The Shaking Bog Podcast

This Shaking Bog Podcast is dedicated to one of our foremost poets and perhaps the most important Irish language poet living today – the wonderful Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. She is joined by the celebrated poet Paul Muldoon – one of the greatest translators of her work - reading his translations of two of her poems Cuimhne an Uisce (A Recovered Memory of Water) and An Bád Sí (The Faerie Boat). Also featured is the wonderful singer, Éilís Kennedy from Dingle, County Kerry singing Iníon an Fhaoit’ ón nGleann and An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe. ‍

Produced by The Shaking Bog in collaboration with Coillte Nature and Mermaid Arts Centre. Written & presented by Catherine Nunes, edited by Bjorn MacGiolla, mixed by Steve McGrath, with theme music composed by Ray Harmon. With special thanks to the artists and Dingle Garden Townhouse.‍

‍Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is one of the most prominent poets writing in the Irish language today. Her poetry has been translated into English by a number of well-known Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, and Paul Muldoon. Irish themes, including language, are central to her poetry and range from ancient myths to small details of contemporary life. Her first collection was published in 1981, and the translation Selected Poems: Rogha Danta appeared in 1986. Her works have since been translated into Italian, Japanese, and Turkish.

Born to Irish parents who were both doctors working in an Irish mining community in Lancashire, England, Ní Dhomhnaill spoke Gaelic at home. At the age of five, she went to live with an aunt in County Kerry, Ireland, where she was further immersed in the language. As a student at University College in Cork, she studied Irish and English and became part of a group of Irish language poets who were published the literary magazine Innti.

‍Paul Muldoon was born in 1951 in Portadown, County Armagh, and was raised near The Moy, in Northern Ireland. His mother was a schoolteacher and his father a farm labourer and market gardener. He is the author of a number of poetry collections, including New Weather (1973), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Quoof (1983), Meeting the British (1987), New Selected Poems: 1968-1994 (1996), Hay (1998), Moy Sand and Gravel (2002), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Griffin Poetry Prize, Horse Latitudes (2006), and most recently One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (2015), Selected Poems 1968-2104 (2016), and Frolic and Detour (2019). He has also published collections of criticism, children’s books, opera libretti, song lyrics, and works for radio and television. See www.paulmuldoonpoetry.com‍

Éilís Kennedy was raised in Baile an Mhúraigh in West Kerry to parents who passed on a lifelong and committed interest in the poetry and songs of that region, and was fortunate to have had the opportunity to listen to many of the finest exponents of song in her locality. Éilís recorded her first solo CD titled Time to Sail in 2000, with guitarist William Coulter and this gained widespread critical acclaim .This was followed by another solo collection One Sweet Kiss In 2007, and along with composer Shaun Davey, Rita Connolly, Seamus Begley, Jim Murray, Eoin Ó Beaglaoich & Dáithí Ó Sé, she was part of Béal Tuinne, a 15 song cycle, based on her father Caoimhín Ó Cinnéide’s poems and set to original music by Shaun Davey.

Éilís formed LUMIERE with fellow West Kerry woman Pauline Scanlon in 2009, and they have recorded two award winning albums : Lumiere , and My Dearest Dear. In early 2017, Eilís released her third solo recording Westward with her friend and Grammy award winning US guitarist William Coulter. See www.eiliskennedymusic.ie