What do you think?
Rate this book
The Astrakhan Cloak
From Feis, Ní Dhomhnaill’s newest collection in Irish, The Astrakhan Cloak offers poems selected and translated by Paul Muldoon. Ní Dhomhnaill’s skillful negotiations between the forms, fables, and idioms of an older Ireland and the commodity culture, depth-psychology, and Eurospeak of modern Ireland are disclosed by the playful, accurate language of Muldoon who has been called the “most charismatic poet” of the British Isles.
- GenresPoetryIrish Literature
103 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
2 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
36 books42 followersNuala Ní Dhomhnaill (born 1952) is an Irish poet.
Born in Lancashire, England in 1952, of Irish parents, she moved to Ireland at the age of 5, and was brought up in Corca Dhuibhne and in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Her uncle was Monsignor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta of An Daingean, the leading authority alive on Munster Irish. She studied English and Irish at UCC in 1969 and became part of the 'Innti' school of poets. In 1973, she married Turkish geologist Dogan Leflef and lived abroad in Turkey and Holland for seven years. Her mother brought her up to speak English, though she was Irish herself. Her father and his side of the family spoke very fluent Irish and used it every day, but her mother thought it would make life easier for Nuala if she spoke English instead.
One year after her return to County Kerry in 1980, she published her first collection of poetry in Irish, An Dealg Droighin (1981), and became a member of Aosdána. Ní Dhomhnaill has published extensively and her works include poetry collections, children’s plays, screenplays, anthologies, articles, reviews and essays. Her other works include Féar Suaithinseach (1984); Feis (1991), and Cead Aighnis (2000). Ní Dhomhnaill's poems appear in English translation in the dual-language editions Rogha Dánta/Selected Poems (1986, 1988, 1990); The Astrakhan Cloak (1992), Pharaoh's Daughter (1990), The Water Horse (2002), and The Fifty Minute Mermaid (2007). Selected Essays appeared in 2005.
Dedicated to the Irish language she writes poetry exclusively in Irish and is quoted as saying ‘Irish is a language of beauty, historical significance, ancient roots and an immense propensity for poetic expression through its everyday use’. Ní Dhomhnaill also speaks English, Turkish, French, German and Dutch fluently.
An article on- and interview with Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill by Éamonn Ó Dónaill can be read (in Irish only) here: http://beo.ie/alt-nuala-ni-dhomhnaill...
Born in Lancashire, England in 1952, of Irish parents, she moved to Ireland at the age of 5, and was brought up in Corca Dhuibhne and in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Her uncle was Monsignor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta of An Daingean, the leading authority alive on Munster Irish. She studied English and Irish at UCC in 1969 and became part of the 'Innti' school of poets. In 1973, she married Turkish geologist Dogan Leflef and lived abroad in Turkey and Holland for seven years. Her mother brought her up to speak English, though she was Irish herself. Her father and his side of the family spoke very fluent Irish and used it every day, but her mother thought it would make life easier for Nuala if she spoke English instead.
One year after her return to County Kerry in 1980, she published her first collection of poetry in Irish, An Dealg Droighin (1981), and became a member of Aosdána. Ní Dhomhnaill has published extensively and her works include poetry collections, children’s plays, screenplays, anthologies, articles, reviews and essays. Her other works include Féar Suaithinseach (1984); Feis (1991), and Cead Aighnis (2000). Ní Dhomhnaill's poems appear in English translation in the dual-language editions Rogha Dánta/Selected Poems (1986, 1988, 1990); The Astrakhan Cloak (1992), Pharaoh's Daughter (1990), The Water Horse (2002), and The Fifty Minute Mermaid (2007). Selected Essays appeared in 2005.
Dedicated to the Irish language she writes poetry exclusively in Irish and is quoted as saying ‘Irish is a language of beauty, historical significance, ancient roots and an immense propensity for poetic expression through its everyday use’. Ní Dhomhnaill also speaks English, Turkish, French, German and Dutch fluently.
An article on- and interview with Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill by Éamonn Ó Dónaill can be read (in Irish only) here: http://beo.ie/alt-nuala-ni-dhomhnaill...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 24, 2008
I purchased this because I heard the author read aloud, and she was great. And I met her and really liked her. Most of the translations are excellent, lots by poets who are famous in their own rights. I'm told she's pretty much universally aclaimed as the greatest living Irish-language poet. The poems are pretty accessible, so if you are learning Irish this would be a great place to start your non-textbook reading.
April 26, 2012
The poems as An Traien Dubh and An Bhatrail, with it chilling last line "it wasn't me/who gave my little laddie this last battering" will haunt you for the rest of your life. The author peels away the layers of modern life to show how the myths of the past still inform our (The Irish) everyday life, from how we look at love, family, dying, and even the excuses we make for our shortcomings.
August 27, 2025
As I understand it, this is a substantially slimmed down version of Feis, with the addition of facing translations from Paul Muldoon for the benefit of those of us whose souls fret in the shadow of the English language. The translations are very free, with Muldoon inventing Americanised imagery for ‘An Traein Dubh’ wholesale, and even a simple ‘ar bith’ in the first line of Ní Dhomhnaill’s long poem ‘Immram’ becomes the wonderfully Muldoonian ‘of whatever kind | or kidney’. Then again, I say ‘simple’: there is nothing simple about ‘ar bith’, which is a beautifully idiomatic phrase—literally ‘on the world’, but used as commonly as the English equivalent ‘at all’, such that I would never think to translate it as anything except ‘at all’. Messing with the translation of ‘ar bith’ therefore shows an incredibly sharp ear for the resonances of common locutions on Muldoon’s part, which is evidenced throughout. My favourite in this collection is the Newgrange-themed affair poem ‘Feis’, though ‘Caitlín’ is clever enough to stick with you.
