Best of
Irish-Literature

1994

The Mammy


Brendan O'Carroll - 1994
    Popular Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll chronicles the comic misadventures of this large and lively family with raw humor and great affection. Forced to be mother, father, and referee to her battling clan, the ever-resourceful Agnes Browne occasionally finds a spare moment to trade gossip and quips with her best pal Marion Monks (alias "The Kaiser") and even finds herself pursued by the amorous Frenchman who runs the local pizza parlor. Like the novels of Roddy Doyle, The Mammy features pitch-perfect dialogue, lightning wit, and a host of colorful characters. Earthy and exuberant, the novel brilliantly captures the brash energy and cheerful irreverence of working-class Irish life.

Echoes of Memory


John O'Donohue - 1994
    Just as To Bless the Space Between Us was being published, he died suddenly at the age of fifty-two. His powerfully wise and lyrical voice is profoundly missed, but his many readers are now given a special opportunity to revisit John in his first book, a collection of poetry.      O'Donohue's readers know him as both a spiritual guide and a poet. In the same spirit as his bestselling works, readers will be inspired yet again by John's depth of wisdom and artistry.

Dreamtime


John Moriarty - 1994
    Mediated by stories and personal excursions in literature, philosophy and sacred texts, and containing a new Epilogue, Dreamtime takes issue with the Cartesian consciousness of a Cartesian world.. "Although Dreamtime is often thought of as an Australian aboriginal phenomenon, this book posits a European, Christian and Irish Dreamtime, as much cultural as geo-physical. The task of the poet-philosopher, it suggests, is to enlarge our capacity for symbolic understanding, while keeping the path to Connla's Well open and inviting us to inhabit a shared Dreamtime.

Fishing the Sloe-Black River


Colum McCann - 1994
    There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the Irishwoman who journeys through America in search of silence and solitude. But what is found in these stories, and discovered by these characters, is the astonishing poetry and peace found in the mundane: a memory, a scent on the wind, the grace in the curve of a street. Fishing the Sloe-Black River is a work of pure augury, of the channeling and re-spoken lives of people exposed to the beauty of the everyday.

Rosie's Quest


Ann Carroll - 1994
    It is Dublin, 1956. She is no longer herself, but Aunt Rose aged eleven, Mum's twin sister. The past is a different world with different rules. How can Rosie deal with the vicious Miss Hackett and her horrible lessons? How can she change events so that Mum and Aunt Rose are not split up forever?

Molly Sweeney


Brian Friel - 1994
    Molly has been blind since birth, but now a surgeon Mr. Rice believes he may be able to restore her sight. In a series of interwoven monologues, Molly Sweeney takes us into the minds of three people with very different expectations of what will happen when Molly regains her vision. A L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring: Jenny Bacon, Robert Breuler, Rick Snyder