Danny Morrison is listening to a Traveling Wilburys' tune and remembering a time in bed with his girlfriend Leslie in 1988. The song goes: And the walls came down. All the way to hell. Never saw them when they're standing. Never saw them when they fell. He suddenly sits upright. It is five in the morning, in October 1990, and he is alone in the Crumlin Road Jail, … [Read more...] about Then The Walls Came Down – A Prison Journal
Literature
Angela’s Ashes Loses Its Voice
Anyone who has read Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes -- and by now that probably takes in about half the planet -- knows that what makes McCourt's memoir of an impoverished Irish childhood so magical is the unique "voice" the author uses to tell the story. McCourt struggled for many years until he "started writing in the voice of a child, immediate, urgent and without hindsight … [Read more...] about Angela’s Ashes Loses Its Voice
Fall 2022 Book Reviews
Haven by Emma Donoghue It’s seventh-century Ireland. Clonmacnoise is a newish monastic settlement, with about thirty monks in residence, along with the families who work for them and an order of nuns. The monastery also offers temporary accommodation to guests who come to study or just to retreat from the world. One of these visitors, Artt, believes in harder fasting than is … [Read more...] about Fall 2022 Book Reviews
Flannery O’Connor’s
Irish Roots
How Flannery O’Connor’s upbringing and her Irish Catholic heritage impacted her writing.
O’Connor’s great-great-grandfather, Patrick Harty, came to Georgia in 1824 from County Tipperary, settling in Taliaferro County. His Irish-born daughter Johannah, who became Flannery O’Connor’s great-grandmother, married Hugh Donnelly Treanor in 1848. Hugh had also emigrated from … [Read more...] about Flannery O’Connor’s
Irish Roots
News: Museum of Literature Opens in Dublin
Ireland has a new landmark cultural institution. The Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin celebrates Ireland’s world-renowned literary heritage. The museum is a major partnership between University College Dublin (UCD) and the National Library of Ireland. It’s located in one of Dublin’s finest historic houses, UCD’s Newman House, which was the … [Read more...] about News: Museum of Literature Opens in Dublin