAIL-Japan series) dealing with Irish writers past and present, such as Swift, Burke, Ferguson, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Joyce, Shaw, O'Casey, Stewart Parker, and Desmond Egan as well as Northern Irish poets and playwrights. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. Masaru Sekine; ENGLISH READERS: THREE HISTORICAL 'MOMENTS'. Vivian Mercier; SWIFT: ANATOMY OF AN ANTI-COLONIALIST. A. Norman Jeffares; EDMOND BURKE: A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS. Lorna Reynolds; THE ENIGMA OF SAMUEL FERGUSON. Maurice Harmon; W. B. YEATS: POLITICS AND HISTORY. Donna Gerstenberger; ASCENDENCY NATIONALISM, FEMINIST NATIONALISM AND STAGECRAFT IN LADY GREGORY'S REVISION OF R KINCORA, Maureen S. G. Hawkins; THE FIFTH BELL: RACE AND CLASS IN YEATS'S POLITICAL THOUGHT. John S. Kelly; JAMES JOYCE AND POLITICS. Heather Cook Callow; SAINT JOAN. Declan Kiberd; THE 'MIGHT OF DESIGN' IN R THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS. Christopher Murray; THE WILL TO FREEDOM: POLITICS AND PLAY IN THE THEATRE OF STEWART PARKER. Elmer Andrews; TOO LITTLE PEACE: THE POLITICAL POETRY OF DESMOND EGAN. Brian Arkins; WHO WE ARE: PROTESTANTS AND POETRY IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND. David Burleigh; THEATRE WITH ITS SLEEVES ROLLED UP. Emelie Fitzgibbon; NOTES; NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS; INDEX R. Irish Literary Studies Series No. 36.