A Kick Against The Pricks: The Autobiography by David Norris

Senator David Norris, independent member of Seanad Éireann, presidential candidate, Joycean scholar and defender of human rights. This is the David Norris that we know, his public roles, but there is a lot more to the man and what made him and even those who think they know a lot more about him will find information of great interest in this book.
The epigraphs explain the title. From The Bible, Act 26:4, 'Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against pricks', from Euripedes' The Bacchae, 'Being enraged I would kick against the pricks' and Plautus, 'If you strike against the pricks with your fists you hurt your hands more than the pricks.' Followed by the meaning of the word, 'Prick - a kind of sharpened goad used to prod oxen...from ancient times a source of metaphor...' and used by David Norris 'in full consciousness of its double entendre as a metaphor' for his 'lifelong struggle against the establishment.'

The chapter titles are literary and joyful in themselves; 'My Family and Other Animals', 'Borstal Boy' and 'The Only Gay in the Village' being just three examples. The humorous 'Warning to Readers' to consume the material whole as 'unauthorised toxic bundles of selected quotations may appear in the media' (should steer you away from this review!!) gives us an early insight into David Norris's sense of humour, with a warning to 'be especially cautious of sensational headlines'.
Before starting in to this book, I will say that the photographs are fabulous and tell a story all on their own. From the earliest photos of his maternal grandparents in Co.Laois and his uncle Dick, a colonel and chaplain to the Royal family seen with the young Queen Elizabeth and also Queen Mary, through so many life events to a final most majestic portrait of David Norris at his home in North Great Georges Street.
For David Norris, this book, as he states in the prologue, is an apologia in the classical sense, an explanation to be considered by the civilised reader. With a comment on his Christmas post-presidential campaign and the gutter press of Rupert Murdoch, he realised there was always resurrection.

Born to older parents (father forty-nine and mother forty-three) after ten childless years of marriage, his brother John then four years later David. Having lived and worked in the Congo as Chief Engineer for Lever Brothers a return to Dublin was decided on; first his mother and the two small boys alone, in early 1945 during the war as his father still worked abroad. He saw his father just three more times in the next four years for four- or six-week breaks as he died in Africa of a coronary at fifty-six.
With little family for the majority of his life, he says 'I've always loved the idea of a family, and throughout my life have always tried to assemble the elements of it.'
With reminiscences of school there are the agonies of homesickness of an eight-year-old boarder in a male version of St Trinian's with an absent-minded eccentric headmaster and teachers keen with the cane. Traumatised, he often ran away.
His life is one of the fullest I have come across and he seems to have met every dignitary going. The campaigning that he is well known for is covered with interesting stories. With a closing chapter entitled 'Laughter and Love of Friends', amongst his contemplations on belief, mortality and health, he recalls an emergency hospital visit where halfway to the ambulance he returned for an armful of books. Amongst the crowd gathered a lad called, 'Fair play to ya, Norris, ye're the only man in Dublin who'd be at death's door and he'd be going back for his bukes!' Concluding that he has had a marvelous life and that like Edith Piaf he regrets nothing, he offers some obituary notes and tombstone engavings. All are worthy, but I would plump for the quote from your man above.

This is a really interesting autobiography. It is one of Dublin of the 50s, a young boy and man's experience of growing up without a father in genteel poverty developing into one determined to make the world a fairer place. It encompasses so many subjects and his detailed account of the 2011 Presidential election is his opportunity to tell his side of the story. A great book whether you are a fan of David Norris or not, he's just had a really fascinating life.
Published by Transworld Ireland
www.transworldireland.ie

Lilliput Press, Independent Publishers in Dublin 7

I was up at the lovely premises of Lilliput Press today in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7. Tucked around a corner on Sitric Road, just near Arbour Hill Cemetery, it is a lovely old building with the walls lined with all of their recent publications.


With the kind assistance of Alice Youell and Kitty Lyddon, I left with a good number of review copies that will appear on these pages later on.

 
I also offer congratulations to Lilliput Press as their author Donal Ryan was announced as Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year at last nights Bord Gáis Irish Book Award Ceremony for his novel The Spinning Heart. A review will follow here very shortly!


www.lilliputpress.ie

Collected Poems by Macdara Woods

This is not so much a review of Macdara Wood's Collected Poems published by Dedalus Press in the poets' seventieth year, as a celebration and acknowledgement of his achievement. From his earliest poetry right up to his latest collection The Cotard Dimension (2011), what is really notable about this collection is that they have been chosen by Macdara Woods himself. In eight sections, reflecting the dates of publication of his previous collections, this layout allows the reader to reflect on the age of the poet when the poem was written and also what was going on not just in Ireland at the time but the world at large.

