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Irish Times
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Niall Montgomery ‘originated an Irish form of jazz-inspired sound poetry'
In June 2015, Christine O'Neill published An Irishwoman's Diary on architect, poet, artist and literary critic Niall Montgomery in The Irish Times . This piece and O'Neill's subsequent book, Niall Montgomery: Dublinman (Ashgate, 2015), mark the centenary of the author's birth and stand out as the best biographical work on Montgomery. But what about his poetry? When I first learned that Montgomery had put together a manuscript of poems shortly before his death, I was floored. The questions one asks oneself as an editor are: these poems, are they any good? Have they been published before? Will they make a splash? Wait, is the book already put together? Can I publish it? If the answer to these questions is yes, then one has the editorial equivalent of a slam dunk. READ MORE Niall Montgomery (June 24th, 1915 – March 11th, 1987) is well-known as a Dublin architect and literary scholar, but his poetry is seldom mentioned despite a sporadic publishing career that spanned more than five decades. Montgomery never published a book of his poems. Dublinman collects his essays on James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Georgian Dublin. terminal 1: Arrivals – a book published by Flat Singles Press that will be launched in Dublin on June 20th – is the first collection of Montgomery's poetry in a trade edition. It was not a slam dunk job. Collecting the early poems was a difficult task. Montgomery's lack of book publication during his lifetime necessitated tracking down out-of-print magazines and searching for early drafts in archives in Ireland and the United States. It is a gross understatement to say Montgomery's poetry is 'under-appreciated', 'obscure seeming', 'abstract', 'modernist' and, if one is feeling generous, 'misunderstood'. The seven long poems included in the collection were difficult to find but their quality speaks for itself, though the pieces are complex and perhaps impenetrable for some readers. Some of them are 'ensemble pieces' that speak in many voices. They achieve an unprecedented integration of clashing poetic and demotic registers. Terminal 1: Arrivals, a posthumous collection by Irish poet Niall Montgomery It is also difficult to classify Montgomery's poetry because his poetic career passed through two distinct phases: a period of arrival during the 1930s and early 1940s when his work met with a significant early reception, and a second flowering in the early 1970s after struggling to publish for many years. In the first phase, Montgomery published in important journals and avant-garde magazines, including Contemporary Poetry and Prose , transition , Wales , Ireland To-day and Furioso . In 1970, Michael Smith and Trevor Joyce featured Montgomery's unpublished song-poem, London Transport (1939), in The Lace Curtain , along with two new poems. Smith would go on to publish Montgomery's later poems and essays in five separate issues of that magazine. This late, second-phase recognition revived Montgomery's hope of publishing a book-length collection and was followed by a small flourishing of new, short poems. He called the book project T E R M I N A L but died before it could be published. terminal 1 collects Montgomery's earliest published work for the first time with the other long poems he wrote during the 1930s. Taken from his most prolific period, these poems mark Montgomery's first significant poetic achievement and emphasise his use of the long form. Other posthumous collections are needed. A critical edition of Montgomery's Irish translations would do much to establish his substantial bilingual contribution to Irish poetry. A second volume of his later poetry focusing on his use of shorter forms is already underway. Montgomery was incredible while young. One might dismiss it as precociousness and laugh at how John Milton wanted to be considered a prodigy well into his thirties. You might not think it, but an entire volume on Montgomery's early career is justified. For example, in 1932, at the age of 17, he wrote to Eugene Jolas, editor of the by then well-known transition magazine which was publishing Joyce's Work in Progress as well as other expressionist, post-expressionist, Surrealist and Dada artists. Taking a cue from Joyce and what would become Finnegans Wake (1939), Jolas focused transition on experimental writing and provided an important forum for the international avant-garde. Montgomery's letter is best described as ardent fan mail, full of strange Latin-English wordplay. In his implied praise for transition , Montgomery clearly echoes Jolas's so-called 'interlinguistic experiments' and the magazine's announcement in 1932 that 'Poetry is vertical'. montgomery; 132 Rock Road Booterstown Dublin ; transeunti