. To this day, we have a saying in Irish ‘Bhí togha gacha bí agus rogha gacha dí le fail ann’, The finest of every food and the choice(st) of every drink was to be had there. This is believed to originally date from bards of one to two thousand years ago. As a chieftain or king, one’s reputation had to be maintained, or enhanced and these ‘songs of praise’, so to speak, were pivotal in this regard. Continue reading
Book Review by Frank O’Shea A GUEST AT THE FEAST. By Colm Tóibín. Picador 2022. 305 pp. $34.99 Colm Tóibín is the current Laureate for Irish Fiction, succeeding Sebastian Barry. As part of that role, he will be expected to deliver a number of public lectures; it is not clear whether this book is part … Continue reading
Vermeer would have made much of it Continue reading
Three new Irish or Irish Australian fictions reviewed by book-devourer, Frank O’Shea Continue reading
Upcoming Melbourne Irish Studies Seminar on Heaney’s visit to Australia in 1994. Continue reading
Tá racht agus tnúth ann, agus ní cheiltear an chollaíocht.
Her voice is the voice of a young woman who did not hide her sexuality. Continue reading
Sine fadas all over the place. Continue reading
A new introductory class on Ulysses offered by Bloomsday in Melbourne Inc. Continue reading
New Irish books and many genres Continue reading
During the writing of Nora, O’Connor says she developed a deeper empathy for James Joyce, perhaps because she now understands his writerly life. It is through her protagonist’s perverse love for Joyce that a reader sees the man’s redeeming features. Continue reading
Tinteán 