Sep 18, 2014 | Latest
I am half-way through The Marquise Of O- (And Other Stories) by Heinrich Von Kleist, a German playwright and author of novellas dealing with violence and mystery. In 1811 thirty-four-year old Kleist in a suicide pact with Henriette Vogel who was dying from incurable...
Aug 15, 2014 | Latest
Féile na bhFlaitheartach (Liam O’Flaherty Summer School) will be held on Inis Mór in the last weekend in August (30-31). See clár below: Saturday August 30 10.30am Ferry departs from Ros a’Mhíl/Rosaveel to Inis Mór. 11.15am Ferry arrives in Cill Rónáin – Local...
Jul 17, 2014 | Latest
Finished a wonderful novel by Armagh-born but England-based writer John McMillan, The Soul of the City. It is a Bildungsroman, set in Belfast and London and is evocative of the 1960s and early 1970s so fine, lyrical and powerful are the detailed observations of mores,...
Jun 9, 2014 | Latest
Finished A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride, her debut novel, written about ten years ago but which only went into print last year after many rejection slips. She took quite a risk in the style of writing but this stream of consciousness narrative about...
Mar 14, 2014 | Latest
Long an admirer of Tony Benn, the first time I actually met him was in 1984 when he came over to Belfast at the invitation of Sinn Féin and stood with myself and Gerry Adams outside Belfast’s Crumlin Road High Court to protest against the ‘supergrass’ trials...
Mar 6, 2014 | Latest
Finished a wonderful, first novel, Volga German by Colin Sloan. Ingenious, imaginative and exceptionally well-written, it is the story of Andreas Mensche, one of those ethnic Germans living in the USSR in the River Volga region since the 18th century preserving their...
