The Irish Itinerary Podcast

In her conversation with François Sablayrolles, Colette Colligan and Ludivine Bouton-Kelly, Wendy Erskine talks about her short story collections Sweet Home and Dance Move. After reading a passage from her story ‘Secrets Bonita Beach Crystal Cancun’, she reflects on the recurring themes in her work, such as family dynamics, unexpected connections and the transformative potential of chance encounters. Moving on to her novel The Benefactors, she offers a brief reading and discusses its polyphonic structure and its engagement with questions of class, gender, violence, money, responsibility and justice.

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In their conversation with Tim Groenland, Emily Cooper and Dean Fee discuss the origins of their literary journal, The Pig’s Back, designed as a Donegal-based journal with an international bent. They talk about creating not only an issue, but a beautiful object that stays in people’s minds; blurring fiction and non-fiction; bringing the many literary journals in Ireland together at the Journals Fleadh; and what being edited has thought them as writers and editors. 

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In his conversation with Christoph Reinfandt, Dave Robb discusses the music of Gerhard Gundermann which he translated for his CD Filling Stations for Losers. Songs of Gundermann. He talks about protest songs and Gundermann’s own critical view of them; the affinities between the GDR and Northern Ireland; the language Gundermann uses; and the difficulty of translating Gundermann's lyrics into English.  

https://www.songsofgundermann.com/

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In her conversation with Helen Penet, Louise O’Neill discusses her novel Idol (2022) and lifts the veil on two forthcoming books. She talks about the unreliability of memory; how #MeToo has changed our understanding of consent; wellness and faith; the gendered nature of the online world; the importance of place; and book titles.  

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In her conversation with Dilâra Yilmaz, Catherine Prasifka discusses her latest novel This Is How You Remember It (2024). She talks about the use of the second person; how the internet is becoming more and more entangled in life, a slow change that is difficult to track; how this entanglement manifests in the novel form and is mediated through text; shame; the connection and disconnection that the internet can bring; being a novelist; and the importance of arts subsidisation. 

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In his conversation with Gyula Glaser, Breandán de Gallaí discusses the very beginning of his interest in dance; the impact of Riverdance on Irish dancing; Irishness and how this is not a defining part of the dance form; the creation of his own choreographic voice and how his academic research helped him do this; and the reception of his work. 

Links:

Breandán de Gallaí

• Dance Company: ÉRIU (www.eriu.co)
• Instagram: @eriudancecompany
• Celebrating 10 Years of ÉRIU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16P-sXV4i4A
• latest publication in The Routledge Companion to the Anthropology of Perfomance

Gyula Glaser 

• Instagram: @gyulaglaser
• Our Steps Essay

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In her conversation with Michelle Witen, Emilie Pine talks about her novel Ruth & Pen (2022). She discusses the city as an urban, but also internal landscape; the infertility journey depicted in the novel and how she wanted to give the male character a space and a voice in this; the intertwining of embodiment and displacement; the difficulty of finding your voice and of listening; neurodivergence in narrative; intertexts in Ruth & Pen; and how her academic interests inflect her writing.

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In his conversation with Kersti Powell, Colin Walsh talks about his debut novel Kala (2023), how he needed to constantly toggle between character and structure in writing the story; how his characters, and society in general, are complicit by willfully averting their gaze; and how they all approach the past differently. He also discusses short stories as an excellent way to develop writing skills; Irish writing after the Celtic tiger era and the influence of Kevin Barry; and the novel as a theatre of multiplicity.  

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In her conversation with Lucy Collins, Victoria Kennefick discusses her most recent poetry collection Egg/Shell (2024). She talks about the changes in her creative practice occasioned by events in her life and how these have produced a collection that defies containment; how writing poetry has helped her to capture the immediacy of these difficult experiences and to process them over time. She discusses the continuing importance of representing the female body in diverse ways, the importance of creative freedom - the capacity to 'let yourself go' - and the usefulness of poetry.     

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In her conversation with Adam Hanna, Kimberly Campanello reads from and discusses her poetry-object MOTHERBABYHOME (2019). She talks about the path that led to the work and the composition process; the use of reports in her work and how this influenced its form; empty spaces and subtraction; the difficulty of performing the work and how it affects her; and the responses from survivors.  

You can find more information on and images from MOTHERBABYHOME (2019) at https://www.kimberlycampanello.com/motherbabyhome. 

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