New collection exploring Galway neighbourhoods

Arts Week with Judy Murphy

Athair or Father, a powerful and moving short story about a young Connemara man in the mid-1990s telling his elderly widowed father that he’s gay, is one of the stand-out stories in a new anthology of fiction from Inverin based Doire Press. Written by local writer Micheál Ó Conghaile, it captures the difficulty of the moment and the dignity of the protagonists, both in the original Irish version and the translation to English.

“An anthology of and about place,” is how novelist Alan McMonagle describes the collection, Galway Stories: 2020.

It features fiction from writers all across Galway County and City and others who have lived locally. Contributors include Elizabeth Reapy, Órla Foyle, Danny Denton, Geraldine Mills, Nuala O’Connor, Elaine Feeney, James Martyn Joyce, and Butcher Boy author, Pat McCabe, who was Writer in Residence at the then UCG in the 1990s.

Historian and gallery-owner Tom Kenny gives a brief historic background to areas featured in the book, while there are maps and icons from illustrator Tríona Walsh and photographs from Róisín Flaherty.

Galway Stories: 2020 is co-edited by Lisa Frank of Doire Press. American by birth, she’s unusual in having no Irish ancestors and her reason for moving to this country and Galway in particular was because its vibrant creative community, she explains.

Lisa had worked in publishing in the US and 10 years ago, she and her partner, writer John Walsh, established Doire Press to publish a poetry collection he had written, aided by a grant from Galway County Council. Then, they published work from a poetry slam that John had run. Next, they started getting submissions from writers and Doire grew.

“We never had a business plan,” she says with a smile.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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