Blaris Moor

$13.95

The title of Medbh McGuckian’s newest volume, Blaris Moor, refers to a traditional ballad that commemorates the trial and execution in 1797 of four militia men condemned by the authorities as members of the United Irishmen. The United Irishmen were so named because their failed Rebellion of 1798—among the worst bloodshed Ireland has ever known—was meant to unite Protestants and Catholics.

Always steeped in sensual longing, McGuckian’s poems are historically complex invocations of such volatile landscapes, shedding light on the workings of the private world behind the public conflict. The volume then moves to other scenes of similar contest, including meditations on the Flight of the Earls in the early 1600s and considerations of the two World Wars.

The poems in Blaris Moor are conversations full of the strained atmosphere of those times in history, much like the present, when forces for good and ill are poised in delicate balance.

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Praise for Blaris Moor:

“Medbh McGuckian is perhaps Ireland’s greatest living poet. She is certainly one of the most prolific. … This is not a volume of Irish verse referencing the glorious sacrifices of past rebellions, nor is it a simple catalogue of various conflicts (the Flight of the Earls, the two World Wars). It is instead a series of meditations on life, love, loss, and the violence we enact upon each other.” –Yvonne C. Garrett, breac