An unusual book prize has come the way of an Irish-published book. Healing Amid the Ruins: The Irish Hospital at St Lo 1945-46, by Phyllis Gaffney, published by A. & A. Farmer, has just won France's Societe Francaise d'Histoire des Hopitaux bi-annual prize. It's the first time this 10,000 franc prize has been won by a book from a non-French speaking country. Gaffney's book describes the establishment of the Irish Red Cross-run hospital, where Samuel Beckett worked for several months as interpreter, and where he undoubtedly gained first-hand insights into the human darknesses which turn up in so many of his plays. Gaffney is a lecturer in French at UCD, and originally became interested in the hospital because her father had once worked there as its pathologist: Phyllis Gaffney, poignantly, never knew her father - she was born after his death in the first Aer Lingus air crash in North Wales on January 10th, 1952. The book is written both in English and French, with a fascinating selection of photographs.
The fifth Maria Edgeworth Literary Weekend will be opened on March 31st in Edgeworthstown by writer Brian Leyden, currently Leitrim's first writer-in-residence, at the Park House Hotel. Minister Sile De Valera had agreed to do the honours, but has since informed the organisers she can't make it after all: unfortunately, all the flyers and programmes had already been printed, so don't be amazed if you turn up to discover the promised Minister appears to have turned into a man.
On the Saturday there will be short story and poetry workshops with Michael Coady and Katie Donovan, as well as a children's entertainment workshop with Tony Maude. Presumably Maude will be kept very well entertained indeed, as the Saturday happens to be April Fool's Day, and doubtless the children's imaginations will be suitably fertile. The Edgeworth Lecture will be given this year on Sunday by Dr Margaret Kelleher, of NUI Maynooth, on the topic of "Public and Private Worlds: The Later Life of Maria Edgeworth". She will read the paper at the apt location of the Manor, Maria Edgeworth's former home. More information from 043-71801.
An e-mail from Clem Cairns in Durrus, Co Cork, tells Sadbh that all top three prizes in their Fish Short Story Prize have been won by writers from faraway shores. First prize of £1,000 went to Kathryn Hughes from Illinois for her story Five O'Clock Shadow; second to Kevin Parry from South Africa for Drowned Boy; and third to Julia Asher from Los Angeles for The Neighbour. The winning stories and 12 others will be published in June in Fish's annual anthology. This year's judges were William Wharton, Dermot Bolger, and Julia Darling. Novelist Antonia Logue is already lined up as one of the judges for next year's competition.
The Long View is a new, Cork-based quarterly periodical which will be bringing out its first issue at the Bantry Literary Festival in June. Editor Ellen Beardsley says they are particularly interested in giving priority to work from new writers in need of a first publication. Submissions should be sent, before April 20th, to The Long View, 20 The Lawn, Innishannon, Co Cork.
On Friday the Poetry Now 2000 Festival and Anthology will be launched at the County Hall in Dun Laoghaire, by councillor Larry Butler - although, in the esoteric way we Irish do things, the festival proper actually starts the day before. The festival runs from March 23rd to 26th, and venues are Airfield House near Dundrum and Dun Laoghaire's County Hall. Over the period, there will be readings by, among others, Mary O'Malley, Paul Durcan, Aine Ni Ghlinn, Michael D. Higgins, Gordon Snell, Theo Dorgan, Dermot Healy, Biddy Jenkinson, Pat Boran, Louis De Paor, and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. Several of the readings will also have a musical element to them, such as guitar from Mexican Miguelangel Lejarza; violin from Brona Cahill; and songs from Sean Garvey. More information about times and locations of readings from 01-205 4719.
Conor Mark Kavanagh is a name probably more familiar to you as one with the attached moniker of RTE news reporter, but he tells Sadbh that his first poem has just been published. And on the Internet, no less. "I was playing around on the Internet one day and looked up some poetry competitions," he explains, "and I submitted one to America's International Library of Poetry on the Internet." Kavanagh has just heard that his memorial poem, Homecoming (For a Peacekeeper Returned), has been shortlisted for a monthly prize of $1,000 from thousands of entries submitted for that month. "It's one of about 25 chosen," he says. You can read the short poem at the www.poetry.com site. Here's a flavour of it: I knew it was the cortege/ With that persistent, pounding beat - / Pulse-beat to the after-life.