Ireland (Lonely Planet, 9th Edition) - Fionn Davenport [31]
Before there was anything like modern literature there was the Ulaid (Ulster) Cycle – Ireland’s version of the Homeric epic – written down from oral tradition between the 8th and 12th centuries. The chief story is the Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley), about a battle between Queen Maeve of Connaught and Cúchulainn, the principal hero of Irish mythology. Cúchulainn appears in the work of Irish writers right up to the present day, from Samuel Beckett to Frank McCourt.
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The Pulitzer Prize– winning Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt, tells the relentlessly bleak autobiographical story of the author’s poverty-stricken Limerick childhood in the Depression of the 1930s.
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Zip forward 1000 years, past the genius of Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) and his Gulliver’s Travels; stopping to acknowledge acclaimed dramatist Oscar Wilde (1854–1900); Dracula creator Bram Stoker (1847–1912) – some have optimistically claimed that the name of the count may have come from the Irish droch fhola (bad blood); and the literary giant that was James Joyce (1882–1941), whose name and books elicit enormous pride in Ireland (although we’ve yet to meet five people who have read all of Ulysses!).
The majority of Joyce’s literary output came when he had left Ireland for the artistic hotbed that was Paris, which was also true for another great experimenter of language and style, Samuel Beckett (1906–89). Influenced by the Italian poet Dante and French philosopher Descartes, his work centres on fundamental existential questions about the human condition and the nature of self. He is probably best known for his play Waiting for Godot, but his unassailable reputation is based on a series of stark novels and plays.
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Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane (the Guardian Fiction Prize winner) is thoughtful prose and recounts a young boy’s struggles to unravel the truth of his own history growing up during the Troubles of Belfast.
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Of the dozens of 20th-century Irish authors to have achieved published renown, some names to look out for include playwright and novelist Brendan Behan (1923–64), who wove tragedy, wit and a turbulent life into his best works including Borstal Boy, The Quare Fellow and The Hostage. Inevitably, Behan died young of alcoholism.
Belfast-born CS Lewis (1898–1963) died a year earlier, but he left us The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of allegorical children’s stories, two of which have been made into films, with a third (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) scheduled for release in 2010. Other Northern writers have, not surprisingly, featured the Troubles in their work: Bernard McLaverty’s Cal (also made into a film) and his more recent The Anatomy School are both wonderful.
Contemporary writers are plentiful, including superstar Roddy Doyle (b 1958), author of the Barrytown trilogy The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van, as well as a host of more serious books; the Booker–prize winning John Banville (b 1945), who nabbed the prestigious award with The Sea; and the wonderful Colm Tóibín (b 1955), whose The Master (2004), about Henry James, won the Los Angeles Times’ Novel of the Year award, as well as the first IMPAC award (see below) for an Irish author.
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The Booker Prize– winning novel The Sea by John Banville is an engrossing meditation on mortality, grief, death, childhood and memory.
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Ireland has produced its fair share of female writers. The ‘come here and I’ll tell you a story’ style of Maeve Binchy (b 1940) has seen her outsell many of the greats of Irish literature, including Beckett and Behan, and her long list of bestsellers includes