Eugene O'Brien – författare

The Soul Exceeds its Circumstances brings together sixteen of the most prominent scholars who have written on Seamus Heaney to examine the Nobel Prize winner's later poetry from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. While a great deal of attention has been devoted to Heaney's early and middle poems—the Bog Poems in particular—this book focuses on the poetry collected in Heaney's Seeing Things (1991), The Spirit Level (1996), Electric Light (2001), District and Circle (2006), and Human Chain (2010) as a thematically connected set of writings. The starting point of the essays in this collection is that these later poems can be grouped in terms of style, theme, approach, and intertextuality. They develop themes that were apparent in Heaney's earlier work, but they also break with these themes and address issues that are radically different from those of the earlier collections. The essays are divided into five sections, focusing on ideas of death, the later style, translation and transnational poetics, luminous things and gifts, and usual and unusual spaces. A number of the contributors see Heaney as stressing the literary over the actual and as always looking at the interstices and positions of liminality and complexity. His use of literary references in his later poetry exemplifies his search for literary avatars against whom he can test his own ideas and with whom he can enter into an aesthetic and ethical dialogue. The essayists cover a great deal of Heaney's debts to classical and modern literature—in the original languages and in translations—and demonstrate the degree to which the streets on which Heaney walked and wrote were two-way: he was influenced by Virgil, Petrarch, Milosz, Wordsworth, Keats, Rilke, and others and, in turn, had an impact on contemporary poets. This remarkable collection will appeal to scholars and literary critics, undergraduates as well as graduate students, and to the many general readers of Heaney's poetry.

There is considerable uncertainty about what level of traffic loading bridges should be designed for. Codes specify notional load models, generally to represent extreme levels of normal traffic, but these are often crude and have inconsistent levels of safety for different load effects. Over the past few decades, increasing quantities of reliable truck weight data has become available and it is now possible to calculate appropriate levels of bridge traffic loading, both for specific bridges and for a road network. Bridge Traffic Loading brings together experts from all over the world to deliver not just the state-of-the-art of vertical loading, but also to provide recommendations of best-practice for all the major challenges in the field – short-span, single and multi-lane bridge loading, dynamic allowance and long-span bridges. It reviews issues that continue to be debated, such as which statistical distribution is most appropriate, whether free-flowing or congested traffic governs and dealing with future traffic growth. Specialist consultants and bridge owners should find this invaluable, as will regulators.

Reading Paul Howard: The Art of Ross O’Carroll Kelly offers a thorough examination of narrative devices, satirical modes, cultural context and humour in Howard’s texts.The volume argues that his academic critical neglect is due to a classic bifurcation in Irish Studies between high and popular culture, and it will use the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida to critique this division, building a theoretical platform from which to examine the significance of Howard’s work as an Irish comic and satirical writer. Addressing both the style and the substance of his work, this text locates him in a tradition of Irish satirical writing that dates back to the Gaelic bards, and it includes writers like Swift, Wilde, Flann O’Brien and Joyce. Through textual and contextual analysis, this book makes the case for Howard as a significant and original voice in Irish writing, whose fusion of the three traditional types of satire (Horatian, Juvenalian and Menippean) has created a parallel Ireland that shines a satirical light on its real counterpart. As Freud suggests, humour is a way of accessing aspects of the psyche that normative discourses cannot enunciate, and Howard, through the confessional voice of Ross, offers a fictive truth on 20 years of Irish society, a truth that is not accessed by discourse in the public sphere or by what could be termed literary or high cultural fiction.

