Competicaó de Xadrex......Chess Tournament

Competicaõ
de Xadrex

para Adolecentes
na
Bibilhoteca de Gort

A bibilhoteca esta localizade en igresa velho (protestate) proxima de cimetario ne Nua, Queen Street

www.galwaylibrary.ie & www.galwaylibrary.blogspot.com

To a Cuarta-feira
as 3.00pm–4.30pm
Commencõ: Cuarta-Feira 11th Junio
Terminaõ: Cuarta-Feira 2nd Julio

Gratis

Chess Tournament for Teenagers
at
Gort Library

the library is located in the

Old Church of Ireland on Queen Street

www.galwaylibrary.ie & www.galwaylibrary.blogspot.com
Every Wednesday
3.00pm – 4.30pm
Starting: Wed. 11th June
Finishing: Wed. 2nd July

Free!

Storyteller Eddie Lenihan visits Tuam Library as part of ‘Bealtaine Festival’

The Bealtaine Festival takes place each May and is a celebration of creativity in older people. Bealtaine, the Irish word for May, is also the name of an ancient Celtic festival celebrating springtime. Our Bealtaine festival celebrates older age as a time for creativity and growth. It offers opportunities to participate in the arts at every level, and to celebrate the work of older artists.

Eddie Lenihan visited Tuam Public Library as part of the Bealtaine Festival and delighted his listeners with stories from a bygone age. He told stories of little people, fairy forts, Biddy Early and customs that are now almost forgotten.

Over 35 people attending this session with members present from the Tuam Active Retirement Group, Tuam writer’s group, book club and St. Benin’s Traveller Centre. Everyone really enjoyed the session.

The Bealtaine Festival has grown every year since its inception in 1996. It covers all art forms including theatre, literature, dance, film, storytelling, music, painting and sculpture, debate and critical events.

Laura Restrepo

Laura Restrepo is a writer from Bogota in Colombia. She has written books with such wonderful titles as The Angel of Galilea, Delirium, and The Aroma of Invisible Roses.
As a writer and as an artist she wants us to know that anyone reading a piece of text who can say:
"this is the face of humanity, this is the smell of the sea, or this is the flavour of love, can understand the meaning of being alive and living on earth."
Words, she says, give answers to many of our personal questions.
"Literature offers us the gift of an oblique view, it summons light and darkness, the universe and a human face." It is "an epiphany that opens doors from above and also within, and enables us to extract that which is essential in us."
In our libraries we try to build book collections which reflect the philosophy and ideas of Laura Restrepo.

Nina Berberova

This is Nina Berberova, a wonderful writer born in Saint Petersburg in 1901 talking about happiness.
Nina Berberova tells us that those desiring happiness must understand each moment to be pregnant with the possibility of its arrival.
We have a poster featuring Berberova in the window of the Galway City Library We invite you to come inside our public library and find the possibility of happiness in our diverse and interesting fiction collection.
Perhaps in our libraries each moment should be pregnant with the possibility of the arrival of happiness…..because the book-stock should be so good. and so interesting.

New Dunmore Public Library

The new Dunmore Branch Public Library opens on Monday 19th of May. Designed by architect Declan Molloy of O Maoildhia Architecture the new library will be officially opened by Galway County Mayor Councillor Sean Canney.

The Topographical Dictionary of Ireland by Lewis reminds us that Saint Patrick built the monastery of Domnagh Padraig, or “the stone house of Patrick” in Dunmore, and made Saint Fulartach it's superintendent; and a friary for Augustine Eremites was founded on the site of this abbey in 1425. One may assume that the first library in Dunmore would have been established in this monastery or friary.

A library is always a centre of learning, reflection and enlightenment. We hope that the new Dunmore Library will also be a place of enlightenment and inspiration for everyone in the community, as it was for the monks all those years ago.

CBI/Bisto Book Awards

CBI/Bisto Awards are the only annual Childrens' Book Awards in Ireland. Now in their 19th year, the awards have been sponsored since their inception by Bisto (RHM Foods). The Awards are made annually by Children's Books Ireland for books by an author or illustrator born or resident in Ireland. The Shortlist is announced in March and the Awards are announced in May for books published in the previous year.

