51����

LitCitizen Lit. Citizen: Interview with Sorcha de Brún Part 1 of 2 Parts 

Antioch University Los Angeles Master of Fine Arts 

7.03.2025

Nuacht TG4: TV. 

22.02.2025

RTE News: TV 

2.03.2025

RTE News Website

11.02.2025

Peig.ie: newsletter 

18.02.2025

Tuairisc.ie: newspaper 

18.02.2025 

Limerick Live: Radio interview 

19.02.25

Limerick Leader: Newspaper

Radio na Life:  Radio Interview on Fios Feasa by Oisín Mac Uigeann 

12.02.25

Raidió Fáilte Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interview with Storm Eaton-Kilgallen.

21.02.2025 

Connemara Community Radio: Radio Interview

18.02.2025

Raidió na Life: Radio Interview on Fada agus Fairsing with Lisa Nic an Bhreithimh 

Professor Joseph O'Connor recently read from and discussed his thrilling new novel The Ghosts of Rome on RTÉ Radio 1.

You can .

Professor Michael Griffin was on , presented by Malvyn Bragg, to talk about Goldsmith with Dr David O'Shaughnessy and Professor Judith Hawley.

Prof Joseph O'Connor's new novel 'The Ghosts of Rome' has entered the bestsellers' list at number one.

Published on 30 January, the book has received rave reviews from the Sunday Times, , Guardian, , and .

His essay on the real-life women involved in the Rome Escape Line assisting fugitives from the Nazis was published in the Sunday Independent on 2 February.

Joe recently appeared on , 'My Life in Five Songs', choosing music from the Boomtown Rats, the Smiths, the Undertones, Hildegard von Bingen and Coleman Hawkins, and speaking about the research involved in 'The Ghosts of Rome'.

Congratulations Joe!

Dr Emily Cullen was invited to read, alongside fellow poets, Paul Muldoon and Felispeaks, at a special tribute event to honour actor, Stephen Rea as part of TradFest 2025.

The unique evening of poetry and music, ‘Celebrating Stephen Rea: Rhymes, Reason & Rascality’, took place at The Lark Theatre, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin on Wednesday, 22 January to a packed, appreciative audience.

Stephen Rea is one of the most iconic and important cultural figures not alone of his own but of any generation to come from Ireland. The event was part of a series programmed across four nights at The Lark Theatre for TradFest, to honour Stephen through words and music.

Well done Emily!

The bean sí (banshee) from Irish folklore is similar to a French folk tale character from Brittany.

Síle de Cléir

Enter a mysterious, enchanting world where a handsome prince steps out of the belly of a cat; where a black horse blocks the night traveller’s way at every turn; where a vintage bottle of wine is presented as an aid to getting into heaven.

Le Ailbhe Nic Giolla Chomhaill

Analysis: Wonder tales transport the listener from the mundane world of day-to-day life to the marvellous sphere of the supernatural

In his book , folklorist  writes that 'stories are narratives artfully ordered to do the serious work of entertainment, pleasing their listeners in the present, then carrying them into the future with something to think about'. As entertainment, stories feed and nurture us, offering a temporary escape from the humdrum of daily life and work routines, and creating a space in which belief can be suspended, and alternative ways of being imagined.

 'Soinéid 19 agus 29 le Shakespeare: Aistriúcháin go Gaeilge' / Shakespeare's Sonnets 19 and 29: Translations to Irish'.

'Devouring Time, blunt thou the Lion's Paws' (19); agus

'When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes' (29). 

Professor Sarah Moore Fitzgerald features in with some flash fiction

Splonk is an online flash fiction journal set up in January 2019 by a group of flash writers and editors in Ireland. The word ‘splonk’ is the anglicised form of the Irish word ‘splanc’:

splanc, noun fem. flash, spark. A splaincín (derived from splanc) is a spirited, fiery female.

Issue 1 of Splonk was published the 1st of May 2019.

In some shining slice of time, not hers, not mine, we will be friends. I’ll enter slowly through the door-less frame at Roquebrune, and we will sit behind her concertina glass in chairs designed for happiness. On the balcony we’ll drink (by day, iced water, dry white wine by night). Often we will clamber down the rocky path to swim.
Sometimes the sea will have a pulse, hot and sharp like toothache. Breakfast will be served on steely tables that can be raised or lowered according to our changing moods. I will drive with her on fragrant coastal roads.

One evening, drunk, I’ll tell her I think Badovici is no good, and behind Le Corbusier’s suntanned back I’ll ask, ‘Who chooses for himself a name like that?’ We’ll tear his dark-wood cabin down, his colour-coded bunkhouses. Our laughter will be filled with liberty and vindication. We’ll coat our nails black with lacquer, dress like men, and I will scrub away his blaring lurid murals, sand down her walls, and paint them clean again.