Reading Paul Howard: The Art of Ross O’Carroll Kelly offers a thorough examination of narrative devices, satirical modes, cultural context and humour in Howard’s texts.The volume argues that his academic critical neglect is due to a classic bifurcation in Irish Studies between high and popular culture, and it will use the thought of Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida to critique this division, building a theoretical platform from which to examine the significance of Howard’s work as an Irish comic and satirical writer. Addressing both the style and the substance of his work, this text locates him in a tradition of Irish satirical writing that dates back to the Gaelic bards, and it includes writers like Swift, Wilde, Flann O’Brien and Joyce. Through textual and contextual analysis, this book makes the case for Howard as a significant and original voice in Irish writing, whose fusion of the three traditional types of satire (Horatian, Juvenalian and Menippean) has created a parallel Ireland that shines a satirical light on its real counterpart. As Freud suggests, humour is a way of accessing aspects of the psyche that normative discourses cannot enunciate, and Howard, through the confessional voice of Ross, offers a fictive truth on 20 years of Irish society, a truth that is not accessed by discourse in the public sphere or by what could be termed literary or high cultural fiction.

Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Climate Crisis addresses what is arguably the most crucial issue of human history through the lens of late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century Irish poetry. The poets that it surveys range from familiar presences in the contemporary Irish literary canon – Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Paula Meehan, Moya Cannon – to lesser-known figures, such as the experimental poet Maurice Scully, contemporary poets Stephen Sexton and Sean Hewitt, and the Irish-language poets Simon Ó Faoláin, Bríd Ní Mhóráin, and Máire Dinny Wren. Adopting a variety of ecotheoretical approaches, the essays gathered here address several interrelated themes crucial to the climate crisis: the way in which the scalar scope of climate change interweaves local and global, distant past and imminent future, nature and culture; the critical importance of acknowledging the complex kinship of the human and nonhuman; and the necessity of warning against the devastating environmental losses to come while mourning those that already occurred. Ultimately, by envisioning new ways of existing on an earth that humans no longer dominate, this book engages in what the philosopher Jonathan Lear refers to as a process of ‘radical anticipation’.

Contemporary Irish Poetry and the Climate Crisis addresses what is arguably the most crucial issue of human history through the lens of late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century Irish poetry. The poets that it surveys range from familiar presences in the contemporary Irish literary canon – Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Paula Meehan, Moya Cannon – to lesser-known figures, such as the experimental poet Maurice Scully, contemporary poets Stephen Sexton and Sean Hewitt, and the Irish-language poets Simon Ó Faoláin, Bríd Ní Mhóráin, and Máire Dinny Wren. Adopting a variety of ecotheoretical approaches, the essays gathered here address several interrelated themes crucial to the climate crisis: the way in which the scalar scope of climate change interweaves local and global, distant past and imminent future, nature and culture; the critical importance of acknowledging the complex kinship of the human and nonhuman; and the necessity of warning against the devastating environmental losses to come while mourning those that already occurred. Ultimately, by envisioning new ways of existing on an earth that humans no longer dominate, this book engages in what the philosopher Jonathan Lear refers to as a process of ‘radical anticipation’.

A new play from the Abbey Theatre, directed by Conor McPherson, author of The Weir Billy and Breda haven't had a night out together in years. Tonight, Breda's lost the weight and gained a babysitter and a new outfit and is ready to sweep Billy off his feet down at Flanagans. But Billy has other plans - most of them involving Imelda Egan. Eugene O'Brien's hilarious and heartbreaking two-hander is the portrait of good times gone bad for two people who have promised to be together forever.Eden premiered on the Peacock stage at the Abbey Theatre in February 2000.

Concrete is an integral part of twenty-first century structural engineering, and an understanding of how to analyze and design concrete structures is a vital part of training as a structural engineer. With Eurocode legislation increasingly replacing British Standards, it’s also important to know how this affects the way you can work with concrete. Newly revised to Eurocode 2, this second edition retains the original’s emphasis on qualitative understanding of the overall behaviour of concrete structures. Now expanded, with a new chapter dedicated to case studies, worked examples, and exercise examples, it is an even more comprehensive guide to conceptual design, analysis, and detailed design of concrete structures.The book provides civil and structural engineering students with complete coverage of the analysis and design of reinforced and prestressed concrete structures. Great emphasis is placed on developing a qualitative understanding of the overall behaviour of structures.

