The first of our Leaving Cert podcasts exploring sample exam questions on Seamus Heaney's poetry.

This episode looks at mythology and tradition in Seamus Heaney's poems on the Leaving Cert curriculum.

Leaving Cert Heaney: Mythology & Tradition

This activity is a mindful look at the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will highlight soothing lines and images from the poem, 'The Gravel Walks' from the 1996 collection, 'The Spirit Level' and encourages participants at home to take some time to find their own mindful moments in this poem.

'The Gravel Walks' -Mindful Activity

In Episode 1 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution Dr Susan Cahill joins us for a conversation about writer and activist Dorothy Macardle. Cahill is a writer, editor, academic, thinker, and activist. She is well known for her activism for the Repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Cahill was the first woman to tell her abortion story on the stage of the Abbey Theatre, which was subsequently published in the Irish Times. She is a former professor of Irish Studies and is currently working on her debut children’s novel The Dream Door. Her work is published in Winter Papers, and The Puritan. Cahill is represented by Kate Shaw Agency. She is from Clonakilty, Co. Cork, and is funded by the Arts Council. Following our conversation, Cahill reads from her work-in-progress debut novel. 

The podcast music is from “Saharakungoh” by Fehdah (https://earth-agency.com/artists/fehdah/). 

Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is created by Dr Julie Morrissy as part of the Poet-in-Residence programme at the National Library of Ireland, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. Sound and production are by MoLi. 

NLI Sources:

MS 13972/1: Partial copy typescript of suggestions and corrections given by William O'Brien to Dorothy Macardle on her publication 'The Irish Republic' , circa 1937.

MS 17528/4: Copy typescript letter from Dorothy McArdle to Joseph McGarrity regarding the poverty experienced in Connemara and Kerry due to famine and the imprisonment of breadwinners, and denouncing the violence of Free State troops, 1924 June 8

MS 31468: Newspaper cuttings from 'The Irish Press' of 'The great story of the Rising: Easter Week day by day' by Dorothy Macardle, 1933 Apr. 17-22

MS 41480/2/8: Letter from Lily O'Brennan, 22 Hans Place S.W., to Áine Ceannt regarding her personal and social life, 1921 November 8

MS 41,480/4/14: Letter from Dorothy Macardle to Áine Ceannt thanking her for some information that she could not have gotten anywhere else, 1935 November 25

MS 41,491/3/4: Postcard from Dorothy Macardle to Lily O'Brennan wishing her a happy Christmas and New Year, 1924 December

MS 50700/1: Letter from Dorothy McArdle to Norman Collins, Victor Gollancz Ltd., about publishing Maud Gonne's memoirs, with letters from Victor Gollancz Ltd. to McArdle, 1936 & 1937

MS 50246/5/1: Copy of account of the Easter Rising by Elizabeth O'Farrell [MS 50,246/5/1], [undated]

NPA POLF234: Pearse's Surrender [graphic]

Additional References / Further Reading 

Bourke, Angela, et al. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Volume V: Irish Women's Writings and Traditions. Cork University Press, 2002, pp. 997-1000.

Boland, Eavan. A Kind of Scar: The Woman Poet in a National Tradition. Attic Press, 1989, p. 12.

Coen, Lisa. “Waking the Feminists and Disturbing the Old Ghosts: The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle”. Writing.ie, 16 Nov. 2015, https://www.writing.ie/interviews/stage-screen/waking-the-feminists-and-disturbing-old-ghosts-the-uninvited-by-dorothy-mcardle/

Gillis, Liz. Women of the Irish Revolution. Mercier Press, 2016, p. 154.

Macardle, Dorothy. “The Portrait of Roisín Dhu”. Earth-Bound: Nine Stories of Ireland. Harrigan Press, 1924, pp. 90-101.

Meaney, Gerardine, Mary O’Dowd, and Bernadette Whelan. “Sexual and Aesthetic Dissidences: Women and the Gate Theatre, 1929-60. Reading the Irish Woman: Studies in Cultural Encounters and Exchange, 1714-1960, Liverpool UP, pp. 196-217.

Maume, Patrick. “Macardle, Dorothy Margaret”. Dictionary of Irish Biography, Oct. 2009, https://www.dib.ie/biography/macardle-dorothy-margaret-a5097

Short, Constance. “It is time to celebrate the life of remarkable Dundalk woman Dorothy Macardle”. Dundalk Democrat, 18 Dec. 2016, https://www.dundalkdemocrat.ie/news/home/228161/it-is-time-to-celebrate-the-life-of-remarkable-dundalk-woman-dorothy-macardle.html

Smith, Nadia Clare. Dorothy Macardle: A Life. Woodfield Press, 2007.

Episode 1 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution with Dr Susan Cahill

This is an audio tour of the exhibition, 'Yeats: The Life & Works of WB Yeats'. This tour can enjoyed in own right or in conjunction with a visit to the exhibition at the National Library of Ireland, 7-8 Kildare St., Dublin 2, Ireland.

