Padraig Pearse: Rogha Dánta (Selected Poems)

Edited by Dermot Bolger
Introduced by Eugene McCabe
Iar-fhocal le Michael Davitt

Since his execution in 1916, the name of Padraig Pearse has been so over-used b a multitude of people to represent extremes of good and evil that a sight has often been lost of him as a man and a writer. Rogha Dánta (Selected Poems) is an attempt to present his work coldly, and to look at him in the context of being one of the more distinctive and original Irish poets of the generation.

Here, Pearse's work is reassessed by noted contemporary writers in his two languages.

The novelist and playwright, Eugene McCabe, explores both Pearse's own self-image through his poetry and 'the private sexual torment that comes up from the page with an anguished reality.'

The gifted Irish language poet, Michael Davitt, is amazed that 'gan puinn tráchta a bheith riamh ar an bPiarsach mar fhíor cheannródaí nuafhilíocht na Gaeilge.'