Harry Potter Week in Galway

Wizards, muggles, half-breeds and squibs, the magic within the Harry Potter books was celebrated during a week long event running up to the launch of the final Harry Potter book on Friday night, 21st July.
Workshops, games and story telling, all conducted by magical volunteers and organised by Pilar Alderete from the Spanish Department of NUIG, and Fionnuala Gallagher the NUIG Arts Officer, were held throughout the week in Galway City Library, Westside Library, Ballybane Library, Oranmore Library and in the University.

Children, teenagers and adults all responded with enthusiasm from the opening event at Ceannt Railway station (magically changed to Platform 9 and 3/4 for the day) right up to publication day.

On Friday morning a group of adults, teenagers and children met at the Railway Station and proceeded to City Library (Gringotts) via Diagon Alley (Shop Street). On arrival at Gringotts (the City Library) a sorting ceremony was performed (manually, as the Sorting Hat was unavailable) by means of a questionnaire to be completed. Once all were sorted to their respective houses a discussion was started on the first book in the series and a quiz was held. The depth of knowledge of all involved was tested as questions were posed on spells and potions and such like!

On Saturday and Sunday events were held in NUIG and involved the books The Chamber of Secrets and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Monday everyone was back in the Library in Westside for art workshops and discussions on The Goblet of Fire
On Tuesday everyone headed to Ballybane Library to meet with the Ministry of Magic and a wonderful storytelling session by Claire Murphy on how to deal with giants, fairies, ogres and their likes should one meet with them. It was a magical morning in the library, with all enthralled by Claire’s wonderful voice and sweeping gestures. A discussion and quiz followed on the book The Order of the Phoenix
On Wednesday it was back to NUIG for a treasure hunt and discussion on The Half Blood Prince.
On Thursday the Harry Potter Week moved on to Oranmore Library with a workshop on Defense against the Dark Arts. This was a yoga workshop conducted by an Indian girl involving lots of concentration and the use of wands.
For the grand finale on Friday the event moved to Westside Library with The Big Harry Potter quiz. 50 easy and not so easy questions were posed. After much deliberation and lively discussion as to the right answers by children and parents an eventual winning team was announced and the answers to the questions were revealed.

Galway County Library want to say that it was a great was a pleasure to work with Fionnuala Gallagher, the Arts Officer in NUIG, and Pilar Alderete, a teacher in the Spanish Department in NUIG, who was the driving force behind the event. Pilar, who is from Spain, did her MA in Translation Studies choosing the topic of Harry Potter and its translation. She is a keen Harry Potter fan and expert on all aspects of the books.
The idea behind it all was to creatively explore the books and the writings of JK Rowling. While the target audience was 11 to 17 years, we actually had younger and older! We found many Harry Potter fans amongst the parents!
One little girl who attended all events said that the week was like "being at Hogwarts." This comment summed up the experience very well. Galway City Libraries became, together with NUIG, a place akin to Hogwarts School of Wizardry - a place of magic and mystery for a week.

Death of Galway Children’s Author Pat O’Shea

Pat O'Shea, the author of the children's novel The Hounds of the Morrigan, which took 13 years to complete and became a bestseller, has died recently, aged 76. Hailed as a classic by reviewers, the book is still admired by new readers of all ages more than 20 years on.
Telling the story of two children asked by an Irish god to recover a blood-stained pebble before it falls into the clutches of Morrigan, the Celtic goddess of war, it draws deeply on Pat's idyllic early years - on long summers in east Galway, on her love of Connemara, and on a rich store of history, myth and folklore absorbed and added to with scholarly care over many years.

Born Pat Shiels in Bohermore, Galway in 1931 and educated at the Presentation and Mercy convents in Galway, she was the fifth and youngest child of an affectionate family. A keen reader, she grew up close to the sea in the unspoilt countryside around Lough Corrib in the West of Ireland. Benefiting from the still existing Irish tradition of story-telling by the fireside, she absorbed the many tales told both by her mother and her Uncle John. Outside the house, there were plenty of other older people, too, with time for children and telling stories that often reached back into ancient mythology.

