Few writers can do grief and loss like John MacKenna. He is, without question, the John McGahern of the ‘Ancient East’. Where McGahern has put the villages and drumlins of Leitrim along the inland cusp of the ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ at the heart of his writing, the landscape of South Kildare, and its surroundings are … Read more
In 1960 when I was seven, before TV, Radio Éireann was our window on the worId. I understood the gist of rumblings on the news over breakfast in the kitchen. The Congo. It used to be called the Belgian Congo now it was just the Congo. My father intimated, buttering a piece of toast at … Read more
Father Peter McVerry has been working with homeless people for over forty years. When he started there were about a thousand homeless in Ireland. Now, there are officially about eight thousand, with many others unofficially so. Last week, Daniele Idini caught up with the legendary social justice campaigner. Daniele Idini (DI): You have seen different … Read more
If stylistically Francesca Banciu’s latest novel translated into English Fleeing Father (Vatherflucht) is a much simpler construct than her previous incarnation, Mother’s Day – Song of a Sad Mother, it is written in the same inimitable prose, rendered beautifully by Banciu’s publisher, Catharine Nicely with Elena Mancini as translator. I was immediately reminded, on reading … Read more