The Bell was an Irish monthly magazine of literature and social comment.
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The Bell was an Irish monthly magazine of literature and social comment.
The Bell was founded in 1940 by Seán Ó Faoláin. Amongst the contributors to its first edition in 1940 were Elizabeth Bowen, Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh, Frank O'Connor, and Jack B. Yeats.
The Bell was notable, particularly under the editorship of Seán Ó Faoláin, as an outspoken liberal voice at a time of political and intellectual stagnation, fiercely critical of censorship, Gaelic revivalist ideology, clericalism, and general parochialism.
Under Peadar O'Donnell (1946–54), The Bell became more left‐wing in content and irregular in frequency of publication but continued to produce material of high quality. W. R. Rodgers and Louis MacNeice were among the authors whose work sustained the magazine's connection with cultural activities in Ulster, in addition to which it repeatedly featured writing from various parts of Europe. [1] In the course of its fourteen-year career, The Bell was variously subtitled "A Survey of Irish Life", "A Magazine of Creative Fiction", and "A Magazine of Ireland Today"; its concern with social and political matters gave rise to incisive commentaries on such topics as state censorship in Ireland, on which George Bernard Shaw wrote in an issue of 1945, the restrictive influence of the Church, and reactionary tendencies in Irish literature.[ citation needed ]
Having undergone financial difficulties which resulted in its temporary closure between 1948 and 1950, it finally ceased appearing in 1954. Along with The Dublin Magazine , The Bell is accounted [ by whom? ] the most important literary and intellectual journal of Ireland in the twentieth century.
The Bell was notable as an outlet for new writers such as Michael McLaverty and James Plunkett. The bell also fostered many young Irish writers and artists from the 1940s and 1950s, when contributors included Anthony Cronin (who went on to edit the magazine), John Montague, Thomas Kinsella, Val Mulkerns, Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh, Patrick Swift, Michael Farrell (under the pseudonym "Gulliver") [2] and Conor Cruise O'Brien. Musicians such as Brian Boydell and Aloys Fleischmann also contributed.
At Swim-Two-Birds is a 1939 novel by Irish writer Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated examples of metafiction.
Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. His best-known works include the novel Tarry Flynn, and the poems "On Raglan Road" and "The Great Hunger". He is known for his accounts of Irish life through reference to the everyday and commonplace.
Seán Proinsias Ó Faoláin was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Irish culture. A short-story writer of international repute, he was also a leading commentator and critic.
Events from the year 1954 in Ireland.
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Kate O'Brien was an Irish novelist and playwright.
Anthony Gerard Richard Cronin was an Irish poet, arts activist, biographer, commentator, critic, editor and barrister.
Peadar O'Donnell was one of the foremost radicals of 20th-century Ireland. O'Donnell became prominent as an Irish republican, socialist activist, politician and writer.
The Republican Congress was an Irish republican and Marxist-Leninist political organisation founded in 1934, when pro-communist republicans left the Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army. The Congress was led by such anti-Treaty veterans as Peadar O'Donnell, Frank Ryan and George Gilmore. In their later phase they were involved with the Communist International and International Brigades paramilitary; the Connolly Column.
The Faber Book of Irish Verse was a poetry anthology edited by John Montague and first published in 1974 by Faber and Faber. Recognised as an important collection, it has been described as 'the only general anthology of Irish verse in the past 30 years that has a claim to be a work of art in itself ... still the freshest introduction to the full range of Irish poetry'. According to Montague, "I'm dealing with a thousand years of Irish verse in under four hundred pages. I needed a thousand pages.'
Eleanor Lucy Hoult, known by her pen name as Norah Hoult was an Irish writer of novels and short stories. A prolific writer, Hoult wrote twenty-three novels and four short story collections. Her work deals primarily with themes of alcohol abuse, prostitution, class dynamics and ill-fated marriages. Between the 1940s and 50s, Hoult's work was frequently banned by the Irish Censorship Board.
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Envoy, A Review of Literature and Art was a magazine published in Dublin, Ireland from December 1949 to July 1951. It was founded and edited by John Ryan.
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John Ryan (1925–1992) was an Irish artist, broadcaster, publisher, critic, editor, and publican.