The wonderfully titled Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights is a magnificent collection by a poet who is firing on all cylinders. Launched by Seamus Cashman and published by Salmon Poetry, it is Chapman’s second book this year, the other being The Wow Signal, his first collection of stories, published by Bluechrome in the UK.

Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights is now available from the Salmon Poetry website.

Many congratulations, Patrick. It’s a fine achievement.

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The Irish Literary Revival is a year old today. Founded on May Day, 2006, the site was received warmly by authors whose books were out of print or circulation.

Under a Creative Commons licence, which allows the reader to download the texts while protecting the authors’ copyrights, the Irish Literary Revival gives a new audience to work that would otherwise remain unread since its last print run. Authors are still free to sell any copies of their books that they have in stock. Both the authors and the publishers, we hope, receive new interest in their body of work as a whole.

We recently moved to the WordPress platform, as you can see, which makes it easier for everyone concerned to present these texts to the world, and for readers to comment and contact. We hope you will.

In the coming year we hope to expand the site with more books and more writers. Take a look at the Submissions page and see if your book is eligible for inclusion. For now, welcome to the Irish Literary Revival, year two.

Best regards,

Philip Casey and Patrick Chapman, librarians

PS He’s too modest to mention it so I’ll say it for him. Today is a red letter day also because it marks the publication of Patrick Chapman’s book of stories, The Wow Signal. Do have a look.

One of the new features of the site will be to highlight new work by contributors. Many congratulations to Patrick.
Philip

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Girl with Violin

cover art:Liam Millar
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format :: PDF (485k) ::Open Office 2 (237k) :: MS Word (226k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: The Dolmen Press [Poetry Ireland Editions 3]
place & year :: Dublin, 1968
ISBN ::
translations :: none
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: Sydney Bernard Smith’s Lulu Storefront

Contact :: ILR

Sydney Bernard Smith’s Lulu Storefront

Collected Works including Girl with Violin

Other Websites

Little Red Hen

Links

Sydney Bernard Smith at Irish Playography

Sydney Bernard Smith at Doolee.com

Biographical Note

Sydney Bernard Smith was born in Glasgow in 1936 and raised in Portstewart, Co Derry.
His work has been broadcast on RTÉ, BBC and Channel 4 (UK), and staged in Ireland, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and in the US.
His poetry collections include Girl With a Violin (The Dolmen Press [Poetry Ireland Editions 3], Dublin 1968); Priorities (Raven Arts Press, Dublin 1979); Sensualities (Raven, 1981); Scurrilities (Raven 1981), and New and Selected Poems (Raven, 1984).
His plays include Sherca (1976, published Newark, Del, Proscenium Press, 1979); Don Bosco, Grainne and the Dole (1977); The Impertinence of being Frank (1978); The Illaunapsppie Triangle (1978); Houseparty (1979); Swim Away Babies (1984); On Course for Brazil (1985); How to Roast a Strasbourg Goose ( Dublin Theatre Festival, 1985); Up for Bloomsday (1985); The 2nd Grand Confabulation of Drum Ceat (Dublin Theatre Festival, Andrews Lane Theatre, 1989); Reason not the Need (1992); and The Shaming of the True (1995).
He has published one novel, Flannery (Dublin, Odell & Adair, 1991). A second, The Book of Shannow, has been mostly published in literary magazines.

A member of Aosdána, he lives in Dundalk.

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The Book-Thief’s Heartbeat

cover art: Brendan Foreman. cover photograph: by Jonathan Hessian
of actor Ciarán Hinds
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in the image program on your computer or your browser.

format :: PDF (858k) :: MS Word (451k) :: Open Office 2 (292k)
genre :: Fiction
publisher :: Co-Op Books
place & year :: Dublin, 1981
ISBN :: Cloth 0 905441 45 1; Paper 0 905441 46 X
translations :: none
translation queries :: author, via ILR
status :: out of print

