Ethnology draws on the mystical cry for the dead of Cathy Galvin’s Irish-speaking ancestors. Within an epic narrative she reclaims place, people and language, creating a bridge between our own times and a Connemara community on the margins of Europe.

Drawing on classic forms within literary and oral traditions, Ethnology becomes a love song for Connemara, witness to vivid encounters: between the living and the dead and between the poets, folklorists and ethnologists who have written about the West of Ireland for their own agendas.

In this debut book-length collection, fragility and strength are finely balanced, focused on the ruins of an island cottage built by her great-grandfather. Here, Cathy Galvin locates humour and joy as well as mourning. The poems give a vivid, original voice to the tradition of keening, of honouring the loss of those we love.

‘Here the west of Ireland comes alive, island life and sea-shore culture caught in language and rhythms that are natural to the themes, in both the colloquial and the formal, in the precision of the characterisations and the imagery. The personal level of the work is held close and carries the whole, forming a true history of the lives of people on the margins.’  John F. Deane

Cathy read here some years ago now from her first pamphlet. We welcome her back with this full collection

In association with Nottingham Irish Studies Group, for St Patrick’s Day festival

Refreshments provided