Gather Round Me: The Best of Irish Popular Poetry

Like a long night in the flaring glow of a pub, Gather Round Me mixes the playful and the tragic, the melancholy and the ironic, and it reminds us finally of a dispossessed people's need for songs and poems that could always be carried in their hearts and minds. –Billy Collins"A peerless collection of classic and contemporary poetry from Ireland . . . This book is a must-have for anyone seeking an artistic air of Eire." –Phil Hall, New York Resident"Diversity of styles and subjects makes for a lively collection, true. But what makes Gather Round Me such a lovely collection is the unique harmony of irrepressible voices joined together in-to swipe a phrase from 'The Outlaw of Loch Lene'-'the sweet wild twist' of Irish verse." –Kathleen Johnson, Kansas City Star"A lovely rattlebag, a saddlebag, a grab bag of poems. Christopher Cahill has put together a collection that gathers us around four hundred years of love, life, and lament. There's a marvelous eclectic arc in operation here. Cahill invents a hearth where we are invited to sit from early morning until nightfall, so open a bottle and set aside the parting glass. –Colum McCann, author of Dancer