Heroic Landscapes: Irish Myth and Legend
Rod O'Donoghue (paintings by Tighe O’Donoghue/Ross)
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Publication date: 2011
ISBN: 978-1-907535-18-5
Category: Folklore/Mythology
Type: Paperback
Price: €20.00
George William Russell (1865-1935) described folkore and legend as ‘A ladder the soul may climb’ and there is no doubt of its continuing appeal for readers and storytellers in Ireland and abroad. For centuries, storytellers handed down, orally and then in writing, tales of long ago, many pre-historic, others from the early Christian period when saints and heroes, paganism and Christianity, mingled.
Myths and folklore are stories of extraordinary and wondrous people, creatures, places and events: of voyages and monsters, of heroes like Cúchulainn and Fionn Mac Cumhail, of epic battles, of beautiful maidens lost and won, who sometimes turned into butterflies or animals.
In Heroic Landscapes, folklore enthusiast and dedicated scholar, Rod O’Donoghue, sets out to give a coherent account of the different strands and eras of Irish myth – how the kaleidoscope of stories fit together – and to present them in a way that is accessible to the general reader. Eminent folklorist Professor Dáithi Ó hÓgáin described Heroic Landscapes as ‘intriguing in its scope, honest and alluring… always significant in its delineation of the human spirit.’
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About the Author and Artist
Rod O’Donoghue was born in England and now lives mostly in London but his family comes from County Kerry. A retired businessman, he served as a board director for Kimberly-Clark, Rank Xerox, Pritchard Services, Gestetner and Inchcape in the UK and abroad, having qualified originally as a chartered accountant. His first book, O’Donoghue People and Places, was published by Ballinakella Press in 1999 and he has written regular articles for the quarterly journal of the O’Donoghue Society (www.odonoghue.co.uk), which he founded in 2000.
Tighe O’Donoghue/Ross was a direct descendant of Rory Mór, the O’Donoghue of Ross, the rebel prince of Lough Léin who was killed and attainted in the Desmond Rebellion at the end of the sixteenth century. Critics called him the most talented printmaker working in Ireland and his monumental sculpture inspired authors to write books about public art. Prestigious museum collections around the world hold his paintings. For many years he lived and worked with his wife Elizabeth and family in the heart of the wild Killarney mountains, the ancestral territory of his forebears. He died in 2023.
Book
€20.00