Land of the Ever Young: Book Review and Interview ~ Morning Star!

 Morning Star!

Book Review and Interview/ Jenny Farrell.

Mike Quille: Land of the Ever Young: An Anthology of Working People’s Writing for Children from Contemporary Ireland has just been published. It is the third book in a trilogy of working people’s writing from contemporary Ireland, edited by you. Can you tell us about the background to the project?

Jenny Farrell: When I began work on the first anthology, Children of the Nation, which had been commissioned by Culture Matters, the big question for me was how to reach out to working-class writers. I realised that there had never before been such a collection of working people’s writing in Ireland.

Until recently, I taught modern Irish literature and over the years have observed that students respond far more enthusiastically if they think a poem has something to do with their lives.

In all three of the anthologies of working people’s writing, the point of view is that things are not as they should be, they are not in the best interest of the working population.

Important themes are homelessness, immigration, the abandonment of women in the mother and baby homes, poverty, but also the fightback, internationalism and solidarity.

There are very many more themes of course, but all of them reflect what if feels like to be disadvantaged, a victim in a society that punishes the poor and rewards the rich.

I wanted the anthologies to be a collective voice of working people — not individual voices, but the voice of a class making a statement about being excluded from the establishment discourse.

Another important consideration for me was that I wished to include Irish language writing, because there is such a strong working-class tradition in writing in Irish, and this is rarely acknowledged even in academic study.

Finally I wanted these anthologies to have a good gender balance and to represent the whole island of Ireland. The fact that there are contributors from both parts of Ireland also highlights common ground between the people living in the North and those living in the Republic.

The Children of the Nation, a poetry anthology, was published in 2019 and was a fantastic success, selling out very quickly. It was launched by Peter McVerry, very well known in Ireland for his outstanding role in championing the cause of the homeless. There are 67 poets in the collection.

The second book, From the Plough to the Stars, is a prose anthology. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the contributions exposed the parasitical captains of industry and their fellow travellers in global finance, and the true value and critical importance of workers’ contributions to our communities.

The third and final volume in the set, Land of the Ever Young, is an anthology of writing for children. All the stories are packed with humanity, tenderness, and wisdom. The authors present children and adults who confront wrongs, challenge superstition and injustice, and who often see further than others around them.

The heroines and heroes in these stories are always filled with a sense of the common good, highlighting the qualities necessary to make society a fairer, better place, a home for a happy future, a Tir na nOg (Land of Youth).

Such a place can only materialise in the absence of wars, of profit-driven greed with its contempt for equality, humanity and the environment — a place where instead the common good is the measure of society.

Children read and re-read stories many times, and they often stay with them for a lifetime, acting as a moral compass. This is what makes literature for children so very important.

The images that accompany children’s stories are also remembered for a long time, and Land of the Ever Young has been beautifully and sensitively illustrated by the artist Karen Dietrich. Her images comment on and expand the humanist themes contained in the texts and help make them truly memorable for the readers, children and adults alike.

We have been extremely lucky that all three anthologies were financially supported by the Irish trade union movement. It is the first time that a literary project of this magnitude has been fully supported by trade unions in Ireland, in recognition of the importance of creativity and the right of the working class to express the wealth of their culture and to articulate their experience of life.

MQ: To conclude then: how can a more equal, communal society or Tir na nOg be imagined and created in the various areas of cultural production and enjoyment?

It is one of the functions of art to explore where we all going. Utopia is not a Never Never Land, but the goal towards which we are progressing. Here and now this is a world that is environmentally sustainable, one free of discrimination, exploitation, poverty and wars.

Every one of us can be involved in help confront the inequities that are at the very core of imperialism.

Ultimately, Tir na nOg will only be reached when the capitalist world we live in is changed into one which puts the common good at its heart. Every effort to defend and expand on democratic achievements, to challenge ruling-class control over all aspects of society, including culture, is a step towards achieving a better life for all.

The three Culture Matters anthologies do this by giving voice to the class in whose hands the future lies.

A longer version of this interview is available on the Culture Matters website, www.culturematters.org.uk, as are all three printed anthologies. PDFs of all three books are also available exclusively to readers of the Morning Star for £10, email info@culturematters.org.uk for details.

 

 

 

Land of the Ever Young ~ Galway Advertiser/Review!

 Galway Advertiser Review!

 #GALWAY December 2 2021

New anthology of children’s stories by working class writers

 By Kernan Andrews:  Land of the Ever Young,  is a new anthology of writing for children by working class authors - the final volume in a trilogy of working people’s writing from contemporary Ireland.    Land Of The Ever Young , like its predecessors - the poetry anthology,  Children of the Nation , and prose anthology,  From The Plough To The Stars  - have been edited by Galway academic Jenny Farrell and is published by Culture Matters. It also features illustrations by Karen Dietrich.  The book also features writers and stories of Galway interest. Galway’s Moya  Roddy contributed three stories -  ‘Seagull’, ‘The New Friend’, and ‘Your House Is On Fire Your Children Will Burn’ - which are linked by themes of children fighting for things they believe  in and finding their own selves.

