sadbh@irish-times.ie
In these ever-more selfish days, it's wonderful to be able to celebrate such grand and generous gestures as the one made by playwright Brian Friel. On Thursday there will be a reception at the National Library to mark the acquisition of the majority of his papers, at which the normally retiring Friel will be guest of honour. He has given some 65 boxes of papers to the library, which include manuscripts of his plays and short stories, 2,000 items of professional correspondence, contracts, eight personal diaries, family photographs and letters sent to him by members of the public. In total, the library will now hold some 18,000 items in its Brian Friel archive, putting Dublin on the academic research map for students of his work for decades to come.
It was inevitable: a book on that most unwelcome fixture on the summer calendar - the annual stand-off at Drumcree. Due in June, "to coincide with the marching season", as the publishers Methuen put it, the book is by Chris Ryder (a former Northern Ireland Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and author of The RUC: A Force Under Fire) and Vincent Kearney (Northern Ireland correspondent of the Sunday Times). Called Drumcree: The Orange Order's Last Stand, it promises a hard-hitting investigation of the people and the politics behind the seasonal eruption on Portadown's Garvaghy Road, which now looms with a kind of grim inevitability as each summer approaches.
Much fanfare from Jonathan Cape about a novel they're publishing in time for Bloomsday, which begins with a chapter by Roddy Doyle and ends with one by Frank McCourt. In between, 13 Irish writers will thread the tale together: Marian Keyes, Anthony Cronin, Joseph O'Connor, Gerard Stembridge and Tom Humphries are among them. Murder, mayhem and literary shenanigans in present-day Dublin is the theme of the serial novel - in aid of Amnesty International.
Sadbh isn't sure about the poetry anthology form, let it be said. Leaving aside the heavyweights in the field, such as The New Penguin Book of English Verse, Sadbh prefers the entire dish of mash when it comes to books of poems, instead of assorted scoops of mash. However, the anthology form does act as a showcase or teaser for poets whose work one might like to know more about. Niall MacMonagle of Wesley College in Dublin, and the guiding force behind the Lifelines poetry collection series, has edited another anthology for Marino Books called Slow Time; 100 Poems to Take You There. A former anthology of MacMonagle's, Real Cool; Poems to Grow Up With, was a bestseller for Marino. So where does this book take one, and what is the slow time referred to in the title? "A poem, made and shaped in silence, more often than not offers a direct, personal voice and our reading a poem in `silence and slow time' is a one-to-one experience," writes MacMonagle in his introduction. Poets such as Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Paula Meehan, Vona Groarke, Derek Mahon, Kerry Hardie, Philip Larkin, Moya Cannon, and Elizabeth Bishop are included. MacMonagle, incidentally, suggests that reading a poem a day is a way of managing stress.
Prof John Wilson Foster of the University of British Columbia will be giving three lectures at NUI Maynooth this month. The overall title of the lectures is: "Recoveries; neglected episodes in Irish cultural history", and the individual lectures are entitled: "Darwinism in Ireland"; "Titanic and the Machine Age"; and "Fieldwork and Literature". Prof Foster was brought up in East Belfast, and is one of the leading critics examining the impact of science on Irish culture. The three lectures take place this Thursday; February 15th and 21st, at 7.30 p.m. More information from 01-7083667 or english.department@may.ie
The 21st O.Z. Whitehead Play Competition 2001 is looking for entries. The competition is for one-act plays, previously unperformed, and has been sponsored by Carolyn Swift since Whitehead's death in 1998. There will be three prizes of £500, £250, and £100, with selected plays being invited for workshop stage. The panel of judges will be chaired by Ali Curran, director of the Dublin Fringe Festival. Entry forms from Playwrights' and Screenwriters' Guild, Irish Writers' Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. Closing date: March 31st.