Declan Furlong is a native of Mountmellick, Co. Laois. Following time spent in the ’90s living in London, Malaga, and Bordeaux, he returned home with a body of work which has since evolved. A retired publican and chef, his poetry is informed by the characters he encountered, his immediate family, and the natural environment of his native place.
The tragic murder of IRA Volunteer Joseph O’Donoghue on Monday 7th March 1921 by Crown forces. Mark Liddy has pieced together from the oral tradition and some independent family research, telling the story of O’Domnoghue and a generation of men and women who spoke remarkably little about the Tan War and the War of Indepenndence.
Imelda Maguire never strays into the trap of nostalgia. She conjures up the past in a Proustian fashion, and achieves this by capturing the sights, smells and sounds associated with memories. I wholeheartedly commend this beautiful collection of 48 Fragments to you.
A new book written by Dr Derek Mulcahy and published by the Limerick Writers’ Centre called ‘The Leader of the Band’, depicts the life and history of Limerick man Patrick J. McNamara along with his brothers Michael, John and Thomas who formed the original McNamara’s band and emigrated from Limerick in early 1900s.
Eugene Platt’s volume of Collected Poems provides the reader with an eloquent distillation of five decades of humor, heartache, history, and love. Whether writing about the simple pleasure of eating a Folly Beach hotdog or the profound permutations of the passage of time, Platt brings his world—and all of our worlds—alive.
The purity of fire that burns the body with the birth of words, also creates an illumination that makes poetry live, grow and bloom. That life has a rhythm of its own. Pratyay's poetry is unique in the same way, as it has a beautiful synthesis of rhythm-music-painting.