Miscellany 50: Fifty Years of Sunday Miscellany
Miscellany 50: Fifty Years of Sunday Miscellany
Edited by Clíodhna Ní Anluain
Miscellany50 celebrates fifty years of Sunday Miscellany, RTÉ Radio 1’s iconic weekly arts programme.
C-format PB | 256pp | ISBN 9781848407473 | Release Date: 30 September 2019
Beginning in 1968, fifty-five personal essays and poems reveal the power of Ireland’s finest writers to delve into the details of Irish life with warmth, sincerity and wit. Here, side by side, are stories around the first moon landing, the eruption of violence in the North, the visit to Ireland by Ronald Reagan, the Eurovision Song Contest, 9/11, direct provision centres, the Celtic Tiger and its crash, great sporting moments, Edna O’Brien, Seán Ó Ríordáin, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs and Sinéad O’Connor, emigration, moving statues, Irish weather and water, first love and first jobs, wedding day dresses, setting up home, parenthood, illness, loss and starting over.
As a record of Ireland from wonderful and unexpected angles, Miscellany50 will amuse and intrigue for many years to come. Originally commissioned for performance at Miscellany50 Live radio festival weekend in late 2018, this is a unique collection in a beautifully illustrated volume.
Contributors include:
Kevin Barry, Denise Blake, John Boland, Dermot Bolger, Pat Boran, John Bowman, Bernadett Buda, Honor Clynes, Evelyn Conlon, John Connell, Leo Cullen, Gerald Dawe, John F Deane, Louis de Paor, Martina Devlin, Veronica Dyas, Mia Gallagher, Sinéad Gleeson, Conall Hamill, Donal Hayes, Robert Higgins, Alannah Hopkin, Cyril Kelly, John Kelly, Anne Marie Kennedy, Claire Kilroy, Caitriona Lally, Mae Leonard, Brian Leyden, John MacKenna, Siobhán Mannion, Rosaleen McDonagh, Lisa McInerney, Danielle McLaughlin, Janet Moran, Mary Morrissy, Colin Murphy, Éilis Ní Dhuibhne, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Joseph O’Connor, Nuala O’Connor, Simon Ó Faoláin, Melatu Uche Okorie, Michael O’Loughlin, Mary O’Malley, Karl O’Neill, Emilie Pine, Liam Power, Paul Rouse. Barbara Scully, Denis Sexton, Stephen James Smith, Gemma Tipton, Jessica Traynor, Enda Wyley
About the editor:
Clíodhna Ní Anluain is a culture and arts producer for RTÉ, and executive producer of Miscellany50. She produced RTÉ Radio 1’s weekly Sunday Miscellany for over a decade and has edited four previous anthologies of the programmes, all of which have been bestsellers.
Praise for Sunday Miscellany
“I’ve been tuning in for 50 years…right back to Maxwell Sweeney…and now Good News of an Anthology…Sound The Trumpets!”
“Would Sundays even exist without its magic, its wonder and permanence? Fifty years of personal stories and reminiscences from diverse voices flood my kitchen and my soul with the morning light and steady me for the week ahead. Allelujia indeed.”
“A unique chronicle of ordinary life; an uneven and untrimmed collage of voices, bearing witness to the passing of time and the remembrance of things. For 50 years it has endured as a gorgeous and spectacular collection of dispatches from hidden Ireland; a magical place – ‘síos i measc na ndaoine’”
“What a rarity and relief to enter into a non-prescriptive landscape every Sunday morning - encountering surprise - like diving and discovering the manta ray behind a coral bommie …”
“Years ago, my youngest daughter said, you always know its Sunday cos there’s jelly in the fridge… All I need is that familiar humpity trumpity bump of Scheidt’s Battaglia to assure me Sunday has indeed landed!”
“An unalloyed joy. It’s a ray of weekend sunshine. And it’s uniquely ours.”