Concrete is an integral part of twenty-first century structural engineering, and an understanding of how to analyze and design concrete structures is a vital part of training as a structural engineer. With Eurocode legislation increasingly replacing British Standards, it’s also important to know how this affects the way you can work with concrete. Newly revised to Eurocode 2, this second edition retains the original’s emphasis on qualitative understanding of the overall behaviour of concrete structures. Now expanded, with a new chapter dedicated to case studies, worked examples, and exercise examples, it is an even more comprehensive guide to conceptual design, analysis, and detailed design of concrete structures.The book provides civil and structural engineering students with complete coverage of the analysis and design of reinforced and prestressed concrete structures. Great emphasis is placed on developing a qualitative understanding of the overall behaviour of structures.

A heartwarming debut that continues the story of the hit RTÉ TV series Pure Mule, which captured the whole world in one small Irish town.Scobie Donoghue was once the king of Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, famous for the craic and the drink. His twenties were spent working on building sites during the Celtic Tiger, making good money and spending it on wild weekends. A lovable rogue, the lads wanted to be him and the girls wanted to be with him.But now, returning from Australia after the break-down of his relationship, Scobie is back in the single bed of his childhood home. About to turn forty, burnt out and depressed, he quickly discovers that life in the small midlands town he thought he had left behind has moved on – but has Scobie? ‘Just like Normal People, Pure Mule captured the zeitgeist at a pivotal time in modern Ireland.’ Roscommon Herald

This collection examines the Irish economic phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger and the financial disaster that came in its wake, from a socio-cultural perspective. It focuses on how these financial developments have been reflected in writing, film and culture in order to offer a more rounded analysis of the effects of this momentous period on people’s lives.Employing a wide range of cultural lenses, the book critiques the cultural, political and aesthetic implications of the progression from prosperity to austerity and the impact this has had on the psyche of Irish culture. An eclectic mix of theoretical approaches enables treatment of religion, literature, popular culture, photography, gastronomy, music, gender, immigration and film, as contributors assess how the Celtic Tiger was represented, or misrepresented, in these particular spheres of experience.In addition, the chapters also probe the effects on all of the aforementioned cultural forms, and interrogate how the lives of people have been transformed in ways that go beyond the already well-documented areas of economics and finance.The book will be a valuable resource for academics and students interested in contemporary Ireland and recent Irish history, as well as the general reader anxious to understand the effects of this particular period on the real lives of people as expressed through culture. It features contributions by internationally acknowledged experts in their fields and offers a comprehensive overview of the cultural consequences of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath.

This collection examines the Irish economic phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger and the financial disaster that came in its wake, from a socio-cultural perspective. It focuses on how these financial developments have been reflected in writing, film and culture in order to offer a more rounded analysis of the effects of this momentous period on people’s lives.Employing a wide range of cultural lenses, the book critiques the cultural, political and aesthetic implications of the progression from prosperity to austerity and the impact this has had on the psyche of Irish culture. An eclectic mix of theoretical approaches enables treatment of religion, literature, popular culture, photography, gastronomy, music, gender, immigration and film, as contributors assess how the Celtic Tiger was represented, or misrepresented, in these particular spheres of experience.In addition, the chapters also probe the effects on all of the aforementioned cultural forms, and interrogate how the lives of people have been transformed in ways that go beyond the already well-documented areas of economics and finance.The book will be a valuable resource for academics and students interested in contemporary Ireland and recent Irish history, as well as the general reader anxious to understand the effects of this particular period on the real lives of people as expressed through culture. It features contributions by internationally acknowledged experts in their fields and offers a comprehensive overview of the cultural consequences of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath.

