Plays & Poetry Irish

Contains more of the writing from Ireland and elsewhere: essays, criticism, fiction and reportage.

The Lea-Green Down is an anthology of response poems inspired by the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh. The anthology features over 60 poets and also includes Kavanagh’s poems, by permission of the Kavanagh Trustees, via The Jonathan Williams Literary Agency. The Lea-Green Down includes an essay by Gerard Smyth and commentary by Una Agnew, Kavanagh Academic. Cover Image is by Paul McCloskey, an award winning County Monaghan artist.

A decade after Next to Nothing, Chris Agee’s critically acclaimed and achingly powerful collection of poems in memory of his daughter Miriam, Blue Sandbar Moon explores with delicate precision the emotional and spiritual landscape of a life sustained in “the aftermath of aftermath.”

Mainly non-fiction writing on The Belfast Agreement (The Good Friday Agreement) and Brexit, by 42 major Irish writers.

The poetry of Patrick Kavanagh offers a radical affirmation not only of the human condition, but of the natural world and of God’s presence in both the majestic and mundane facets of daily life. In this illuminating landmark study of the great Monaghan sage, Una Agnew situates Kavanagh’s life and writings squarely in the tradition of Christian mysticism, exploring how his intensely earthy and accessible poems celebrate the presence of the divine ‘in the bits and pieces of everyday’.