Overview

Ethnologydraws on the mystical cry for the dead of Cathy Galvin's Irish-speaking ancestors. Within an epic narrative she reclaims place, people and language, creating a bridge between our own times and a Connemara community on the margins of Europe. Drawing on classic forms within literary and oral traditions, Ethnology becomes a love song for Connemara, witness to vivid encounters: between the living and the dead and between the poets, folklorists and ethnologists who have written about the West of Ireland for their own agendas. In her first full-length book of poetry, fragility and strength are finely balanced, focused on the ruins of an island cottage built by her great-grandfather. Here, Cathy Galvin locates both mourning, humour and joy. The poems give a vivid, original voice to the tradition of keening, of honouring the loss of those we love.

Full Product Details

Author:   Cathy Galvin
Publisher:   Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Imprint:   Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Edition:   Paperback original
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.30cm , Length: 23.40cm
ISBN:  

9781780377728

ISBN 10:   178037772
Pages:   112
Publication Date:   26 February 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

9  Introduction 11  Preface: Title Deed    Book One: Specimens 15 Island Road  16 Blunt Needles  17 I Collect  18 Boat People 19 Physiography: 1 20 Dusk 21 Women Come to Find Me  22 Hawk 23 Physiography: 2 24 Snow  25 Na Ceachtanna: Lessons 30 Adúirt mo Mhamó  31 An Ghaeltacht  32 Place Names  33 Starlings  35 From the Kitchen on the Edge 36 Back Tonight to a Deserted House: 1 37 Back Tonight to a Deserted House: 2 38 Back Tonight to a Deserted House: 3 39 Saint’s Toolkit  40 Warming the Bones  41 Adúirt mo Mhamó Arís 43 Walls  44 Ethnology   Book Two: Mother 47 Waters Break 48 Rough Translation 51 What They Say to a Child  52 Guy’s Hospital, London 53 Straight Lines 54 Source  55 Bríd 56 Caoineadh 58 Swell  59 Credo   Book Three: Love Songs of Connacht 63 Mythology 68 Crow 69 Body of the Boat  70 Anraith 72 Man at Rosroe 73 At the Michael Hartnett Festival 74 Folklore Collector  76 Belly of the House 77 Joe  78 The Singer’s Centenary: Carna  80 Coventry Carol 81 Shells  82 Playwrights  83 Cromwellian 84 Turn to the Wall    Book Four: Son 87 Before  88 Samhain 89 After 97 Old Woman    99  Notes & Acknowledgements 111  Biographical note

Reviews

Here the west of Ireland comes alive, island life and sea-shore culture caught in language and rhythms that are natural to the themes, in both the colloquial and the formal, in the precision of the characterisations and the imagery. The personal level of the work is held close and carries the whole, forming a true history of the lives of people on the margins. This is a profound achievement. -- John F Deane Years since I was so moved by a new collection. Cathy Galvin writes from close knowledge, in a variety of forms and voices, with a coherent drive and many branchings that never leave the heart of the matter. In the later part of the book her grief over her son’s death is deep and always palpable but is never – so to speak – let loose. Everything in this book wants saying. It’s urgent and, like all good poetry, it ramifies far beyond the poet’s own self. -- David Constantine The collection is thoughtful, provocative, and symphonic with an admirable blending of form. Cathy Galvin is a maker of storied memory. -- David Morley Ethnology is a book of wonders, poised on that moment when legends become myth and songs become the wind. -- Richard Skinner

Author Information

Cathy Galvin published three pamphlets, Black & Blue (2014), Rough Translation (2016) and Walking The Coventry Ring Road with Lady Godiva (2019), before her first full-length book of poetry, Ethnology: a love song for Connemara (Bloodaxe Books, 2026). She has been nominated for several awards including the Ilkley Poetry Prize, the Listowel Poetry Collection Prize (twice) and the Goldsmiths/ Spread the Word Life-Writing Prize, and is the recipient of a Hawthornden Fellowship, Heinrich Bll (Achill Island) residency and an Arts Council England DYCP award. She also edited Red, an anthology of new writing published by Waterstones. As a journalist she has worked as a senior editor for Newsweek and the Sunday Times. With roots in Coventry and Connemara, she lives near Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.

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