RTÉ Brainstorm Analysis: Look beyond the photo on the cover of her autobiography and the Kerrywoman's story reflects issues that still concern us today with Dr. Sorcha de Brún

The importance of home is one of the most enduring aspects of Peig, and the teenage longing for her own place becomes increasingly important as she grows from girlhood into womanhood. This is fuelled not only by the harsh conditions of her second period as a domestic servant, but also by a desire to be free from oppression, which she describes as ‘daorsmacht’.

Forced by circumstances (including a jealous sister-in-law) into domestic servitude aged fourteen and leaving her beloved, ailing mother behind, homesickness and loneliness are palpable in Sayer's account of teenage employment. She describes what it like to be under the cosh, ‘fé bhais an chait’ and what it is to be powerless, ‘fé dhaoirse’. In a significant passage in the autobiography, she gives an account of what in current parlance we call sexist language, gender discrimination and gas lighting

: An ról atá ag logainmneacha sa ghníomhaíocht aeráide

Is léachtóir le Teanga agus Litríocht na Gaeilge in Ollscoil Luimnigh é Aengus Ó Fionnagáin. San fhíseán seo, labhraíonn sé faoina chuid oibre le pobail éagsúla agus an nasc a mbíonn acu leis na logainmneacha áitiúla timpeall orthu. Comhrá i nGaeilge le fotheidil Bhéarla.

: Place names and their contribution to climate action

Aengus Ó Fionnagáin is a lecturer in Irish Language and Literature in the 51����. In this video he discusses his work with communities and their connection to place names. Conversation in Irish with English subtitles.

Following the tragic loss of a pioneering student & editor, the Joe Drennan Memorial Competition for Inclusive Journalism was organised with the aim to foster a deeper understanding of marginalised communities.

Read Here: 

The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2024.

Credit: Hotpress

Croíthe Radacacha

TG4: A documentary about 'the love that dares not speak its name' - found at the very heart of the Irish Revolution.

The hidden stories of eight female couples who were central in the fight that freed Ireland from the British Empire, including Kathleen Lynn, Eva Gore-Booth, and Helena Moloney.

Directed by Ciara Hyland & based on the historical research of Dr Mary McAuliffe and individual contributors (including O'Toole and Bríona Nic Dhiarmada, among others).

an Post: Eimear Ryan’s writing has appeared in Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review and The Stinging Fly. She is a co-founder of the literary journal Banshee and its publishing imprint, Banshee Press. Her first novel, Holding Her Breath, was shortlisted for the Newcomer of the Year Award at the Irish Book Awards and for the John McGahern Prize. A native of Co. Tipperary, Eimear now lives in Cork city.  

June O'Sullivan (MA Creative Writing) has a piece of flash fiction, “Above and Below” in Issue 6 of .

Another flash "The Boathouse" in Issue 3 of The  Journal.

June also has short story "The Hurler" in  Issue VIII, which features short stories, creative nonfiction and flash fiction.

The long-awaited latest book in the much loved Sunday Miscellany series from RTÉ Radio 1.

Sunday Miscellany — NEW ISLAND BOOKS

Jo says: It’s a novel based on a true story. It’s about an Irish priest in the Vatican during the Second World War, who set up escape routes for prisoners of the Nazis because there’s a specific camp just outside Rome. And he calls his group The Choir and they meet under the auspices of being a choir. And there are a lot of very disparate characters – there’s a countess, and there's also a guy that runs a newspaper stand, and they all have a place.

And, being an Irish writer, the language is really, really special. A bit Joyce-ian but not full-on, full-blown Joyce that makes you go ‘Argh, give me a drink!’. Right up until the end, it is frightening and some of it is hard to read, but it's got wonderful characters and it’s very sensitive... and it's very funny as well.

From “A Room of One’s Own” to “Down and Out in Paris and London” – how have writers in the first decades of the twentieth century thought about ideas of home, exile and poverty.

A celebration of the publication in 1820 of Melmoth the Wanderer by the Dublin writer Charles Robert Maturin.

Maturin lived close to Marsh’s 51���� and was a regular visitor to the building. This exhibition shows that Maturin used a familiarity with 16th- and 17th-century printed material to condemn religious hypocrisy, and to draw a sharp distinction between the light of culture and the darkness of fanaticism.

‘Ragged, Livid & On Fire’ has been curated by Dr Christina Morin of the 51���� and Dr Jason McElligott of Marsh’s 51����.

Ryan talks to Author & Lecturer Donal Ryan about his journey into lecturing at the 51����, his career as an author and the recent passing of his mother.