With his first book of poetry published in 1970, Woods recognises and comments in the preface that  'the I who wrote them is not the I who reads them today, but we have endless versions of a language in common. Dialects of the body cells, passed on from one lustrum to another, as stories and identities are passed from one generation to another.' Marvelous! the poetry even coming through in his language in this superb prologue to this new edition. It is even a beautiful book to look at , with the choice of Kerry artist Poppy Melia's Japanese style painting 'Heron and Trout' for the cover image.

The collection opens with seven undated poems, the first 'March 22nd Meant Love' speaks with a certainty of love, of adoration and also of politics; "I lay fallow before I dared to say/ the miracle of love to the riding light/ on the ships high stern." The first dated section, 1966-1977 covers Macdara Woods first two collections; Decimal D. Sec. Drinks in a Bar in Marrakesh (1970) and Early Morning Matins (1973). 'Decimal D. Sec. Drinks in a Bar in Marrakesh', the title poem of the first collection, written in 1969, is a long meandering poem of dialogue and description, tastes and sounds of the exotic city in Morocco; "Decimal moves through the cedar wood/ - red wool clacking on the loom - / and arm in arm they stroll among the souks." The assonance and alliteration all add to the atmosphere and music of the poetry.

1987-1994, a very productive period, takes in the poetry books Mizz Moon (1988), The Hanged Man Was Not Surrendering (1990) and Notes From The Countries of Blood Red Flowers (1994). with great titles in this period such as 'Street Scenes: The Perpetual Launderette' and 'Long Day Short Night She Dances' and who could not love the irresistible 'The Paradise Sexy Shop' named after a shop in Umbria. But it is the understated muted voice of  'Distance and Funeral: Meath, December 1991' that I particularly like, with its questions of identity and of belonging to place; 'I am no longer part of this/ but was I ever - did I ever fit/ into my memory of how it was'.
The final dated collection is 1995-2006 which includes poems from Selected Poems (1996) and 'Knowledge in the Blood: New and Selected Poems' (2001, 2007). In this section I was drawn to the thoughtful contemplation of age in 'Stephen's Green: February 1998' as the speaker sees himself there as a child, at twenty-one and today.

Selections from Macdara Woods last three poetry collections make up the final three sections bringing the reader up to date; The Nightingale Water (2001), Artichoke Wine (2006) and The Cotard Dimension (2011) to present. The Nightingale Water collection is very spare in style, short and sharp with sometimes one and two word lines putting across the message in the minimum of words - an intense and powerful discipline in the choice of words and no less, maybe even more, powerful for their brevity. 'Coffee at The Cafe Rimbaud' from Artichoke Wine is a memory of the Argentinian invasion and Margaret Thatcher, "Metal curls declaiming/ Down her barricaded nose/ That we are right and we will do" that occurred while the speaker was in Umbria, hardly able to believe the unfolding news and when told "There that's your Prime Minister" replies "Not my Prime Minister no/ Nor of any of mine alive or dead/ Sono Irlandese io Signora". This memory is set off by another invasion, this time involving Bush and Blair. Closing the collection with the poem 'We Have Given Up on Hills', Macdara Woods most recent contemplation on the effect of ageing, is touching, accepting, and not without humour, "all downhill from here/ it looks/ but downhill we can walk forever."
 
The beauty of this collection is, as stated, that they have been chosen by Macdara Woods himself. You can see the development of themes, the building of repeated subjects such as those poems set in Ranelagh and Umbria and the subject matter of Rimbaud, and the reader can follow the changes in his writing style. Readers new to Macdara Woods' poetry here get the benefit of the cream of the crop and for those who are already fans this is just a great collection to sink into, to re-read favourites and to discover new unpublished gems.
www.dedaluspress.com

A Gather of Shadow by Mark Roper

I've had a great run of newly published poetry books recently and I'm finding them so fulfilling. I've been reading a lot of them on the train and the way you can drop in and out of an imagined scenario, emotion or landscape is truly a great feeling. I'm sure my fellow commuters wonder what my constant knowing nods, muttered comments of "oh dear!" or deep sighs as I look of into the middle distance are all about but that's just what it does to you.