Contact:: ILR

Links

Philip Davison at Amazon.co.uk

Latest Publication

A Burnable Town

Website

Philip Davison

Biographical Note

Philip Davison was born in Dublin in 1957. His novels include The Book-Thief’s Heartbeat (Dublin, Co-Op Books, 1981); Twist and Shout (Dingle, Brandon Books, 1983); The Illustrator (Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1988); The Crooked Man (London, Jonathan Cape, 1997); McKenzie’s Friend (Jonathan Cape, 2000); The Long Suit (Jonathan Cape, 2003); and A Burnable Town (Jonathan Cape, 2006).
He has had one play produced, The Invisible Mending Company (Dublin, The Abbey Theatre, Peacock Stage, 1996).
He has co-scripted the film dramas Exposure, and Criminal Conversation. His radio plays include Being Perfect (RTÉ, 2004); The Duke (RTÉ, 2004); Lennon’s Guitar (RTÉ, 2005); and The Fishmonger (RTÉ, 2006)
He lives in Dublin.

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The Sea of Affliction

Note: Click on the small versions to open larger versions of these images in the image program on your computer or your browser.
Cover illustration: ‘‘The Stages of Life’’ by Caspar David Friedrich, 1835.
courtesy Museum der Bildenen Künste, Leipzig

format :: PDF (418k) :: Open Office 2 (619k) :: MS Word (763k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: Comark with Rowan Tree Press
place & year :: Dublin, 1987
ISBN :: 1 87027 109 (HB); 1 870267 26 (PB)
translations :: none
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: no
status :: out of print

Contact :: Rosemarie Rowley

rowleyrosie @ yahoo.ie

Links

Rosemarie Rowley at Kennys

Rosemarie Rowley at amazon.co.uk

Rosemary Rowley at Representative Poetry Online

Latest Book

In Memory of Her
available on request from the author

Biographical Note

Rosemarie Rowley was born in Dublin in 1942.
Her poetry publications include The Broken Pledge (Dublin, Tallaght, 1985); The Sea of Affliction (Dublin, Rowan Tree Press, 1987); Flight into Reality (Rowan Tree Press, 1989), a long poem written terza rima and issued, read by the poet, on audio cassette in 1996; Hot Cinquefoil Star (Rowan Tree Press, 2002); and In Memory of Her (Rowan Tree Presss, 2004).
Her pamphlets include Freedom and Censorship (1989), which influenced the Campaign against Pornography and Censorship in the UK; and with John Haughton and Cairde na Coille. eds, Seeing the Wood and the Trees (Dublin, Forest Friends Ireland, 2003).
She has represented Ireland in the European Capital of Culture celebrations in 1997, where she read translations of women bards of the west of Ireland. She has won two international awards in Scotland for epic poetry (1995 and 1996), an American Library of Poetry award in 1997, and her first short story won an Image Award.
She lives in Dublin.

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Gog and Magog

cover art: David Lilburn
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format :: PDF (526k) :: Open Office 2 (216k) :: MS Word (308k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: Salmon Publishing
place & year ::Galway, 1987
ISBN :: Hardcover 0 948339 08 X. Softcover 0 948339 09 8
translations :: none
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: no
status :: out of circulation.
copies available: possibly from Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, Liscannor, Co Clare

Contact ::
ciaranodriscoll @ eircom.net

Links

A Runner Among Fallen Leaves (American edition)
A Runner Among Fallen Leaves (English edition)

Latest Book

Moving On, Still There: New and Selected Poems

Biographical Note

Ciaran O’Driscoll was born in Callan, Co. Kilkenny in
1943, and presently lives in Limerick, where he lectures in the
School of Art and Design at the Limerick Institute of Technology.
He has written five collections of poetry. The most recent, Moving
On, Still There: New and Selected Poems was published by the Dedalus
Press in 2001. In the same year, Liverpool University Press published
his childhood memoir, A Runner Among Falling Leaves. He has won a
number of awards for his work, including the Patrick and Katherine
Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry.
A dual language edition (in Italian and English) of his fourth
collection of poems, The Old Women of Magione, will be published by
Volumnia Editrice in September 2006. Also in 2006, a chapbook, Surreal
Man, is to be published by Pighog Press (Brighton, UK).

