-
Seán Carlson
Bus to Ballybunion The five o’clock bus is nearly full by the time it leaves Tralee eight minutes after the hour. The transport lurches from the station, shifting between low gears in afternoon traffic. “This is ridiculous,” an older man says. “It is,” a younger woman affirms across the aisle. “Every day now,” one of them offers. The first temporary-protection permit holders arrived in Ballybunion six months after the Irish Times declared “Scores killed as Russia invades Ukraine from land, sea, and air.” A local crowd almost the same in size gathered on the beach in welcome beneath a cliff-top castle wall. At first, Ukrainian licence plates adorned some cars…
-
Spring 2024 is here!
Featuring poetry & prose from across the world, this issue includes new work by Lisa Bellamy, Elizabeth Gibson, Claire Hennessy, Jim Maguire, Virginie Trachsler, Ruadhán MacFadden, Christina Hennemann, Muiread O’Hanlon, and Samantha Calthrop. Read on here.
-
Fall 2023 Lands
Featuring poetry & prose from across the world, this quarterly includes new work by Mary O’Donnell, Reyzl Grace, Mark Granier, Ellen Brickley, Mary Wilkinson, and Kathleen Williamson. Read the current issue here.
-
Summer 2023 is here!
Featuring poetry & prose from across the world, this quarterly includes new work by Lorraine Carey, Nathanael O’Reilly, Áine Rose Connell, Eve Elliot, Gill Ryan, E.R. Murray, Fred Johnston, Ross Moore, and Patrick O’Sullivan. Read the current issue here.
-
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.
-
Fall 2022 Released
Featuring poetry and short fiction from across the world, this quarterly includes new work by Anne Casey & Heather Bourbeau, Diarmuid Cawley, Heather Corbally Bryant, Martin Simms, Máire T. Robinson, and Daragh Fleming. Read Issue #3 here.
-
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.
-
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…
-
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.
-
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…