Mark Roper is originally from Derbyshire and has lived in Ireland for thirty years (still a blow-in then, like myself!). Former Ireland Review Editor and with five other poetry collections under his belt, A Gather of Shadow published by Dedalus Press is his sixth and this collection again shows his understanding of nature of which he is much admired and also draws on his feelings of grief over his mother's death.
The cover design is natural looking but slightly haunting. It is a painting (by Dutch painter Felice) but it looks like a rough weave of cloth and a bird design with a red surround that looks somewhat like a blood stain. The collection is in two parts; 'Keep-Net' consists of seventeen poems and 'A Gather of Shadow' which has twenty-six poems.
 
The collection opens marvelously. 'River at Night' is very much a living thing; "It's vegetable breath,/ its mucky olive, soaked khaki coat." Roper has repetition of words through this section; the word "metal" and also a "swallow" is present in 'Falling', 'The Forge', 'Just' and also in a couple of poems in the second collection. It reminded me of the frequent use of the sparrow in poetry to symbolise time, originating from the Bede's eighth century poem where he compares man's life to a sparrow's flight through the banqueting hall. But in 'Just' it is the lyrical yet also short and tight language that is so effective; "Just the grebe/ on the lake/ first thing."
Nature rears its head again in the creature the 'Black Bull', ominous in its hard title sounds. The strong creature is left out in all weathers, "The great roof of his neck/ starts to leak." But we are not to feel any pity for this almost prehistoric looking creature, because, come spring he's seen "flicking up his dainty feet,/ bellowing his raw joy." Magic!
Still in the animal world, 'This' is a heart-tugging poem. The abandoned, almost rabid looking terrier dog, "filthy teeth", "shitty coat", lifts up its head with a "look, such longing./ Such open unguarded need."
From the second collection, 'Sea Fret' is a tragic poem about a drowning and the thoughts of the drowning man. You immediately think of the famous Stevie Smith poem. This poem is powerful too, with a wrenching request for forgiveness from the drowning man in its closing. Caught in the fret again, twenty years after having been caught when he managed to make his way to shore, "this time no shore can be found/ and you're saying I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry to let you all down."
A dozen poems deal directly with Mark Roper's mother's death, beautifully, peacefully and so respectfully. But there is humour there too as he can hear his mother's voice in 'Last Look', "O do get on with it, for pity's sake!".
I particularly liked 'Damn', a memory of family holidays, bad weather in caravans and fraught parents where;
          "cooped up we fought and squabbled constantly.
           Near the end you dropped a glass jug.
           The word Damn broke from your lips, first time
           we'd ever heard you swear. It left us speechless."

A collection that reaches so many different emotions and feelings, and one that is first and foremost real and human. I really liked the clean, sharp language and will be returning to several of Mark Roper's poems again to dwell further on them.
www.dedaluspress.com

The Polish Week by Marcus Mac Donald

The Polish Week is a political thriller set in the Poland of 1981- remember that? Solidarity, Russian tanks on the border, Thatcher's Britain with cutbacks. This story centres around the neutral ground of a classical concert at The Royal Albert Hall in London and the discovery of a plot for an assassination of one of the visiting foreign ministers.

A quote from Edmund Burke at the opening of the book, as true today as it was when written in 1770, sets us thinking of the path this book is going to go down, 'When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.' (Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontentment). It opens in Warsaw in February as a colonel in full uniform gets out of a black limousine. The country is in political turmoil with ineffective leadership and 'the arch traitor Lech Walesa'. The preparation is being made fro the new culture minister to travel to London to attend a concert of Polish music.
Skipping forward one month to the end of March, the majority of the novel is set in London over the tight detailed period of one week (hence the title). The chapters are titled with the date, place and time with some being just one or two hours apart. We move from north London to MI5 Head Office to RAF Biggin Hill and on to the climax in the Albert Hall.
David Brenton, forty, divorced and an undercover MI5 agent lives in north London. A war baby, now after his divorce living in 'self-imposed isolation' he is a skilled sound recordist and organ player. this is where the author, a retired music producer with RTE, draws on his own extensive knowledge of the subject. Using a sound recording scenario as a backdrop for the building of the main character it is through this set-up  that he gains information about an assassination attempt.
This is one of those books that is on a slow boil. It simmers around the gradual build-up, developing the story of Brenton and his relationship with his fellow sound recordists, and you can feel that something is there, about to boil over. This is a 'gentlemanly' thriller and Mac Donald has captured well the atmosphere of London and the characters involved in the various aspects of the business.

