After Obama ... the Poet Laureate of Iowa with Connemara roots

IN the week of the Obamas' high-profile visit to Ireland, another distinguished American is here, too. A writer with strong Connemara roots, Mary Swander, Poet Laureate of the State of Iowa, will give a public reading at historic Renvyle House tomorrow (Thursday) night, at 9.30. Ms Swander, author of four collections of poetry, short stories, essays, plays and two best-selling volumes of memoirs, is an occasional visitor to the far West of Ireland, where her great-grandfather Michael Lynch was born and reared: near Omey Island, linked by a large sandy strand to the scenic village of Claddaghduff. Her ancestry is a link to a notorious incident, in 1879, involving the paternal grandfather of the poet Louis MacNeice; it was through the courageous intervention of Michael Lynch that MacNeice's grandfather William Lindsay MacNeice was saved when attacked by a mob incensed by his activities while in charge of an Irish Church Mission School. The 'Omey Riot', as it became known, and similar incidents in Connemara relating to the religious conversion in the late 19th century by Protestant institutions of starving Catholics by giving them food, usually soup (hence the pejorative expression 'soupers and jumpers') were routinely reported in the Galway Express and the Galway Vindicator. Mary Swander has made several visits to Connemara in recent years, tracing her roots to the old Lynch farmstead in a small place called Patches, close to Claddaghduff. She will give her reading at Renvyle House along with a poetry reading by Joan McBreen, from Tuam. On Sunday, June 5th Ms Swander will give a reading at the 40th Listowel Writers' Week, followed by 'Words and Strings Resounding' at the Irish Writers' Centre, Dublin on Thursday, June 9, with special guest Redmond O'Toole who last week played in Dublin for the British Royal visit. Considered to be Ireland's leading classical guitarist, Redmond O'Toole will be joined by violinist Elizabeth Cooney for the first concert in the Church Classics 2011 series in St Mary's Cathedral, Tuam next Monday, May 30, at 8 pm.