Culture Matters
Press Release
From the Plough to the Stars: An Anthology of Working People’s Prose
from Contemporary Ireland
“The
cooks, the cleaners, the porters: unsung heroes on the frontline” cried an
Irish newspaper headline in early May 2020. During the pandemic it has become
clear that whatever else fails, a society cannot function without the working
class. The underlying inequalities of our class-divided society have also been
laid bare by the coronavirus, including the ways in which working-class
histories, experiences and values have never been adequately represented in our
national cultural life.
So it is particularly
timely that on Monday 16th November, Clare Daly MEP will launch a unique
anthology of prose by Irish working-class writers. There are 50 contributions from the whole island
of Ireland, driving home the fact that their life
experience as working people is the same, no matter where on the island they
live, on which side of the border, rural or urban, female or male, younger or
older, writing in Irish or English.
The common focus is on themes which reflect the texture and preoccupations of working-class life in contemporary Ireland. The writers create a complex and varied image of Irish working people today, one that challenges conventional stereotypes of their class.
The anthology is edited by Jenny Farrell, has a foreword by Gerry Murphy,
President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and it has been generously supported and promoted by the Irish labour
movement.
Price: €12/ £11 plus p. and p. Available from the Culture
Matters website, culturematters.org.uk.
Note to Editors: For
further information or for interview please contact
Jenny Farrell, Associate Editor, Culture Matters 091792297, 089-4600425, or Mike Quille, Chief Editor, Culture
Matters, editor@culturematters.org.uk
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