The inspiration for The Hounds of the Morrigan came from a dream. Starting work on it years later, after making literally thousands of notes, Pat O'Shea welded a comic fantasy onto a scaffolding of Irish mythology at its wildest. In the story two children, Pidge and his younger sister Brigit, are asked by the Irish god Dagda to go on a quest to recover a blood-stained pebble before it falls into the clutches of the Celtic goddess of war Morrigan.
Moving from Galway to the land of Faery, the children encounter a series of talking insects and animals, all of whom back them in their great adventure. Ranged against them are Morrigan's two side-kicks, Breda Fairfoul and Melodie Moonlight, a brace of motorbike-riding witches in command of a terrifying pack of hounds.

Added to Galway City Library Collection

Ecological Design, by Sim Van der Ryn
This book contends that "in many ways, the environmental crisis is a design crisis." It is a consequence of how things are made, buildings are constructed, and landscapes are used. We have used design cleverly in the service of narrowly defined human interests but have neglected its relationship with our fellow creatures. The book explores new ways of designing cities, neighbourhoods, buildings, industry, food systems, and other areas of human activity.

The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream by Peter Calthorpe
Calthorpe sets forth the principles of building good neighbourhoods and communities. He feels that the commons — public spaces that provide communities with convivial gathering and meeting places — have become increasingly displaced by an exaggerated private domain: shopping malls, private clubs, and gated communities. Even the street, our most basic public space, is given over to the car and its accommodation, while our private world becomes more and more isolated behind garage doors and walled compounds.

Design With Nature, by Ian L. McHarg
This book has done much to redefine the fields of landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, and ecological design. Described as a "user's manual for our world," this book offers a practical blueprint for a new, healthier relationship between the built environment and nature. In so doing, it provides scientific, technical, and philosophical foundations for a mature civilization that will replace the polluted, bulldozed, machine-dominated, dehumanized, explosion-threatened world that is even now disintegrating and disappearing before our eyes.

Summer Events in Galway City Libraries

Events in Ballybane Library Children's Week 17 -20 July

Tuesday 17th July, 11.00am: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Storytelling workshop with Claire Murphy. (Ages 8 to 12 years).
12.30pm: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Discussion about the movie and the book. (Ages 8 to 12 years).

Wednesday 18th July, 11.15am-12.00pm: Multicultural Storytelling with acclaimed storyteller Niall de Búrca. (Ages 3-5 years)

Thursday 19th July, 11.30-1.00pm: Jewellery Making Workshop (Ages 8-12 years)
2.30-4.00om: Crafts Workshop (Ages 8-12 years)

Friday 20th July, 11.00-12.00pm: Yoga Workshop with Tatty Bumpkin (Ages 3-5 years)
2.00-3.30pm: Face Painting

Inishboffin Library Photograph Exhibition

Summer Events in Galway City Libraries

Summer events will be taking place in Galway City Libraries during July and August.

• Galway City Library, Augustine Street events run from 9th to 14 July
• Ballybane Library from 17th to 20th July
• Westside Library from 24th to 28th July
• Oranmore Library from 7th to 11th August

Events in Galway City Library, Augustine Street;

Monday 9th July: 2.30-3.30 Storytime for 3 to 7 yearolds. Come along and join the fun listening to a favourite story

Tuesday 10th July : 11.30 12.30 Amazing Animal Craft Session. For 6 year olds and older. Make your own friendly lion!

Wednesday 11th July: 2.30 – 3.30 Picture Mosaics for 5year olds and older. Create your own picture mosaics.

Thursday 12th July: 11.30 – 12.30 Magical Tales with Clare for 7 year olds and older. Wonderful stories interwoven with tales of Galway

Friday 13th July: 11.15 Storytime for 3 to 7 year olds. Guest storyteller Jim Mahoney with ‘Bubba the Cowboy Prince’.

• Storyhour will take place in the City Library at 11.15 every week during the summer
• Galway City Library is also running a Photography Competition for 13 year olds or younger. To enter just send your photo of what Old Galway means to you to Augustine Street before the 27th of July. All photos will be exhibited in the library.

