Amhráin Amhairgin

Amhráin Amhairgin, An Chailleach Bhéarra, Amhra Choilm Cille: 48 pp, hardback, 978-1-913814-55-7

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There is a degree of linguistic and cultural conviction in these texts, Amhráin Amhairgin, An Chailleach Bhéarra, Amhra Choilm Cille, and an aristocratic sensibility that is also characteristic of the best of her own poetry. As in her original work, the vocabulary and syntax of Irish are manipulated with remarkable dexterity in these readings of Early Irish poetry, demonstrating once again that the language is entirely adequate to whatever demands are made of it by a writer sufficiently adept at deploying its undiminished resources. If very few writers have, or had, the same virtuosity in that regard as she had, we have yet another reason to be grateful to Máire Mhac an tSaoi for her lifelong commitment to a language and tradition whose strength and dignity continue to speak to us in her work.

Amhráin Amhairgin was edited by Dr Louis de Paor and this book was published in conjunction with the Centre for Irish Studies, the University of Galway,

Other titles by Máire Mhac an tSaoi are also available from Leabhar Breac, the novel Scéal Ghearóid Iarla, a history of Piaras Feiritéar, Cérbh í Meg Russel? and her translation of Rilke’s Duiner Elegies, Marbhnaí Duino.