The Polish Week is published by Portia Publishing.
http://www.portiacommunications.com/publishing.html

The European Muse:Irish Poets Inspired by Europe

On Saturday afternoon at the Dublin Book Festival the poets Harry Clifton, Moya Cannon, Mary O'Donnell, Judith Mok and Michael O'Loughlin came together to discuss poets and poetry that had influenced and inspired them over the years.
The chairing of the discussion, in Peter Sirr's absence, was taken by Michael O'Loughlin. Explaining the origin of the idea, Michael O'Loughlin explained that with Peter Sirr he had been discussing the 'European muse' for years and felt that recent events had focused our minds more on our relationship with Europe. In asking how Europe was to be considered a 'muse', they felt that it was to be seen as a source of creativity and inspiration.

Michael O'Loughlin lived for many years in Europe before returning to Dublin and has translated the Dutch poet Gerrit Achterberg. His choice of European poet to read from was the Polish poet Tadeusz Rosewicz, with the poem 'The Survivor' with it's opening and closing stanza "I am twenty-four/ led to slaughter/ I survived" and the honest factual line of "The way of killing men and beast is the same/ I've seen it". Rosewicz was not one of the great Polish poets O'Loughlin admitted, but as a youth he had been led to believe a poem looked different from this and should be about nature and landscape. On first seeing this poem with it's short line layout, he felt that it was addressed  to him and assuaged his imagination. He further added that in the late 70s/ early 80s he had felt like the 'eternal exile', as Dermot Bolger said, and this poem at this time spoke to him. He commented that there was a danger of obsession with European poetry and that, of course, translation mediated how we read it.

Harry Clifton, Ireland Professor of Poetry lived in Europe for sixteen years, ten of those in France. On the subject of what Europe meant to him, he explained that while he lived there he felt protective against his own language of European influences. As a student he had been taken with the influx of translated poetry organised by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort (co-founders of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation). At that time he was tired with English poets and felt ready for the sound of something else. He read the first two stanzas from 'The Song of Wandering Aengus' by William Butler Yeats, starting "I went out to the hazel wood,/ Because a fire was in my head,". Clifton commented how this poem encapsulated the school world of nationalism and folk and nature mysticism. It had he said wonderfully song-like metres and the individual words were clear to everybody as was its meaning. It was, he said, a beautiful poem, but not very useful.
Clifton said how many of the poets had come from an aural background and they wanted something tougher in the sound of the language. He stumbled upon this other world of poetry instigated by Ted Hughes and found it different to the ear and exciting. Talking of his choice of poet, the Italian Eugenio Montale, he said how his work was not stanzaic as regular Irish poetry was and that there was 'something quite muddy and obscure' about it. It was Hermetic poetry, poetry of the inner world. Reading 'The Arc' in his beautiful mellow voice, Clifton commented that Montale's poem was not understandable but emotionally exciting; it had something to do with domestic life blown away by a huge catastrophe but we are not sure. It was a piece of writing that gave a permission to write in an emotional logic and in this way he had found Irish poetry to be rather self-centred.

Mary O'Donnell said that it was the stories of Eastern Block football stadiums packed with people who had come to hear poets read that had attracted her to European poetry- there was obviously something very different going on. It was not better or more exotic, just different. At that time certain things were not acceptable to Irish poetry, and it had a need for concrete details. The Austrian poet Ingeborg Bachmann, whom Mary O'Donnell had chosen as her European poet, did not need concrete detail. Bachmann had a background in philosophy and her experience was of invasion as Austria was taken over by Germany. She was, Mary explained, a Bohemian wandering poet and she carried this sense of invasion for life, being 'interested in the redemptive power of love but with a melancholic tone'. Reading 'Timelapse' with the first and last lines "Harder times are ahead", she commented that many years later she had picked up on this theme to write her own similarly structured poem 'Turn Season'. Mary said that Bachmann was a deadly serious poet and she was allowed to be, she was not required to be entertaining and her poems had given Mary a sense of affirmation and stopped her avoiding contemporary agendas.