Galway County Libraries Summer Reading Challenge

Galway County Libraries are inviting all children to participate in the Summer Reading Challenge and discover the joy and pleasure of reading. The theme this year is "The Big Wild Read", with an emphasis on nature, the environment and conservation.

The Summer Reading Challenge takes place during July and August in all Branch Libraries and Mobile Library. It is free and all children have to do is go along to their local library and get their reading log card. It is not a race or competition, all you have to do is read and enjoy at least six books (more in some Branch Libraries). There are book lists available to help you make your selection. Reading Certificates will be awarded to all children who reach the target of six books.

The Summer Holidays are a great time for children to explore reading for pleasure, also a time to improve reading skills and become super readers. Enjoying a new book is like making a new friend. There are lots of wonderful books to choose from in your local library. There will be all kinds of activities and events associated with "The Big Wild Read". You can also discuss your reading with library staff, who will be there to help and guide you.

Last year over one thousand two hundred certificates were presented to children throughout County Galway. The feedback from parents and teachers was very positive. Reading during the summer helps children retain and improve their reading skills.

We are asking all parents and teachers to support and encourage children to participate in "The Big Wild Read".
For further information contact your Local Library or Library Headquarters on 091- 562471 or email info@galwaylibrary.ie.

Bibliotherapy initiative at Ballybane Library

Lá Nua, the Day Hospital, in Ballybane, which provides therapies and developmental clinics locally through its team of nurses, doctors and occupational therapists, is situated on the floor just above the Ballybane Library.

Taking their lead from the Book Prescription Scheme in operation in Dublin City Libraries, the Ballybane Library staff are working with the Day Hospital in providing book lists to patients who may have mild or moderate illnesses (such as mild depression, OCD, eating disorders and so on).

If a patient sees a book on the list in which they are interested, then on their way out of the hospital they are encouraged call into the Ballybane Library, borrow the book and take it home with them. In other words, the staff in Ballybane Library are working with local doctors and local health professionals to offer this scheme to those who want to use books to help themselves. The initiative gives people who are attending the Ballybane Day Hospital easy access through their local library to good self-help material to help them through any current difficulties which they may be experiencing.
Medication has an important role in helping people with emotional problems, and is often very effective. However, people can also be helped by reading appropriate ‘self-help’ material. Many self-help books have been shown to be very useful in helping people to overcome a range of psychological problems. The use of books as a means of providing psychological therapy is known as ‘bibliotherapy’.

This bibliotherapy initiative in Ballybane Library has been greeted with great enthusiasm all round, and the number of people availing of the service is growing.

New titles in Galway City Library

Two Brothers, by Bernardo Atxaga; Random House
Atxaga is not just a Basque novelist but the Basque novelist: a writer charged, whether he likes it or not, with exporting a threatened culture around the world. Born in 1951, Atxaga grew up in a Basque-speaking valley of scattered houses and villages near San Sebastian. The two brothers of the title are orphaned in their adolescence. Paulo inherits the sawmill and too much responsibility, because his brother, Daniel, has a mental age of three. The brothers are trapped in their situation, which is in turn aggravated by their neighbours. Village life is tough, Atxaga says.

The Book of Happiness, by Nina Berberova ; New Directions
Berberova is a wonderous writer. A master of the long short story, she has been compared with Turgenev and Chekhov. In this wonderful novel about one woman's three love affairs, Berberova is uncannily shrewd about romance, about its bright promise, without making her characters real satisfactions seem trite. Even more important, those desiring happiness must understand each moment to be pregnant with the possibility of its arrival. Berberova's is a prose of small gestures, pregnant moments, and memories polished bright as sea pebbles by the constant tumbling of thought.

