Early Irish Lyrics, edited by Gerald Murphy, Oxford at the Clarendon, Press, 1956

If I could save only two books from the conflagration, this would be one of them. (The other is not the Bible.).

Murphy knew and loved this literature (as I do, so I am prejudiced). He gives a good selection with full scholarly apparatus. The vocabulary can teach you a lot about Early Irish. The translations are excellent. The old Oxford Press edition is solid enough that it might make it through a conflagration without any help from me.

Nua-Dhuanaire, Cuid I, edited by TPadraig de Brun, O Buachalla, Breandan and O Concheanainn, Tomas, Dublin Institute, 1975

A great selection of 16th and 17th century poetry when the world collapsed and men and women stared into the abyss. There is a section of folk songs as well, but no translations of any of it,

Peadar Ó Doirnín, Amhráin, edited by Breandán Ó Buachalla, An Clóchomhar, 1970

Ó Doirnín was an 18th century Louth/Armagh poet who loved the world and women, in particular, in a time and place that made loving difficult, but he composed great songs and poetry about all that. The editor's Introduction is very useful and could be a model for both introductions and good Irish.

Some Music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5tX6uPUVLk&list=RDx5tX6uPUVLk&start_radio=1 Brighde Chaimbeul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8gnKT5MlnM#ddg-play Roisin Elsafty, Ronan Browne etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs07sYQqc1c#ddg-play BBC Alba launch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BAUgKgs7Ic#ddg-play 1970s festival in Pourlet region

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApcoJyJ5iMA Brittany in 1930s

The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany

Born in 1878, somewhat noble scion of an old Meath family, Dunsany helped create modern fantasy/pulp in English, mostly in a Biblical style in Mid-Eastern setting. This, the Irish book, is beautiful, though yes, eloquent in an old-fashioned way. It is about a man in love and his pursuit of that vision through the nightlands,

Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World collected from oral tradition in southwest Munster by Jeremiah Curtin, The Talbot Press, 1973

These short stories are real people in 1890s Ireland when people dealt every day with the world as it is and never saw a computer, telling about things that happened to them or to others in the community in their own time or before. The stories are fascinating and well-told with the Munster directness. Not every modern reader will appreciate that or the lack of filtering and fluff, but some will.

Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens, Macmillan, 1920

Mairtín Ó Cadhain, a very prestigious writer in Irish, described Stephens' writing as "more Irish than the Irish language", which is a bit of an exagerration, but gives you the idea. Most of his books are great. This one has Tuan Mac Cairill: Boyhood of Fionn, and Oisin etc.: Becfola: Brawl at AllenL Bodach an Chota Riabhach: Ceis Corran: BecumaL and Mongan, It is great in his characteristic lyrical, chatty, bittersweet way. This edition has absolutely "wrong" illustrations by Arthur Rackham.

https://celt.ucc.ie/ The CELT site from University College, Cork has been around a while, but it makes available texts of a LOT of older Irish stuff (often with translations), usually from editions published in tyhe early/mid 20th centiry (but very dependable).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEWkf3KzmQQ Louis Paor and John Spillane (Cork)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gLmQ7PIe8I Liz Kane and Danny O'Mahoney, reels

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kJ6e3bhgvY Julie Fowlis and some seal songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH9Uey4Ki9g&list=RDmH9Uey4Ki9g&start_radio=1 Yann Fanch Kemener

The Wild Plant Solution, Guido Mase, Healing Arts Press, 2013

There are lots of books about herbs and herbalism, but this one is remarkable for combining clear description of the scientific bases for the use of aromatic, bitter and tonic herbs, with eloquent, knowledgeable and evident long personal knowledge and affection for these 15 plants. I wish there were more like this book.

Guido (and Rosemary Gladstar, of course) are the Eliot Colemans of Herbalism, and that is high praise.

Eigse Chairbre, Blathnaid Ui Chathain, an Clochomhar, 2006

The author skillfully shows the reader a world that is unfortunately lost and lets us hear forgotten voices.

