THREAD: there are 100 Irish writers in The Art of the Glimpse. Many you'll know - James Joyce, Sally Rooney - some you won't have read or heard of. This thread will highlight of some of them, starting with the writer who gave the book its name: Margaret Barrington (1896 -1982).

Barrington was born in Malin, Donegal in 1896. Her father (who was in the RIC) once arrested Countess Markievicz.
MB lived for most of her life in London and her first marriage ended when she began an affair with writer Liam O'Flaherty, who also has a story in the anthology.

Barrington spent her life as a writer, journalist and activist, organising support for Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and helping refugees from the Nazis. She began a Women's column for @tribunemagazine. Its latest issue features a piece (and these photos) by @MauriceJCasey

She published one novel, My Cousin Justin (1939) and her story collection David's Daughter Tamar was published five months after her death in 1982. In the introduction, William Trevor - also in the anthology - described her gift for the short story as “the art of the glimpse”.

Barrington’s story in TAOTG is Men are Never God’s Creatures. I published Village Without Men (a story about all the men in a fishing village drowning) in The Glass Shore, an anthology of stories by Northern Irish women (2016). A superb, forgotten voice. https://www.newisland.ie/fiction/glass-shore-short-stories-women-writers-north-ireland

Spotted a connection to Bernard MacLaverty’s Art of the Glimpse story in an interview yesterday with @susie_dent by @FrankmcnallyIT - on the significance of asking someone in Northern Ireland to pronounce the letter “H”. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/susie-dent-jimmy-carr-is-incredibly-rude-to-me-i-took-it-as-a-compliment-1.4356339

Thanks to @FrankmcnallyIT for this Irishman's Diary piece in today's @IrishTimes about @maclavertyB's AOTG story and the sectarianism associated with 'aitch' Vs 'haitch'. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/haitch-crime-frank-mcnally-on-ireland-s-most-divisive-letter-1.4368700

Brendan Behan's story 'After the Wake' has appeared in some Irish anthologies, but UCD's Deirdre McMahon told me there was a rarer (and better) version it, originally published in 1950. It appeared in Points, a Parisian magazine edited by Sindbad Vail, Peggy Guggenheim's son.

Behan didn't want it included in any of his collections while alive (it wasn't until the 1970s that it was first published in Ireland). It's a queer love story, and McMahon thinks Behan may have edited it due to its implicit homosexuality - fearing how it would be viewed at home.

Here is Deirdre McMahon's @RTEdoconone on Behan's Paris years, including 'After the Wake'. https://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/2019/0829/1071608-brendan-behan-in-paris/