Thomas Lynch – Karen J McDonnell

Sunday Miscellany: alive, alive – Oh!

March 15, 2019March 18, 2019Karen J McDonnell

A couple of posts back, I scribbled a quick note before I headed into the Ennis Book Club Festival.

Well, I’m happy to report that it was a lovely weekend. The visitors to Ennis really seemed to enjoy themselves. As I grew up in the place, I feel proud that the whole town takes the Festival and visitors to heart. Local businesses had some fantastic book-themed window displays.

Our ‘Seven Sisters’ poetry reading at the Record Break Café was standing room only – we were delighted with the turnout and the audience response. It was lovely to welcome EBCF attendees to Sinéad’s venue, as well as our usual faithful supporters. This year’s readers were Sinéad Ní Síoda, Deirdre Devally, Nicki Griffin, Ruth Marshall, Mary-Ellen Fean, Deborah Ryan, and yours truly.

The Seven Sisters after our EBCF reading at the Record Break Café Photo. Ruth Marshall

I also managed to get to hear Thomas Lynch, in the lovely setting of St Columba’s Church. By the way: If any of you are around this evening at 6.30pm, Tom will be reading at a Salmon Bookshop gig in Oh La La café in Ennistymon with Stephen Powers and Rain Leon. I’d already committed to something else and am really sad I can’t be there. It will be a stonkin’ reading.

Ennis Book Club Festival 2019. Photograph by Eamon Ward

The biggie for me was the live recording of RTÉ Radio One’s Sunday Miscellany, which happened on Sunday morning. I was excited and nervous in equal measure. It was a trio of firsts for me: first time I appeared on the stage in Glór, first live recording, and also my first ‘essay’ for Sunday Miscellany. There was some fine writing, and wonderful music. My thanks to producer Sarah Binchy, and to Carolyn Dempsey for making it all so easy. Also to Cora Gunter of EBCF whose enthusiasm was infectious. Most of the contributions were broadcast last Sunday the 10th of March, including The Hanging Sheriff by Mae Leonard; My First Pint by Joe Ó Muircheartaigh; Preventive Measures, a poem by Caoilinn Hughes; Growing up in Miltown by John Hurley; and Joe Ninety, by Dee Collins – here’s a link to the podcast https://www.rte.ie/radio1/sunday-miscellany/#103062434

Sunday Miscellany at Glor during the Ennis Book Club Festival. Photograph by Eamon Ward

My own radio essay will be broadcast this coming Sunday, St Patrick’s Day, so keep an ear out for it! I’ll put up a link here, when the podcast is up on the RTÉ website: https://www.rte.ie/radio1/sunday-miscellany/#103067788

Do listen out for Niall Allsop’s essay on the 24th, and a lovely tribute to her grandmother by Margaret Hickey on Mother’s Day, the 31st March.

A Festival of Writing; A Festival of Reading

March 2, 2019Karen J McDonnell

Image result for ennis book club festival 2019

If it’s the first weekend in March, it can only mean one thing – it’s time for the Ennis Book Club Festival.

And this year, thank goodness, there’s no Storm Emma dumping tons of snow on the country to cancel the whole thing. Storm Freya is approaching from the south though, but so far all we have had to deal with is LOTS of rain. And hey! – a book festival is mostly indoors anyhoo!

Yesterday, I joined my companeros in the Poetry Collective, and other poetry lovers, for the monthly First Friday in the library in Ennis. We had a great crowd – the interest is growing for this monthly event. Thanks to Martin Vernon who is such a good host, and who read a lovely poem in memory of his sister. AND who brought a lovely vase of daffodils and treated us to Wordsworth’s poem. A lovely Spring reading.

Then to St Columba’s church to hear Thomas Lynch speak on death and grief and memory. He got a wonderful introduction from writer Grace Wells. Then he mused on the loss of writers Philip Casey, Macdara Woods, Dennis O’Driscoll, Seamus Heaney and Matthew Sweeney – such a rollcall of the lost. But the work remains. Thank you, Tom, for your company and gracious words.

And now, I must sign off and head into Ennis again. This morning it’s the tradition to go to ’10 Books You Should Read’ with my mother. In the afternoon, I join my sister poets for a #Fired inspired reading in the Record Break Café – The Seven Sisters. As with last year, we will read some of our own work, but also work by Irish poets who have been neglected in the last hundred years or so. This year I’m reading work by Helen Waddell.

After last year’s cancellation, it’s a joy to be joining in the live recording of RTÉ radio’s live recording of Sunday Miscellany. That takes place in Glór at 11.30am. There may be a few tickets left for the early birds!

And so – to the Festival!

Salmon Fishing in the Banner County

March 4, 2016Karen J McDonnell

I just couldn’t resist that title.

Last week I was up at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon for a reading hosted by Jessie Lendennie & Salmon Poetry. Find out more about Salmon Poetry, and the bookshop here.

It was lovely to meet Gabriel Fitzmaurice again and to finally meet Thomas Lynch. Click on the gents’ names to find out more about them. There was also a guest star in the presence of Teresa Scollon, over from the American Mid-West. And boy, were we treated to a great evening of poetry. As I said on Facebook that evening – it was more like a session around a hearth. The banter between the poets, and the engagement with the audience, was mighty. The three read turn upon turn, which added an energy to us all – and kept the listeners on our aural toes, so to speak!

It’s always lovely to be introduced to new writing: I was really taken with Teresa’s poems; and the way she delivered them. So, off I went – fishing online. You can read more about Teresa here. And you can order some of her work such as this collection (gorgeous artwork).

So my lovelies … there’s a bit of reading for you!

The literary festival season is seriously kicking off. This weekend there are two to choose from: The Ennis Book Club Festival and Doolin Writers’ Weekend. My bi-location cloak is at the dry cleaners yet again, so what can I do? I will be in Ennis: this trip involves The Mammy, and one can’t let down one’s mammy. Especially when Sunday is Mothers’ Day.

The rest of yez can go where you like. But, may I just say that Jessie and all at Salmon Poetry will be celebrating 35 years of Salmon publishing tomorrow, Saturday 5 March in the Doolin Hotel. At 8pm they will launch a celebratory anthology, Even the Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry

I can’t be there, unfortunately. Maybe some of you can. Either way, have a great reading weekend.