She has gone through all the manuscripts and gathered songs and poems made in the area of County Cork extending from roughly Timoleague to Drimoleague/Bantry, gathered information on the makers, supplied notes and vocabulary, 533 pages' worth. It is great. (No English translations though).

Irish 18th century poetry, by the way, is also great. Not every poem here is among the best, but all are good.

Billy Butter, Berta and Elmer Hader, MacMillan, 1936

An American kid's book from the 1930s? Really? I mean the cadence is simple and declarative and the story is told in third person, and it's about an actual goat: the title is not ironic or anything.

Well, it comes down to the person(s) who wrote the book. The Haders were good souls and good skillful writers and it sounds like they made a little oasis beside the river in years oases were pretty scarce. They had a wide experience of early 20th century America and sympathy for people. The story mostly occurs on Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, then an almost self-governing working class village within the city, and the story takes hard stuff about life and specifically life for the un-wealthy for granted: stuff that now only shows up in diatribes, if ever. An understated, fond humor permeates the book. The illustrations are great.

I'm still at a loss to explain why I like this book a lot. Maybe partly it's just that I've grown to appreciate straightforward tales by authors who love people, animals and the world, and who have taken the time to learn their craft.

Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential...and Endangered, Maia Szalavitz and Bruce D. Perry, William Morrow, 2010

Well written, eloquent and an easy read. There sure are a lot of people today who need to ponder these topics. I really doubt they will, which is a great shame, but we are probably too far down the chute for reading it to make a difference anyway.

Literature in Irish, Proinsias MacCana, Department of Foreign Affairs (Ireland), 1980

A short book written by still the best and wisest and most discerning of Irish language scholars. Still the best book on the topic, as well.

Ainm.ie

Started as a series of books but is now a website on which you can find well-researched and written biographies of maybe a thousand words of most of the men and women associated in any way with literature in Irish since about 1550. It is in Irish, and excellent Irish, which I suppose is not surprising, given that a Cork man and woman were behind the whole thing, not some committee of academic

Blackcock's Feather by Maurice Walsh

A good book and engrossing read.

Walsh didn't really know much about 16th century Ireland, and grew up reading circa 1900 popular adventure fiction, but when his heart was in it, he wrote well and truly.

Amhrain Chuige Uladh by Muireahach Meith

A great collection, mostly from Omeath, County Louth, originally published in 1927. Includes forty songs. This modern edition (in modern type) includes sheet music as well, and almost a hundred pages of great notes about other versions of the songs, places published, the singers, etc.

Padraigin ni hUallachain's book A Hidden Ulster, sheds a lot of light on many of these these songs, as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTkSqmwQSYk#ddg-play La Lugh

Gabbaim molta Bríde (I praise Brighid) Ionmhain í le hÉirinn (Beloved of Ireland) Ionhain le gach tír í (Beloved of all lands) Molaímis go léir i (Let us all praise her)

Lóchrann geal na Laighneach (The bright torch of Linster) A' soilsiú feadh na tíre (Shining throughout the land) Cean ar óghaibh Éireann (The pride of all Irish women) Ceann na mban ar míne (The pride of women for gentleness)

Tig an geimhreadh dian dubh (Comes the hard dark winter) A' gearradh lena ghéire (Cutting with it's severity) Ach ar Lá 'le Bríde (But on St. Brighids Day) Gar dúinn earrach Éireann (The Irish spring is near to us)

Brighid of the sunrise Rising in the morning Rising with the springtime Greening all the land, See you in the soft cloud See you in the raindrop See you in the winds of change Blowing through the land

You the red eared white cow Nourishing the people, Nourish now the hunger Souls longing in our land, Bird that is unfolding, Now the time's upon us Only have we eyes to see Your Epiphany

