Fiction

Yeats activity is hotting up in Ireland, as June 13th 2015 will be the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Yesterday was the third annual Yeats Day in Sligo and Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht used the occasion to launch “Yeats 2015”, a year-long national and international celebration.

I'll be publishing Her Secret Rose, the first of my books in ebook form soon. The publication is a little delayed because there is a small press in Ireland that might be interested in putting the print books into bookstores — which would save me a whole lot of hassle with Easons.

Will keep you posted but one way or the other, the book will be out at

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Late in 1888, young Willie Yeats finished his first major book, The Wanderings of Oisin (a Gaelic name, pronounced “Usheen”), at the age of 22.

The challenge then, as now, was to get it published and into the hands of readers. He had a publisher in mind but, in order to be able to approach him, the convention of the time was that the author needed to guarantee the sale of a certain number of “subscriptions” first. He had to bring in contacts who'd declare their commitment to purchasing a number of copies.

Friends and family stumped up but most of them were poor. One friend, the well-connected John O'Leary, a Nelson Mandela figure in Irish nationalism, made all the differences to

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