Merchant Prince

by Thomas McCarthy

Overview

In Merchant Prince Thomas McCarthy presents two groups of poems, set largely in Cork, and a novella set in Italy, in the period from 1769 and 1831. They tell the story of Nathaniel Murphy: his training for the priesthood, the loss of his virginity and vocation, his flight from Italy, and later his happy marriage and successful career as a Cork merchant.
 
The unusual mixture of verse and prose and the meticulously imagined history - replete with portraits of such great figures as the painter James Barry, and four Italian poets who are strangely reminiscent of certain contemporary Irish poets - gives the book a compelling flavour. Poems and prose combine in a poetic fiction which is, among other things, a meditation on the craft of verse and the artistic calling, and a restoration project on a kind of Irishness overwritten by later history.
 
 
 
Thomas McCarthy was born in Co. Waterford in 1954 and educated at University College, Cork. He has published six collections of poetry, two novels and a memoir. He has won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, the American-Irish Foundation's Literary Award and the O'Shaughnessy Prize for Poetry. His work has been widely translated and has appeared in over thirty anthologies. He has worked for Cork City Library and currently works at the Cork 2005 offices.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780856463754
Publisher:	Carcanet Press, Limited
Publication date:	10/01/2005
Edition description:	None
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Thomas McCarthy was born in Co Waterford in 1954 and educated at Cork University. He has published six poetry collections, two novels, and a memoir. He has won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, the American-Irish Foundation's Literary Award, and the O'Shaughnessy Prize for Poetry. He works in the Cork 2005 offices promoting Cork's status as European Capital of Culture.

Table of Contents

	Blood
	Nathaniel Murphy in His Sister's Bedroom, 1798	13
	He Contemplates a Stolen Bozzetto of Canova's Cupid and Psyche, 1811	14
	He Remembers a Bottle of Leoville-Barton, 1807	16
	He Thinks of the Meaning of Constant Happiness, 1807	17
	He Considers His Wife, 1789	18
	He Considers His Great Luck, 1812	19
	He Remembers a Girl of the Callanans, 1829	20
	In Illness, He Considers His Wife, 1827	21
	He Watches His Wife Create a Silhouette Portrait, 1812	22
	He Loses a Silver Ring of M. Billon, 1814	23
	He Turns to His Wife, 1797	24
	He Feels Moisture Falling, August 1st, 1802	26
	He Spends Christmas at Clonakilty, 1809	27
	He Buries His Father, 1809	28
	He Goes Through His Father's Belongings, 1809	29
	He Writes to His Estranged Sister, 1803	30
	He Walks with His Son, 1799	31
	He Mourns for His Nephew, Lt. Alan Mundy, 1814	32
	At the Annual Grand Masquerade, 1826	33
	He Meets His Future Sister-in-Law, Miss Teresette O'Neill, 1811	34
	He Considers His Wife's Three Cats, 1793	36
	He Recalls a Letter from Home, 1771	37
	He Considers the Rev. Dill-Wallace, 1817	38
	He at the Grave of Amade Dill-Wallace, 1800	40
	He Collects His Framed Etching of Cardinal Consalvi, 1823	42
	He Prays to the Memory of Cardinal Ludovisi, 1769	43
	He Contemplates His Failure, Rome, 1772	44
	He Serves Mass at Advent, Rome, 1771	45
	Memory	49
	Trade
	Nathaniel Murphy Disembarks at Passage, 1801	157
	He Considers His New Eye-Glasses, 1800	158
	He Recalls the Jeanie, America-Bound, 1775	159
	At the Ordination of Father Layton, 1803	160
	He Considers Four Young Nuns, 1789	161
	He Considers Bishop John Bernstein, 1789	162
	He Meets Eight Presbyterians Upon the Quays, 1829	163
	He Addresses the Committee of Merchants, 1818	164
	He Dines at the Nile Street Coffee-House, 1800	165
	At East Ferry, 1801	166
	He Remembers His First Meeting with James Barry, 1769	167
	At the Castel S. Angelo in His Youth, 1770	169
	He Remembers Cholera and Pine Trees at Naples, 1772	170
	At the Adelphi, Thinking of James Barry, 1788	171
	He Remembers the Val di Comino, 1770	173
	He Recalls James Barry R.A., 1812	174
	He Reconsiders Mr Barry's Neglected Gifts, 1830	175
	His Tragic Sense of Life, 1831	176
	He is Painted by Mr Daniel Maclise, 1830	177
	He Reads a Poem of Dr Hickey's from Lisbon, 1831	178
	He Buys a Copy of Childe Harold, 1814	180
	At Mr O'Ferrell's New Villa, 1826	181
	He Hears Memory and Praise of Bishop Clayton, 1797	183
	He Learns of the Death of J.J. Callanan, 1829	184
	He Contemplates the Autumn of 1814	186
	He Witnesses Another Hanging, 1813	187
	He Meets Lt. Hennessy, Cork Militia, 1799	188
	He Looks Upon Another Dead Child, 1803	189
	He Witnesses a Military Execution, 1804	190
	He Considers the Misfortunes of Dublin, 1793	191
	He Comes Upon the Cork Militia, 1798	192
	He Purchases a Street Ballad, 1789	193
	He Walks the Marsh, 1824	194
	He Loses a Silver Buckle, 1797	185
	His Tattered Copy of The Mineral Waters of Ireland, 1794	196
	He Sees a Warehouse Burning, August, 1798	197
	He is Overwhelmed by Edinburgh in Old Age, 1831	198
	He Encounters the Poor of Cork Harbour, 1829	199