"Like a dawn swim I dived into this collection and came up wanting more"
From an introduction by Dairena Ní Chinnéide.
Art work by Bob Ó Cathail
]]>"Like a dawn swim I dived into this collection and came up wanting more"
From an introduction by Dairena Ní Chinnéide.
Published by Utter Press.
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Delighted to have in stock the comprehensive and fascinating new book on the famous Dingle Railway. Michael Whitehouse has done a fine job on this beautiful and informative book. It includes many photographs and maps. For years now, customers have been asking us for just such a title. So we wish him all the best with it !
The Tralee & Dingle Railway still stirs the hearts and imagination. Many ferro-equinologists, including the author’s father, flocked to the railway, but most only just in time. They saw the last rites of the monthly cattle train serving the Dingle fair in the early 1950s and experienced the thrill of a lifetime riding the narrow gauge train and even the footplates of the steam locomotives as they rushed the steep gradients and flew down the other side, brushing red fuchsias into disarray. All spiced by the general hazards of near-derelict rolling stock running over grass-covered and barely maintained track, often wet from Irish rain and mountain mists and over some of the most frightful curves and gradients ever engineered on a narrow gauge railway. The Dingle peninsula has some of the best scenery in Ireland to travel through which is a draw all of its own. Fact and folklore generated by this three-foot narrow gauge railway was all quite remarkable, as was its involvement in the developing Irish political environment. In this heavily illustrated book, Michael Whitehouse revisits the story of this remarkable railway using his father’s photographs and research notes, together with considerably expanded text to place the railway in its political, economic and social context.
]]>Helen Ní Shé and Sean Mac an tShítigh launched the new book last Friday as part of the Feile na Bealtaine festival. Great fun was had by all, the shop was packed to the rafters. This is a limited edition, so get it while you can !
]]>All at Ponc Press are to be congratulated on a beautiful work of art.
Helen Ní Shé and Sean Mac an tShítigh launched the new book last Friday as part of the Feile na Bealtaine festival. Great fun was had by all, the shop was packed to the rafters. This is a limited edition, so get it while you can !
Photos by Manuela Dei Grandi go raibh maith agat.
Photo above ;
Séan Mac an tShítigh & Camilla Dinkel of Ponc Press
An Bodach is available on this website to buy, click on the link below.
]]>The new owners of the bookshop are Nuala Cassidy and her husband, Martin Bealin, formerly of the multi award-winning Global Village restaurant. Nuala stepped back from the restaurant business a few years ago to devote time to their young family and last August Martin shut up shop at the Global Village, also to have more family time but mindful as well that it was getting harder to make a living out of fine dining.
Liberation from the demands of the restaurant business freed them to look at new possibilities and when Camila Dinkel and Mike Venner put the Dingle Bookshop up for sale after 15 years behind the counter it was an opportunity not to be missed.
]]>The new owners of the bookshop are Nuala Cassidy and her husband, Martin Bealin, formerly of the multi award-winning Global Village restaurant. Nuala stepped back from the restaurant business a few years ago to devote time to their young family and last August Martin shut up shop at the Global Village, also to have more family time but mindful as well that it was getting harder to make a living out of fine dining.
Liberation from the demands of the restaurant business freed them to look at new possibilities and when Camila Dinkel and Mike Venner put the Dingle Bookshop up for sale after 15 years behind the counter it was an opportunity not to be missed.
“We were wondering how to get out of the restaurant business and then an opportunity to take over the bookshop arose… It was like a dream really,” said Nuala who is leading the way in the new venture with Martin in a supporting role.
Nuala did English in Maynooth and she loves books the thought of running a bookshop never entered her head before now. Still, she doesn’t feel intimidated by the challenge, partly because after running a restaurant, “nothing feels hard” and there’s also the benefit of working in a much more family-friendly business.
“They seem very different but they’re not, really. You’re still serving the people of Dingle; one is food for the soul, the other was food for the body. What’s more important, I wonder?” said Nuala.
And lest anybody should be in any doubt, there is no plan to include a coffee shop, a mini restaurant, or anything to do with food in any corner of the bookshop. “The plan is simply to build on what Camilla and Mike did. Everybody loves a bookshop.”
