What is the most popular Irish book? Ulysses? The Book of Kells? The Country Girls? Who is the most popular Irish author? James Joyce? Maeve Binchy? Eoin Colfer? One way of measuring popularity is to look at library holdings: the number of appearances by an author or work in library collections worldwide. Libraries reflect popular and scholarly interest and have collected the published output of nations over time. Library collections are where world literature is stewarded and defined. WorldCat, a global database of library catalogues, is produced by the Online Computer Library Center, a global library co-operative based in Dublin, Ohio, whose chief strategist and vice-president, membership and research, is Dubliner Lorcan Dempsey.
Writing for irishtimes.com this week, Dempsey revealed that Jonathan Swift is the most popular Irish author, and his Gulliver's Travels is the most popular work by an Irish author in world literature, a particularly timely finding as Dublin is marking the 350th anniversary of Swift's birth with its Swift350 celebration throughout 2017.
Rounding out the top five most popular works by an Irish author are Dracula by Bram Stoker; The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; and Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Oscar Wilde, Eve Bunting [born in Maghera in 1928, the US-based author of more than 250 novels, most for children], George Bernard Shaw and Oliver Goldsmith follow Swift in the ranking of the top five most popular Irish authors. These findings confirm the strong literary focus in the Irish published record. The most widely held “non-fiction” works by Irish authors are by Edmund Burke and George Berkeley.
The Dublin North Bay Tourism Symposium will take place at the Bank of Ireland, 26 Marino Mart, Dublin 3 on Thursday, July 27th. It will begin at 11am with a paper by Dr Eamon Maher (IT Tallaght) on John McGahern's depiction of Dublin during the 1950s. There will also be talks by Dennis McIntyre and Cllr Neil O'Callaghan on Donagh O'Malley and the Irish educational system. Admission is €5. McGahern enthusiasts might also be interested in a day-trip to Lovely Leitrim from Clontarf on July 29th, setting off at 8am. Cost is €65, including dinner and transport. Email: dublinorthbaytourism@gmail.com
In the wake of the Easter Rising, Lloyd George summoned a gathering of representative Irish people to a convention to establish a basis for a settlement of the "Irish question". To mark the centenary of the Irish Convention, Trinity College Dublin will host a two-day symposium on July 25th and 26th. Contributors will include John Bruton, Ian d'Alton, David Dickson, Anne Dolan, Patrick Geoghegan, Michael Laffan, Martin Mansergh, Conor Morrissey, Eunan O'Halpin, Patrick Maume, Margaret O'Callaghan, Fionnuala Walsh, Bernadette Whelan, Padraig Yeates. The event is free of charge, but to reserve a place please register at eventbrite.ie
A new Irish publisher is always welcome. Irish Pages Press, an offshoot of the literary journal of the same name, launched earlier this year with Balkan Essays by Hubert Butler and three more titles are already scheduled for publication this year: The Divil Knows What, by Tom Mac Intyre, a selected edition of his poetry, prose and drama in English and Irish; a bilingual Rogha Dánta/Selected Poems by Cathal Ó Searcaigh, drawn from his previous 20 collections; and a first collection by Ciarán O'Rourke, The Buried Breath. Unsolicited manuscripts from new, emergent and established writers are welcomed from October. Kathleen Jamie has become Irish Pages' third permanent editor (for Scotland), joining Chris Agee and Cathal Ó Searcaigh. Submissions are invited for the next issue, whose theme is criticism. Email: editor@irishpages.org