Shipwreck, by Louis Begley; Ballantine Books
A precious account of an American writer's love affair with a young Frenchwoman. John North is someone who has pretty much achieved everything he could hope for in life. In Paris to promote the French translation of one of his books, John is so overwhelmed by the burden of his persona that he accosts a perfect stranger in a café one night and proceeds to tell him the true story of his life. A novel of deception and betrayal

Children's Day this Sunday

Children's Day has been a successful annual event in Galway since 2002. This year's activities include the Amani acrobats, Galway City and County Childcare Committee's mobile playbus, face painters, the Agri-Aware mobile farm and the fire engine.

The Galway County Mobile Library will feature story-telling circles with special guest Megan Ross from South Africa. Among the live acts featured this year are Wanda, Colin Devaney and his Band, Bobo, DJ Oisín and DJs Erin and Shannon. There will be street theatre from Blue Teapot Theatre Company and anarchic Gombeens Theatre Troupe. Other activities include rugby, basketball, soccer and football.

HSE West, Galway City Council, City of Galway VEC and the Galway City & County Childcare Committee have come together to organise Children's Day on Sunday 1 July in Eyre Square, Galway from 2pm to 4pm.

As a special contribution to Children's Day in Galway, Bus Éireann is providing free bus travel for children within the city limits between 1.30pm and 4.30pm. All activities and entertainment are provided free of charge.

For further information about Children's Day in Galway, phone 091-752039 or mail@galwaychildcare.com.

Ballybane Exhibition

An exhibition of the work of 12 travellers aged between 13 and 18 years of age was officially opened by the Mayor of Galway, Councillor Tom Costello on Thursday 21st June.

The inspiration and subject of the art work on display comes from the young artists own experiences and environment. The young artists worked under the direction of Terry Callaly a teacher and artist who specialises in art and special education.

The painting on the left is entitled 'First Caution' and is a group work by the Traveller Youth project.
The names of the artists who have work on display in the exhibition are:

• Jimmy McDonagh
• Mary Teresa Collins
• Brigid Mongan
• Lisa Mongan
• Brigid Donovan
• Donna Donovan
• Charlie Collins
• Michael Mongan
• Ger Barry
• Martin Collins, his painting 'Lone Star State of Mind', is above.

This is an exhibition which radiates warmth and openness. It is an exhibition by young artists who want to express something human, eloquent, beautiful and vibrant.

The exhibition was initiated by BÁN, a community based youth development project operated by Foroige, funded by the Department of Justice and the Ballybane Traveller Youth Project

Carnegie & Greenaway Children's Book Awards 70th anniversary winners

Meg Rosoff has won the 2007 CILIP Carnegie Medal for ‘Just In Case’, her second novel for young people. As the CILIP Carnegie Medal celebrates its 70th anniversary, Rosoff joins the ranks of distinguished children’s writers of the 20th & 21st centuries who have won this coveted medal since its inception in 1937.

'To me,” says Rosoff,“the CILIP Carnegie Medal is particularly special. ‘Just In Case’ is the sort of book that people either love or hate; that they either identify with, or they don’t. For a panel of librarians to agree that it deserves this historic medal is just amazing; I’m thrilled, honoured and astonished.”

The CILIP Carnegie Medal celebrates its 70th Anniversary in 2007. It is the UK’s longest running and most respected award for children’s writing. Over the last seven decades it has come to be regarded as the arbiter of quality in writing for children and young people. Since 1937, the children’s librarians who annually select the short list and winning title, have recognised world class writers and frequently spotted fresh talent ahead of the market. Meg Rosoff joins the list of past Medal winners that includes many of the great writers of 20th and 21st centuries: Eleanor Farjeon, Anne Fine, Elizabeth Goudge, CS Lewis, Mary Norton, Noel Streatfeild, Philip Pullman and David Almond to name a few.

It’s a case of third time lucky for author-illustrator Mini Grey, who has scooped the 2007 CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal, the UK’s oldest and most prestigious award for children’s book illustration, after being shortlisted three times in the past four years.