John Boyne won the Childrens' Book of the Year category in the Bisto Irish Book Awards 2007, for his book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The 2008 winner will be announced on May 22nd.

The shortlist for the children’s award was :

• The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
  
• The Black Book of Secrets by FE Higgins
  
• Discover Art by Jessica O'Donnell
  
• Gaiscioch na Beilte Uaine le Caitriona Nic Sheain agus Andrew Whitson
  
• The Last of the High Kings by Kate Thompson
  
• The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
  
• The Thing With Finn by Tom Kelly
  
• Titanic 2020 by Colin Bateman
  
• The Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers
  
• Wilderness by Roddy Doyle
  

Nuala O'Faolain dies at 68

The author and former Irish Times columnist Nuala O’Faolain has died aged 68.
She became internationally well-known for her two volumes of memoirs, Are You Somebody? and Almost There; a novel, My Dream of You, and a history with commentary, The Story of Chicago May.

In a emotional interview in April, O’Faolain spoke about being diagnosed with metastatic cancer and that she had turned down the option of chemotherapy. She described how, although diagnosed only six weeks previously, lung cancer had spread to her brain and liver.
"As soon as I heard I was going to die, the goodness went from life," she said.

O’Faolain had moved to Galway after being diagnosed with cancer in a hospital in New York. In recent months she had been commentating on the US presidential elections for RTE Radio One.
Born in Dublin, Nuala O'Faolain worked for the Irish Times as a columnist in the late 1970s and 1980s. A graduate of Hull and Oxford universities, she worked for the BBC and the Times and was working in Tehran during the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Introduction to Poetry, by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Longman
An inspiring, rich collection of poems and engaging insights on reading, analysing, and writing about poetry. This anthology includes more than 500 of the discipline's greatest poems, blending classic works and contemporary selections. Both noted poets themselves, X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia write of their subject with wit and a contagious enthusiasm. Both informative and accessible this is a highly readable book, richly illustrated, and supported by interludes with the poets. An ancient persuasion of humankind is that the hearing of a poem, as well as the making of a poem, can be a religious act.

Liberty and the News, by Walter Lippmann.Princeton University Press
The "present crisis of western democracy," the 30-year-old Walter Lippmann announced in 1920, "is a crisis in journalism." Lippmann offered suggestions for what editors and reporters could do better. He urged them to commit themselves to the cardinal virtue of "truthful reporting" and recognize that opinion mongering cannot become a "higher law than truth." "Lippmann's concern more than four generations ago was not about journalists, but about the impact poor journalism was having on readers, or more to the point, on the citizens in this democracy. We should have the same concern today." (Timothy J. McNulty)

Pushed, by Jennifer Block. Perseus Publishing
A view from the United States on childbirth in the age of machines and managed care. The book surveys the public health impact of routine labour inductions, C-sections, and epidurals, but also examines childbirth as a women's rights issue: Do women even have the right to choose a normal birth? Is that right being upheld? The author expresses the view that while emergency obstetric care is essential, in the United States there is an overuse of medical technology at the expense of maternal and infant health.

World Book Day in Woodford Public Library

World Book Day was designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and is marked in over 100 countries around the globe. The origins of the day we now celebrate in Ireland come from Catalonia, where roses and books were given as gifts to loved ones on St. George’s Day – a tradition started over 80 years ago.
WorldBook Day 2008 took place recently and was celebrated in Woodford Library.

Also taking place at the same time in Woodford was an exhibition by the artist Astrid Hofmann. Line, angle, shape and colour interest her greatly and along with the dominant and vibrant reds caught by the evening light shining from the front library windows through to the back window transformed the library into something magical.
Einstein's books are to be found in most libaries, and most people are familiar with Einstiens grey locks of hair. Astrid Hofmann’s two small sculptures entitled Einstein’s curl old and Einstein’s curl young sitting on top of book shelves seemed made for any library.