The Irish Pages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
IRISH PAGES; A JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY WRITING, edited by Chris Agee and Cathal Ó Searcaigh, is a Belfast journal combining Irish, European and international perspectives. It seeks to create a novel literary space in Northern Ireland adequate to the unfolding cultural potential of the new political dispensation. The magazine is cognisant of the need to reflect in its pages the various meshed levels of human relations: the regional (Ulster), the national (Ireland and Britain), the continental (the whole of Europe), and the global. It is based at the Linen Hall Library, Belfast and appears biannually.
Since its launch in Summer 2002, IRISH PAGES has established itself as the leading quality literary journal in Northern Ireland, as well as one of the foremost Irish periodicals. With a print-run now standing at 1400, it represents – uniquely for the island – the combination of a large general readership with outstanding writing from both Ireland and overseas. Increasingly, the journal is also read outside Ireland and Britain, with a sizable number of individual and institutional subscribers in France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, USA, Canada, Australia and Japan.
Each issue assembles a carefully edited mix of English and Irish, prose and poetry, fiction and non-fiction, style and subject matter, in an overall fit aimed at a wide range of reading tastes. The cover theme suggests some of the content, and emerges from the editorial process – the blend of what is selected from submissions, and what is sought or commissioned. Of “The Justice Issue”, one reviewer remarked, “There is a sense that the theme emerged from the writing, from the deepest preoccupations of poets, essayists, novelists and artists, rather than being forced upon them. The theme, rather, is gleaned in the reading, in the alchemy that can result when work from very diverse perspectives is well aligned” (The Irish Times).
In addition, IRISH PAGES includes a number of regular features: The View from the Linen Hall Library, an editorial commenting on cultural or political issues in Ireland or overseas; From the Irish Archive, an extract of writing from a non-contemporary Irish writer, accompanied by a brief biographical note; In Other Words, a selection of translated work from a particular country; and The Publishing Scene, a commissioned piece taking a critical look at some aspect of the literary world in Ireland, Britain or the United States.
Each issue also contains a portfolio of photographs from a leading Irish photographer; an article on Belfast or Northern Ireland; work from at least one emergent or new writer; writing on the natural world; and a major essay of literary distinction on an ethical, historical, religious, social or scientific topic. There are no standard reviews or narrowly academic articles. Irish Language and Ulster Scots writing are published in the original, with English translations or glosses.
