ON THE TOWN/Catherine Foley: Writers protested with their pens at an anti-war gathering in the Irish Writers' Centre this week. The result is Irish Writers Against the War, a book with 51 contributions, edited by historian Conor Kostick and Katherine Moore, an administrator in the Irish Writers' Centre.
"We have raised our voices and it can have an effect. It's continuing to have an impact. You can't ignore that," said writer Peter Sheridan, who spoke at the launch, urging writers to continue to protest against the war in Iraq. War "divides people, it creates divisions. The creative process is about taking down those walls".
"I'm very sad that it was necessary to publish this but also very proud," said Michael O'Brien, of O'Brien Press.
"It's particularly poignant that this war should be taking place in Iraq, one of the cradles of human civilisation," said Richard Boyd Barrett, chairman of the Irish Anti-War Movement.
"Literature and art express what's best in humanity . . . it seems to be that war in general and this war in particular is a negation of our humanity. It destroys the environment, it sets human beings against one another.
"The real agenda here is this is a war for the most base interests of oil and US power of small numbers of corporate elite and they are prepared to sacrifice the lives of innocent men, women and children."
"This has been an important contribution, both morally and materially, in helping to build the anti-war movement. I think we can prevail in this."
Anthony Glavin, the US-born writer and editor, who has lived here for 29 years, was present, along with Theo Dorgan, who is currently editing Voices and Poetry of Ireland, which is due out this Autumn. Joe Woods, director of Poetry Ireland, which is leaving its Dublin Castle offices in a couple of months, was another writer who joined the throng at the centre.
Celia de Fréine, whose work, Fiacla Fola - a poem about her personal account of the Anti-D scandal - will be published by Cló Iar-Chonnachta later this year, was a contributor to the book, as was poet Robert Greacen.
Other contributors included the writer Roddy Doyle and actor, Siraj Zaidi.
Fred Johnston, writer and director of the Galway's West Writers Centre, travelled from the west. His new novel, Mapping God, will be published shortly.
Gerry McDonnell, the Dublin playwright and poet, has a play, Whose Veins Ran Lightning, opening on April 28th in New Theatre in Temple Bar, to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of James Clarence Mangan.
Galway-based poet and artist Pat Jourdan - who has the distinction of attending art college in Liverpool with John Lennon - also travelled from the west, meeting up with her friend, actor Marian Reece.
Later in the week, many of the writers, including Peter Sirr, Enda Wyley, Molly McCluskey, Evelyn Conlon, writer and composer Raymond Deane and Anthony Glavin, took part in the disrupted peaceful anti-war protest outside the Dáil.