LooseLeaves: Irish writers achieve many things these days but it's a rare day when one of them wins a race in the North Pole. Novelist Michael Collins, whose latest novel, The Secret Life of E Robert Pendleton, is published this month by Weidenfeld, had his other triumph last Saturday when he led home a record 54-person international race field to win the 2006 North Pole Marathon.
The race was run in temperatures that dipped to -23 degrees on the ice floes that overlay 12,000 feet of Arctic Ocean. No wonder the 42km event is called the world's coolest marathon. In the past Collins was shortlisted for the Booker prize and the International Impac Dublin Literary Award for The Keepers of Truth but won neither. Now in this latest race he emerges triumphant. The event is organised by Galwayman Richard Donovan. "It means a lot to me as an Irishman to be able to pass on the title of North Pole Champion to another Irishman - Michael Collins," was Donovan's response to the novelist's triumph.
Cold eye on 1916
As Dublin prepares for the 1916 commemoration parade through the streets of Dublin tomorrow, a perfect companion to the recent Irish Times supplement on the Rising is the March/April issue of History Ireland, which takes the form of a 90th anniversary extended issue on that momentous Easter Week. "Let the debate begin," says its editorial. Featured within is a piece in which, in the context of the recent history of Northern Ireland, Paul Bew of Queen's University casts a cold eye on the decision of the political establishment in Dublin to commemorate the event. The truth, says Bew, is that modern Ireland today has a complex, distanced relationship to 1916 which he explores "as the State nervously moves to celebrate 1916 in an inevitably rhetorical overblown style". Bew writes that 10 years after the Rising, former Nationalist MP for Galway Stephen Gwynn revisited the events of Easter 1916, arguing that 10 years had been added to the waiting period for Irish political unity and that Ireland would wait forever if it remained chained to the ideal of 1916. "Ninety years on," writes Bew, "and with no end to partition in sight, why is it so difficult to concede that Stephen Gwynn clearly had a point?"
The magazine also includes pieces on the 50th anniversary commemorations in 1966, by Roisin Higgins, Carole Holohan and Catherine O'Donnell; The Easter Rising in Galway, by Fergus Campbell; 1916 in the de Valera papers, by Seamus Helferty; and Charles Townshend on Making Sense of Easter 1916. There is also a piece on Pearse's college for girls, St Ita's, by David Limond. The issue has made excellent use of photographs and paintings of the era, at times as interesting as the prose.
History Ireland. Vol 14. No 2. €5.50.
Rising debate
Easter 1916 is also the subject of the 12th Byrne/Perry Summer School this June, prompted, says chairman Father Walter Forde, by the need for a balanced, comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the personalities, events, thinking and context of what actually happened. The Gordon Wilson Memorial lecture will be given by Garret FitzGerald on 1916 and the Timing of Irish Independence: Economic and Political Implications. Taking part in a debate on 1916 - What Were They Thinking? will be historian Diarmaid Ferriter, Senator Martin Mansergh and TDs Liz McManus and Aengus Ó Snodaigh. 1916 and Irish America is also up for discussion. The
Byrne Perry Summer School takes place in Gorey, Co Wexford, from June 23rd to 25th. See www.byrneperry.ie
Borders opening
The Borders bookshop chain is coming to Ireland this year in a move that always seemed to be on the cards. Trade mag The Bookseller reports that the first of several planned stores will open in Blanchardstown in the West End Retail Park this autumn - complete with a Starbucks coffee dock. Other branches will follow and the possibility of a store in the Dundrum Shopping Centre has been mentioned. The stores will be overseen by Borders Ireland Ltd, a newly-created subsidiary of Borders' American parent company.