‘If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further … a stunningly lyrical novel’ Alex Preston, Observer
‘Pitched – deliriously – between high modernism and folk magic, between gorgeous free-verse and hilarious Irish vernacular, Poguemahone is a stunning achievement … profoundly affecting’ David Keenan
‘A blistering, brilliant ballad of mad tales from rural Ireland to London Town. The characters are electric, the narrative fuelled with a brilliant frenetic energy. McCabe is truly original’ Elaine Feeney
Dan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, is looking after his sister Una, now seventy and suffering from dementia in a care home in Margate. From Dan’s anarchic account, we gradually piece together the story of the Fogarty family. How the parents are exiled from a small Irish village and end up living the hard immigrant life in England. How Dots, the mother, becomes a call girl in 1950s Soho. How a young and overweight Una finds herself living in a hippie squat in Kilburn in the early 1970s. How the squat appears to be haunted by vindictive ghosts who eat away at the sanity of all who live there.
And, finally, how all that survives now of those sex-and-drug-soaked times are Una’s unspooling memories as she sits outside in the Margate sunshine, and Dan himself, whose role in the story becomes stranger and more sinister.
Poguemahone is a wild, free-verse monologue, steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale Patrick McCabe has never attempted before.
More information
Patrick Mc Cabe
Patrick McCabe was born in 1955 in Clones, County Monaghan. He is the author of The Butcher Boy, which won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction; The Dead School; Breakfast on Pluto and others. The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into feature films by Neil Jordan. Winterwood was named the 2007 Hughes & Hughes/Irish Independent Irish Novel of the Year. He now lives in Dublin.
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PADDY IS DEAD AND THE KIDS KNOW IT
You don’t very much hear of young fellows now in Ireland called Paddy but back in the old times when ‘pot’ and the like were beginning to make themselves known round about the place, yes and LP’s, there was a ‘rekkird’ or ‘platter of vinyl’ released with all kinds of pop bands and groovy combinations on it, including Orange Machine and Granny’s Intentions. Which…
7th November 2021FURTHER POP STARS JOIN 'POGUE' CAMPAIGN
FURTHER POP STARS SAY 'YES PLEASE, POGUE!'
MAUREEN 'MISS DYNAMITE' MC LEOD JOINS UNBOUND CAMPAIGN ALONG WITH BOOKER T. AND 'THE BOYS.'
'DON'T SAY GOODNIGHT MIDNIGHT', MAUREEN URGES,' AT LEAST UNTIL YOU HAVE SECURED YOUR HARDBACK OR PAPERBACK FIRST EDITION OF THE SMASHEROO NOVEL BY PAT MC CABE ENTITLED 'POGUEMAHONE'. WHICH IS ABOUT KITTY THE HARE THE HOODED WOMAN STORYTELLER FROM THE…
5th November 2021Booker T. & The M.G's speak out about POGUMAHONE.
Hi guys,
You might remember out top hit from the sixties enttitled TIME IS TIGHT.
Well it is for POGUEMAHONE - midnight on NOV 7, in fact!
So,come on folks - let's mix some metaphors and bury this project in a blaze of glory!
O-and the AUTHOR says A BIG THANKS to you all!!!
Booker
(Nothing to do with the 'prize' people.)
22nd October 2021CLOSING DOWN SALE AT GERTIE'S!!!
Hi Sumbitches,
Gertie here at the end of the road - free Rolo with every copy of A Critique of Pure Reason or anything by Bertrand ('Bertie') Rusell!
Just to say that if anyone you know wants to buy and get their name in POGUEMAHONE the big book what my son-in-law writted then you have to 'move' before midnight 7 Nov. Imagine - your auld stupid name in my buke! The world's gone mad. But…
18th May 2021GERTIE NEWS: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO TIMOTHY CARSTAIRS-MULLIGAN?
You'll never believe this – but I was shovelling some new butternut sweets into a bag out of our recent delivery when I looked up and, to my surprise, descried right there in front of me an extremely irate-looking gentleman, very ruddy of cheek with his hat alarmingly askew on the side of his head, cracking his knuckles as he heaved: 'Look here you! This has gone far enough!'
And then proceeding…
6th February 2021Crocky 'Melodeon' Grimes
Once I knew a fellow, during the time I lived in Hackney, called Crocky Melodeon Grimes who came from Currabawn where the idea of a joke was saying to someone: 'Did you see such-and-such going around the place without me?'
Well, anyway, Crocky wore an Afghan and stank to high heaven of patchouli, physically not unlike Vincent Crane, the virtuoso keyboard wizard responsible for cascades of arpeggios…
3rd February 2021Naked Nudies As Nature Intended
When I was living in London myself, and Lord knows now that that's neither today nor yesterday, there was nothing I liked better than a nice penny bun and a cup of Brooke Bond on The Strand, in Lyons's Corner House - followed by a trip out to The Paperback Centre in Stockwell to pick up my weekly copy of Naked Nudies As Nature Intended, which 'Pop' Mc Gurran (himself a native of Currabawn, not far…
21st January 2021Mr Exu
Just who is he: Mr Exu?
I dont know but I'll tell you this - if he was around here you wouldn't be long finding out, I can tell you that.
Best
G.(Gertie)
20th January 2021shop in space
hey partners!
welcome to my intergalactic kiosk on the corner, ably managed by myself, Gertie Pogue, and assistant, Maura Tone. It's great to see you all here, and I hope plenty more. I only wish I could supply a balsa wood hang glider with painted-on markings for the boys and maybe a charm bracelet for the ladies, if that's not out of date in these times, but i haven't got any anyway as, you see…
Michael ONeil asked:
Wondering why the 3/3 email update telling us that the books aren't going to be signed isn't an update that's also included here.
Patrick Mc Cabe replied:
they are going to be signed one way or another Michael I've been in hospital
p mc cabe
Wondering why the 3/3 email update telling us that the books aren't going to be signed isn't an update that's also included here.
they are going to be signed one way or another Michael I've been in hospital p mc cabe