Threshold- Listening Library

A Man Is Only As Good (Pat Boran) 

Skipping (Pat Boran) 

Corner Boys (Pat Boran) 

Fetch! (Pat Boran) 

Widow Shopping In Portlaoise (Pat Boran) 

Machines (Pat Boran) 

Station Road, Sutton (Pat Boran) 

What happens when four people, three old sea hands and a novice (the author) cross the Atlantic aboard a 70-foot schooner? Sailing For Home captures the realities of a trans-Atlantic passage, the importance of innumerable small rituals, the challenge of cooking in rough seas, the unspoken understandings that develop between crew members but he also attends to the numinous possibilities of life at sea: the rare vividness of dreams, visits from the ghosts of dead friends. 

When their father’s business fails, Eliza and Jonty Kane move to a tenement flat in Dublin city, number 16 Henrietta Street. From a crowded tenement to the dazzling world of the circus – can dreams really come true? A tale of bravery, adventure and bee charming!

It’s so peaceful down here. I’m not going back. Escaping the minutia of other people’s ordinary lives, like driving alone to be by yourself, I enjoy slipping below the surface from it all, looking back, from my coma. I remember, how it really was. How the truth would be so shocking. A recount of family, life, domestic violence and shame.

Mrs Foster is someone who feels much calmer when she is able to arrive early or on time for appointments and events. Mr Foster, less so – or rather it soon becomes apparent that he takes a peculiar enjoyment in making his wife miss things or be late for them. However, this being a Dahl story, we know that vices such as greed, selfishness and inconsiderateness tend to boomerang back upon the person indulging in them.

A girl, a shapeshifter, was going home from the beach in Dad’s car with ‘Lightning Paws’; the idea of a panther with a hoverboard. She loved him because he was cool. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t make mistakes. He didn’t flinch. He was fluid, fluent, at one with wind and speed .. What you learn on a trip to the beach: the Nature, and a shamanic oneness .. all in 10 minutes!

Time hardly mattered in the village of Mucker, the birthplace of poet and writer Patrick Kavanagh. Full of wry humour, Kavanagh's unsentimental and evocative account of his Irish rural upbringing describes a patriarchal society surviving on the edge of poverty, sustained by the land and an insatiable love of gossip.

Mickey Donnelly is smart, which isn’t a good thing in his part of town. Despite having a dog called Killer and being in love with the girl next door, everyone calls him ‘gay’. It doesn’t help that his best friend is his little sister, Wee Maggie, and that everyone knows he loves his Ma more than anything in the world. He doesn’t think much of his older brother Paddy and really doesn’t like his Da. He dreams of going to America. Mickey realises it’s all down to him. Sometimes, you have to be a bad boy to be a good son.

Cathy was often wrong, she found it more interesting. She was wrong about the taste of bananas. She was wrong about the future of the bob. She was wrong about where her life ended up. She loved corners, surprise, changes of light. Cathy leads a rather conventional life, married to a 'safe' man, working behind a handbag counter in Dublin. What happens when control and repression are exploded?

Prayer Before Birth (Louis MacNeice)

The Poem (Donald Hall)

A Mayo Tao (Derek Mahon)

Questions About Angels (Billy Cullens)

Making Love Outside Áras an Úachtarán (Paul Durcan)

Still I Rise (Maya Angelou)