SATURDAY JAN 28 4pm – 6pm
We’re having an informal afternoon to share ideas and plans for the future. Come after you’ve done the shopping. Bring the kids and some buns! Email Bridget for venue details — you’ll find her email address on our facebook page
Award winning play The M Boat returns to Brighton for ONE NIGHT ONLY in November as part of a short UK tour.
The Argus Angel winning play, written by Brighton-Irish celebrity Eddie Alford, ran to packed audiences during the 2011 Brighton Fringe Festival, winning recognition from FringeGuru.com critics and awarded best fringe event in the post festival awards.
The original cast are reunited for two nights at The Eagle pub.
Date: Saturday November 26
Time: 7.30
Venue: upstairs at The Eagle pub, Gloucester Street, Brighton BN1 4AF
Come and see the play again, or tell your friends who missed it first time around!
Ty Galvin, Chairman of Brighton Irish and long-term Brighton resident, makes a trip to Cork in November on the occasion of the anniversary of his famous great-uncle, Irish hero Tadhg Barry.
We wanted to share the details for this occasion for anyone who might be in the Cork area at the time and might like to go along.
If you do make it to the event, please introduce yourself to Ty and tell him you saw the poster on the BrightonIrish website!
Hot off the presses – The M Boat, co-produced by Harbour Theatre and Brighton Irish, has won an Argus Angel for its run in the 2011 Brighton Fringe.
More details to follow, but in the meantime heartiest congratulationss to Eddie Alford and all the cast of this wonderful show and their well-deserved award!
Brighton resident and Brighton Irish community member Bernadette Cremin has signed a deal with Irish publishing house Salmon publishing for her next collection of poetry. ’New and Selected’ is due for publication in January 2013.
Bernadette Cremin was the outright winner of the 2005 Biscuit Publishing “Challenge” themed poetry competition. Perfect Mess is her prize award collection.
Bernadette lives in Brighton, and has won a Year Of The Artist award, a performance poetry bursary and been published in the UK and Eire. Alongside solo commissions Bernadette has collaborated with a music producer (State Art), a film-maker (Indifference Productions) a photographer (ProjectPoetry) and a geneticist (Promise of Threat). Her collection Speechless (Waterloo Press) followed in 2007.
Bernadette has previously worked as a social worker, tea lady, sociology lecturer, TEFL teacher, bank clerk and waitress. This chequered and eclectic career path has invaluably enriched her true vocation of poet and performer.
“Speechless” by Bernadette Cremin
Reviews
Cremin has built a magic bridge between performance and the page; she has proven palpably and infectiously, how there needn’t be such a divide in the first place. Speechless is quite aptly titled, for that’s exactly how it leaves one: it proves that Cremin’s poetry is as tangible and affecting on the page as it is when uttered from her lips like subtle spells.
- Alan Morrison
… a poet at once glamorous and sordid. She writes of call girls and ham actors, moody photos and bedsit divas. Bernadette in lines both precise and honest croons of violence and loss. Hers is the smoky voice of an underclass, forever tough feminine and vulnerable. If Tom Waits had a beautiful stepsister she would sound like Bernadette Cremin.
- John O’Donaghue (Waterloo Press)
Two new creative writing courses from novelist Bridget Whelan starting in May
Bridget is an experienced creative writing tutor and University lecturer.
She is also writer in residence at Brighton Unemployed Centre.
Bridget’s first novel, A Good Confession, available from Brighton and Hove libraries (can also be found at Amazon here), is set in 1960s London and Ireland and was described by Miriam Stoppard as ‘unputdownable’.
Always wanted to write? Join a Monday evening course that will stretch your imagination.
In a gentle and supportive atmosphere we will experiment with different genres and styles of writing, finding inspiration and new ways to defeat the blank page along the way. Absolute beginners very welcome.
Where? Portslade Community College in Chalkey Road – on the 1 and 1a bus route and there’s lots of car parking space too.
When? Monday evenings 7 pm to 9 pm for ten weeks starting on May 9
Find out more: Call 01273 422632 to enrol by phone, pop into the College or visit the website.
For writers with some experience. A short summer course on Friday mornings in Central Brighton.
Explore different areas of imaginative writing (including non fiction) and find your own direction through idea generating activities, writing exercises and assignments. Advice will be given on how to progress your writing life and produce work that’s ready to be published.
Where? The Friends’ Centre in New England Street, a minute from Brighton Station
When? Friday mornings 10am – 12 noon for six week starting on May 6
Find out more: Friends Centre 01273 810210. Email the centre or look at the website
Bridget is secretary of Brighton Irish Society.
Visit Bridget’s blog: Connecting (the Poetry and the Prose)
Buy a copy of A Good Confession
Commenting on reports that the Olympic Torch may travel to the Republic prior to the London Games, Pat Hickey, President of the Olympic Council of Ireland said that negotiations were now at a very sensitive stage at the highest Olympic levels.
Read more here.
16th Irish Writers in London Summer School
9 June – 15 July 2011
First established in 1996, the summer school runs for two nights a week for five weeks and provides an informal but informative setting for students wishing to study Irish literature over the summer. Each week a set text is discussed in class on Tuesday evening and the following Thursday, the author reads and/or speaks about it to students.
