Dating from the eighth century, Táin Bó Cúailnge is the oldest Irish epic, a heroic mythic tale on par with Beowulf and The Aeneid. The sprawling, dramatic tale of the legendary warrior Cú Chulainn and his battle against the invading army of Connacht over the fabled Brown Bull of Cooley, The Táin is an enthralling epic of heroism, magic, bloodshed, and betrayal. The wellspring of Irish literature from Yeats to Joyce, The Táin is the story of the emergence of a hero with superhuman strength and supernatural powers. It is a paean to the Irish landscape and a bawdy and contentious marital farce. Filled with phenomenal battle scenes of hand-to-hand combat and clashes between massive armies, Cú Chulainns heroic exploits contain the historical seeds of the struggle for Irish nationalism as well as the mythic roots of the traditional Irish love of nature. Carsons lively, conversational rendition of The Táin will bring the adventures of the legendary Irish hero to a new generation of readers interested in epic poetry and Irish history. In the first translation in forty years, Carson brings this seminal work of literature fully to life, capturing all the visceral power of the ancient epic. It is truly a classic for our time.

The Tain

Literature & Fiction

Carson, Ciarán

Contemporary

Brécourt Academic

Last Night's Fun

Arts & Photography

Music

Pimlico

A stunning new translation brings Ireland’s greatest epic tale alive for a new generation Dating from the eighth century, Táin Bó Cúailnge is the oldest Irish epic, a heroic mythic tale on par with Beowulf and The Aeneid. The sprawling, dramatic tale of the legendary warrior Cú Chulainn and his battle against the invading army of Connacht over the fabled Brown Bull of Cooley, The Táin is an enthralling epic of heroism, magic, bloodshed, and betrayal. The wellspring of Irish literature from Yeats to Joyce, The Táin is the story of the emergence of a hero with superhuman strength and supernatural powers. It is a paean to the Irish landscape and a bawdy and contentious marital farce. Filled with phenomenal battle scenes of hand-to-hand combat and clashes between massive armies, Cú Chulainn’s heroic exploits contain the historical seeds of the struggle for Irish nationalism as well as the mythic roots of the traditional Irish love of nature. Carson’s lively, conversational rendition of The Táin will bring the adventures of the legendary Irish hero to a new generation of readers interested in epic poetry and Irish history. In the first translation in forty years, Carson brings this seminal work of literature fully to life, capturing all the visceral power of the ancient epic. It is truly a classic for our time.

The Tain (Penguin Classics)

Mythology & Folk Tales

Penguin Classics

‘I write to try to see you as you were, or what you have become. You left no forwarding address: that was part of your intention. For when we wrote those letters to each other all those years ago, we wrote as much for ourselves as for each other.’More than twenty years after the end of their love affair, Gabriel receives a cryptic postcard from old flame Nina. It is the first of thirteen cards from her, each one provoking a series of reveries about their life together in 1980s Belfast.The Pen Friend is, however, much more than a love story. As Gabriel teases out the significance of the cards, his reveries develop into richly textured meditations on writing, memory, spiritualism and surveillance. The result is an intricate web of fact and fiction – moving easily between such varied subjects as the Troubles, Esperanto and John Lavery – a strange and wonderful novel by one of our finest Irish writers.If you enjoyed The Pen Friend, you might also enjoy Ciaran Carson’s Exchange Place, a brilliant thriller set in Paris and Belfast.

The Pen Friend: A Novel

Literary

Blackstaff Press

‘Exchange Place is gloriously uncategorisable. Robbe-Grillet would have welcomed it … Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler too would have tipped the brims of their trilbys in salute. A wonderful intellectual romp.’ John Banville

Exchange Place: A Belfast Thriller

An introduction to the traditional music of Ireland by Ciarán Gerard Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast and educated at The Queen's University, Belfast. He knows intimately not only the urban Belfast in which he was raised as a native Irish speaker, but also the traditions of rural Ireland. A traditional musician and a scholar of the Irish oral traditional, Carson was long the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is a flutist, tinwhistler, and singer. He is Chair of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen's University, Belfast.

Irish Traditional Music

Irish Books & Medi

Each chapter the title of a traditional tune, a celebration of Irish music examines the history, experience, and meaning of the music

Last Night's Fun: In and Out of Time With Irish Music

North Point Pr

Last Night's Fun's is a sparking celebration of music and life that is itself a literary performance of the highest order. Carson's inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. Last Night's Fun is remarkable for its liveliness, honesty, scholarship, and spontaneous joy; certainly there has never been a book about Irish music like this one, and few books ever written anywhere about the experience of music can compare with it.

Last Night's Fun: A Book About Irish Traditional Music

Reference

NORTH POINT PRESS

The Irish for No

Poetry

Wake Forest Univ Pr

Belfast Confetti, Ciaran Carson’s third book of poetry, weaves together in a carefully sequenced volume prose pieces, long poems, lyrics, and haiku. His subjects include the permeable boundaries of Belfast neighborhoods, of memory, of public and private fear, and, indeed, of the forms of language and art. Carson finds unexpected usesconstructive and destructiveof the building rubble of Belfast history. Rich in lore of place, these innovative and vividly fresh poems draw deeply on traditionsoral, local, and literary.

Belfast Confetti

Wake Forest University Press

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Books by Carson, Ciarán