Leabhar na hAthghabhála - Poems of Repossession

This is the first comprehensive critical anthology of modern poetry in Irish with English translations. It forms a sequel to Sean O Tuama and Thomas Kinsella's pioneering anthology, An Duanaire 1600-1900 / Poems of the Dispossessed (1981), but features many more poems in covering the work of 26 poets from the 20th century. It includes poems by Padraig Mac Piarais and Liam S. Gogan from the revival period (1893-1939), and a generous selection from the work of Mairtin O Direain, Sean O Riordain and Maire Mhac an tSaoi, who transformed writing in Irish in the decades following the Second World War, before the Innti poets - Michael Davitt, Liam O Muirthile, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Cathal O Searcaigh, Biddy Jenkinson - and others developed new possibilities for poetry in Irish in the 1970s and 80s. It also includes work by more recent poets such as Colm Breathnach, Gearoid Mac Lochlainn, Micheal O Cuaig and Aine Ni Ghlinn. The anthology has translations by some of Ireland's most distinguished poets and translators, including Valentine Iremonger, Michael Hartnett, Paul Muldoon, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Bernard O'Donoghue, Maurice Riordan, Peter Sirr, David Wheatley and Mary O'Donoghue, most of them newly commissioned for this project. Many of the poems, including Eoghan O Tuairisc's anguished response to the bombing of Hiroshima, 'Aifreann na marbh' [Mass for the dead] have not previously been available in English. In addition to presenting the some of the best poetry in Irish written since 1900, the anthology challenges the extent to which writing in Irish has been underrepresented in collections of modern and contemporary Irish poetry. In his introduction and notes, Louis de Paor argues that Irish language poetry should be evaluated according to its own rigorous aesthetic rather than as a subsidiary of the dominant Anglophone tradition of Irish writing. Irish-English dual language edition co-published with Clo Iar-Chonnachta. [Leabhar na hAthghabhala is pronounced Lee-owr-rr ne hathar-bvola].

About the author

Louis de Paor was born in 1961 in Cork, and educated at Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh. He is one of Ireland's leading Irish-language poets, and was a key figure in the Irish language literary renaissance of the 1980s and 90s, editing the influential Irish-language journal Innti for a time. He spent time as a lecturer in Irish at University College Cork and Thomond College, Limerick, before moving to Australia in 1987, where he worked in local and ethnic radio in Melbourne and taught evening classes in Irish language and literature at Melbourne University and the Melbourne Council for Adult Education. He was Visiting Professor of Celtic Studies at Sydney University in 1993 and Visiting Fellow in 1992. He returned to Ireland in 1996 and worked as proof editor of the Irish language newspaper Foinse before being appointed Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at NUI Galway in 2000. He was Jefferson Smurfit Distinguished Fellow at the University of St Louis-Missouri in 2002 and received the Charles Fanning medal from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 2009. His most recent bilingual editions of his own poetry are Ag greadadh bas sa reilig / Clapping in the cemetery (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2005), agus rud eile de / and another thing (Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2010), and The Brindled Cat and the Nightingale's Tongue (Bloodaxe Books / Cló Iar-Chonnacht, 2014), with Crooked Love / Grá fiar forthcoming in 2022. De Paor has collaborated with the Cork singer John Spillane under the name Gaelic Hit Factory, with uilleann piper Ronan Browne and Brooklyn based composer Dana Lyn. He has also published an anthology of 20th-century poetry in Irish, Coiscéim na haoise seo (1991), co-edited with Seán Ó Tuama; a bilingual edition of the selected poems of Máire Mhac an tSaoi, An paróiste míorúilteach / The miraculous parish (2011); and a critical edition of the selected poems of Liam S. Gógan, Míorúilt an chleite chaoin (2012). His bilingual anthology Leabhar na hAthghabhála / Poems of Repossession was published by Bloodaxe Books with Cló Iar-Chonnacht in 2016, continuing the line of Irish-language poetry where Thomas Kinsella's earlier anthology An Duanaire, 1600-1900: Poems of the Dispossessed (1981) left off.

Summary

This first comprehensive critical anthology of modern poetry in Irish with English translations forms a sequel to Sean O Tuama and Thomas Kinsella's pioneering anthology, An Duanaire 1600-1900 / Poems of the Dispossessed (1981), but features many more poems in covering the work of 26 poets from the 20th century. Irish-English dual language text.

Product details

• Authors: Louis de Paor, Paor Louis de, Louis de Paor
• Assisted by: Louis de Paor (Editor), de Paor Louis (Editor)
• Publisher: Pan macmillan Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.04.2016
• EAN: 9781780372990
• ISBN: 978-1-78037-299-0
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; POETRY / Anthologies (multiple authors), Irish, Poetry anthologies (various poets)