Grief's Broken Brow

Grief’s Broken Brow was commissioned by UCD Library in partnership with Poetry Ireland and Arts Council Northern Ireland as part of Poetry as Commemoration. Each of the poems in this collection was inspired by a particular archive, document or object from the War of Independence or the Civil War in Ireland. 

Introductory essay by Lucy Collins. Poetry by Seán Hewitt, Padraig Regan, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Nithy Kasa, Victoria Kennefick, Paul Muldoon, Stephen Sexton, Martina Evans, Aifric MacAodha, Bebe Ashley. Afterword by Daniel Ayiotis. 

Designed and letterpress printed by Jamie Murphy, assisted in the studio by Elllen Martin-Friel. The texts are hand-typeset in Aldo Novarese’s Magister (1966), cast here by Rainer Gerstenberg in Frankfurt, accompanied by Monotype Grotesque Bold Expanded (1923) and wood types dating to the War of Independence and Irish Civil War periods. James Earley’s artworks have been printed from the original blocks in five gradient layers. The text paper is 190gsm Saunders Waterford produced at St Cuthbert’s Mill, Somerset. The suminagashi sheets have been produced by Louise Gaffney. 100 copies have been printed. The bindings and slipcases have been executed by Tom Duffy and family. 

Poetry as Commemoration, an initiative of the Irish Poetry Reading Archive at UCD Library and funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport & Media under the Decade of Centenaries programme 2012-2023, was conceived by Ursula Byrne, Lucy Collins, and Evelyn Flanagan and managed by Catherine Wilsdon.