eugene jolas viaticum igitor rejoyce 13 mar 2 1 rue de sévigné paris (3e) dURINg an ad liminn brousing with some HORIZontal lenten PASTords i determined and REALised. ENclosed my camera PANS v e r t i c a l l y from the wreason of tsalty TSELIOT and EVEn contraeonceivARLY PAULtergeist vulAIRY I HAVE SICKERED ON THE SUBLIMINAL ETHOS orphically ad limina cheaply ex cathedra MANtically YoUrS Niall O'lstat Montgomery He had already made a name for himself as a poet by the summer of 1934, when under the name Andrew Belis, Beckett mentioned him in Recent Irish Poetry—an acerbic review for Bookman magazine—alongside several Irish poets who the author categorized as either outmoded revivalists or 'aware' artists. Beckett ironically claimed to know 'nothing' of the poetry of Niall Sheridan, Donagh MacDonagh or Irene Haugh but the mere mention of the names ambiguously sets them apart from the poets Beckett attacks in the review. Knowing nothing almost becomes a compliment when Beckett adds two words to Montgomery's 'nothing'; he writes, 'of Mr Niall Montgomery's poetry', he knows 'nothing at all'. Beckett and Montgomery's friendship began around this time and lasted for the rest of Montgomery's life. They became the sort of friends who exchange Christmas cards and know one another's family. Of his Dublin friends named in Beckett's review, Niall Sheridan was the most encouraging of Montgomery's poetry. He consoled Montgomery after his collection of translations had been rejected in 1934: sorry to hear that the GÚM refused your poems. Where the hell was the GÚM in 1916, anyway. I'd seriously advise you to publish them yourself. These poems were part of a monumental translation project. Christine O'Neil has documented Montgomery and Devlin's attempt in the early 1930s to translate 'more than 200 pages' of modernist and avant-garde French poetry into Irish, a corpus which, according to Tobias Harris, even 'included work by Tristan Tzara, the Romanian-born poet and performance artist who acted as a bridge between the Paris and Berlin Dada scenes'. Apart from the two translations included in the appendix terminal 1 , none of the Irish material has been published. I can make an even more shocking claim: Montgomery is more of a London poet, vis-à-vis The Waste Land, than a Dublin poet. He spent time in London in the late 1930s for his architectural training. With Montgomery's ensemble pieces from this period, like London Transport and Swing Tides of March This Time Darling, it is important to observe that he is writing as an expatriate rather than as a stay-at-home Dubliner. Sheridan wrote to him in London on January 16th, 1939, 'I'm terribly sorry for you living in that pagan country. Apart from missing you here [in Dublin], it's a terrible fate for anyone.' It is also true that a sense of the city of Dublin is inseparable from Niall Montgomery's name and from all his work. Some readers may first see 'London' and the influence of 'tsalty tseliot' before noticing 'whitewash and gorsecurves' and the distinctive Irishness of Montgomery's imagery. At different times, Montgomery likened his poetry to music ('TRANSPOSE it for me please it's still much too high'). He also deeply admired jazz. In an essay on painting published in 1944, he compared abstract painting and jazz: 'Both are very much of the twenties and thirties, [and] reflect the neuroses of contemporary life. At its best the dominant feature in jazz is improvisation, with the strange, unpredictable line of an instrumental solo against a rhythmic formalised bass; in 'abstract' art this startling flowing line informs the composition.' His understanding of jazz informs how music is employed in 'blinds somewhere draw the blinds' and Swing Tides of March This Time Darling. A bassline underpins rhythmic changes between stanzas in both poems. In one section of 'blinds' Montgomery establishes his analogy between jazz and writing with alto-bovine-absurdity: in the higher brackets however elastically scrolled in an uncountable rococo idiom steely and irrevocable behind the ogham stones seven secret cows in double-breasted dinner-jackets go atavistic on their tender saxophones In Swing Tides of March, big band music becomes a central motif ('trombone-routine of brekekekex-coagulation') and the text ends with a radio announcer signing off. London Transport is arguably Montgomery's most difficult poem. It is an ensemble piece that develops the polyvocal technique of Swing Tides of March in a more definite, and almost prescriptive style. One might say that Montgomery originated an Irish form of jazz-inspired sound poetry distinguished by its polyphony. The seven poems in terminal 1 are the mark of his poetic achievement. Joseph LaBine is a Canadian poet and scholar specialising in modern Celtic literature. TERMINAL 1: Arrivals by Niall Montgomery, edited by Joseph LaBine, is published by Flat Singles Press.