Gabbaim molta Bríde (I praise Brighid) Ionmhain í le hÉirinn (Beloved of Ireland) Ionhain le gach tír í (Beloved of all lands) Molaímis go léir i (Let us all praise her)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y08ZBTOY6t8&list=RDy08ZBTOY6t8&start_radio=1 Julie Fowlis Smeorach Chlainn Domhnaill

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics
by Christopher Lasch

The best and most complete explication of Lasch's thought. He lays out a very convincing, sound critical portrait of capitalist society that does an end run around the left/right duo, and he suggests a much more solid approach to building a better society, grounded in individual and community responsibility. (Some people probably say he moved to the right or something as the years went by, but those people say that because they are trapped in the left/right dichotomy that Lasch shows in this book is a very confined, crippled, incomplete way of seeing things. Illich and Arendt are very different writers, but come at things from a similar angle.)

Odd suggestion, but I think Dorothy Canfield Fisher's novel Seasoned Timber could profitably be read after reading this book.

This is an important book,

Seasoned Timber by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

This is a great book and it could not have been written by anyone who had not spent a long life in a small face-to-face (Vermont) community, thinking about the world and about such communities and how they might survive in what was happening outside: and also perfecting her craft as a novelist.

It's overtly the portrait of a middle-aged man who has hidden from life in his work, and how he deals with two sudden upsets: a love affair, and an attempted corporate professional/managerial caste takeover of the small rural high school where he is jack-of-all trades headmaster. It is a quiet calm book without big dramatic events, but it becomes a world for the reader out of which the reader steps with sorrow. Not much higher praise of any book than that.

One reader condemned the "socialist" preaching. This comment is a better indication of the way we are today, than of anything in the book. Fisher had thought hard about how these small honest hardworking communities could survive in the "new world", and she did not see any way forward but people working together.

News from Nowhere by William Morris,

Yes, it was written in 1890, so it does not read like a current bestseller, and it was written by a middle-class Englishman who fought all his life for all men and women, so it is not identitarian, but the number of uncomprehending reviews of the book on Goodreads is another small reason to worry about the present and future

Cartlann Sean-Nois TG4

A large library of sean-nos song that has most important singers if the last twenty years with many songs from most. That does miss many many great older singers, but look, all you need to do is turn on the computer...

https://seannos.tg4.ie/

The Wedding Poems of Dáibhí Bruadair
by Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, Margo Griffin-Wilson (Editor)

It's a good entry point to understanding the 17th century Irish world and its literature. A nice rainy day book too. Solid and compelling, as few books are. This is a short treview: better you simply get hold of a copy and go from there. (includes English translations.)

Bonfire by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

This is one of the great novels of the 20th century, and is very hard to encompass in a description here. Many novels display careful planning and author's skill, but that is mostly all. The are dead artifacts. This book has heart and intelligence, and almost seems to have come into being independent of an author. It is that rich.

Apparently the story of two years in the life of a brother and sister in a Vermont village, the story expands to include a whole host of others, and by the end, is the story of a whole community of people facing the essential challenges of life. One of the book's "messages" is, I think, that it is possible to live well (and I don't mean "comfortably") in the world, in a place, in community, but that demands love, common sense and courage.

In the end, some people pass through, not to transcendence, but to true life, while others have been wounded in ways that may be hard to overcome. No facile, dishonest, cheeriness here, but an honest report from a woman who had lived a long engaged life. The book sums up/ends in a triumphant unforgettable image of the community dance/procession and of light, all illuminated and commented on by a kind of laconic Vermont chorus (like in an ancient Greek play).

(By the way, the only way I can see that someone could find anything "eugenicist" in the book is if they think in slogans and already knew what they were going to say in a review before reading the book.

Spoiler as they say: Fisher commented in a letter to the publisher that Lixlee is not "bad" because she's from the wrong side of the tracks, but because, growing up in predatory chaos and without a family, she had to develop techniques to protect herself: techniques she then could not escape from. The rich man Stewart was trapped in a self-constructed in exactly the same way, in response to an abusive father.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gLmQ7PIe8I