Irish fiction

Two fiction titles that featured prominently in Dublin City Public Libraries during 2011 also featured very strongly when it comes to the list of most borrowed fiction titles in Irish libraries during the same year. Joseph O'Connor's 'Ghost Light', the selected title for the Dublin: One City, One Book initiative that took place in April 2011, was the most borrowed fiction title (adult and children combined) nationally, while 'Let the Great World Spin' by Colum McCann, the winner of the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (announced in June) was the tenth most borrowed adult fiction title nationally. This award, one of the most prominent of international literary prizes, is administered by Dublin City Public Libraries.

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(Reproduced with the permission of Dublin: One City One Book.)

Today, Thursday, 2nd February, is the 130th anniversary of the birth of James Joyce!

Arguably Ireland’s greatest literary genius and a leading proponent of modernism in fiction, James Joyce was born at 41 Brighton Square to John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane Murray, and spent his earliest years there and in Castlewood Avenue. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College and at Belvedere College before going on to University College Dublin (on St Stephen’s Green), where he studied modern languages.

Right: James Joyce. Image of Joyce reproduced from the original glass negative held in UCD Library Special Collections by kind permission of Helen Solterer. (click image to enlarge)

Joyce left Ireland with Nora Barnacle in 1904, and was to spend the rest of his life in Italy and France, paying his last visit to Ireland in 1912. Joyce died in Zurich on the 13th January, 1941, and is buried in Zurich's Fluntern Cemetery.

Joyce's collection of short stories, Dubliners, and the choice for Dublin: One City, One Book 2012, was first published in 1914 by Grant Richards Ltd., London.

Dublin City Public Libraries and Dublin UNESCO City of Literature today, Tuesday 17th January, launched 'Children Save Dublin', the city’s first ever children’s citywide reading project.

Similar to the highly successful Dublin: One City One Book festival, but aimed at children from 4th and 5th classes, children across Dublin will be encouraged to read, talk about and have fun with the same book over January, February and March 2012. Read more »

Last night I read that Anne McCaffrey died.  It has been confirmed by several sources, including the Guardian so I can't stay in denial any more.  She was getting older, 85 at her last birthday, so I knew it was going to happen, I just didn't want it to happen now, or ever.

As I've related before, she was one of the first real SF authors I read.  Her books stayed with me throughout my teenage years and into my 20s (and I really need to dust them off and give them a re-read).  They were groundbreaking at the time, female heroes who did things rather than waiting for things to happen.  Menoly from Dragonsong, played music, like me, and kept me sane through the experience of being bullied in school, my own copy is in bits.

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       Ireland's 'glitterati' came out in force last night at the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards Ceremony in the Concert Hall of the RDS. In a night when Seamus Heaney received the Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by fellow poet Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, it would be easier to say who wasn't there, than who was - even former US President Bill Clinton appeared in a pre-recorded tribute to 'one of the world's favourite poets'.

The Irish Book Award winners are voted on by the public and the various categories were hotly contested. All winning and shortlisted books are available to borrow from Dublin City Public Libraries. Winners on the night were; Read more »

If you were passing the gates of Glasnevin Cemetary on Wednesday 26th October at about 6.30pm you'd be forgiven for thinking that ghosts were walking. Just as the moon rose eerily over the O'Connell monument, giving it an alien sheen against the darkening sky, small creatures with strange faces and stranger shapes moved through the famous 'Dead Centre of Dublin' and disappeared into the doors of the new Museum building. Read more »