Judith Mok, writer and classical singer explained to the audience that there had always been several languages in her house. Dutch born, her father was a poet and they moved to France when she was eight. Always familiar with poetry from her father and his friends she hardly ever read poetry in translation, always reading it in it's own language-Spanish, Russian, Dutch. Talking of Yeats, she said that it never occured to them that he was not a 'European' poet and had only discovered the concept of 'European poetry' when she moved to Ireland. In fact she never saw herself as 'European' until she went to America.
Her first influence in poetry was in French at school, Baudelaire, Verlaine for example. Reading 'L'Invitaion au Voyage' from 'Flowers of Evil' by Baudelaire in French and in St. Vincent Millay's translation she said how much nicer sounding this was for a romantic teenager than harsh Dutch poetry. She then read Friedrich Holderlin's 'Halfte des Lebens' (Half of Life), with the final line "Kirren die Fahnen" (Weather cocks clatter) which she so liked. She said how this was a poem to read for the sound in the original language and was not the same when translated, yet we have to and that was the paradox.

Moya Cannon felt that good poems travel in most mysterious ways. Recalling her introduction to European poetry at seventeen she said how she felt it was full of excitement and she commented on the permissions that you got from reading translations. Now we have access to so many translations but this was not always so. When she first came across Michael Smith's translations she said they 'blew my mind'. Talking of the Spanish poet Antoni Machado, she explained how he was a very interesting mix of influences. He moved from Spain to Paris and was influenced by Symbolism. He eventually died fleeing Franco's forces but he was profoundly political and philosophical, but not in an explicit way. There is music and cadences in his poetry but they are profoundly understated and yet still powerful. Moya explained that assonance in Spanish was very important and the recurring vowel sounds affect us in different ways. Machado, she said, wanted a 'deep stirring of the human spirit' and to her that was a great permission in the ecclesiastical Ireland of the 1970s. Moya added that when you are drawn to a poet or poem you can't say why and that it retains some mystery. Reading a Machado poem in Spanish she also read Michael Smith's translation ending with the powerful line "the story forgotten/ The sorrow told on." She also read 'Renacimiento' ('Rebirth') in Spanish and as translated by Robert Bly.

After a thoroughly interesting and enlightening talk, Michael O'Loughlin  concluded that we had certainly seen the muse in action but that it was hard to summarise it in a communique. The event was sponsored by Poetry Ireland.
  

Silver Threads of Hope:Roddy Doyle, Siobhan Mannion and Declan Hughes with Sinead Gleeson

Silver Threads of Hope, an anthology of short stories by Ireland's most prominent authors has been released in aid of Console.(Festival programme notes.
On Saturday afternoon at the Dublin Book Festival short story writer and Hennessy New Writer of the Year 2011 Siobhan Mannion, author and Booker prize-winner Roddy Doyle and award winning author of the Ed Loy series Declan Hughes, all contributors to Silver Threads of Hope, came together to discuss writing with broadcaster and Irish Times journalist Sinead Gleeson.

Sinead explained to the audience that Silver Threads of Hope had been an idea of the author Anne Enright who is involved with the charity Console and subsequently Sinead had asked 28 writers to give a story to make up this story.


Asked by Sinead just why they wrote Roddy Doyle in his upbeat manner replied that it was because he loved it and because he could do it. Joking he said that he would rather be a professional footballer but was rubbish at football! He said that there was a fantastic feeling when things went well with writing and the other benefit was that you were your own boss. Roddy is now writing more short stories and his most recent is more a series of vignettes. He likes to experiment with form "because I can" and is very disciplined, being at his desk to write at 8.30 and working through to 6pm- a working day. His short story in the anthology 'Karaoke' has it's origins in a holiday to a small town in Spain with friends. They walked into a karaoke bar and a wedding party came in and they all sensed the bristling tension between the bride and groom- they hated each other! Roddy also added that getting older as a writer can be used creatively in your writing.

Declan Hughes said if not writing he would rather be a lead guitarist(!) but admitted there were times in writing when you felt things were not going terribly well but felt that in general writing "innoculates you against something that ails you". He had worked in the theatre first but engaging with the writer was not enough for him; writing gave him a satisfaction that he couldn't be without. Declan hadn't written a short story before writing the one he contributed to the anthology. He humorously added that he had felt that short story writing was like going to India, great if that was what you wanted to do but  that it was of no interest to him and he did not read short stories either. But he recognised that some of the great
detective novels such as Dashiel Hammet were made up of joined together short story scenes. He had been asked in the past to write a short story for an anthology but the request was for one immediately which he could not fulfill but this anthology request had been a good chance, an episode that fitted. He had decided that he didn't want his story to have an oblique style but one with an clear ending to it.