Her book ’The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon’, which relates what happens after the dish and the spoon run away together at the end of the nursery rhyme. The devoted duo find fame and fortune stateside with an acrobatic circus act, but when the money runs out, they fall in with some shady sharp knives, and pay a heavy price for turning to a life of crime

Added to stock at Galway City Library:

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

Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems, by Diane Ackerman. Vintage; Reprint edition

Her best poems keep bursting off the prescribed limits of the page in the same way that great paintings burst their frames. Ackerman has energy, wit, courage, and passion. All of her is in each poem, and this 'all' reveals a woman of sensitivity, restraint, ingenuity, and passionate daring. Diane Ackerman has been hailed by several critics not only for her poetry but for her prose explorations into the world of science and natural history.


Julius Winsome, by Gerard Donovan. Faber & Faber

The title character of this novel lives alone in the deep woods of Maine, home to men “who cannot live anywhere else.” Donovan depicts Winsome's wounded humanity and psychological distress with great compassion and subtlety and vividly draws both the supporting characters and the bleak, foreboding Maine landscape. Donovan's command of language is astonishingly precise, eerily reflecting Julius's disarmingly mild-mannered pathology as it ascribes no more importance to the cold-blooded shooting of a hunter than to going into town for groceries. Finely tooled outsider fiction, as chilling as it is ultimately humane.


Bornholm Night-Ferry, by Aidan Higgins. Dalkey Archive Press

Higgins records a passionate, doomed epistolary love affair between Elin Marstrander, a 33-year-old radio writer and Finn "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a man 15 years her senior. The novel tracks five years of the lovers' correspondence, following the first time they meet on holiday in Spain in 1975. This haunting meditation on love and textuality will be much appreciated. Aidan Higgins is part of a rich history of Irish writers, and is often mentioned as a successor to such great Irish writers of the twentieth century as Frank O'Connor, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, and Brian O Nualláin. (Literature Resource Centre).

Petterson's Out Stealing Horses wins IMPAC literary award

Norwegian, Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses by has won the 12th International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, it was announced at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall on Thursday. Petterson's book, published by Harvill Secker, was the only translated work on this year's shortlist.

The winner was selected by a panel of five international judges, who had earlier drawn up a shortlist from 138 novels nominated by 169 libraries in 49 countries.

"That's the beauty of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It draws our attention to good books and to authors that we might otherwise never have heard about," said Dublin's Lord Mayor Vincent Jackson, who presented the award.

Anne Born, who translated Out Stealing Horses from the original Norwegian into English, will receive 25,000 euros (33,00 dollars) out of the 100,000-euro prize.

Read today…rewrite your tomorrows

Playwright and screenwriter Neil Donnelly will be in Leenane Library on Friday night 15th June 2007 at 8.00pm when he conduct an exploration of some of the interesting fiction and poetry to be found on the shelves of Leenane Library.

Among the books to be found in the Leenane library is a new edition of Don Quixote. This book was a bestseller when it first appeared in 1605 and has continued to sell ever since. In 2002, 100 major writers from 54 countries rated Don Quixote the world's best work of fiction. This new translation has been delivered in plain but plentiful contemporary English. It has been said that this Don Quixote can be read with the same ease as the latest Philip Roth.

Also in the library is Giovanni Guareschi’s famous Little World of Don Camillo. Guareschi’s series of Don Camillo novels humorously detail the perpetual competition between a village priest, Don Camillo, and the village's Communist mayor, Peppone, as they vie for the villagers' favour.

You will also find Dante’s Inferno, a book that has inspired readers for 700 years, and has entered the human imagination.

Also in the library is In memory of My Feelings, a selection of the poetry of Frank O’Hara. O'Hara's poems made poetry seem as natural as breathing. He liked composing on the run, living in the heart of noise. He dashed off numerous poems on his lunch break. O’Hara, who is of Irish ancestry, spent many years working at The Museum of Modern Art in New York before his untimely death in 1966. The book was edited by the poet Bill Berkson who invited thirty artists who had known O’Hara, ranging from Willem de Kooning to Claes Oldenburg, from Joan Mitchell to Jasper Johns, to produce works to accompany his poems. It is a beautiful book.

