Irish Literary Times
@irishlittimes.bsky.social
Promoting Irish writers and writing - maintained by Gerard Beirne @gerardbeirne.bsky.social
“It shows that translation – especially literary translation – is not just a matter of right or wrong, good or bad, but a continual exploratory process of interpretive reimagining and re-making.” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
Emily Wilson to retranslate the Odyssey from scratch
Wilson, whose 2017 English translation of Homer’s epic poem inspired Christopher Nolan’s box office hit, is revisiting it after criticising the film adaptation
theguardian.com
The Irish academic Louise Brangan has been shortlisted for the prestigious Cundill History Prize for her book The Fallen, on the Magdalen Laundries and the way Irish society has dealt with their legacy. Fair play.
On awards: I don't think awards are good. I don't think you should pluck somebody out of a job that is so communal and give them an award and everybody else is kind of left behind. I don't like awards. They create a competition element that shouldn't be there in our job...it's such a family affair.
Irish Literary Times@irishlittimes.bsky.social · 18h agoBrenda Fricker on playing Megan in Casualty: I couldn't do her job ever. Just go down to the hospital and watch what they do for an eighth of the salary I earned pretending to be a nurse. It makes you blush. You break your heart with people being kicked in the teeth by life. I couldn't handle it.
Brenda Fricker on playing Megan in Casualty: I couldn't do her job ever. Just go down to the hospital and watch what they do for an eighth of the salary I earned pretending to be a nurse. It makes you blush. You break your heart with people being kicked in the teeth by life. I couldn't handle it.
I have an odd feeling that in the future this moment when the government went full steam ahead on data centres, asked tech funded think tanks to effectively write legislation and acted as Big Tech's protector against the EU will be seen as a pivotal moment on the journey down an unpleasant road.
"I'm not sure if there's any other country in the world where 80,000 people would turn up for a female athlete." Katie Taylor www.irishmirror.ie/sport/other-...
Katie Taylor v Flora Pili start time, TV information, undercard fights and more
Katie Taylor faces France's Flora Pili in her last ever bout
irishmirror.ie
Previously unpublished book from Ciaran out very soon. See link below.
X+Y=K
An electrifying fusion of memoir, ghost story and speculative fiction, and a final radiant act of imagination from the late Ciaran Carson.
lilliputpress.ie
Oh no. Exactly what everyone who knows anything about it said would happen, happened. Oh gosh. Maybe another moral panic will do it? Or maybe we should give "pretending to care but not actually asking the tech companies who are responsible to do anything" another go?
The Journal@thejournal.ie · 23h agoThere has been no reduction in underage children’s access to social media platforms, despite legal obligations which came into effect in July 2025 designed to prevent this, according to a new report. jrnl.ie/7149603
Starting the day off with Belle Baker. Would love to have heard her version of All of Me.
In honour of the 300th anniversary of Gulliver’s Travels, the James Joyce Centre is proud to present a six-week course on Jonathan Swift starting on 23 September. Click the link below for more details. jamesjoyce.ie/events/jonat...
Katie Taylor: ‘I was walking to some boxing gyms as a young girl being sniggered at and laughed at’
Katie Taylor: ‘I was walking to some boxing gyms as a young girl being sniggered at and laughed at’
In the last press conference of her boxing career, Taylor is in relaxed mood, finally allowing herself to think about her legacy in the sport
irishtimes.com
Wendell Berry #RIP: “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/u...
Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92
A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim.
nytimes.com
Very sad new. But what a remarkable life. So grateful for his words and inspiration.🙏
Anthony Michael Kreis@anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 2d agoSo, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/u...
End of August. I read a lot of totally mediocre contemporary novels this month and a fair few absolutely cracking books. These were my favourites.
The richest man owns X. The second and fourth richest men control Google. The third richest man owns The Washington Post. The sixth richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And now the seventh richest could soon take over both Paramount and Warner Bros. See the problem here?
Things are getting very exciting. Less than a month till #NoVacancy hits the shelves and Andrew Cunning is saying such nice things about my tiny stories.
Lads in the alley giving it a fair shot, considering their state. @mickpuck.bsky.social's “The Whole of the Moon”: "You saw the whole of the moon. Whoh-hoh. Wooh-hoh. You saw the crescent. We saw Brigadoon. Too high, too [mumble], whole of the moon. Whoohoh. Wooh-hooooooooh. "Whole of the moon."
Me (in the background) with my Parker pen when I don't get shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards
Leah Reich@leahreich.com · 2d agoI’m sure most of you aren’t watching the US Open right now which means you missed this instantly iconic moment, now available in gif form
"Let's create a new myth." I remember attending the Thoreau Conference in Missoula in ’92, “Creating the New Myths of the West,” with a who’s who of writers like Terry Tempest Williams, Jim Harrison, Rick Bass, Richard Nelson, Simon Ortiz, Marilynne Robinson, William Kittredge, Sandra Cisneros...
Westerns & the Old West@davidlambertart.bsky.social · 2d agoHere's James Coburn relaying an anecdote about Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid that articulates what so many people get wrong about Sam Peckinpah's Westerns. Peckinpah's goal was not demythologizing the Old West. His goal was revitalizing the old myths & creating new ones:
macabre = “muh-KAHB” Worcestershire = “WOOSS-ter-sheer” omnipotent = “ahm-NI-puh-tunt” reticent = “RET-uh-sunt” epitome = “ih-PIT-uh-mee” myriad = "MEER-ee-ud" Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.
"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of ..."
Rob Delaney@robdelaney.bsky.social · 3d agoI’m reading Cannery Row. Jesus Christ is it amazing. So great to live in a world where I can be almost 50, have been an avid reader my whole life & have barely scratched the surface of the surface of spectacular books out there.
