Skelligs Haul is a generous compilation of Michael Kirby's prose and poetry, appealing for his simple, elegant style, his knowledge of unique local lore, and his inimitable observations. Kirby, a man who spent nearly every day of his ninety-nine years on the beautiful Iveragh peninsula, apart from a brief period in the United States, knew better than most that survival demanded persistence, passion, civility and good humour. In the shadow of the World Heritage site of Skellig Michael, he eked out a living fishing and farming with intimate knowledge of every inch of sea and soil. This volume, organised thematically, demonstrates Kirby's great gift of expressing the artist's fresh, passionate insight in elegant, plain language and with the dispassionate slant of a scientist. His knowledge of local birds and fish was as encyclopaedic and forensic as his grasp of place names. Referred to as `one of the last authentic expressions of the Gaelic tradition, artlessly fusing the worlds of flesh and spirit', he was a mystic who found his God, his solace and serenity in every living thing in Iveragh. This book includes some dual texts of poems freely translated from Irish by Kirby, showing that his inward eye led to verse in both the romantic vein and the fine tradition of Irish-language religious verse. This collection also presents reproductions of his landscape paintings, an introduction by poet Paddy Bushe and an editor's preface and note.

About the Author
Michael Kirby / Micheal Ua Ciarmhaic (1906-2005) was an Irish and English language prose writer and poet whose first collection was published at the age of seventy-eight. He was the author of numerous further collections of poetry and prose in both Irish and English, including Skelligside (1990), Skelligs Calling (2003) and the posthumous Skelligs Sunset (2006). Michael Kirby was a talented landscape painter, a profoundly knowledgeable folklorist, an engaging memoirist and an environmentalist before his time. Mary Shine Thompson was formerly a lecturer in English at St Patrick's College Drumcondra, Dublin City University, and edited Michael Kirby's posthumously published book, Skelligs Sunset. She was awarded a doctorate in Anglo-Irish Literature and has been on the editorial boards of several academic journals. She has edited, inter alia, the plays of Austin Clarke (published by Colin Smythe), an edition of the Seamus Heaney Lectures and numerous collections of academic writings on children's literature (Four Courts Press). She has chaired several national bodies, including Poetry Ireland, Imram, and Encountering the Arts Ireland.

Reviews
Michael Kirby had a poet's heart, a painter's eye and the unsentimentality of a scientist. -- Mary Shine Thompson * Irish Times *
The way he lived his life affirmed something I have always known about creative expression: that it comes from the heart as well as the mind. -- Jane Urquhart



Book Information
ISBN 9781843517672
Author Michael Kirby
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint The Lilliput Press Ltd
Publisher The Lilliput Press Ltd