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You are invited to download the following books by Philip Casey.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

THE FABULISTS

cover art: Ed Miliano. Author image: Karina Casey
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in the image program on your computer or your browser.

format :: PDF (1,756k) ::MS Word (891k) :: Open Office 2(513k)
*web version at philipcasey.com
genre :: Fiction
publisher :: The Lilliput Press
place & year :: Dublin, 1994
ISBN :: 1 874675 30 9
translations :: (German) Die Träumer von Dublin
ISBN: 344272404X btb Verlag, Munich, 1999
translation queries :: author
status :: in print
copies available from :: The Lilliput Press (€7.50)
distinction :: It won the inaugural Kerry Ingredients Novel of the Year, (now the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award), as part of Listowel Writers’ Festival, 1995.

Contact ILR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Dialogue in Fading Light

Note December 4, 2006: Made available on the web under a Creative Commons licence one year after hardcopy publication by kind permission of New Island Books
cover art: New Island Books. Author image: Karina Casey
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in the image program on your computer or your browser.

format :: PDF (496k) ::MS Word (248k) :: Open Office 2 (157k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: New Island Books
place & year :: Dublin, 2005
ISBN :: 1 904301 81 9
translations :: None
translation queries :: New Island Books
status :: in print
copies available from :: New Island Books

Contact:: ILR

Latest Publication

Dialogue in Fading Light

Websites

Philip Casey
The Fabulists
Slimming for the Beach
Irish Writers Online
Irish Culture Guide

Biographical Note

Philip Casey was born to Irish parents in London in 1950 and grew up in Co Wexford.

His verse collections are Those Distant Summers (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1980); After Thunder (Raven Arts Press, 1985); The Year of the Knife Poems 1980-1990, (Raven Arts Press Dublin, 1991); and Dialogue in Fading Light/New and Selected Poems (Dublin, New Island Books, 2005).

His play Cardinal, was performed in Hamburg in 1990.

His novels are The Fabulists
(Dublin, The Lilliput Press, 1994/ London, Serif Books, 1995); The Water Star (London, Picador, 1999); and The Fisher Child (Picador, 2001), which completes The Bann River Trilogy.

He has been a recipient of an Arts
Council/An Chomairle Éalaíon Bursary for Literature,
and was awarded the inaugural Kerry Ingredients/Listowel Writers’ Week Novel of the Year Award (1995) for The Fabulists. A member of Aosdána, in his spare time he tends to Irish Writers Online and other websites, including the Irish Literary Revival which he founded with Patrick Chapman in 2006. He lives in Dublin.

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A World Without Stone

Cover art: Silhouette (Scherenschnitt) by Reinhold Stier, Hamburg

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format :: PDF (436k) :: Open Office 2 (143k) :: MS Word (247k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: BLAUPAUSE
place & year :: Hamburg, 1998
ISBN :: 3 933498 01 5
translations :: selected poems were translated into and published in Indonesian as Tiada Tempat di Rawa/No Places in The Marshes (Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Indonesiatera, 2004)
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: yes

Contact ILR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

A Song for Joanna

Layout and cover illustration (based on Melbourne street map): Olaf Hille

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format :: PDF (417k) :: Open Office 2 (229k) :: MS Word (267k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: BLAUPAUSE
place & year :: Hamburg, 2003
ISBN :: 3 933498 10 4
translations :: selected poems were translated into and published in Indonesian as Tiada Tempat di Rawa/No Places in The Marshes (Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Indonesiatera, 2004)
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: yes

Contact :: ILR

Links

Terry McDonagh
BLAUPAUSE BOOKS

Latest Book

Boxes

Biographical Note

Terry McDonagh was born in Cill Aodáin, Kiltimagh, Co Mayo in 1946. His plays include The Dark Side of a Dream; Anything for a Fiver; I wanted to bring you
flowers (translated as Ich kann das alles erklären); Eternity Under Lucifer the First; and Children of the Whip.