Highlight #12:  Under Ben Bulben

Highlight #11:  Lapis Lazuli

Highlight #10:  Nobel Medal

Highlight #9:  Portrait Of Georgie Hyde Lees

Highlight #8:  Easter 1916

Highlight #7:  Irish Literary Theatre

Highlight #6:  Lady Gregory & Coole Park

Highlight #5:  Florence Farr & The Psaltery

Highlight #4:  The Golden Dawn

Highlight #3:  Maud Gonne

Highlight #2: Lake Isle Of Innisfree

Highlight #1: Self - Portrait of John Butler Yeats

Introduction to the Audio Tour and Exhibition

In Episode 2 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution we are joined by Dr Alice Rekab for a conversation about flags and song in the context of their artistic practice and Julie’s research at the National Library. Dr. Alice Rekab is an artist, researcher and educator based in Dublin. Their practice is concerned with expressions and iterations of complex cultural and personal narratives. Alice takes their own mixed-race Irish identity as a starting point from which to explore experiences of race, place and belonging. Over the last ten years Alice's practice has centred around collaboration and interdisciplinary work from which they produce film, performance, text, image and sculpture, creating new intersectional narratives and objects for gallery based exhibition and large scale public commission. Their projects include Family Lines, a solo exhibition and multi-platform project with Douglas Hyde Gallery Dublin (2022), Ricochet #14, a solo presentation at Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2023), Concealed in the Half Light at Catalyst Art Centre Belfast (2021) and Truth Flags Identity, a temporary public art work commissioned by Temple Bar Gallery+Studios for Dublin Culture Night 2020.

The music for the Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is “Saharakungoh” by Fehdah. 

Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is created by Dr Julie Morrissy as part of the Poet-in-Residence programme at the National Library of Ireland, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. Sound and production are by the Museum of Literature Ireland. 

Sources:

Antille, Martine, dir. Dreaming Rivers. Sankofa Film & Video, 1989.

Gillis, Liz. Women of the Irish Revolution. Mercier Press, 2016.

---, and Mary McAuliffe. Richmond Barracks 1916: We Were There: 77 Women of the Easter Rising. Four Courts Press, 2016.

“Introduction: What are Spomeniks?”. Spomenik Database, www.spomenikdatabase.org/what-are-spomeniks

McCoole, Sinead. No ordinary women : Irish female activists in the revolutionary years, 1900-23. UP Wisconsin, 2003. 

O’Brennan, Lily. “Easter Week Experiences”. The Irish Press, 13 Apr. 1939, p. 5. 

---. “1916: The Surrender”. An Cosantóir, Jun. 1947. Rpt. in The Evening Herald, 15 Apr. 2006, p. 8. 

Rekab, Alice. Breaking Emmet’s Block. 2017, Grange Road Plaza, The Pearse Museum, Dublin, South Dublin County Council, www.alicerekab.com/work/emerge-w85fd

---. Isatu at rest. 2021, FAMILY LINES: Billboard Series, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, www.thedouglashyde.ie/event/family-lines-billboard-series/

---. FAMILY LINES PROJECT. 2021-22, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, www.thedouglashyde.ie/exhibition/family-lines-project/

---. Migration Sings. 2020, featuring Khalilu Gibrill Daneil Conteh, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, https://vimeo.com/458995819

---. Truth, Flags, Identity. 2020, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, www.templebargallery.com/whats-on/events/public-art-commission-alice-rekab-truth-flags-identity

santiago, nibia pastrana. “the lazy dancer / la ballerina vaga”. 2013, www.nibiapastrana.com/lazymanifesto

Twilight City. Directed by Reece Auguiste. Black Audio Film Collective, 1989.

Episode 2 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution with Dr Alice Rekab

In Episode 3 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution I am joined by Seán Hewitt for a conversation about his work as Poet-in-Residence at the Irish Queer Archive. In this episode we discuss some of the difficult things about working with archive, including violence against LGBTQ+ people and the murder of Declan Flynn in 1982.

Seán Hewitt’s debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2020. It won The Laurel Prize in 2021, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their "30 under 30"  artists in Ireland. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, is forthcoming from Jonathan Cape in the UK and Penguin Press in the USA in July this year. He is a book critic for The Irish Times and teaches Modern British & Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin.

The music for the Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is “Saharakungoh” by Fehdah. 

Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is created by Dr Julie Morrissy as part of the Poet-in-Residence programme at the National Library of Ireland, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. Sound and production are by the Museum of Literature Ireland. 

NLI Sources:

MS 17528/4: Copy typescript letter from Dorothy McArdle to Joseph McGarrity regarding the poverty experienced in Connemara and Kerry due to famine and the imprisonment of breadwinners, and denouncing the violence of Free State troops, 1924 June 8

MS 41492/1/11: Letter from Alice Milligan to Lily O'Brennan concerning her 'Arbour Hill Poem'

MS 41492/1/31: Letter from Alice Milligan to Lily O'Brennan concerning an upcoming party, a new boiler and her poetry

MSS 45,936 – 46,054: Ireland Queer Archives Papers 1974-2005. National Library of Ireland, www.nli.ie/pdfs/mss%20lists/151_IQA.pdf

References:

Cúirt International Festival of Literature. www.cuirt.ie/

Hewitt, Seán. All Down Darkness Wide. Jonathan Cape & Penguin Press, 2022.