Celia de Fréine, who divides her time between Dublin and Connemara, recalls Ireland in the 1950s and a cross border venture for girls wearing slacks. In addition, her Irish language mnemonic sets out to help remember the colours of the rainbow.  Eileen Keane’s ‘On The Mountain’ is a fond memoir of a small sheep farmer’s relationship with his daughter, teaching her the folklore and songs of North Connemara. The authors present children and adults who confront wrongs, challenge superstition and injustice, who often see further than others around them, and who are determined to make their society a fairer place.  The project has been fully supported by the Irish trade union movement in recognition of the importance of creativity and the right of working class people to express their culture and experience of life.   Land of the Ever Young:

An Anthology of Working People’s Writing for Children from Contemporary Ireland  is available via   www.culturematters.org. uk  ; Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop; and Kenny’s Bookshop. 

 

 €12

 

 

                           

 

 

Land of the Ever Young ~ Reviewed/Irish Times!

 Irish Times Reviewed!

Jenny Farrell

Young, gifted and working-class: a different kind of Irish children’s anthology These stories and poems contrast with the middle-class values of mainstream literature

 Land of the Ever Young is the final volume of a set of three anthologies of working people’s writing from contemporary Ireland, published by Culture Matters. This present work is unique – it is the first ever anthology of children’s stories in Ireland penned by working-class writers.

The project is a pioneering venture that has been fully supported by the Irish trade union movement in recognition of the importance of creativity and the right of the working class to express the wealth of their culture and to articulate their experience of life.

In this regard, the 30 stories and poems for children present an understanding of the world that contrasts with the conventional middle-class social values extolled by mainstream children’s literature over a century. For very many children in Ireland and elsewhere, such books do not reflect their life experience.

In this volume the authors present heroines and heroes who confront wrongs, challenge superstition and injustice. Together, they highlight the qualities necessary to make society a fairer, better place, a home for a happy future, a Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Ever Young. A modern re-working of Grimm’s fairytales and Irish folk tales play a novel role in imparting this vision. These writings have a subtext of inclusive humanity that are rooted in Ireland and the Irish imagination.

As in the two preceding volumes, this anthology includes texts in Irish as well as English, emphasising the Irish-language tradition in working people’s writing. This includes Tomás Mac Síomóin’s poem An Teachín Liath/ The Grey House, an appeal to the radical power of imagination. To find your utopia, you must think outside of the box: “Paidrín ná paidir fós ní leor/ ná dlíthe dorcha an tréada/ ach síneann staighre id’ chroí istigh/ chuig a theaichín ar chúl na gealaí.” .” (“stale formulas or with words/ Prayers also will not serve,/ the laws obscure the way/ only the stairs of your heart’s desire/ can bring you to his secret.”)

James O’Brien’s autofiction, A little table for Packy, describes a childhood experience that children who have witnessed the current pandemic can easily relate to: “an epidemic of diphtheria had broken out across the city and claimed scores of lives”. Packy’s father cannot visit him despite his lifethreatening illness, because he has to work in England.

Also set in a hospital is Alan Weadick’s Four Eyes, which explores seeing, literally and metaphorically. Like Packy, the boy at the centre of this contemporary story is away from home, the safety of his world shaken, with a dawning realisation of another, not entirely benign reality outside of his own mind.

Several writers re-tell older texts, both Irish and European. Ross Walsh reimagines three fairy tales popularised by the Grimm brothers, writing grim tales of today. Puss in Boots and the Ogre begins: “Once upon a time, there was a big tall apartment block in a huge city. Most of the people who lived in these apartments did not have much money.” A female cat helps these people set things right. In The Blue Lighter, a magician helps a worker to help the workers in a factory. In Walsh’s version of Little Red Riding Hood, both Wolf and Grandma act decisively faced with a modern-day dilemma. Things in Walsh’s new fairy tales do not have to stay as they are, and the “weak” have power when they stand together.

Eileen Keane tells of a small sheep farmer’s relationship with his young daughter, teaching her about the work, folklore and traditional songs of north Connemara. The people who work the land are its true inheritors. Anne Mac Darby-Beck’s The Fairy Fort tells of a child’s courage in defeating some of the more distasteful characters of superstition, showing that a human child can defeat a fairy king. Gabriel Rosenstock shows in The Blind Ones how superstition and prejudice blind people and remove them from their true heritage.

