Slimming for the Beach

The Woman Who Danced With Her Cross On O’Connell Street

photo owned by When I saw the headline Tribute paid to Dublin character, by Olivia Kelly in the Irish Times, I feared that one of the few public witnesses to her gospel that I had ever warmed to was dead. Happily, Mary Margaret Dunne is still alive. The article was referring to a living tribute to her organised on Facebook

In my 1994 novel, The Fabulists., Ms Dunne features on the last page, as crowds wait on Lord Edward and Dame streets to cheer the newly-elected President Mary Robinson, due in cavalcade in her 1947 Rolls-Royce. Needless to say, everyone was behind barricades, watched over by the relaxed and good-humoured Guards (Irish police). And then, exactly as the passage describes, came one exception, and the Guards, to their eternal credit, just smiled like everyone else.

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One Hundred and Thirty Nine Years of Solitude

my-job
Photo owned by Dan4th (cc)
Back in 1992 or 93, I was asked to write a poem to commemorate 139 years of The Christian Brothers School in Gorey. I obliged in the only way I knew how, but of course it wasn’t published. Maybe it was the title? Perhaps it would be now, though it’s far from a masterpiece.

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European Ghost Literary Project

In the European Ghost Literary Project we want to collect a good number of stories based on European folklore, fairy tales, myths and legends, told by the people who know them best. In this way we would like to create a testimonial of European history and culture from Portugal to Russia and from Turkey to Iceland in the form of a book which will emphasize the similarities as well as the diversity between our cultures.
For the writers this would be an excellent opportunity to gain an international audience and attract attention to their writing. Of course we will extend all the usual courtesies of publishing.
The stories can be submitted in English, Spanish, French or German, but if you are more comfortable writing in your native language, please do not hesitate. We have a myriad of translators and native speakers on stand-by.

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Early versions of Irish Writers Online and Irish Culture Guide

Old Cyclopedia-Ireland logo Recently I was asked by an MA research student to give some background about Irish Writers Online. A most gratifying request, of course, and so I set about looking up its history and stats. I was pleasantly surprised to see that in 2009, visitors from 170 countries had made use of it. I knew it had been above the 120 countries mark, but this was nice news.I was even more pleasantly surprised to discover that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine had early versions of the prototype of Irish Writers Online, which was then called after The Fabulists, after my first novel.

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The Book-Thief’s Heartbeat

19th December
Photo owned by Dan Strange (cc) Yeats’ writings are now in the public domain, it now being seventy years from the end of the year of his death year of 1939. Damien Mulley, whose blog on the subject alerted me, has some interesting suggestions about how they might be used in the digital age.