Let the Hare Sit / Lig don nGiorria Suí

By Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin

LET the Hare Sit / Lig don nGiorria Suí is a significant event in Irish poetry publishing – the first extended selection of poems by Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin in a dual-language format. A summary of a journey to date, the book is also an opportunity for those with less than fluent Irish to approach the original poems in the company of their English translations.

Much-admired as “one of the most innovative and interesting voices in contemporary Irish language poetry” (Doireann Ní Ghríofa), Ní Bheildiúin is the author of a rich, myth-informed, yet entirely earthed body of work in which she can describe a school of beached whales as “huge, songless shapes” .

Dedalus Press • €12.50 – €20.00

Abandoned Ireland By Rebecca Brownlie Patrick: From Patron Saint to Modern Influencer

By Alannah Hopkin

ST PATRICK is one of the most famous saints of all time. Thousands of people with no direct Irish connection celebrate St Patrick’s Day, parading along the streets of New York, Boston, Chicago, San Antonio, Texas and Sydney, where St Patrick’s Day is a national holiday. These celebrations are the latest version of the cult of St Patrick, which has persisted in different forms since his death on 17 March, 462AD.

First published in 1989 in the UK and USA, this fully updated edition features new photographs and illustrations and will be an indispensable companion for anyone seeking to understand the role of St Patrick in forging modern Irish identity

New Island Books • Around €25

ABANDONED Ireland travels the length and breadth of the island of Ireland visiting and documenting our forgotten buildings, highlighting their social importance, and bringing their stories back to life through the medium of photography.

From Big Houses to humble cottages, schools to prisons, churches to dance halls, these buildings may now be abandoned, but they are far from empty. As a photographer, Brownlie’s instincts are remarkable. In the seemingly ruined and mundane she finds diamonds in the rough; her images of the ordinary ephemera of past lives – dusty love letters, rusting spectacles, photographs yellowed and curled with age – paint the pictures of real people and full lives. Rebecca Brownlie’s photography reverberates with the echoes of our ancestors.

Irish Academic Press • Around €28