Siobhan Mannion explained that after writing stories as a child, she had only rediscovered writing a few years ago. She commented that creative writing didn't happen for her growing up in England after the ages of nine or ten because in school after this age it was all about study. Siobhan writes solely short stories and has no interest at the moment in writing novels. She explained that she just hadn't had any novel-sized ideas but loves the novel as a reader. If she had a swathe of time she felt she may tackle a novel but at present she was "in love" with the short story.

Sinead added that she felt that the short story was in robust health again, maybe as a result of ereaders,  and editors were again interested in publishing them. The value of literary journals to the short story was discussed as was the value of prizes to help writers such as the Hennessy Prize.

With a Q and A from the audience Sinead wrapped up the lively panel discussion.

Silver Threads of Hope is published by New Island. www.newisland.ie

'In Memory of Maeve Binchy' at Dublin Book Festival

'Patricia Scanlon, Sheila O'Flanagan and Sinead Moriarty- three of Ireland's top female writers come together to reveal how the legendary author Maeve Binchy inspired their writing and helped to pave the way, not only for them, but for a host of Irish female writers over the years.'(Festival programme notes.)
The talk 'In memory of Maeve Binchy' was chaired by Mary Maher, journalist and great friend of Maeve's.
To a nearly full theatre of women of a certain age and maybe ten men the three authors Patricia Scanlon, Sinead Moriarty and Sheila O'Flanagan took their seats to speak of Maeve Binchy. Mary Maher, who pointed out that Maeve's sister Joan and brother Gordon were present, started the conversation with a history of Maeve's career. Maeve, a teacher in the late 1960s, traveled a lot and used to write letters home to her father of her journeys. Her father sent these letters into The Irish Times who published them. Soon Maeve became a regular contributor and was thinking of giving up teaching to become a journalist. In 1968 Mary worked in The Irish Times where there was a need for a women's editor. The rather eccentric editor at that time suggested Maeve would be 'great craic' in the role!

Mary said how Maeve had a wonderful gift of understanding and of what women's problems were and that being a journalist had helped Maeve to write fiction. She told of how during an election report Maeve went not to the candidates for comment but straight to the people, in this case right into the middle of a housing estate. She said how Maeve's values could be seen in her work -her model for life was you must play the cards you get and have room in your life for redemption or for resolving your problems. Maeve's novels, Mary pointed out, are full of grief, trouble, pain and mistake but redemption was always possible.

Sheila O'Flanagan spoke of her admiration of Maeve Binchy's Circle Line and Victoria Line short story collections. She told of how she had read them as a teenager. pointing out that Maeve's last book A Week in Winter is an interlinking short story collection. She had found each of Maeve's short stories so perfect. Until then nothing had grabbed her as Maeve's writing did- this was about how people felt.  Laughing, Sheila told how her first short story collection was called Destinations - set on the DART, but Maeve didn't mind!

Sinead Moriarty came across Maeve's work with Light A Penny Candle and she remembers the pride she felt that Maeve was an Irish author. She commented that there was a lot of darkness in her books, destructive relationships, but that people are redeemed. Maeve was the first Irish woman that Sinead knew who was successful on a global scale but with the stories still set in Ireland.

Patricia Scanlon caught up with Maeve Binchy with the novel Circle of Friends. Talking of her Irish Times columns she said she found her writing to be humorous and beautifully observed showing that she knew human nature. She felt Maeve had little touches such as a sense of place; reading stories in rural settings, you were in the village with its rural goings on and its petty snobbishness. Patricia said how when she had dreamt herself of being a novelist she had got great advice from Maeve at a talk in a Dublin library on choosing an agent. She said how Maeve was not a diva and was delighted by others success and how she cheered and encouraged with a generosity of spirit .

Many members of the audience exchanged anecdotes of theirs about Maeve, each telling of her kindness and generosity. With a warm feeling in the room Mary Maher closed the talk thanking each of the writers for their contributions.

