My students were full of energy, fun-loving and were certainly not vindictive or in any way mean, but they loved playing pranks… Continue reading
Filed under literature …
The Dictionary and Lost Irish Words
Is there bias in dictionary compiling? Ultimately, yes. Continue reading
Anne Casey Sydney Irish Poet
The bilingual poem below was commissioned as part of the Red Room Poetry Fellowship 2022 Continue reading
The Irishman who Shot the Duke of Edinburgh
The author, Simon Smith, is a filmmaker who has recorded stories from around the world, and that background is seen in the writing as he fills in little details and concentrates on the lives, likes and troubles of the main characters. Continue reading
Community Gatherings in Ireland Old and New part one
. 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
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Tóibín being Tóibín.
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
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Seasonal Poems
Vermeer would have made much of it Continue reading
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New Irish Fiction
Three new Irish or Irish Australian fictions reviewed by book-devourer, Frank O’Shea Continue reading
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What’s On
Upcoming Melbourne Irish Studies Seminar on Heaney’s visit to Australia in 1994. Continue reading
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A Tribute to the Irish poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi (1922-2021)
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
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Tinteán 