Neil Donnelly will also look at and read from the book Watching the River Flow, a fine anthology published by Poetry Ireland, which offers an extensive survey of a century of Irish poetry.

Come along and join us for an enjoyable evening in Leenane on Friday evening June 15th. Admission is free.

Impac Dublin Literary Award

The winner of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award will be announced on 14 June.

Sebastian Barry's book 'A Long Long Way' has been shortlisted for this year's award. Eight novels are featured on the shortlist for the €100,000 prize, including books by Salman Rushdie, JM Coetzee, Julian Barnes and Cormac McCarthy.
The Impac, which is the world's largest literary prize for a single work of fiction, is chosen from nominations submitted by libraries around the world.

Last year, novelist Colm Tóibín became the first Irish writer to win the award with 'The Master'.

This years shortlist includes:

'A Long Long Way' by Sebastian Barry
'Arthur and George' by Julian Barnes
'Slow Man' by JM Coetzee
'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' by Jonathan Safran Foes
'The Short Day Dying' by Peter Hobbs
'No Country for Old Men' by Cormac McCarthy
'Out Stealing Horses' by Per Petterson
'Shalimar The Clown' by Salman Rushdie

Introducing some of the interesting fiction and poetry to be found on the shelves of Eyrecourt Library

Playwright and screenwriter Neil Donnelly will be in Eyrecourt Library on Thursday night, 14th of June 2007 at 8.00pm when he will introduce and talk about some of the interesting fiction and poetry to be found on the shelves of the library.

He will look at and read from Robin Skelton’s selections from the work of Six Irish Poets including Austin Clarke and John Montague.

He will talk about Ferlinghetti’s ‘A coney island of the mind’, a book that has become a modern classic. It has been translated into nine languages and there are now three quarters of a million copies in print.

He will also take a look at the book ‘Innovations’, a collection of stories which brings together some of the most interesting and innovative American fiction writers since the 1930s.

Ovid’s epic poem Metamorphoses – whose theme of change has resonated throughout the ages- is one of the most important texts of the Western imagination, will be introduced. This new translation gives us an Ovid for our times and reminds us that in our times Ovid is everywhere.

There will be a brief reading from James Joyce’s brilliant novella Portrait of the Artist as a young man, the exhuberantly inventive, coming-of-age story on the relationship of an artist to his family, culture and race.

And we sold the rain, short stories from Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua which powerfully evoke life in these countries, will also be looked at.

There will be readings from the work of the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez (1910-1042), a poet whose works ‘beams with a gentleness of heart’



Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Russia’s finest woman poet, will be available. Akhmatova’s theme was always love. The simple lyricism with which she developed her theme is unequaled in contemporary Russian verse.

Come along and join us for an enjoyable evening in Eyrecourt on Thursday. Admission is free.

There Are the Words

There are the words that couldn’t be twice said,

He, who said once, spent out all his senses.

Only two things have never their end –

The heavens’ blue and the Creator’s mercy.

Anna Akhmatova

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2000 Edited by Orit Bonver, August 2000

Bulgarian Ambassador visits Ballinasloe Library

On Thursday May 17th the Ambassador of Bulgaria, Her Excellency Mrs. Bisserka Benisheva, visited Ballinasloe Branch Library for the official opening of an exhibition entitled "The Cyrillic Alphabet: The New Alphabet of the European Union."
The opening reception was hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria. Also present from the Embassy was Third Secretary, Mr. Petar Semerdzhiev.

The Ambassador was welcomed to the Ballinasloe Library by Mr. Noel Treacy, TD, Minister of State, with Special Responsibility for European Affairs.

At some point of time, more than 11 centuries ago, Constantine Cyril, the Philosopher, came to Pope Adrian 11 to defend the right to existence of the alphabet he had created---it's sanctity and spiritual meaning, it's validity alongside the Hebrew, the Greek and the Latin alphabet.