Blindness of another kind is at the heart of Michael Casey’s Fabled Isle, which leads to the collapse of an island, where only a boy can see what is happening: “He wondered how it was that no one else on the island had known what was going on under their very noses.” Frank Murphy, in his take on class society in A New Deal, shows the decadence and hollowness of the ruling class in the tradition of Dickens and Tressell.

Alan O’Brien, in The Old Man and the Blackbird, and Moya Roddy, in Seagull, explore the kindness of an old man and a young girl towards injured birds. People’s bond with nature is a theme in many of the stories, including Anne Mac Darby-Beck’s re-telling of Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose. Assuming responsibility for the natural world, of which we are a part, is shown to be an aspect of ourselves. Kindness to animals and nature is a measure of humanity.

Several authors explore aspects of Irish history. Gráinne Daly re-imagines the famous meeting of 1593, between the Irish pirate queen Gráinne Mhaol and the English (also pirate) queen Elizabeth. Liz Gillis takes a look at more recent history in her story about three young girls involved in the Irish Revolution, working-class girls who wanted to and did, make a difference. Celia de Fréine’s Wearing the Trousers propels readers into 1950s Ireland and the important question of stereotyping and prejudices against women at that time.

Several authors set their stories in schools, or on the block. Karl Parkinson (Blockhood) uses phonetic spelling to create great closeness to the world of children growing up in working-class estates. Set in Dublin schools, Declan Geraghty challenges the dictate of advertising (Saturn 2000s), and Camillus John’s zany humour informs The Sponsored Cat-Squeeze. Moya Roddy imagines Galway children’s action in helping to save the environment in Your House is on Fire Your Children will Burn. The Covid pandemic, its impact on the lives of inner-city Dublin children, is the theme of Cathy Scuffil’s essay Children Making History. When we look back at historic events, we very rarely hear or read of the experiences of children, especially children from working-class areas.

Children re-read stories many times, often the tales and pictures stay with them for a lifetime. Land of the Ever Young has been sensitively illustrated by Karen Dietrich. Her images expand the humanist themes contained in the texts and help make them truly memorable for children and adults alike. Land of the Ever Young: An Anthology of Writing for Children by Working People from Contemporary Ireland, edited by Jenny Farrell, is published by Culture Matters, at €12, and is available from its website; Connolly Books, Dublin; An Ceathrú Póilí, Belfast; Charlie Byrne’s and Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway.

€12

Land of the Ever Young ~ Culture Matters!

Land of the Ever Young ~ Culture Matters!

'The Land of the Ever Young' is the third and final volume of a ground - breaking project of anthologies of working people's writing in contemporary Ireland. The others being, 'The Children of the Nation' and 'From the Plough to the Stars'.

The book is available from Connolly Books, Dublin, An Ceathrú Póilí, Belfast, Charlie Byrne's, Galway, Kenny's Bookshops, Galway, Culture Matters or directly from the editor Jenny Farrell.

Price: €12/£11 plus p&p.

Land of the Ever Young ~ Culture Matters!

 Land of the Ever Young ~ Culture Matters!

 Press release for Land of the Ever Young: An Anthology of Working People’s Writing for Children from Contemporary Ireland

On 22^nd November a new children’s book will be published, the final book in a set of three volumes of working people’s writing from contemporary Ireland. It follows on from a poetry anthology, Children of the Nation, and a prose anthology, From the Plough to the Stars, all edited by Jenny Farrell and published by Culture Matters.

 

The project is a pioneering venture that has been fully supported by the Irish trade union movement in recognition of the importance of creativity and the right of the working class to express their culture and their experience of life.

 

All the children’s stories in the book are packed with humanity, tenderness, and wisdom. The authors present children and adults who confront wrongs, challenge superstition and injustice, and who often see further than others around them. The heroines and heroes in these stories are always filled with a sense of the common good, highlighting the qualities necessary to make society a fairer, better place, a home for a happy future, a Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Ever Young. Such a place can only materialise in the absence of wars, of profit-driven greed with its contempt for equality, humanity and the environment— a place where instead the common good is the measure of society.

 

Children read and re-read stories many times, and they often stay with them for a lifetime, acting as a moral compass. This is what makes literature for children so very important. The images that accompany children’s stories are also remembered for a long time, and Land of the Ever Young has been beautifully illustrated by the artist Karen Dietrich. Her images comment on and expand the humanist themes contained in the texts and help make them truly memorable for all readers, children and adults alike.

Land of the Ever Young: An Anthology of Working People’s Writing for Children from Contemporary Ireland, edited by Jenny Farrell with illustrations by Karen Dietrich, ISBN 978-1-912710-43-0, 12 Euros plus p. and p. All three books are available at www.culturematters.org.uk