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A Literary Journal

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  • About
    • Masthead
  • Current Issue
    • Fall 2022
    • Summer 2022
    • Spring 2022
    • Winter 2022
  • Submit
  • Features
  • Contact
  • About
    • Masthead
  • Current Issue
    • Fall 2022
    • Summer 2022
    • Spring 2022
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  • Features
  • Essay,  Fiction,  Ireland,  Literature,  Poetry,  UK,  USA,  WINTER22

    Winter 2022 Released

    Featuring poetry & prose from across the world, this quarterly includes new work by Alicia Byrne Keane, Kate Smyth, Ian Irwin, Beth Storey, Julie Breathnach-Banwait, Carrie Griffin, Mary Madec, & Jimmy Kerr. Read Issue #4 here.

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    A Review of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Poetry

    April 12, 2022

    “On America” and Other Poems

    January 14, 2022

    Dairena Ní Chinnéide ~ “The Day the Blaskets were Nicked” and other poems

    March 26, 2021
  • Australia,  Essay,  Fiction,  Ireland,  Literature,  Poetry,  SUMMER22,  UK,  USA

    Summer 2022 Released

    Featuring poetry, an essay, and short fiction from across the world, the second quarterly of Trasna includes new work by Brittany Nohra, Nathanael O’Reilly, John Martin, Eugene O’Hare, Samuel Meyler, Fred Johnston, Shane O’Neill, and Linda Whittenberg. Read Issue #2 here.

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    Beannachtaí Trasna

    January 9, 2022

    Aguisín, (“Afterword”) a Reading by Aifric Mac Aodha

    March 12, 2021

    Patrick Kavanagh: a Reader’s Experience

    February 10, 2022
  • Essay,  Feature,  Ireland

    Playground of the Apocalypse

    by Shane O’Neill The strand is ravaged by the storm that had raged for two days, uprooting weeds and hurling rocks huge distances along the beach. Large chunks of sand have been torn away by the sea, leaving small dunes and bunkers for us to traverse unsteadily. The sky is still a heavy grey and we have to squint through the watery haze of falling rain and fight against the fierce winds. Black clouds are reflected in the tumultuous waters and barren black mountains tower over us. Tiny mussels are clamped to these monoliths, holding on tight against the forces of nature. In this deathscape, the natural elements blend into…

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    The everyday poetry of the half-wild North-Western Irish world

    March 17, 2022

    ‘Only Connect’ – An Anthology of Poetry Written During the Pandemic

    November 6, 2021

    Call for Submissions

    January 23, 2022
  • Essay

    The everyday poetry of the half-wild North-Western Irish world

    Keith Brennan The ripple of birdsong has spread from the far valley and broken across the farm. If spring moves at a walking pace then perhaps the birdsong walks with it. Where we are, with the farm backed up against Hawthorn Hill, facing north, it sometimes walks a little slower still. Across the hill and down the valley, where the farms face into the sun, the birds arrived last week. These fields fringed three rows deep with hazel and willow. The spruce forest spends itself finally, after a hundred acres of quiet, dense, commercial tree farm, giving way to the cattle-farmed hills. Rolling open fields fringed with native trees. Cattle…

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    Winter 2022 Released

    December 31, 2022

    Aguisín, (“Afterword”) a Reading by Aifric Mac Aodha

    March 12, 2021

    Beannachtaí Trasna

    January 9, 2022
  • Australia,  Essay,  Fiction,  Ireland,  Literature,  News,  Poetry,  USA

    First Quarterly Issue of Trasna Released

    With poems and stories by Libby Hart, Stephen O’Connor, Mike Gallagher, S. C. Flynn, Marie O’Shea and Shane Leavy. Read Issue #1 here.