Through the exhibition, one discovers not just the way and manner in which the Old Bulgarian alphabets were built, but also the beauty and meaning of a descriptive graphic and poetic symbolism, whereby space, the stars, the rise of the sun, the sea and the land were the foundations for its being brought down to earth for the needs of the enduring human communication.
In the course of his address, Minister Treacy said that "the entry of Bulgaria into the EU means that Cyrillic has now become the third Alphabet in use, in the EU and will contribute another rich and ancient strand to the cultural life of the Union." And he continued: "we are also proud of Ireland’s long association with the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome, where the sacred remains of Saint Cyril are buried. For over three Centuries, the Basilica has been in the care of the Irish Dominicans."

At the opening reception, a poem entitled The Whole World, written by the Bulgarian poet Anton Baev was wonderfully read by Ballinasloe teacher John Boland. This beautiful poem describes a man who is coming back from the market, with the poet asking: "what is he carrying in his bag?" Oranges from Piraeus, it seems, lemons from Egypt, a bottle of tequila from midnight Mexico, a packet of sugar from Brazil.... And the poet concludes: "A shopping bag is enough to hold half the world in it," and he asks: "And what would you need for the whole world?" And the poet’s response is: "a kiss on the threshold when you arrive."

There is something in this poem which connects with "our enduring need for communication." There is also something of what the Spanish writer Adela Cortina describes as a "profound sense of compassion." She points out that it is important to educate citizens in all these dimensions of the heart, especially in the dimension of justice — because otherwise the game is lost before we start. This is an area of education where the public library, through a carefully selected book collection, has a vital role to play.

The heart (cordis in Latin), is the centre, the key to something: to people, for example. Traditionally, it is the home of affection, but also of intelligence, spirit, talent, and even the stomach. Because you have to have stomach, a great deal of it, to fight for justice, and to aspire to happiness, which are the two great goals of ethics. It is important to educate citizens in all these dimensions of the heart. So said Adela Cortina writing this very week in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.


Copies of Adela Cortina’s essay are available at Galway City Library and at Ballinasloe Public Library.

The exhibition and visit by the Bulgarian ambassador was made possible by the Europe Direct Information Centres.

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

The Novellas of Hortense Calisher, by Hortense Calisher
Includes The Railway Police, a dazzling story, told in her own wry first-person voice, of a social worker's frustrated progression through a series of admiring men attracted by the colourful wigs she wears, then repelled by the fact of her baldness. One day, upon seeing an obviously homeless man ejected from a train, she throws away her piles of fake hair, gives all her money to her indigent clients and goes forth to sleep in the streets, embracing the anonymity of those who have been discarded, as she now discards herself.




Last Evenings on Earth, by Roberto Bolano
"The melancholy folklore of exile," as Bolano once put it, pervades these fourteen haunting stories. His narrators are usually writers living on the margins and grappling with private (and often unlucky) quests. Set in the Chilean exile diaspora of Latin American and Europe, and peopled by Bolano’s beloved "failed generation," these stories are unimaginably gripping.



Here Is Where We Meet, by John Berger
One hot afternoon in Lisbon, our narrator, John, finds his mother, who had died fifteen years earlier, seated on a park bench. "The dead don't stay where they are buried," she tells him. And so begins a remarkable odyssey, told in simple yet gorgeous prose and with the openness to personal and political currents that has always marked John Berger's work. With its clarity and beautifully proportioned contours of fictive memory, this book makes the perfect site to encounter Berger for the first or 50th time.

John Boyne has won the CBI Bisto Book of the Year 06/07 for his book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.


The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is John's first book written for children and tells the story of a nine year old boy struggling to understand what is happening around him in Auschwitz during World War II. The novel has been shortlisted for many literary awards including the British Books Awards.



The Eilis Dillon Award went to Siobhan Dowd, for her first novel of A Swift Pure Cry.

An eagerly anticipated event on the Irish literary calendar, the CBI Bisto Book of the Year Awards are presented annually in recognition of excellence in writing and or illustration of books for young people. The awards are administered by CBI, the national organisation for children's books and sponsored by Bisto (Premier Foods Ireland). Over the last three years the total prize fund for the awards has more than doubled, with a current total prize fund of euro 19,000 as compared to euro7,000 in 2005.