Arthur Symons on the Aran Islands - An Irishman's Diary

The Aran Islands have long exerted a magnetic pull over visitors and tourists. Perhaps it is their place in the vast rugged Atlantic Ocean at the edge of Ireland and at the edge of the continent of Europe that makes them so attractive.

Dun Onaght. Image source.

The poet, translator and critic, Arthur Symons (1865-1945), visited the Aran Islands in the summer of 1896 with his friend, WB Yeats. I have just written an Irishman's Diary in the Irish Times newspaper about Symons' visit and his description of the islands and their inhabitants. Read it here.

Portrait of Arthur Symons by Agustus John in Cities and Sea-Coasts and Islands.

Symons wrote about his visit to the west of Ireland in the London literary magazine, The Savoy. His account of the trip also later appeared in a book he wrote about other excursions he made around the world, Cities and Sea-Coasts and Islands.

Cover page of Cities and Sea-Coasts and Islands by Arthur Symons.

Symons' description of his visit to the Aran Islands is well worth a read. It contains references to the  mythology, history, and topography of the Islands. He was very taken with the people who lived there as well as the islands themselves.

I feel that I was not able to do his account of his journey justice in the small newspaper article that I wrote about it, so would urge you to read it for yourself. The entire book can be downloaded from The Internet Archive here. Alternatively, if you want to read just the piece he wrote about the Aran Islands, you can download it here.

Here's an extract of Symons' description of the interaction between the sea, sky and the coast: 

"The sea on those coasts is not like the sea as I know it on any other coast; it has more of the twilight. And the sky seems to come down more softly, with more stealthy steps, more illusive wings, and the land to come forward with a more hesitating and gradual approach, and land and sea and sky to mingle more absolutely than on any other coast".

Mary Swanzy 'Voyages' exhibition in Crawford Art Gallery - Cork, Ireland.

A new exhibition has recently opened in the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland. It is entitled Voyages and showcases paintings by the Dublin-born artist, Mary Swanzy (1882-1978). It is truly amazing to see these works up close. The breath of artistic styles and techniques in her paintings is also something to behold.

'Cosmopolitan' and 'exotic' are just two of the words that come to mind when I think of Mary Swanzy. She was educated in Dublin and went to finishing school in France. She also went to a day school in Germany. Her artistic training took place in Dublin and Paris and she spent time in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and captured local scenes on canvas. In the early 1920's, she traveled to Honolulu and Samoa, where she painted arrestingly vivid and vibrant outdoor scenes that must have seems like another planet to her painting admirers in Ireland.

Another word that comes to mind in relation to Swanzy is 'avant-garde'. In this exhibition, we can see the vast progress she made during her career, when she was painting in different styles from cubism and futurism to surrealism. If you look below, you can see some of the different styles and judge for yourself. Oh and a word of advice - Go and see this exhibition! It runs until 3 June 2019. More information here.

'Market Scene', 1920-21 (oil on canvas).

'Untitled: Window with Airplanes', 1940s (oil on canvas).

'Allegory', c.1945-49 (oil on canvas).

'Girl on a hill', 1913-15 (oil on board).

'Fieldworkers', 1914 (oil on board).

'Tulips', c. 1918 (oil on canvas).

'Honolulu Garden', 1923 (oil on canvas).

Call for Papers - 'The Press and Divided Societies', Belfast Nov. 2019.

The Call for Papers for the 2019 Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland (NPHFI) conference has just been released. This year's conference theme is 'The Press and Divided Societies'.

It will take place in the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, Belfast on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 November 2019.

Send your abstracts to the NPHFI Secretary, Ray Burke, at nphficonference@gmail.com by 7 June 2019.

Call for Papers, 2019 NPHFI Conference.

An Irishman's Diary on Jan Łukasiewicz, Polish professor of logic

Jan Łukasiewicz came to Ireland in March 1946 at the invitation of the then Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera. Łukasiewicz was a talented mathematician and philosopher who, like so many of his compatriots, had experienced great hardship during the Second World War.

I have just written an Irishman's Diary in the Irish Times newspaper about his life in Poland and his time in Ireland. Read it here.

Colour photograph of Jan Łukasiewicz. Image source.

Łukasiewicz was the man who introduced mathematical logic into Poland. For more information on Łukasiewicz and the impact he had on his field, I recommend that you read the entry on him in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It retraces his life in Poland and shows the part he played in the areas of logic, philosophy and mathematics. Read it here.

Plaque outside home where Łukasiewicz lived on Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, Ireland.

Headstone in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland. Thanks Brian.