Culture That Made Me: Doireann Ní Ghríofa on The Pixies, Eddie Lenihan and Edna O'Brien
Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Picture: Bríd O'Donovan
Doireann Ní Ghríofa, 45, grew up in Kilnamona, Co Clare. In 2016, she was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, having published several books of acclaimed poetry. Her debut prose book, won the An Post Irish Book of the Year (2020). She will read from her new novel, , and join in conversation with Rachel Andrews at the Island Drift festival on Cork’s Garinish Island on Sunday, September 6. See: theislanddrift.com
I have my mother to thank for the poetry anthology that lit up my teenage years. This book set me on a path to discovering poets like Sharon Olds, Dannie Abse, Gwendolyn Brooks, and a literary hero of mine, Paula Meehan. Giving a teenager an anthology of poems is like giving them a mixtape, introducing a broad variety of voices, within which they might begin to find traces of their own taste.
I treasure my copy of the first book by Anne Enright I ever read, her first collection of short stories. Her short fiction has spoken to me ever since. One of my more recent favourites of hers is available to read online, the short story , a slippery stitching of past and present selves I find deeply resonant.
by Colm Tóibín is a classic. That book is alive. It follows a young widow as she builds a life for herself and her children, and there’s something in the portrayal of her dignity that lures me back to this book again and again.
I was thrilled to discover the audiobook is read by the mighty Fiona Shaw — her performance brought the text to life for me all over again.
I love Eddie Lenihan’s Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Stories of Hidden Ireland, an oral history that gathers folklore of the Sí, the otherworldly beings whose world shadows our own.
Incorporating both history and story, this book gathers fascinating tellings of encounters with these beings, and in doing so, preserves a vibrant part of our cultural heritage. I dare anyone to read these accounts and not feel an ancestral shiver of recognition.
When I was a moody, gloomy teenager smoking out my bedroom window, I fell in love with The Smashing Pumpkins. There was something about the contrast of those harshly melodic soundscapes, and those eerie, haunted lyrics. was probably my favourite song. I can confirm that I still love it, so maybe I am still “fool enough to almost be it”. What a banger.
My favourite album has to be by the Pixies. There’s something about the way a Pixies song swerves and kicks and lifts… it just carries me away. Lyrically, those weird, tilting undercurrents of enmeshment and defiance take my breath away. It must be 30 years since I first heard this album, and I physically cannot keep my body still when it is on. It throws me right back to wild nights at Sir Henry’s in the ’90s.
I’m no longer a gig-goer (I get a bit dizzy in crowds), but I was at Fugazi in Nancy Spain’s [former Cork venue] in 1999. I don’t remember much of it, since those were my drinking days, so I was already well on my way by the time it began. Apologies to anyone who knew me in those days, I was a nuisance, I’m sorry!
Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s will always have my heart. There’s such depth to this poem — little wonder that so many Irish poets are continually drawn back to it, and that so many have tried to translate her words into their own.
I miss the Crawford Gallery, which is closed for renovations, so much. I have a particular soft spot for portraiture, so I always loved being able to pop in and visit Victoria Russell’s compelling portrait of Fiona Shaw.
During the pandemic, I was thrilled to see Lucy With 3 Hands And Me Holding Onto Her Leg, by Salvatore of Lucan; I remember standing with it for a long time, totally transfixed. Another favourite painting of mine is in their turret stairwell, where a cobwebbed window frames the sycamore on Emmett Place, all branches and leaf-light. I hope the current renovations will preserve such precious, secret sights.
In recent years, some poems that have found their way into my own personal canon of favourites include the wondrous Liz Berry’s and which is the most astonishing poem about pigeons I’ve ever read… she has such a nimble way with language — her poems turn cartwheels on the page.
Billy Ramsell’s is a powerful, accomplished version from the Irish of Seán Ó Tuama, a fierce poem for those of us whose hearts belong to hurling.
Edna O’Brien’s memoir is a spectacular book, vivid sketches drawing on episodes of her life, told with her unique eloquence and flair. As a portrayal of the recollected self, it is utterly compelling. , Sinéad O’Shea’s documentary about Edna O’Brien, is an extraordinary portrayal of one of my favourite writers. I wept as it reached its conclusion; it is a remarkably powerful work of art.
A few years ago, Lankum played Cork’s Opera House, and that gig was a monster, it really shook me to the bones. It felt almost ancient, in its power.
I saw a Krzysztof Kieślowski film called when I was way too young, 13 or 14 maybe? I am guessing that my parents had probably rented it from Xtra-vision, and I must’ve snuck it on before they had a chance to return it. This film jolted me to my core. I felt such recognition in the oblique mysticism of its worldview. It was as though my own secret wonder at what is to be alive had been brought into being on the screen. I’m still haunted by this film, its strange marionettes, and the immaculate soundtrack by Zbigniew Preisner.
I had the pleasure of seeing Siobhán McSweeney in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, performed at Cork Opera House as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival in 2023. My God, what an actor! She is a force. I loved her portrayal of Winnie, and how she brought out the nimbleness of the character’s wit, and the poignancy of her lostness.
I will watch anything (anything!) featuring Nathan Fielder. His work is almost impossible to summarise, but it is genius — pure, bizarre, unhinged genius — you’re just going to have to take my word for it. In Season 2 of he goes to extraordinary lengths to interrogate his theory that miscommunication between pilots might be a factor in plane crashes, but along the way, there are many peculiar digressions, each more curious and convoluted than what went before.