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    The everyday poetry of the half-wild North-Western Irish world

    March 17, 2022

    Some Days The Bird

    November 13, 2022

    about:blank by Adam Wyeth

    January 15, 2022
  • Essay,  Feature,  Fiction,  Ireland,  Literature,  Review

    Patrick Kavanagh: a Reader’s Experience

    by Richard Hayes For generations of Irish readers—for this one certainly—the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh is inextricably associated with Soundings, the anthology of prescribed poetry for the Leaving Certificate English curriculum that was a staple of Irish secondary education from the end of the 1960s until the mid-1990s. Edited with sensitivity and skill by the late Augustine (“Gus”) Martin, then professor of English at University College Dublin, Soundings presented the poetry curriculum for the final exam with unashamed emphasis on the texts of the poems, without recourse to illustrations or photographs or that patronising commentary that seems to dominate textbooks now. Martin in his introduction to the book speaks of…

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    Dairena Ní Chinnéide ~ “The Day the Blaskets were Nicked” and other poems

    March 26, 2021

    Summer 2022 Released

    June 20, 2022

    “On America” and Other Poems

    January 14, 2022
  • Archives,  Essay

    ‘A Morning Walk’ from “Intimate City: Dublin Essays” by Peter Sirr

    Featured in today’s Irish Times is a collection of essays by prize-winning poet, Peter Sirr: “Intimate City: Dublin Essays.” This week, Trasna is pleased to present ‘A morning walk,’ one of the essays from this brilliant collection.  Sirr’s essays explore Dublin’s past and present; travel its narrow lanes; meditate on its earliest map; and contemplate the impact a place can have on those who live there.  In one of his essays ‘Shirts for Books,’ Sirr discusses the loss of a landmark bookshop: “The death of a bookshop always hits hard. There are never that many of them to begin with and they are rarely replaced, so that one more opportunity…

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    Call for Submissions

    January 23, 2022

    “On America” and Other Poems

    January 14, 2022

    First Quarterly Issue of Trasna Released

    March 14, 2022
  • Archives,  Essay

    ELIZABETH BOWEN and MOLLY KEANE

    by Thomas McCarthy The month of November, with its decreasing hours of daylight and lengthening nights, offers an opportunity to turn inwards. It is traditionally a month in Ireland when we remember those who have passed on, indeed the 1st and 2nd of November are known respectively as All Saints and All Souls days. On Trasna, our focus this month will be on Irish writers who have passed on and who are remembered by contemporary writers and scholars.  Here, poet Thomas McCarthy explores the novels of Elizabeth Bowen and Molly Keane, in a piece that discusses  literature and the world of the Anglo-Irish, and also the importance of friendship . …

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    First Quarterly Issue of Trasna Released

    March 14, 2022

    Aguisín, (“Afterword”) a Reading by Aifric Mac Aodha

    March 12, 2021

    Some Days The Bird

    November 13, 2022
  • Archives,  Essay

    Introducing John McGahern

    by Dr. Richard Hayes The month of November, with its decreasing hours of daylight and lengthening nights, offers an opportunity to turn inwards. It is traditionally a month in Ireland when we remember those who have passed on, indeed the 1st and 2nd of November are known respectively as All Saints and All Souls days. On Trasna, our focus this month will be on Irish writers who have passed on and who are remembered by contemporary writers and scholars.  In this article, Dr. Richard Hayes considers the output of the writer John McGahern, (1934 – 2006), and argues that McGahern is the greatest novelist since Joyce, with an importance not…

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    ‘Nora’, an excerpt, as read by its author Nuala O’Connor

    May 21, 2021

    ‘Only Connect’ – An Anthology of Poetry Written During the Pandemic

    November 6, 2021

    Fall 2022 Released

    September 22, 2022
  • Archives,  Essay,  Poetry

    The belated discovery of a role model: Nessa O’Mahony on Eavan Boland

    The month of November, with its decreasing hours of daylight and lengthening nights, offers an opportunity to turn inwards. It is traditionally a month in Ireland when we remember those who have passed on, indeed the 1st and 2nd of November are known respectively as All Saints and All Souls days. On Trasna our focus this month will be on Irish writers who have passed on and who are remembered by contemporary writers and scholars.  Our first post this month is by poet Nessa O’Mahony who writes of the influence of the poet Eavan Boland (1944 – 2020) on her own development as a writer, which led to her subsequently…

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    Playground of the Apocalypse

    May 31, 2022

    The everyday poetry of the half-wild North-Western Irish world

    March 17, 2022

    “On America” and Other Poems

    January 14, 2022
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