Ireland, Spring 2022 ~ Read

What a journey of a book! The story of womanhood and motherhood that carries across two centuries and two life stories of female poets in Ireland. It is raw and obsessive, literary and personal, and most of all is an intimate look at a much celebrated and much misunderstood event in Gaelic literature, the 18th-century Irish poem Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, written by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, a woman mourning her husband and raging at his murder. A Ghost in the Throat examines the author’s first-person visceral experience of this work, the process of the poem’s new translation, and many vivid pictures of life in Ireland both now and then.

I happened upon this book in early March at my local bookstore, finding it on the St. Patrick’s-themed table. It was my 3rd attempt at finding a good read ahead of our trip to Ireland, and it was not necessarily the most obvious choice, since the book deals as much with childbirth, pregnancy and nursing as it does with Ireland’s lush landscapes and historical vignettes. As a result, I did encounter a true original, an unique and powerful Irish and Gaelic voice that enriched not just my trip, but my permanent library. Here is an excellent literary review: A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa review – incandescent treasures | Fiction | The Guardian