Mint
a day ago
- Mint
Ireland begins dig at mass grave of 800 babies exposed by historian
After more than a decade of tireless research and ridicule, Catherine Corless—the historian who uncovered the burial site of nearly 800 babies at Tuam, County Galway, beneath a former Irish home for unwed mothers—is finally seeing justice take root. Excavation crews began work this week at the grounds of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, marking a major turning point in one of Ireland's darkest historical reckonings. In an interview with The Irish Times, Corless reflected on her struggle to bring the truth to light. 'It's just beginning to dawn on me now,' she said. 'It has taken a while to sink in.' Her work first gained national attention in 2014, when she uncovered death certificates for 796 children who died at the Tuam home between the 1920s and 1961—but found only one corresponding burial record. Convinced the children's remains were still on site, she pushed for answers while facing relentless opposition. The local backlash was immediate and intense, she reportedly told the news outlet. 'People would cross the street to avoid me,' Corless told The Irish Times. Strangers harassed her in supermarkets, while others accused her of smearing the town's name. 'You're about as credible as Santa Claus. You're a disgrace,' a man wrote in an email to her just days ago, on June 15. 'I hope those nuns bring you to court.' But on Monday, Corless was vindicated. The fenced-off site where the babies' bodies were buried—some inside a decommissioned septic tank—is now under forensic control, with a full-scale excavation underway. In 2017, government investigators confirmed what Corless had long suspected: a mass grave was found beneath the grounds of the home. DNA analysis later revealed the remains belonged to babies and children ranging from 35 weeks gestation to three years old. The home, run by an order of Catholic nuns until its closure in 1961, was one of many institutions in Ireland where unmarried pregnant women were placed—often forcibly—and their children hidden, mistreated, or adopted without consent. 'All those lovely little children and babies, that's the one thing that drove me,' Corless told The Irish Times. 'That's all that was in my mind—these babies in a sewage system, they have to come out.' The broader scandal is staggering: nearly 9,000 children are believed to have died in 18 mother-and-baby homes across Ireland. Most succumbed to illnesses like gastroenteritis, whooping cough, diphtheria, and tuberculosis. But the lack of burial records—particularly in Tuam—points to deep institutional neglect. In 2021, the Irish government issued a formal apology for the mistreatment of women and children in these homes, acknowledging that 'a profound failure of empathy, understanding and basic humanity' had occurred. Daniel MacSweeney, head of the excavation project, said the process is expected to take two years. Families will have the opportunity to view the work as it progresses. Identified remains will be returned to relatives; unidentified remains will be buried respectfully. 'This is not just an excavation,' MacSweeney noted. 'It is a national act of recognition and dignity.' For Corless, that long-overdue dignity is finally beginning to emerge from the soil of Tuam. As she quietly watches the start of the dig she spent years fighting for, her words ring as powerfully now as when she began: 'It's about doing the right thing.'
