Our free podcasts of Irish writers showcase is now on Episode 12 and features readings from Vincent Caprani from his book “A View From The Dart”,  Michele Ann Kelly performs “Lost in Paris”  Thom Moore sings “The Scholar” while Macdara Galvin performs “James Connolly” a song written by his late father Patrick Glavin.  Kate Kerrigan reads from “Recipes for a Perfect Marraige” and Padriag J Daly reads his poem “Complaint”.  There is plenty more to come in the coming weeks so please keep an eye on our page or you can subsribe to our RSS Feed which is completely free.  Later this week we will be uploading more great podcasts featuring Irish writers including a reading by Alan Murphy from his brand new collection “Phycosilly”  we will also have another edition of The Writer’s Passage and some performance podcasts to bring you too.

It is the end of May and it is time to walk The Calendar Road again.   The Calendar Road is proving to be one of our most popular podcasts and this month Sinéad has decided to sit a while and find out more about the chorus of tweets that fill the air in the evenings along the road.  3 weeks ahead of the longest day of the year in Ireland the birds are busy raising families and maintaining the teritories they have established and as the evening draws in you can hear the calls of many of those residents on The Calendar Road for whom brick and mortar housing provides a shelter, though many more are just as happy with the shelter provided by mother nature.

It is a delight to bring you a reading from this iconic book by Vincent Caprani .  “A View From The Dart” when first published heralded the arrival of an emerging Dublin, now free from the old fashioned and noisy diesel engines that had served it for so long, replaced in a new age by sleek electric trains known as The Dublin Area Rapid Transport System or DART.  Ever the historian Vincent reminded the reader that the new system ran through a city steeped in history that should never be forgotten.  Although this particular reading is short, you can look forward to a more indept feature as we have also recorded and will very shortly be posting An episode of The Writer’s Passage based on “A View From The Dart”  we will of course feature readings by Vincent from his other work in time.

We are off on a bit of a break but before we set off, we managed to prepare some podcasts for you, ready for uploading.  The first of these is a new page for visual artist and children’s poet Alan Murphy.  Alan will release his second collection very shortly and we have already booked an exclusive reading from “Psychosilly” so there are a number of readings for you to look forward to from Alan.  Later this week we will be uploading another exclusive reading, this time from Vincent Caprani and we have another writer to introduce to you.  Don’t expect too much from us on our social network pages (we are on holiday afterall) but we will keep you updated via our news page.

Irish singer songwriter Mick Hanly famous for among other songs “Past The Point of Rescue, is the latest writer to record an exclusive session for Podcasts.ie. We met Mick at The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon before he was due on stage there recently.  Our thanks to Siobhan O’ Malley for organising the venue for us.  We have a few days off in the coming week but we will nevertheless be posting plenty of  podcasts for you including 2 new writers to the site so keep on eye on Podcasts.ie.  We are likely to be a bit quiet on the social networking scene but there will be no let up as far as uploading new material for you is concerned.  On top of all that is ready, we must prepare more editions of The Writer’s Passage, The Calendar Road  and The Showcase as May comes to an end and June gets ready to great us.

We are deeply saddened by the death on 10th of May 2011 of one of our featured poets Patrick Galvin.  We met with Patrick to record material for Podcasts.ie just over a year ago and though battling with the affects of a stroke which affected his speech and mobility, he was warm and generous with his time and through his wife Mary he participated in what for us will be a treasured recording.  In our small way we want to honour his memory with a podcast featuring Macdara Galvin singing his fathers compostion of the song “James Connolly” along with recordings from the family archive of Patrick reading “Man on The Porch” and “Song for a Poor Boy“.

It is a dark day for Irish literature to lose a man of his immense talent and generosity but we are proud and realise how lucky we are to have participated in one of his final recordings.

If you would like to add a comment to his page, in time, we will pass them on via e mail to his family. 

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam

To visit Patrick’s page and listen to his podcasts Click Here

Who knew podcasting in Ireland would be so busy ? Well we are rested after the double bank holidays, which is just as well as we have so many podcasts to bring you, the first of which is this one from novelist and historian Vincent Caprani.  Vincent’s collection of Doggerell “Rowdy Rymes and Recimitations” released to public aclaim many years ago is about to get a new lease of life.  He is currently adding to it and it will be republished later in 2011 by Gill and Macmillan.  He has promised us a chance to meet up nearer the launch for an interview and reading but in this current podcast Vincent talks about his writing including the story behind his best selling “A View From The Dart”  Also coming your way in the next week or so will be podcast readings from Grace Wells and Michael Pattwell and a brand new showcase but that won’t even scratch the surface of what we have in store for you this month alone.

Podcasts.ie continues to bring you the best in Irish music with a performace podcast by singer songwriter Ben Sands.  Unplugged and exclusive, Ben performs “Take my Love With You (Kellie’s Song)”  written specially for his daughters wedding.  The charming and witty ”Coffee and Cheesecake” and demonstrating his skills on the madolin 4 jigs.  The session was recorded at Ben’s home in Newry during February 2011.  

This being The May bank holiday weekend we might relax a wee bit, however, we will be preparing more podcasts to bring you and as we enter the Month of May, Ireland get’s ready to celebrate Bealtaine a festival of older people and creativity and fittingly, we will steer our next showcase in that direction with music and readings that pay homage to those of advancing years.

We are delighted to bring you the second writer recorded during our recent trip to Wexford and Waterford.  Michael Pattwell not alone drove to meet us in Lismore but organised with the good people of The Lismore Heritage Company to lay on a room for our recordings.  As always we launch the page with an interview with Michael and during the next week or so we will bring you some of the poetry from Flaghopping which Michael so generously shared with us. 

This week will also see The April edition of The Calendar Road, traditionally a time of new arrivals as flora and fauna welcome the warmer days of Spring.