Guests Writers:
• author and journalist Mary Kenny who will be talking about her recent play Allegiance which dramatizes the relationship between Michael Collins and Winston Churchill
• award-winning writer Maurice Leitch who will be discussing his latest novel Tell Me About It, set amongst the Irish community in London
• Booker long-listed author Gerard Donovan who will be discussing his critically-acclaimed short story collection Country of the Grand
• Irish Post journalist Joe Horgan who will talking about living in Ireland after growing up of Irish parents in England
• bookseller Tony Whelan, who recalls his life-long friendship with John McGahern in his memoir The Last Chapter.
PREFERENTIAL FEES APPLY UNTIL 8 MAY (see below)
N.B. This is not a creative writing course, but will complement such a course of study at London Metropolitan University or elsewhere.
No prior qualifications are required to attend
Times: 6.00 – 8.30pm (refreshments provided)
Days: Tuesdays and Thursdays with the opening night on Thursday 9 June
and an additional class on Friday 15 July.
Fees: £125 (concessions £95)
‘Early Bird’ enrolment before 9 May – £115 (concs £85)
Enrol at:
or email: iset@londonmet.ac.uk
or ring: 0207 133 2913
More about this year’s guest writers:
Mary Kenny has been a journalist for over four decades, working in London and Dublin. She has contributed to more than 25 newspapers and journals, including the Daily Mail, Guardian, Times, Catholic Herald, Irish Times, and Times Literary Supplement. She has a special interest in the relationship between England and Ireland which she explored in a biography of ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ and in her book, Crown and Shamrock: Love and Hate between Ireland and the British Monarchy. She will be talking about her recent play Allegiance which dramatizes the relationship between Michael Collins and Winston Churchill.
Maurice Leitch has been publishing novels and other works for over fifty years. Rated by Robert McLiam Wilson, as ‘perhaps the finest Irish novelist of his generation’ he was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1969 for Liberty Lad and won the Whitbread Prize in 1981 for his novel Silver’s City. He moved to London from his native County Antrim to work as a BBC radio producer and became editor of A Book at Bedtime on Radio Four until leaving in 1989 to write full-time. He was awarded an MBE for services to literature in 1999 and will be discussing his latest novel Tell Me About It set amongst the Irish community in London.
Gerard Donovan is the author of the novels Schopenhauer’s Telescope, which won the 2004 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and was long-listed for the 2003 Booker Prize, Doctor Salt and, most recently, Julius Winsome, described in the Irish Times as ‘a timeless fable of loss, isolation and violence.’ Born in Ireland, he currently lives in the south-west of England and will be discussing his acclaimed book of short stories Country of the Grand, described by Joseph O’Connor as ‘meltingly beautiful’ and ‘an important and haunting collection’.
Joe Horgan was born in Birmingham to Irish parents. He was shortlisted for the Hennessy Prize in 2003 and won the Patrick Kavanagh Award for poetry in 2004. He currently writes a weekly column for the Irish Post and reviews for Books Ireland. His work has also appeared on RTE radio and television. His first collection, Slipping Letters Beneath the Sea, was
published by Doghouse in 2008. In 2010 Horgan published a new collection with Collins Press, A Song at Your Backdoor, and was anthologised in Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland (Dedalus). He is married with three children and lives in County Cork.
Tony Whelan was born near the Mountains of Mourne in 1928 and studied at Queens University Belfast before moving to England in 1952. He worked as a teacher and later in publishing and public relations and became a close friend of John McGahern. Since retiring, he has developed a specialism in selling second-hand and antiquarian Irish books. He will be discussing his memoir, The Last Chapter, which has been described as, ‘a crystal clear window onto his life’s experiences’ and ‘an intriguing portrait of the literary worlds of Ireland and England in the twentieth century.’
For further information about the course contact Tony Murray at: t.murray@londonmet.ac.uk or 020 7133 2593
The Irish Writers in London Summer School is supported by the Garnett Foundation
Ten novels have been shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The award is one of the largest prizes in the literary world, with a prize of €100,000.
For the first time the shortlist includes novels by three Irish authors; Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Brooklyn by Colm Toibín and Love and Summer by William Trevor.
The shortlist was nominated by public libraries in Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Scotland, South Africa, Switzerland and the USA.
Last year’s winner was “The Twin” by Gerbrand Bakker.
The winner will be announced on June 15 from the 2011 shortlist:
Galore by Michael Crummey (Canadian). Doubleday Canada
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (American). Faber & Faber, HarperCollins, USA
The Vagrants by Yiyn Li (Chinese / American) Random House, USA
Ransom by David Malouf (Australian) Random House Australia
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Irish) Bloomsbury, UK, Random House, USA
Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates (American) Ecco Press, USA
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (Australian) Allen & Unwin
Brooklyn by Colm Toibín (Irish) Viking UK, Scribner, USA
Love and Summer by William Trevor (Irish) Viking, UK
After the Fire, a Still, Small Voice by Evie Wyld (Australian) Pantheon Books, USA
Irish food blogger, writer and musician Donal Skehan was on ITV’s “This Morning” earlier this month making an Irish seafood chowder.
You can watch the video here.
Food blogs are fast becoming the new recipe books – if you haven’t visited one before we’ve shared some recommendations here. The sites typically include recipes in text and visual form (photos and video). There’s also usually a diary format to the blog which makes it very easy to check back for seasonal recipes using food currently available locally.
Best of all food blogs tend to be free!
Some Irish food bloggers worth checking out are:
Donal Skehan
Bibliocook
EatLikeAGirl