]]>The Geneva Window, renowned for its superb artistry and craftsmanship, celebrates the novels, poems and plays of the Irish Literary Revival.
Commissioned by the Irish government as a gift to the International Labour office in Geneva, the window was initially accepted on its completion in 1930, but rejected a few days later as ‘unrepresentative’ of the Irish people and even labelled ‘indecent’. This had serious emotional consequences for Harry, who died a few months later.
]]>The Geneva Window, renowned for its superb artistry and craftsmanship, celebrates the novels, poems and plays of the Irish Literary Revival.
Commissioned by the Irish government as a gift to the International Labour office in Geneva, the window was initially accepted on its completion in 1930, but rejected a few days later as ‘unrepresentative’ of the Irish people and even labelled ‘indecent’. This had serious emotional consequences for Harry, who died a few months later.
The window was returned to the Clarke studio, where it remained until 1988 when it was exhibited in London. It was then sold to the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami, Florida, and is now valued at millions of dollars.
Exiled from Ireland tells the tragic story of this stunning window, examines the eight panels that comprise it and discusses the fifteen literary works by authors such as Yeats, Joyce and O’Casey that inspired each panel.
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In the summer of 1909 Eibhlin Nic Niocaill arrives on the Dingle Peninsula in the extreme south-west of Ireland. One of the finest scholars in the new national movement, she had come from Dublin to study the West Kerry dialect of Irish. Here she explored the countryside and travelled to the Great Blasket, spending an intense, mystical month on the island, meeting the inhabitants, whose lifestyle had changed little in 200 years. But on 13 August she and 17-year-old Donal O Criomhthain both drowned.
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In the summer of 1909 Eibhlin Nic Niocaill arrives on the Dingle Peninsula in the extreme south-west of Ireland. One of the finest scholars in the new national movement, she had come from Dublin to study the West Kerry dialect of Irish. Here she explored the countryside and travelled to the Great Blasket, spending an intense, mystical month on the island, meeting the inhabitants, whose lifestyle had changed little in 200 years. But on 13 August she and 17-year-old Donal O Criomhthain both drowned.
]]>“I am nothing less than stunned,” Ms Ní Bheildiúin said in response to her success in winning this year’s award which was for a second or later collection of poems in Irish.
A long-time admirer of Michael Hartnett’s own poetry she continued: “I always get a great hit out of reading Michael Hartnett’s poetry. I became aware of him, his poems and his life story shortly after I started to compose pieces of Irish language verse. I felt an immediate affinity to him that he had toiled in the same mistiness of Gaeilge as a second language as I was doing. I find his poetry in both Irish and English powerful.”
In this homage to the mountain, Ní Bheildiúin demonstrates her own deep appreciation of Mount Brandon. Nature poetry and a sense of place are central to the Gaelic tradition and Agallamh sa Cheo should be considered among the most significant works of this era that contemplates our relationship with the natural world.”
]]>“I am nothing less than stunned,” Ms Ní Bheildiúin said in response to her success in winning this year’s award which was for a second or later collection of poems in Irish.
A long-time admirer of Michael Hartnett’s own poetry she continued: “I always get a great hit out of reading Michael Hartnett’s poetry. I became aware of him, his poems and his life story shortly after I started to compose pieces of Irish language verse. I felt an immediate affinity to him that he had toiled in the same mistiness of Gaeilge as a second language as I was doing. I find his poetry in both Irish and English powerful.”
In this homage to the mountain, Ní Bheildiúin demonstrates her own deep appreciation of Mount Brandon. Nature poetry and a sense of place are central to the Gaelic tradition and Agallamh sa Cheo should be considered among the most significant works of this era that contemplates our relationship with the natural world.”
“Contemporary poetry in Irish is in rude health, based on the 23 entries for this year’s Michael Hartnett Award. Agallamh sa Cheo stood out due to its ambition and breadth as well as the artistry of the work,” the judges concluded.
Thanks to Norma Prendiville of the Limerick Leader.
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