An anthology of stories from Argyll, a Scottish-based publisher, arrived with a thump on Sadbh's desk this week. It has quite a mouthful of a title: Across the Water: Irishness in Modern Scottish Writing. Work that one out. Edited by James McGonigal, Donny O'Rourke, and Hamish Whyte, it's a collection of stories and poems by 45 writers who are either Irish and living in Scotland or Scottish and writing about the Irish. Which sounds a very Irish description. Among the contributors are the father and daughter duo of Bernard and Ciara MacLaverty; novelist Andrew O'Hagan; children's writer Joan Lingard; and poet John Burnside.
Time to get out your battered copy of Yeats and become entranced all over again by such great poems as Long Legged Fly and Lapis Lazuli. The 41st Yeats International Summer School runs, as ever, in Sligo. To be opened by Edna O'Brien today, the school goes on until August 12th.
There are as many themes this year as there were creative strings to Mr Yeats's bow: the poetry and plays of Yeats; cultural and critical contexts; predecessors, contemporaries and successors; politics and Irish nationalism; and contemporary Irish poetry and drama.
As always, several masses of grey cells will be gathering together under bare Ben Bulben's Head. Among the visiting academics will be Bernard O'Donoghue from Oxford; Laura O'Connor from the University of California; Jonathan Allison from the University of Kentucky; and Shane Murphy from Emory University in Georgia. The summer school has even got its own offshoot fringe event - a Yeats summer festival. Among those participating are local writers Dermot Healy, Pat McCabe, Edna O'Brien and Bernard O'Donoghue.
There will also be a number of music and theatre events, among them the intriguingly-named theatre group, Horse and Bamboo, which will be presenting a play called The Girl Who Cut Flowers. More information from www.yeats-sligo.com or 071-42693.
Details of Julia Langdon's forthcoming biography of Mo Mowlam, due out from Little, Brown later in the year are emerging in odd drips. The book will be serialised in a newspaper, so the contents are embargoed - a scenario that drives other newspapers wild, since they usually only get books for review once sections of it have appeared elsewhere. Mo Mowlam: The Biography is not an authorised one, but Langdon, a political journalist, interviewed in this month's the Bookseller, seems to be on civilised terms with her subject all the same. "Mo knew that six or seven people were keen to write her biography and said that, while she didn't want one written, if anyone was going to do it, she would rather it was me." Langdon says she has "lots of new stories" about Mowlam, and adds that she will reveal "some things about the politics of the peace process - some quite sensationally interesting things". The book is due out in early autumn.
With the Pearse House recently opened, the first issue of its associated periodical, The Republic: a journal of contemporary and historical debate, has just appeared, edited by Finbar Cullen and Aengus O Snodaigh. A note preceding the contents page states that the journal "aims to provide a forum for discussion, debate and analysis of contemporary and historical issues. Irish and international matters across a range of disciplines will be addressed. Republican ideas and principles will shape and inform the contents of the journal." Among the contributors are Theo Dorgan, director of Poetry Ireland, with an essay entitled "Poetry and the Possible Republic". Dorgan swings his fist early on: "Poetry is marginal to the state's concerns in as much as the level of investment is a minute percentage of, say, the grant support on offer to the robber barons of the beef industry." Hear, hear.
Other essays are Colm Walsh of the Irish Traveller Movement on "Travellers and the Unfinished Republic"; "Ireland - Not the Plato Ideal for Women", by Grainne Healy of the National Women's Council of Ireland; and "Caging the Tiger - Strengthening Socio-Economic Rights" by Jerome Connolly of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace. More information from mdcullen@eircom.net
Word from the Winding Stair Bookshop in Dublin - which now boasts views of two footbridges: the Ha'penny and the so-called Aluminium - of a forthcoming reading. On Tuesday, Marian Murphy will be launching her book, Take Two, from Poolbeg, at 8 p.m. Admission and river views free.
News from Clare of a reprint of Salmon's recently-published anthology of Irish women poets, The White Page, which was edited by Joan McBreen. The book has sold some 2,000 copies, with all royalties in aid of leukaemia and Jessie Lendennie tells Sadbh it has been collecting a slew of good reviews in the US. The reprint comes out next month and will cost £10.99.