Tag: Derry Girls

Irish secrets: Trespasses and Truth Be Told

Feb 16, 2023

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by

Pen

in Irish Troubles, Northern Ireland, value of the arts, YA Irish fiction

The intensity of the forbidden Sleeping with the enemy. The intensity of the forbidden. Always a topic to set the mind questioning and the heart racing. The protagonist of Louise Kennedy’s Belfast novel Trespasses, Cushla Lavery (whose given name derives from the Irish phrase A chuisle mo chroi – the pulse of my heart) is…
Drinking the days: biographies and oysters

Jan 28, 2020

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by

Pen

in Australian memoir, Christina Stead, Democracy, Dennis Glover, Kay Schubach, Living creatively, mental illness, optimism, value of the arts

‘Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.’ American writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937) wrote that. I love it and would often think of it after opening the curtains first thing. But her words took on a tragic tone in the mornings after the bushfires began. We could no longer open windows. Canberra’s air quality…