LooseLeaves/Sadbh: Given The Irish Times's association with last year's Davy Byrnes Irish Writing Award, we were particularly delighted to hear during the week that one of the finalists in that short story competition, Philip Ó Ceallaigh, has a collection coming out with Penguin Ireland.
His book, Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse and Other Stories, was acquired during the week by Penguin Ireland editor Brendan Barrington and will appear this time next year. A native of Waterford, Ó Ceallaigh lives in Bucharest. "Philip Ó Ceallaigh is an astonishing writer whose stories of love and sex, of ambition and frustration, are at once beautifully crafted and startlingly raw," says Barrington, who this July will also publish Protection, the first novel by Molly McCloskey. Author of two collections of short stories, Solomon's Seal and The Beautiful Changes, she was born in Philadelphia and has lived in Ireland since 1989. Her novel, says Barrington , "looks at ordinary lives in contemporary Ireland in a way that nobody else has quite managed".
Heaney's gifts to Queen's
Seamus Heaney was back in his alma mater, Queen's University Belfast, this month to donate papers among which, very touchingly, was his First Arts notebook. This dates back to his first year as a student at Queen's, where he was later a member of staff. The main gift, however, was his handing over of a large collection of papers and documents to do with Beowulf: a New Verse Translation, his acclaimed 1999 translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic.
"I had my first introduction to Anglo-Saxon here at Queen's in my undergraduate days in the School of English," says Heaney. Fellow poet Ciaran Carson, director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's, says Heaney's translation of Beowulf was an exemplar of the continuity of poetry in these islands since Anglo-Saxon times.
Kate O'Brien weekend
There have been so many words spoken on the killing of Det Garda Jerry McCabe in Limerick in 1996, but they are usually on the political stage. Now his death will be the subject of a paper by Eoghan Harris (right) at next weekend's Kate O'Brien Weekend in Limerick, of which the theme is "Passion and Partisanship". The Kate O'Brien Lecture will be given by historical geographer Kevin Whelan. Martin Mansergh will talk about his favourite Kate O'Brien book, while other participants include author and historian Sinéad McCoole, psychiatrist Ivor Browne, journalist Paddy Woodworth, poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Irish Times Literary Correspondent Eileen Battersby.
Admission to individual sessions is €10, with weekend tickets costing €80 and
€50. Advance bookings for weekend tickets can be made at the Belltable Arts Centre Limerick, tel: 061-319866.
How to get published
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Public Library Service, in association with the writer Sarah Webb, is currently running a series called The Write Stuff aimed at anyone interested in writing commercial fiction and getting published. The talks cover a wide range of genres, from romantic comedy to crime fiction and children's books. Next Thursday, Julie Parsons and Paul Carson will talk about writing crime and thrillers; on Thursday, March 3rd, Rose Doyle will talk about writing historical fiction. Other writers lined up include Martina Devlin, Don Conroy, Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick and Marita Conlon-McKenna.
All the talks take place in Deansgrange Library from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.There is no charge but booking is essential. Details from Deansgrange Library, tel: 01-2850860 or see deansgrange@dlrcoco.ie.
Dalby's lunches in print
Among the rosier memories of the early 1980s in Dublin are the stand-up lunches thrown for politicians and journalists by the Financial Times's man in Ireland, Stewart Dalby. They were "stand-up" because there wasn't any room to sit in Stewart's top floor flat-cum-workplace above the Progressive Democrats' office in South Frederick Street. Those were charged days politically, with three elections in 18 months in the Republic, not to mention the H-Block protests. Now Dalby, a Londoner, has written The Friends of Rathlin Island (Polperro Heritage Press, available via e-mail at polperro.press@virgin.net, price £9.95). It's a thriller set in the North and in drinking holes around Buswell's Hotel and it features journalists and politicians. His lunch guests of 20 years ago may be curious to see if they crop up within its pages.