--. "The Irish Queer Archive". Holy Show, Issue 4, 2022 (forthcoming)

---. J. M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism. Oxford University Press, 2021.

---. “Joelle Taylor: We all walk around with legions of ghosts within us”. The Irish Times, 29 Jan. 2020, www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/joelle-taylor-we-all-walk-around-with-legions-of-ghosts-within-us-1.4779542

---. Tongues of Fire. Jonathan Cape, 2020.

Kenny, Oisín. “A Lifetime of Change”. GCN, no. 363, Mar. 2020, www.magazine.gcn.ie/articles/195710?article=30-1

Morrissy, Julie. “Phonica: #3 Julie Morrissy ‘Certain Individual Women’ / WE, The PEOPLE”. Hotel, www.partisanhotel.co.uk/Julie-Morrissy

Episode 3 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution with Seán Hewitt

Episode 4 is the finale of the Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution series. In this last episode I reflect on my work as Poet-in-Residence and read from source materials from the archives at the National Library of Ireland. The episode includes excerpts from Dorothy Macardle’s account of Easter Week, published in the Irish Press in 1933, two newspaper articles by Lily O’Brennan on the surrenders, and a short excerpt from Elizabeth O’Farrell’s account of the surrenders. I also share from my forthcoming pamphlet Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution, which are based on these archival materials.

The music for the Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is “Saharakungoh” by Fehdah. 

Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution is created by Dr Julie Morrissy as part of the Poet-in-Residence programme at the National Library of Ireland, supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023. Sound and production are by the Museum of Literature Ireland. 

NLI Sources:

MS 31,468.  Newspaper cuttings from 'The Irish Press' of 'The great story of the Rising: Easter Week day by day' by Dorothy Macardle, 1933 Apr. 17-22

MS 50246/5/1: Copy of account of the Easter Rising by Elizabeth O'Farrell [MS 50,246/5/1], [undated]

NPA POLF234: Pearse's Surrender [graphic], 1916 April 29.

References:

O’Brennan, Lily. “1916: The Surrender”. Evening Herald, 15 Apr. 2006. 

---. “Easter Week Experiences”. Irish Press, 13 Apr. 1939.

Episode 4 of Radical!: Women and the Irish Revolution | Voices of the Archive

This activity is a mindful look at the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will highlight soothing lines and images from the poem, 'The Skunk' and encourages participants at home to take some time to find their own mindful moments in this poem.

Mindful Activity-The Skunk

This activity is a mindful look at the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will highlight soothing lines and images from the poem, 'A Sofa in the Forties' and encourages participants at home to take some time to find their own mindful moments in this poem.

Mindful Activity- A Sofa In The Forties

This activity is a mindful look at the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will highlight soothing lines and images from the poem, 'Blackberry-Picking' and encourages participants to take some time to find their own mindful moments in this poem.

Mindful Activity-Blackberry-Picking

Part 5 of the 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' audio tour. This section explores Seamus Heaney's reponse to the political situation in Northern Ireland and the pursuit of peace. This tour can be used when visiting this exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour Part 5-'Conscience'

The final part of the 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' exhibition. In this section we take a look at the artists Maser's 'Don't Be Afraid' artwork which is inspired by the final words of Seamus Heaney. This tour can be used when visiting this exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour Part 7- 'Don't Be Afraid'

Part 4 of the 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' audio tour. This section explores Seamus Heaney's writing process and the friendships he made throughout his career. This tour can be used when visiting this exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour Part 4- 'Creativity'

Part 6 of the 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' audio tour. This part of the exhibition highlights the uplifting quality of Seamus Heaney's work. This tour can be used when visiting this exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour Part 6- 'Marvels'

Part 3 of the 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' audio tour. This section explores Seamus Heaney's childhood and early life. This tour can be used when visiting this exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour Part 3-'Excavations'

Introduction to the exhibition, 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again'. This audio tour can be used when visiting this exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour Part 1- Introduction

Part 2 of the 'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' audio tour exploring the beginning of Seamus Heaney's career and the timeline of his life. This audio can be used when visiting the exhibition in the Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre, Westmoreland Street, Dublin 2.

'Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again' Audio Tour- Part 2-'Beginnings'

This activity is a mindful look at the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will highlight soothing lines and images from the poem, 'Mossbawn:Sunlight' from 'North' and encourages participants at home to take some time to find their own mindful moments in this poem.

'Mossbawn: Sunlight'-Mindful Activity

The mission of the National Library of Ireland (NLI) is to collect, preserve, promote and make accessible the documentary and intellectual record of the life of Ireland and to contribute to the provision of access to the larger universe of recorded knowledge.  It is open, free of charge, to all those who wish to consult the collections. The Office of the Chief Herald in Kildare Street and the National Photographic Archive in Temple Bar are both part of the National Library.  Further information is available at www.nli.ie. Follow the NLI on Twitter @NLIreland, Facebook National Library of Ireland, Flickr on the Commons  and Vimeo.

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