Thematically arranged and clearly structured, this book explores the seminal themes in Heaney's writing: aesthetics, politics, language, identity and myth, ethics and notions of Irishness.A central strand of this study is an exploration of Heaney's ethical and political project with respect to issues of Irish identity as outlined in his writings. This work suggests that there are analogies between Heaney's political and ethical thought, and that of Jacques Derrida, Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas.Each chapter concentrates on a single theme: his sense of the aesthetic, and its role in terms of politics and ethics; his relationship with politics as a contemporary situation; his notion of place, both as a given, and as something that could be reimagined; his enunciation of a sense of visceral identity; his concept of ethics in terms of a relationship between selfhood and alterity; his notion of the many threads which combine to produce a sense of Irishness. Finally, the Nobel lectures of Yeats and Heaney are examined in order to trace the complex relationship between these two writers.

Seamus Heaney's unexpected death in August 2013 brought to completion his body of work, and scholars are only now coming to understand the full scale and importance of this extraordinary career. The Nobel Prize-winning poet, translator, and playwright from the North of Ireland is considered the most important Irish poet after Yeats and, at the time of his death, arguably the most famous living poet. For this reason, much of the scholarship to date on Heaney has understandably focused on his poetry. O'Brien's new work, however, focuses on Heaney's essays, book chapters, and lectures as it seeks to understand how Heaney explored the poet's role in the world. By examining Heaney's prose, O'Brien teases out a clearer understanding of Heaney's sense of the function of poetry as an act of public intellectual and ethical inquiry. In doing so, O'Brien reads Heaney as an aesthetic thinker in the European tradition, considering him alongside Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, and Adorno. Studying Heaney within this theoretical and philosophical tradition sheds new and useful light on one of the greatest creative minds of the twentieth century.

Seamus Heaney's unexpected death in August 2013 brought to completion his body of work, and scholars are only now coming to understand the full scale and importance of this extraordinary career. The Nobel Prize-winning poet, translator, and playwright from the North of Ireland is considered the most important Irish poet after Yeats and, at the time of his death, arguably the most famous living poet. For this reason, much of the scholarship to date on Heaney has understandably focused on his poetry. O'Brien's new work, however, focuses on Heaney's essays, book chapters, and lectures as it seeks to understand how Heaney explored the poet's role in the world. By examining Heaney's prose, O'Brien teases out a clearer understanding of Heaney's sense of the function of poetry as an act of public intellectual and ethical inquiry. In doing so, O'Brien reads Heaney as an aesthetic thinker in the European tradition, considering him alongside Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, and Adorno. Studying Heaney within this theoretical and philosophical tradition sheds new and useful light on one of the greatest creative minds of the twentieth century.

There is considerable uncertainty about what level of traffic loading bridges should be designed for. Codes specify notional load models, generally to represent extreme levels of normal traffic, but these are often crude and have inconsistent levels of safety for different load effects. Over the past few decades, increasing quantities of reliable truck weight data has become available and it is now possible to calculate appropriate levels of bridge traffic loading, both for specific bridges and for a road network. Bridge Traffic Loading brings together experts from all over the world to deliver not just the state-of-the-art of vertical loading, but also to provide recommendations of best-practice for all the major challenges in the field – short-span, single and multi-lane bridge loading, dynamic allowance and long-span bridges. It reviews issues that continue to be debated, such as which statistical distribution is most appropriate, whether free-flowing or congested traffic governs and dealing with future traffic growth. Specialist consultants and bridge owners should find this invaluable, as will regulators.

This Companion brings together leading scholars in the field of Irish studies to explore the significance of twenty-first-century Irish writing and its flourishing popularity worldwide. Focusing on Irish writing published or performed in the twenty-first century, this volume explores genres, modes and styles of writing that are current, relevant and distinctive in today’s classrooms. Examining a host of innovative, key writers, including Sally Rooney, Marion Keyes, Sebastian Barry, Paul Howard, Claire Kilroy, Micheal O’Siadhail, Donal Ryan, Marina Carr, Enda Walsh, Martin McDonagh, Colette Bryce, Leanne Quinn, Sinéad Morrissey, Paula Meehan, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh and Doireann Ni Ghríofa. This text investigates the sociocultural and theoretical contexts of their aesthetic achievements and innovations. Furthermore, The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First-Century Irish Writing traces the expansion of Irish writing, offering fresh insight to Irish identities across the boundaries of race, class and gender. With its distinctive contemporary focus and comprehensive scope, this multifaceted volume provides the first significant literary history of twenty-first-century Irish literature.Chapter 25 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 license.