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Rise in Irish adults paying for news subscriptions as interest remains higher than European average
Of those with a paid subscription to a digital news service, the highest percentage sign up for the Irish Independent, at 36pc, followed by The Irish Times at 33pc, and The New York Times at 22pc. In terms of people paying for news subscriptions, the most significant gains over the last two years have been in the 35 to 44 years age group. Dr Dawn Wheatley, of Dublin City University (DCU), one of the authors of the report, said: 'The slight bump over the past year provides some optimism for news producers as the figure had stagnated since 2021. 'The current rate of payment in Ireland is double that of the UK and above the European average, so Irish news producers have reason for some optimism, even if perhaps the pace and rate of growth has not been as hoped for.' The survey finds most people in Ireland (56pc) say they are interested in news. This is the highest level since 2022, but down from a peak of 70pc during the Covid pandemic. Asked if they trust the news most of the time, 50pc of Irish people agreed The enthusiasm for news puts Irish audiences ahead of their counterparts in the UK (39pc), US (51pc) and Europe (45pc). Only 3pc say they are 'not at all interested' in news. The number of 'news avoiders' is reducing, with 41pc of those surveyed saying they 'often' or 'sometimes' avoid news, down three percentage points in the last year. Asked if they trust the news most of the time, 50pc of people agreed, compared with 35pc in the UK, and 30pc in the US. Traditional news outlets still perform well in this category. Among the most trusted brands are RTÉ News (72pc), BBC News and The Irish Times (both 70pc) and the Irish Independent (68pc). Smartphones continue to be the devices people most often use to get their news, at 77pc. Over the last decade, the number of people using tablets to get their news has remained the same. ADVERTISEMENT Research for the Digital News Report is done by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at Oxford University, with analysis of the Irish data by DCU. The 'Indo Daily', the 'Irish Independent' daily podcast, was the most familiar A total of 2,000 people were surveyed in Ireland between the middle of January and the end of February, with the sample balanced by age, gender, region and education level. Eleven per cent of Irish respondents say they use radio as their primary source of news, more than in Britain (8pc) or the US (3pc). Irish audiences are also tuning into podcasts, with 12pc using them as a source of news in the last week. Podcast listeners were asked to name news podcasts they were familiar with. The Indo Daily, the Irish Independent's daily podcast, was the most cited. Social media platform X is seen as the greatest threat when it comes to false and misleading information, cited by 54pc of those surveyed, followed by TikTok and Facebook, both on 53pc. The Guardian and Le Monde. Last January, Le Monde
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Number of people paying for their news rises ‘after stagnating for years', report finds
Of those with a paid subscription to a digital news service, the highest percentage sign up for the Irish Independent, at 36pc, followed by The Irish Times at 33pc, and The New York Times at 22pc. In terms of people paying for news subscriptions, the most significant gains over the last two years have been in the 35 to 44 years age group. Dr Dawn Wheatley, of Dublin City University (DCU), one of the authors of the report, said: 'The slight bump over the past year provides some optimism for news producers as the figure had stagnated since 2021. 'The current rate of payment in Ireland is double that of the UK and above the European average, so Irish news producers have reason for some optimism, even if perhaps the pace and rate of growth has not been as hoped for.' The survey finds most people in Ireland (56pc) say they are interested in news. This is the highest level since 2022, but down from a peak of 70pc during the Covid pandemic. Asked if they trust the news most of the time, 50pc of Irish people agreed The enthusiasm for news puts Irish audiences ahead of their counterparts in the UK (39pc), US (51pc) and Europe (45pc). Only 3pc say they are 'not at all interested' in news. The number of 'news avoiders' is reducing, with 41pc of those surveyed saying they 'often' or 'sometimes' avoid news, down three percentage points in the last year. Asked if they trust the news most of the time, 50pc of people agreed, compared with 35pc in the UK, and 30pc in the US. Traditional news outlets still perform well in this category. Among