Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Three bilingual tanka (5-7-5-7-7 syllables) by Gabriel Rosenstock “Kerouac 1” was written in response to a seldom-cited socialist manifesto by Jack Kerouac (1922–1969), novelist and haiku master: “Shorter hours will provide the labourer with a new desire to live, not to be a productive animal, but to have time to […]
In an open letter, 170 British artists reacted angrily to the withdrawal of the European Drama Prize from Caryl Churchill: We are appalled that the Lifetime Achievement Prize awarded to playwright Caryl Churchill for the European Drama Prize 2022 has been rescinded by the jury of the Schauspiel Stuttgart, on […]
Tribute was paid to the life and work of the late comrade and writer Tomás Mac Síomóin at a commemorative event organised by Aontas na Scríbhneoirí in conjunction with the festival IMRAM in the Writers’ Centre, Dublin, last month. The evening was themed “File agus Fear Conspóide / Poet […]
Since the 1930s, New Books and Connolly Books have been publishing the writings of James Connolly (1868–1916), Ireland’s Marxist pioneer and martyr. Thousands of people first encountered Connolly through the re-publication of his writings in pamphlet and book form by New Books, including Labour in Irish History, Erin’s Hope and […]
The immediate social background to George Bernard Shaw’s most famous comedy, Pygmalion (1912), is the growing British women’s suffrage movement at the time. The play is as much about class relations as it is about women’s rights. For Shaw, the two are inseparable. Pygmalion is about practical, intelligent women from […]
Badhands, the musical project from Dublin, were the backing group at the Workman’s Club Cellar on Saturday 10 September for Anderson’s first live show in over four years. It was standing room only for a show with no set breaks as they cranked out tune after tune. You could have […]
A bilingual 31-syllable tanka (5-7-5-7-7 syllables) in Irish and English, in response to a work of street art. Street Poster, Liverpool, by Guy Denning cad atá ar siúlis deacair é a thuiscintcuir in iúl dom écén cuspóir atá againnní thuigim a thuilleadh é what are we doing it is hard […]
Sean O’Casey’s dark comedy Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) is set in Ireland about 1940 and is rarely performed. Witchcraft is haunting the village of Nyadnanave ever since Marthraun’s daughter by his first wife, Loreleen, arrived from London. A rooster causes commotion and embodies indomitable joie de vivre and rebelliousness. The setting in the backwoods suggests […]
The fascist Georgia Meloni is a-speaking a lot of baloney she a-shoots from the hip when she a-opens her lip me a-thinks that Meloni’s a phoney An ceannaire nua Meloni ag scaothaireacht a bhíonn sí i gcónaí ach tá Dia lena taobh (cén fáth? canathaobh?) Is a cara mór, Silvio […]
The singer-songwriter Sive got a surprise at the 2018 James Connolly Festival when Christy Moore took to the stage at the concert Sive was headlining to give an impromptu performance of four songs, including “Viva la Quince Brigada.” Sive played an amazing acoustic set at “Live at the Local” in […]
Margaret Ward’s ground-breaking book on revolutionary women in Ireland, Unmanageable Revolutionaries: Women and Irish Nationalism, 1880–1980 (1983), was republished in an updated, revised and richly illustrated new edition by Arlen House in late 2021. It is a superb introduction to some of the great women in Irish history since Anna […]
Two bilingual tanka, in Irish and English, “Hail the Deserters” and “Weeping in their Graves,” 31-syllable poems (5-7-5-7-7), in response to work by two Irish artists, William Orpen and Seán Keating. When the First World War broke out, Orpen’s assistant, Seán Keating, returned to Ireland, avoiding conscription, but Orpen stayed […]
This month Connolly Books will play host to two book launches. On 15 July, at 7pm, Conor Magahy will launch his first book, Posh Mackers, a moving and at times humorous account of his early childhood in Dublin, set between the years 1978 and 1988. It tells the story […]
The short life of Sidney Keyes (1922–1943) is in itself a striking metaphor for the cruelty and futility of war. He was killed in action before his twenty-first birthday in Tunisia. His book The Cruel Solstice (1944) can be read on Faded Page (tinyurl.com/4282dd4u). Keyes was an unusual poet, […]
Engels said about Shelley: “Byron and Shelley are read almost exclusively by the lower classes; no ‘respectable’ man is likely to have the latter’s work on his table without coming into the most terrible disrepute.” Born shortly after the French Revolution, Shelley was heir to a substantial estate and […]
Weerth, the German proletariat’s first and most important poet, the son of Rhineland parents, was born in Detmold, where his father was church superintendent. In 1843, when I was in Manchester, Weerth came to Bradford as an agent for his German firm, and we spent many a pleasant Sunday together. […]