Two new publications are coming out in September 2009 with text by JohnWyse Jackson & illustrations by Hector McDonnell Ulster’s Other Poetry & Dublin’s Other Poetry are published by Lilliput Press of Dublin.

You can get a sneak preview of these in the Publications section.

A series of new paintings by Hector were exhibited at the Wray Gallery in Belfast between the 21st May to the 13th June 2009

You can view some of the paintings featured in the exhibition in the Gallery by clicking here.

This is Window at Torri 2007 and is one of the paintings to be shown in an exhibition in the Solomon Gallery in Dublin, opening 27 April 2008

You can view some of the paintings featured in the exhibition in the Gallery by clicking here.

Ireland’s Other Poetry, from Anonymous to Zozimus, is a compendium of humorous Irish poetry from 1650 to the present day, edited by Hector McDonnell and John Wyse Jackson, and is being published on the 14th of November by Lilliput Press, Dublin. The book also has over three hundred drawings by Hector as illustrations to the poems. The book includes poems by every imaginable Irish poet from Swift onwards, plus many more whose authors are unknown, and many fine ballads.

Ireland’s Other Poetry accompanies the reader on a memorable journey through a country full of unexpected curiosities. Contributors range from Jonathan Swift to Shane MacGowan, with others along the way such as Flann O’Brien, George Bernard Shaw and Seamus Heaney – and visitors like John Betjeman – but the book also rediscovers the work of many anonymous or neglected poets, humorists and lyricists.

Among the anthology’s almost 400 entries, readers will find verses on food and philosophy, on Guinness and ghosts, on war, on murder, on lighting a match. Masterpieces of wordplay and parody rub shoulders with sporting songs, advertising jingles and lyrics from the theatre. There is nonsense verse and satire and stage Irish buffoonery, there is religious propaganda, doggerel, music-hall bawdry, and good honest abuse – some of it decidedly politically incorrect.

Irish verse has needed a shake-up for years. Since W B Yeats and his Celtic Revival, anyone daring to be funny has been written out of the story.

The Editors

John Wyse Jackson, for many years a director of John Sandoe’s Bookshop in Chelsea, now lives in County Wexford. Among his many publications are John Stanislaus Joyce: The Life of James Joyce’s Father (with Peter Costello), Flann O’Brien at War and We All Want To Change the World: A Life of John Lennon.

Hector McDonnell is one of Ireland’s most acclaimed artists. He has written and illustrated several books, including The Wild Geese of the Antrim MacDonnells and a prizewinning edition of The Night That Larry Was Stretched. His Life and Work of Lord Mark Kerr, a Regency surrealist fantastical artist, is imminent, as well as an illuminated volume about St Patrick.

Release 14th November 2007
Published by Lilliput Press — You can puchase the book directly from lilliputpress.ie – info@lilliputpress.ie

His seventh one-man show in the gallery is also going to be the very last at the Adelaide Park location, as the Bell Gallery will continue to only trade online after the exhibition. It was opened indeed by Hector’s mother in 1964, and the family association has been very strong, as there have also been solo exhibitions in it of works by Hector’s mother, Angela Antrim, his brother Alexander and two of Alexander’s daughters, Flora and Rachel McDonnell.

Download Exhibition catalogue list
www.bellgallery.com

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