Michael Longley, poet, educator, and promoter of the arts, received the highest honor that one can receive from the Belfast City Council on March 23, 2015. The Freedom of the City title, much like the Key to the City awards given in American cities, is, according to Lord Mayor Nichola Mallon: “the city’s formal expression of the high regard, esteem, and affection in which our … [Read more...] about Michael Longley Given
Freedom of the City in Belfast
Writers and Poets
Michael Longley Given
Happy Birthday, James Joyce
By Sheila Langan, Deputy Editor
On February 2, 1882, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, author of Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, was born in Rathgar, Dublin to John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane Murray. February 2, 2022 marks the 140th anniversary of his birth. In celebration, check out this excellently animated video of Joyce (or his bust in St. Stephens Green) … [Read more...] about Happy Birthday, James Joyce
Unpublished Poet Awarded Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Prize
The literary world welcomed a new talent in September when the prestigious Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award was given to UCC librarian John Fitzgerald. A virtual unknown, having no previous publications, Fitzgerald was quoted in the Irish Times as saying, “I wasn’t into publishing anything, mainly because I did not think it was up to standard.” All that changed when his first … [Read more...] about Unpublished Poet Awarded Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Prize
“Scones for Pete Hamill”
By Dan Barry, Contributor
October 22, 2014
October 22, 2014
On Monday, October 20th, 2014, Irish American Writers and Artists Inc. honored Pete Hamill with the Eugene O'Neill Lifetime Achievement Award. The event was held at the Manhattan Club just north of Times Square. Among those in attendance were Hamill's wife, the Japanese journalist Fukiko Aoki; actor Brian Dennehy; singer Judy Collins; New York State Governor Andrew … [Read more...] about “Scones for Pete Hamill”
Poem: “Soda Bread”
She said she’d lost the knack—not the recipe, which had never been written down— but the knack of mixing the dough just so, not too much, not too little, so that the moist, buttery loaves rose into their perfectly rounded shapes, the cross impressed in the top revealing itself as the crust hardened, sure as the Annunciation. It was because my father had … [Read more...] about Poem: “Soda Bread”