Drawing on the award-winning book A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann Ní Ghríofa presents a live reading with accompanying visuals by filmmaker Tadhg O'Sullivan and a soundscape by composer Linda Buckley. The reading will be broadcast from The Everyman stage.
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'When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries.'
"One of many lessons I learned from writing ‘A Ghost in the Throat’ is that the act of re-reading can be an act of devotion. The book first grew from a compulsive re-reading of the poem ‘Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire,’ a jewel of Irish oral literature. The more I re-read the poem aloud, the more devoted I felt to the poem and to its author, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Once I set to writing my own book in response, I found that I was composing it in oral fashion too, reading each passage aloud many times as I wrote. Alongside the work of two deeply talented collaborators, this live reading returns the text to the voice that first created it.”
- Doireann Ní Ghríofa
A Ghost in the Throat (Tramp Press, 2020)
Cork. 1773. An Irish noblewoman, on discovering her husband’s murdered corpse, drinks handfuls of his blood and composes an extraordinary poem that reaches across the centuries to another woman. In modern Cork, Doireann Ní Ghríofa finds herself rereading this poem aloud again and again, and in doing so, she feels the living presence of this poet return. Driven by a growing curiosity, she sets out to find the rest of the story.
Praise for A Ghost in the Throat
“Genre-defying...captivatingly original“ - The Guardian (Best Books of the Year)
“Lush, lyrical prose that dazzles readers from the get-go… As readers, we should be grateful for her boldness. Without it, we would not have had one of the best books of this dreadful year.” – The Sunday Times
“Written in blood and milk, and its publication marks an important event in the maturing of Irish literature… I grieved when I closed this book, and found the only remedy was to turn back to the first page, and begin this masterpiece over again.” – The Sunday Business Post
“A book like this comes along once every few years and obliterates every clear definition of genre and form. I mean no exaggeration here: A Ghost in the Throat is astounding and utterly fresh… This is no tepid and stuffy reimagining of an 18th-century life. It is borne of great personal scholarship, without ever seeming polemical. This book has a long life ahead of it, burning bright and inspiring many.” – The Irish Independent
Supported by The Arts Council through a Project Award
