Brian Friel (Dublin celebrated his 70th birthday by running his plays at just about every theater in the city, and I was spending the Summer at Trinity.)
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
I started Joyce with The Dubliners on my own, but I needed a class in Ulysses and Finnegan. I still don’t know what Finnegan was really all about, and Joyce wrote it using 5 different languages. A late friend who headed the English Department at Princeton once told me that if anyone said he/she had read Finnegan’s Wake, he/she was probably lying…LOL!
Wilde first (without a doubt) second: James Stephens third: Flann O’Brien (otherwise Swift, Berkeley, Beckett, Milligan, Banville, Kearney, and not forgetting Nina Fitzpatrick) (and for personal reasonings, ye understand: Pádraig J. Daly)
As I dipped to test the stream some yards away From a hot spring, I could hear nothing But the whole mud-slick muttering and boiling. And then my guide behind me saying, ‘Lukewarm. And I think you’d want to know That luk was an old Icelandic word for hand.’ And you would want to know (but you know already) How usual that waft and pressure felt When the inner palm of water found my palm.
Brian Friel (Dublin celebrated his 70th birthday by running his plays at just about every theater in the city, and I was spending the Summer at Trinity.)
Eugene O’Neil
James Joyce
W.B. Yeats.
Author, or poet? Joyce, and Yeats
Yeats did write plays…terribly!
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Without a shred of doubt, James Joyce and Samuel Becket!
Oscar Wilde
I have some James Joyce books but have not read them. I have read Frank McCourt and enjoyed his books.
Portrait of the Artist is the most accessible of Joyce’s works (except perhaps Dubliners). Dip into either before tackling anything longer
I have both those.
I started Joyce with The Dubliners on my own, but I needed a class in Ulysses and Finnegan. I still don’t know what Finnegan was really all about, and Joyce wrote it using 5 different languages. A late friend who headed the English Department at Princeton once told me that if anyone said he/she had read Finnegan’s Wake, he/she was probably lying…LOL!
@Lorrie ~ the same has been said of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, but I swear I survived that mess
besides all the historical and memoir types.. Tana French
I love her books…except the most recent one.
@Lorrie me too! boy if that had been the first one i read i dont know if i would have gotten to others. loved the others!
Anne Enright, Edna O’Brien
The Country Girls!!!!
Jonathan Swift.
Jennifer Johnston ❤❤
William Trevor
The Old Boys! Yes!
Flann O’Brien
Contemporary: John Boyne, Tana French, Sally Rooney.
Colm Toibin, John Banville among so many others !
J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Rita Ann Higgins
Maeve Binchy
I remember struggling with her first book because of the lack of punctuation. It drove me crazy!
Oscar Wilde.
Mary Higgins Clark
James Patterson
Irish Americans
?
W.B. Yeats ?
John Banville
Wilde first (without a doubt)
second: James Stephens
third: Flann O’Brien
(otherwise Swift, Berkeley, Beckett, Milligan, Banville, Kearney, and not forgetting Nina Fitzpatrick)
(and for personal reasonings, ye understand: Pádraig J. Daly)
Maeve.Binchy?
Roddy Doyle
I like his children’s books and would love to see a production of the rewrite of Playboy. I wonder if the BBC ever filmed it.
George Bernard Shaw
John Boyne
Another author who also writes terrific books for kids!
Maeve Binchy
Yeats
Oscar Wilde
Hard to pick just one. Seamus Heaney is another great one.
A Postcard from Iceland:
As I dipped to test the stream some yards away
From a hot spring, I could hear nothing
But the whole mud-slick muttering and boiling.
And then my guide behind me saying,
‘Lukewarm. And I think you’d want to know
That luk was an old Icelandic word for hand.’
And you would want to know (but you know already)
How usual that waft and pressure felt
When the inner palm of water found my palm.
James Joyce
Patrick Taylor
Marian Keyes
CS Lewis, Spike Milligan
Following
Yeats, Samuel Beckett
Sebastian Barry
William Trevor
Love them both!
G.B. Shaw, Wilde (of course), Bram Stoker and Yeats 🙂
There are so many writers in that list I haven’t read yet !
https://lithub.com/15-great-irish-writers-youve-probably-never-read-but-should/
Lots of new names here!
I did not know that Bram Stoker was Irish. You learn something new every day!
Oscar Wilde