His first collection of poems, The Road Out, was published in Hamburg in 1993 by Olaf Hille Verlag. His subsequent collections include At Home In My Shoes (Celtic Corner Verlag, Hamburg, 1997); A World Without Stone/New and Selected Poems (Hamburg, Blaupause-Verlag, 1998); A Song for Joanna, Hamburg-Melbourne A Journal in Verse (Hamburg, Blaupause Books, 2003). I’m On A Train - Twelve Strange Songs are based on twelve poems from The Road Out and have been put to music for voice and string quartet by Eberhart Reichel. Elbe Letters Go West/Briefe von der Elbe was published by Blaupause in 1999. He has also published a novel for children, One Summer in Ireland (Stuttgart, Ernst Klett Verlag, 2002); and a collection of poems
for children, Boxes (Hamburg, Blaupause Books, 2006).
An English-German selection of his poems, Kiltimagh (Hamburg, Blaupause, 2001) was grant-aided by the
Irish Literature Exchange. His selected poems were translated into and published in Indonesian as Tiada Tempat di Rawa/No Places in The Marshes (Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Indonesiatera, 2004).
He lived in Hamburg from 1980 to 2005, but now divides his time between Ireland and Germany.

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PENN

Cover art: Jon Berkeley
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format :: PDF (281k):: Open Office 2 (92k) :: MS Word (172k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: Raven Arts Press
place & year :: Dublin, 1986
ISBN :: 1 85186 013 2
translations :: none
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: no
status :: out of print

Contact:: ILR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Home Movie Nights

format :: PDF (346k) :: Open Office 2 (92k) :: MS Word (180k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: Raven Arts Press/Thistledown Press
place & year :: Dublin/Saskatchewan, 1989
ISBN :: 1 85186 050 9 (Raven); 1 920633 59 5 (Thistledown)
translations :: none
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: no
status :: out of print

Contact:: ILR

Latest Publicaton

Strawberry Thief

Websites

Sara Berkeley at Gallery Press Authors

Sara’s Quarto Writing

Sara Berkeley at Web de Sol
(*contains poems,including Facts About Water, and a picture of Sara - but biographical details and contact may be out of date)

Biographical Note

Sara Berkeley was born in Dublin in 1967 and graduated from Trinity College in 1989, after which she wandered somewhat aimlessly round the globe for a while pretending she had a plan. She finally settled in a rural valley just northwest of San Francisco, where she lives with her husband and young daughter.
Her poetry collections are Penn (Dublin, Raven Arts Press/Canada, Thistledown Press, 1986); Home Movie Nights (Raven Arts Press/Thistledown Press, 1989); Facts About Water, New and Selected Poems (Dublin, New Island Books/Canada, Thistledown Press/Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, Bloodaxe Books, 1994); and Strawberry Thief (Oldcastle, Co Meath, The Gallery Press, 2005).

She has also published a volume of short stories, The Swimmer in the Deep Blue Dream (Raven Arts Press, 1991), and a novel, Shadowing Hannah (Dublin, New Island Books, 1999).

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Bar Talk

cover illustration :: Brian Palm
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format :: PDF (518k):: Open Office 2 (228k) :: MS Word (291k)
genre :: Poetry
publisher :: iTaLiCs Press
place & year :: Dublin, 1999
ISBN :: 0 9533325 1 9
translations :: none
translation queries :: contact author
print-on-demand :: no
status :: out of print

Contact :: ILR

Links

Electric Acorn
Dublin Writers Virtual Workshop

Latest Book

Trapping a Ghost

Biographical Note

Nessa O’Mahony was born in Dublin.
Her poetry has appeared in a number of Irish, UK, and North American periodicals, has been translated into several European languages, and has been broadcast by RTÉ radio. She won the National Women’s Poetry Competition in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and Hennessy Literature Awards. Her first poetry collection, ‘‘ Bar Talk’’, was first published by iTaLiCs Press in Dublin in 1999. Her second, ‘‘Trapping a Ghost’’, was published by
bluechrome publishing in Spring 2005.
She was awarded an Irish Arts Council literature bursary in 2004. She is Assistant Editor of UK literary journal Orbis, she edits the online literary journal, Electric Acorn and teaches creative writing at the University of Wales, Bangor.

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