Green Fingers:Gardening For All with Michael Kelly, Fionnuala Fallon and Trevor Sargent

On Saturday at the Dublin Book Festival there were several free talks held in the main theatre of Smock Alley. At 12 noon Green Fingers commenced, a talk with gardening book authors.
Michael Kelly moderated. He has been writing about growing food for five years and GIY (Grow It Yourself) was founded in 2009 to inspire people to grow their own food. He talked with Fionnuala Fallon, regular Irish Times and The Irish Gardener contributer, horticulturalist, and garden designer and Trevor Sargent, former Minister for Food and Horticulture and Leader of the Green Party. Fionnuala's book was reviewed on this site earlier this month.  (http://dublinduchess.blogspot.ie/2012/11/book-review-from-ground-up-by-fionnuala.html ).

So, Michael asked them, what inspired them? Fionnuala had started out because her parents grew vegetables where she grew up in Co. Wicklow. The children helped out and it became a normal part of their lives. Trevor had been inspired by John Seymour's self sufficiency book which he read as a teenager. Politically as much as horticulturally he was interested in food supply management and he wanted to know the skills required. His parents did not grow much produce but they did have blackcurrant bushes which you couldn't buy and he was inspired by wanting diversity of food in his diet from produce he could not get from the shops.


Fionnuala said that her favourite vegetables to grow were potatoes and her least favourite, celeriac because she hadn't been successful with them so far. Trevor's favourite was beetroot and had been frustrated trying to grow sea kale. He added that when starting out good vegetables to grow were onions, garlic, broadbeans and fruit such as raspberries and strawberries.

This was followed by a lively Q and A from the audience.

Tales from the Home Farm : Live More. Spend Less. Grow Your Own Food by Michael Kelly
 www.obrien.ie
Trevor's Kitchen Garden: A Week by Week Guide to Growing Your Own Food by Trevor Sargent
www.orpenpress.com
From The Ground Up by Fionnuala Fallon www.collinspress.ie

Dublin's Christmas Launch

I hope you're not one of those annual "it's only November" whiners or "Brown Thomas's window is not like it used to be" begrudgers. Well I think the Christmas build-up in Dublin is great and yesterday I availed of the full package.

Starting off outside Brown Thomas I saw the Christmas lights switched on. I will say that it seemed to be done without announcement or countdown - just "hey presto" and ooohh went around the gathered crowd. I will admit that I missed Brian Kennedy singing to the crowd, I was distracted by Nigella's capuccino pavlova recipe whilst leafing through Nigellissima in Hodges Figgis.

After a good wander around the Christmas section of Brown Thomas (some beautiful chocolates), admiring the Laduree macarons at €14 for 6 (feel free to send me some though) and availing of a lovely testing session in the Joe Malone section (have you tried the nutmeg and ginger body creme+perfume combi?) I sauntered round to Powerscourt. After a little wander around I arrived back at the Pyg counter where they were handing out mulled wine. A good crowd gathered and the queue for mulled wine lengthened. With an official countdown the lights were turned on and there was a good applause from the crowd.
      
Following this the crowd dispersed to the back entrance of Powerscourt on South William Street. There  cracker-dressed characters mingled with the crowd handing out Christmas candy canes a booklet for the "Creative Quarter, Dublin" an area brand developed by DublinTown.ie which encompasses the area inside the square made by Wicklow to Exchequer Street, South Great George's Street, Stephen Street Lower to Chatham Row and back along Clarendon Street. With a chat about the great things going on in this area of Dublin by the DublinTown.ie owner and other business owners, we again launched into a countdown. Lost Society then provided mulled wine and mince pies for those who formed an orderly queue.

Surely that's got to be it you're saying to yourself, but no! There's more. The generosity and smart marketing of the Fitzwilliam Hotel posted an offer on Facebook on Tuesday of free 'Winter Warmers' for those coming in to see the lights to all who messaged them. True to their word I was given a requested 8pm slot of a +1. Heading in to the lovely establishment at 2 Stephen's Green, the bar was buzzing. Offered the option of two cocktails I chose one with a Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur base. Beautifully presented adorned with a blackberry and a raspberry it was delicious. As my poor +1 was driving it seemed a shame to waste it so the barman kindly made me another. Two mulled wines and two cocktails later I headed home Christmas merry. Happy Christmas Dublin!

www.powerscourtcentre.com
www.dublintown.ie
www.lostsociety.ie
www.fitzwilliamhoteldublin.com