The Capuchin Annual

One thing about working in a library, and especially a university library, is that every day I'm surrounded by so many wonderful resources that I've never even learned about some of them, and I've never got around to exploring others.

In the case of The Capuchin Annual (1930-1977) it's a mixture of both categories. I did know it was on our shelves, and I had even flicked through it, but somehow I'd never really paid much attention to it.

Yesterday I was doing some research that led me to our holdings of this journal, and I was very impressed. It's obvious that the Irish Capuchins really laboured to produce something special every year. The photographs are lavish and artistic, there is lots of poetry (the sign of a serious magazine), the typography and layout are very stylish, and the subject matter is much broader than most religious magazines.

For those with a serious interest in poetry-- both of you-- the poetry columns are actually a glimpse into an aspect of Irish literary history usually invisible, that is, non-modernist poets in Ireland after the thirties. I hadn't even heard of many of the poets but their verse seems pretty good. These are the sort of poets who would have been derided by Patrick Kavanagh and his kind as regime hacks, still peddling Irish romanticism when the avant-garde had moved onto something else. Or so I presume.

This is how the Capuchin website describes it: " Many Irish writers, artists and educators who later rose to prominence such as Benedict Kiely, Pearse Hutchinson, Francis Stuart, Daniel Corkery, Francis MacManus, Richard J. King, Thomas MacGreevey and Augustine Martin [editor of Soundings] received their first opportunities to publish with the Annual. Throughout its publication run it maintained a very high quality of contributions by leading politicians and writers. The Annual frequently reflected a very strong nationalistic theme."

Now I've discovered it, I do intend to explore it. And so can you, given that the entire archive is available digitally.