the most trusted brands are RTÉ News (72pc), BBC News and The Irish Times (both 70pc) and the Irish Independent (68pc). Smartphones continue to be the devices people most often use to get their news, at 77pc. Over the last decade, the number of people using tablets to get their news has remained the same. Research for the Digital News Report is done by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at Oxford University, with analysis of the Irish data by DCU. The 'Indo Daily', the 'Irish Independent' daily podcast, was the most familiar A total of 2,000 people were surveyed in Ireland between the middle of January and the end of February, with the sample balanced by age, gender, region and education level. Eleven per cent of Irish respondents say they use radio as their primary source of news, more than in Britain (8pc) or the US (3pc). Irish audiences are also tuning into podcasts, with 12pc using them as a source of news in the last week. Podcast listeners were asked to name news podcasts they were familiar with. The Indo Daily, the Irish Independent's daily podcast, was the most cited. Social media platform X is seen as the greatest threat when it comes to false and misleading information, cited by 54pc of those surveyed, followed by TikTok and Facebook, both on 53pc. The Guardian and Le Monde. Last January, Le Monde
Irish Examiner
5 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Check out West Cork's Fjord Focus, in Schull home with family inspiration from Arts and Crafts architect
THERE is no mistaking the fact you are in West Cork here, looking due west out over Dunmanus Bay to the peninsular guard points of the tip of Sheeps Head and Dunlough on the Mizen, south and west... but for this house, Four Blues itself? Four Blues has an international flavour, in a Schull setting There's something truly international about its design. No surprise: its owners Jack and Julia Zagar are travellers, having lived and worked in many parts of the globe, including periods sailing around the fjords of Norway, working in reservoir engineering/the oil industry in the North Sea, Middle East, the US, and the Gulf of America ... sorry, Gulf of Mexico, as the rest of the world will continue to call it. It was back in the late 1990s, as Ireland's Celtic Tiger was flexing its claws, that the Zagars, with a son Patrick and a daughter Anne then aged eight and nine years of age, sought a change of lifestyle: independent of spirit, they thought about Ireland, advertised for a rental in The Irish Times, reckoned that the Southwest might have the best weather (ahem?) and flew over from their antebellum home in New Orleans to view half a dozen or so places. They swiftly opted for a nearly finished small house in West Cork's Rossbrin, between Ballydehob and Schull after visiting Schull in full sunshine, during a lively regatta Calves Week 'if they could put in a kitchen for us'. Sunken dining area between kitchen/dining and the main living area That was in August 1997. By September, their children were enrolled in school in Schull, later going to Schull Community College, and artist Julia and Jack were making deeper plans for stronger roots. They came across locally-living architects Dietrich and Hildegard Eckhardt who've left quite a skilled design mark across swathes of West Cork for up to 40 years. They had them adapt a house design where planning had been granted on c three wild acres on the flanks of Mount Gabriel at Gloun, above Schull on the Mizen Peninsula: importantly, it was to include some of the design legacy of Julia's grandfather, John Archibald Campbell, who also left a design legacy in the early half of the 20th century in many parts of the UK, notably Cornwall, as well as Berlin, and Munich. A number of features of Campbell's extensive house Chapel Point at Mevagissey, Cornwall, are recreated on a smaller scale here at Schull's Four Blues, most notably the conical room on a circular tower section, and in a barrel-roofed sunken dining area between this home's large kitchen and even larger main living room and bow-ended conservatory/west-facing sun spot. 