The Frontier of Writing: A Study of Seamus Heaney’s Prose is the first collection of essays solely focused on examining the Nobel prize winning poet’s prose. The collection offers ten different perspectives on this body of work which vary from sustained thematic analyses on poetic form, the construction of identity, and poetry as redress, to a series of close readings of prose writing on poetic exemplars such as Robert Lowell, Patrick Kavanagh, W.B Yeats, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin and Brian Friel. Seamus Heaney’s prose is extensive in its literary depth, knowledge, critical awareness and its span. During the course of his life, he published six collections of prose entitled Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978, Place and Displacement: Recent Poetry of Northern Ireland, The Government of the Tongue: The 1986 T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures and Other Critical Writings, The Place of Writing, The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures and Finders Keepers. Each of these texts is addressed in the collection alongside occasional and specific essays such as ‘Crediting Poetry’, ‘Writer and Righter’ and ‘Mossbawn via Mantua: Ireland in/and Europe, Cross-currents and Exchanges’, among many others. This book is a comprehensive and timely study of Seamus Heaney’s prose from leading international scholars in the field.

The Frontier of Writing: A Study of Seamus Heaney’s Prose is the first collection of essays solely focused on examining the Nobel prize winning poet’s prose. The collection offers ten different perspectives on this body of work which vary from sustained thematic analyses on poetic form, the construction of identity, and poetry as redress, to a series of close readings of prose writing on poetic exemplars such as Robert Lowell, Patrick Kavanagh, W.B Yeats, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin and Brian Friel. Seamus Heaney’s prose is extensive in its literary depth, knowledge, critical awareness and its span. During the course of his life, he published six collections of prose entitled Preoccupations: Selected Prose 1968–1978, Place and Displacement: Recent Poetry of Northern Ireland, The Government of the Tongue: The 1986 T.S. Eliot Memorial Lectures and Other Critical Writings, The Place of Writing, The Redress of Poetry: Oxford Lectures and Finders Keepers. Each of these texts is addressed in the collection alongside occasional and specific essays such as ‘Crediting Poetry’, ‘Writer and Righter’ and ‘Mossbawn via Mantua: Ireland in/and Europe, Cross-currents and Exchanges’, among many others. This book is a comprehensive and timely study of Seamus Heaney’s prose from leading international scholars in the field.

Seamus Heaney and the Art of Translation is comprised of 11 chapters that examine the Nobel prize winning poet’s translations and that situate the works within a transnational perspective. The chapters focus on the broad and varied connections Heaney makes with writers from an Irish and European background. The book contains close readings of the poet’s associations and interest in exemplars such as Dante, Virgil, Baudelaire, Blandiana and Ní Dhomhnaill, to mention but a few. Attention is also paid to broader areas of influence such as the Greek and Roman classics, Anglo-Saxon, Irish and Eastern-European literature. The volume addresses Heaney’s poetry in translation, as well as his dramatic works and prose writing. This study is broad in its approach to Heaney’s translations and offers new readings of these works from leading international scholars in the field.

Irish Animal Poetics is an interdisciplinary edited collection of essays focused the representation of relationships between the human and the non-human within Irish literary and cultural histories.Drawing on the field of Environmental Humanities, this book traces a constellation of fictional, nonfictional, and poetic genres, advancing diverse yet mutually informative readings of their forms, contents, and context. While its emerging themes revolve around climate change, habitat devastation and exhausting resource extraction, the contributors move beyond general ecocriticism by incorporating sensibilities from Animal Studies as well as broader reflections on human-non-human dynamics. Under Flanney and O’Brien’s careful editorship, this volume offers a historical coverage spanning from the medieval period up to contemporary Irish culture and society, providing original and nuanced readings of Irish cultural texts and personalities.This book is an ideal resource for postgraduates and academics studying and researching English, Irish and Cultural Studies, particularly through the lens of Animal Studies or, more broadly, ecotheoretical perspectives.

