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A Dark Day On The Blaskets
Posted by Camilla Dinkel on
A Dark Day on the Blaskets by Mícheál Ó Dubhshláine, was re-published last week by Tigh Áine. It is a fascinating portrait of a young woman and her times. As well as a page-turner, it is an engrossing description of a place at a turning point in its cultural history, a place celebrated in the remarkable classics of the ‘Blasket Library’.
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.
Into The Island Paul Duffy
Posted by Dathaí books@dinglebookshop.com on
Agallamh Sa Cheo Winner of this year’s Michael Hartnett Poetry Award
Posted by Dathaí books@dinglebookshop.com on
Congratulations to Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, on winning this year's Michael Hartnett Poetry Award.
“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.”