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Original Writing from Ireland’s Own 2011
by Various Authors
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 7th October 2011
ISBN: 978-1-908477-36-1
Price: €11.95
This second Anthology of Original Writing from Ireland’s Own features over 40 of the prizewinners and highly commended entries to the annual writing competitions run by Ireland’s leading family magazine, supported by Dublin self-publishing company Original Writing. It is an eclectic collection of fiction, anecdote and memories, with contributors from France, Canada, England, Scotland and from thirteen Irish counties.
These stories touch on many aspects of Irish life from the 1940s up to the present day, while the Memories recalled here will strike a chord with a great many people. They deal, with empathy and insight, with everything from emigration, old time Irish wakes, a day at the beach and remembering loved ones, to a bit of a scam at the greyhound track.
This collection reveals again the level of untapped writing talent there is out there just waiting to be discovered. Some of the writers have appeared in print before, but for others this may be a first step on the road to greater things.
Foreword by Donncha O Dulaing
‘The flower of art,’ said Henry James, ‘blooms only where the soul is deep.’
He would certainly have approved of the ‘Ireland’s Own Anthology of Original Writing, Volume Two’, a wonderful and well produced collection from the magazine’s annual writing competitions for 2010, which is following on from the success of last year’s initial effort.
I am thrilled to be asked to write this foreword. Indeed, I feel happier than most in that my life, traditions and professional life brings me in the very doorstep of Ireland’s favourite magazine.
My links with Ireland’s Own began in far-off days in my home town of Doneraile, Co. Cork, where I first encountered this fountain of stories, essays, jokes and Irishness in Titridge’s shop. It has continued right through to my current Failte Isteach life, and to my personal life when my last moments awake every night are spent reading the Ireland’s Own.
So, when Phil Murphy, Editor of Ireland’s Own and compiler of this book, asked me to write these few words, my delight was indescribable.
I congratulate all of you whose contributions are included in this book and I marvel at your skill and creativity. It is wonderful to have made it between these covers, but I trust this is just a step on the road to even greater acclaim and success for you. Kitty the Hare would have spoken about you in the past, never minding her creator, Victor O’D. Power.
Maybe I’ve just hit the nail on the head, and Phil and his colleagues have dipped even deeper than they think into the fertile soil of Ireland’s Own and proved, if needed, that Henry James was right.
Finally, before I leave you in this foreword, I must tell you that only recently I sat in Canon Sheehan’s old garden in Doneraile and a surge of boyhood memories engulfed me … and from the heart of echoes came the world of Failte Isteach, a brief TV journey to the world of of RTE’s popular ‘Nationwide’ programme, where ‘Failte’ was recently featured, accompanied by an old edition of Ireland’s Own on my desk, and P.J. Murrihy’s song ‘Life in the old dog yet!’ on the turntable. This is it!
Beannaím sibh uilig. We don’t need to dream of things that never were. We have them, perhaps, are them!
Donncha O Dulaing is a much-loved broadcaster on Ireland’s airwaves for a great many years, and presenter of the iconic programme ‘Failte Isteach’ on RTE Radio One at 10 o’clock every Saturday night.
