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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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First Quarterly Issue of Trasna Released
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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
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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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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Summer 2022 Released
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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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‘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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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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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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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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Rathcroghan, the Irish Otherworld, & the Home of Halloween
Daniel Curley Throughout October, Trasna will focus on the Celtic festival of Samhain, better known to Americans as Halloween. The holiday originated in Ireland and celebrates that time of year when the veil between this world and the next grows thin, and life seems more mysterious. In the medieval village of Tulsk, in County Roscommon is the Rathcroghan Visitor Center. The Center is located in the heart of a rich archeological landscape. This week we feature an essay by archeologist Daniel Curley who explains its connection to Halloween. Rathcroghan, the Irish Otherworld, & the Home of Halloween The Rathcroghan archaeological landscape, Co. Roscommon, Ireland is a collection of 240 identified archaeological sites contained within a 6.5km (725ha) area…