I am getting nearer to something. The answer to the question. Who am I? A woman who leaves her husband very suddenly for an old lover and heads to a cottage in Kerry?I needed someone strong. Someone who would sweep me along. Keep me here. In this world. Not allow me to wander down below, and I wanted a child. I dearly wanted a child.Mairead and Mal are struggling to keep their marriage together. Perhaps attending a wedding will help, or it might raise questions that are difficult to answer.Poignant, funny, and beautiful, Heaven is a new play that is full of humanity. It is presented by the Olivier Award-winning Fishamble, and written by Eugene O’Brien (winner of the Rooney Prize for Literature).This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at the Dublin Theatre Festival, followed by an Irish tour, in Autumn 2022.

This book traces the steady decline in Irish Catholicism from the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 up to the Cloyne report into clerical sex abuse in that diocese in 2011. The young people awaiting the Pope’s address in Galway were entertained by two of Ireland’s most charismatic clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, both of whom were subsequently revealed to have been engaged in romantic liaisons at the time.The decades that followed the Pope’s visit were characterised by the increasing secularisation of Irish society. Boasting an impressive array of contributors from various backgrounds and expertise, the essays in the book attempt to trace the exact reasons for the progressive dismantling of the cultural legacy of Catholicism and the consequences this has had on Irish society.

This book traces the steady decline in Irish Catholicism from the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 up to the Cloyne report into clerical sex abuse in that diocese in 2011. The young people awaiting the Pope’s address in Galway were entertained by two of Ireland’s most charismatic clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, both of whom were subsequently revealed to have been engaged in romantic liaisons at the time.The decades that followed the Pope’s visit were characterised by the increasing secularisation of Irish society. Boasting an impressive array of contributors from various backgrounds and expertise, the essays in the book attempt to trace the exact reasons for the progressive dismantling of the cultural legacy of Catholicism and the consequences this has had on Irish society.

This collection of essays explores the concept of patrimoine, a French word used to denote cultural heritage, traditional customs and practices – the Gaelic equivalent is dúchas – and the extent to which it impacts on France and Ireland. Borrowing from disciplines as varied as sociology, cultural theory, literature, marketing, theology, history, musicology and business, the contributors to the volume unearth interesting manifestations of how patrimoine resonates across cultural divides and bestows uniqueness and specificity on countries and societies, sometimes in a subliminal manner.Issues covered include debt as heritage, Guinness as a cultural icon of «Irishness», faith-based tourism, the Huguenot heritage in Ireland, Irish musical inheritances since Independence, Skellig Michael and the commodification of Irish culture. With a Foreword by His Excellency M. Stéphane Crouzat, French Ambassador to Ireland, this collection breaks new ground in assessing the close links between France and Ireland, links that will become all the more important in light of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.

This book looks at various effects, symptoms and consequences of the period in Irish culture known as the Celtic Tiger. It will trace the critical pathway from boom to bust – and up to the current beginnings of a similar, smaller boom – through events, personalities and products. The short entries offer a sense of the lived experience of this seismic period in contemporary Irish society.While clearly not all aspects of the period could realistically be covered, the book does contain essential information about the central actors, events, themes, and economic trends, which are discussed in a readable and accessible manner. Each entry is linked to the overall Celtic Tiger phenomenon and its immediate aftermath.The book also provides a comprehensive account of what happened in this period and will be a factual resource for anyone anxious to discover information on the areas most commonly connected to it. All entries are written by experts in the area. The contributors include broadcasters, economists, cultural theorists, sociologists, literary critics, journalists, politicians and writers, each of whom brings particular insights to some aspect of the Celtic Tiger.