Galway City Library, Thursday April 30 at 6pm. Illustrated talk on 'Liam O’Flaherty’s works and O’Flaherty the Man' by his publisher, Seamus Cashman.
The talk is hosted by The Liam & Tom O’Flaherty Society. Admission is free to this illustrative talk and all are welcome.
A major figure in the Irish literary renaissance, O'Flaherty's hallmark is his depiction of nature and country life in the west of Ireland and his native Aran Islands before modern influences brought irreversible change.
The novels of Liam O’Flaherty, like nearly all great Irish writers of the 20th century, were banned by the Irish state’s censorship board. Indeed, back in 1929 O’Flaherty had the dubious honour of being the first novelist to endure the wrath of the censors, when his “Galway novel”, The House of Gold, was proscribed.
While Liam O'Flaherty's works were first published by Jonathan Cape, Victor Gollancz and others, it was not until the founding of Wolfhound Press by Seamus Cashman in 1974 that many of the works of Liam O’Flaherty found an Irish publishing house. Cashman’s publishing house re-printed many of Liam’s novels and collections of short stories throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including works such as Skerrett, The Puritan and The Pedlar's Revenge and Other Stories.
Seamus Cashman, who is an author in his own right, has an intimate knowledge of the works of Liam O’Flaherty and the world of publishing having founded Wolfhound Press and developed it into a leading literary and cultural publishing house.
Seamus Cashman also developed a great rapport with Liam O’Flaherty. In 1983 he returned with O’Flaherty and Liam’s lifelong partner Kitty Tailer for the last time back to the novelist’s family home at Gort na gCappal on Inis Mór.
