Mercy - Paperback

by Róisín Kelly (Author)

Ireland. Night. A grotto to the Virgin Mary illuminates a deserted road. Overhead, the soundless roar of the Milky Way's glittering traffic reminds us of a past that runs parallel to our own uncertain times. Olives ripen in a Portuguese valley. The sound of gunfire approaches a Paris café. Irish women revolutionaries march towards their future. Tigers prowl through County Leitrim's rural townlands, whose old names emerge like neon signposts from the dark: Red Marsh, Small Watery Place, Round Hill of the Boys. Róisín Kelly's Mercy is an attempt to reconcile her Catholic background with her pagan heritage, transcending the limits of a world in which everything is connected. Both intimate and political, this powerful debut collection combines a passionate exploration of self with an awestruck confrontation of wilderness. Róisín Kelly was born in west Belfast, raised in Leitrim, and now lives in Cork. Her pamphlet Rapture (Southword, 2016) was described by Leanne O'Sullivan as 'fierce and mysterious, beautiful and compelling'.

Author Biography

Róisín Kelly was born in west Belfast and raised in the rural Irish county of Leitrim. After a year as a handweaver on Clare Island and a Masters in Writing at NUI Galway, she now calls Cork City home. Her first chapbook of poetry, Rapture, was published by Southword Editions in 2016. Publications in which her work has appeared in Ireland, the US and UK include Poetry, Magma, Ambit, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review and Winter Papers. In 2017 she won the Fish Poetry Prize. Her first full-length collection, Mercy, is published by Bloodaxe in 2020.