'We use the dining room every day,' Julia says when asked about her family's home's favoured 'red dot' spot, pointing to one seat at the table with its choice of views via either or both of tall, slender multi-paned windows: she explains architect Dietrich Eckhardt's own philosophy that windows should frame views, not just be a vast expanse of glass opening up unfiltered vistas. Thus, the placement of so, so many windows across the main façade, grouped but irregularly shaped, in small paned sections in cedar, with Douglas Fir frames, with American Douglas Fir also used in much of the interior joinery as it is finer grained than Irish varieties, say the Zagars. In keeping with the Arts and Crafts ethos, build materials matter: thus, this extensive, c 3,150 sq ft detached home — finished just in time for the millennium — conceals much of its bulk under different roof sections, done in Spanish quarry slate, with the same slate also used in sills and floors in entrance rooms (mixed in a gridpattern with beach pebbles in the main hall), sunken dining room, main stairway, and service rooms. The double aspect kitchen has a teak floor, with enormous 10' long and almost 5' wide, Danish oiled pristine teak island, and worktops and drainers around two ceramic sinks, while the heartbeat is a large black multi-oven Aga oven (with gas burner to the side), also appreciated by daughter Anne Zagar, a chef and owner of 51 Cornmarket in Cork City, when in cheffy company back home here in West Cork. The oil-fired Aga (Jack Zagar never quite shook off his old industry background?!) is Julia's pride, and also her particular joy, for several reasons. One, lesser likely one? She stops to remove and cradle a much polished rounded stone from one of the lower warming ovens which she says she takes with her wrapped in a towel when wild and sea swimming on colder days from the hillside base. Blue sky thinking at Four Blues, above Schull The couple's earlier years — time spending living and cruising around Norway on yachts — is recalled in the style of flooring in the main living/sun room section: it's done in narrow plank pale American oak, with dark caulking in between, very much luxury boat deck in look and feel, and in what it evokes for them. Workmanship, and joinery skills throughout here, are exemplary in this 25-year-old build, done by Eckhardts' Home & Design Ltd construction company, in a hybrid mix of timber frame and solid masonry, depending on load bearing needs. It's a wide house, broken in sections in height and scale and uses, with a very 'adult' feel and air, down to calm design and artworks and furnishing and finishes, yet with a bit of fun, such as in a bedroom done ship's cabin-style back in day one, for the children with boat bunk style hinged doors and optional pull-out bed under for sleep-overs: it's now as equally enjoyed by grandchildren. Child's play Jack and Julia are ready to 'right-size now' into retirement years, likely to Schull village: they'll have a lot of stuff to decant out of Four Blues (the evocative name comes from a Nordic description of distance at sea). Theirs is a spacious four-bed home, but having the four split in two sections with two staircases, each serving two might not suit families with very young children; others will relish it. It has lots of storage options all fully utilised up to now, with precious, large walk-in wardrobes/dressing rooms off two of the principal en suite bedrooms, as well as a full-stocked larder/pantry off the high ceilinged utility/laundry room with its back wall warmed by the powerful Aga on the other side of the thick block dividing wall. There's a south-aspected gable end conservatory on the far end, previously used as a greenhouse and which could be linked back into the main dwelling via Julia's art and textiles studio/family room, or via an adjunct workroom with external courtyard access: there's also a garage/storage room for garden equipment. ride-on mower etc, also previously used for storing sailing, fishing, and golf paraphernalia. The distinctive home is on over 2.5 acres, now extensively landscaped and planted with mostly native species and trees, shelter belt planting, orchard with wild meadow grasses ringed around the fruit trees, and with low flower and shrub beds near the stone patios and terraces. Green fingers at Four Blues A covid investment was a good-sized, commercial grade polytunnel, tall enough to allow beds on either side plus a centre bed with well advanced tomatoes, with a bit of frivolity from blooming frilly poppies, and outside are further fruit and vegetable beds, whilst there's also a pond at a lower boundary for bird, bug and frog life at this lifestyle, privately set Mizen peninsula option. Set up an elevated quiet road just west and uphill of Schull and Lowertown, a seven- to 10-minute drive from Schull itself, Four Blues is on the June 2025 market with agent Colm Cleary of James Lyons Auctioneers with a €895,000 AMV. Like its cosmopolitan/international roots, design and build legacy, it's likely to have an appeal to overseas and relocating buyers from o'er the waves, as well as to well-heeled and welly-shod Irish natives looking for a superbly built home, on acres of private grounds, with sea and peninsula views to thrive on. VERDICT: Distinctively different with design elan and a very grown-up demeanour
