Volume II of Sligo Libraries Services online Literary Journal The Cathach will be launched on Saturday 9th April, at 6pm, in Sligo Central Library, Stephen St, Sligo.The name The Cathach derived from Colmcille’s The Battle of the Books, a mural scene from which adorns the wall of Sligo Central Library.
The first issue, The Cathach Volume I, was launched in 2009 and can be viewed at www.sligolibrary.ie Its aim was to “provide a new place for writing and painting, a kind of virtual reading room or annex off Sligo County Library where readers can come to find new work from writers both familiar and unfamiliar.”
The Cathach Volume II will be launched by Mr. Vincent Woods, Writer, Broadcaster and presenter of Arts Tonight on RTE Radio 1.
Volume II has been edited by Sligo Library Services Writer-in-Residence Brian Leyden.
The contributors include writers Joseph O’Connor, Carlo Gébler, Dermot Healy, Leland Bardwell, Mary Branley, Bernard MacLaverty, Mary O’Malley and artists Cormac O’Leary, Patricia Curran Mulligan, Cathy Carmen and Alice Maher. In his Editor’s Introduction Brian Leyden writes
“The Cathach opens with Joseph O’Connor’s recognition that the battle of the books today pitches paper originals against electronic copies on the likes of Kindle and iPad. Whatever form the book takes, however, its concerns are manifestly human. A world-wide-web situated literary journal, this volume of The Cathach delights in the notion that where the future of ‘the book’ is concerned the true binding material is the rich experience of being human.”