March 30, 2026
If Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill is really considered as one of the best and most important Irish-language poets, then the situation must be dire, because this was mind-numbingly boring and uninteresting. I felt nothing while reading.
I don't speak Irish other than a few basic words and introductions, but still it seemed to me that Paul Muldoon's translation was extremely anglicised: translating Caitlín for "Cathleen" and Beltaine for "May Day" is too much. The readers aren't idiots.
2/5.
I don't speak Irish other than a few basic words and introductions, but still it seemed to me that Paul Muldoon's translation was extremely anglicised: translating Caitlín for "Cathleen" and Beltaine for "May Day" is too much. The readers aren't idiots.
2/5.
January 13, 2023
the last two stanzas of first communion are breathtaking.
November 20, 2025
Surprising. Wonderful. Is breá liom é.
April 9, 2026
Wish I could read Irish.
April 1, 2015
I can only half report on this book, as I do not speak Gaelic, but I do enjoy Paul Muldoon, so was glad for his translation.
The cover is intriguing and I could not find who painted this Bosch-like surreal universe peopled with multiple soap bubbles, some clearly peopled like sea anemone, some belching folk like sparks from fire, but however to understand the wee folk or the larger, is it monk with crucifix gazing onto a dream or is he part of it. It is fitting then, to start with "Carnival" and imagining "if we were gods" but listing reality in "mantle of tears, a coat of sweat, a gown of blood" as the speaker of the poem speaks to her lover.
Language such as "swivel-wing of light" or "tares and cockles buried in shifting sand" bring the reader to an otherworldly place where the "glistering world", the fun and games, power, money, make us forget "we're all in the same holding-camp"
(Black Train) followed by reference to Dachau/Belsen.
One of my favorites: The Crack in the Stairs blends metaphor of inner self with outer, -- "The piano is under lock and key/and the lock is hard/with rust, while I myself cannot break free/of what's eating at my heart." //
Other days, thought, I'm so full of vrouw-vroom/I'll take the flight/
of stairs with a single bound, into some upper room/ where I'm blinded, blinded by the light.
The book allows you to skate on the edge of Irish life, say in the poem that starts in a summer evening in Ballinloosky, as if looking on someone else's games.. the swing between the final two fragments before destiny, as black cat makes one lithe, limber, lethal attack. "My exultant singing spirit. my ululations of grief."
"The Three Sneezes" -- at first looks as if it will parallel a three wishes story, with a girl's coming of age, her marriage and first child, although it ends with the cat with a man's head... the cold breath of the spirit of the grandmother, that swaddles and brings her back to earth. There's a sense of death is so many of these poems.
Perhaps after a while you'll agree with the husband on p. 69, "Don't ask a poet the way/to Baghdad for among/the bogs and bog-holes she'll lead you astray." But you'll read on, wonder, "where am I" , wander through the mists, waves, as if on a magical island.
The cover is intriguing and I could not find who painted this Bosch-like surreal universe peopled with multiple soap bubbles, some clearly peopled like sea anemone, some belching folk like sparks from fire, but however to understand the wee folk or the larger, is it monk with crucifix gazing onto a dream or is he part of it. It is fitting then, to start with "Carnival" and imagining "if we were gods" but listing reality in "mantle of tears, a coat of sweat, a gown of blood" as the speaker of the poem speaks to her lover.
Language such as "swivel-wing of light" or "tares and cockles buried in shifting sand" bring the reader to an otherworldly place where the "glistering world", the fun and games, power, money, make us forget "we're all in the same holding-camp"
(Black Train) followed by reference to Dachau/Belsen.
One of my favorites: The Crack in the Stairs blends metaphor of inner self with outer, -- "The piano is under lock and key/and the lock is hard/with rust, while I myself cannot break free/of what's eating at my heart." //
Other days, thought, I'm so full of vrouw-vroom/I'll take the flight/
of stairs with a single bound, into some upper room/ where I'm blinded, blinded by the light.
The book allows you to skate on the edge of Irish life, say in the poem that starts in a summer evening in Ballinloosky, as if looking on someone else's games.. the swing between the final two fragments before destiny, as black cat makes one lithe, limber, lethal attack. "My exultant singing spirit. my ululations of grief."
"The Three Sneezes" -- at first looks as if it will parallel a three wishes story, with a girl's coming of age, her marriage and first child, although it ends with the cat with a man's head... the cold breath of the spirit of the grandmother, that swaddles and brings her back to earth. There's a sense of death is so many of these poems.
Perhaps after a while you'll agree with the husband on p. 69, "Don't ask a poet the way/to Baghdad for among/the bogs and bog-holes she'll lead you astray." But you'll read on, wonder, "where am I" , wander through the mists, waves, as if on a magical island.
October 1, 2009
The poems in this collection are a mixed bag. It is chock full of sequences that are a little too postmodern for my taste, very mythic (her signature) and atmospheric but not enough actual bodies, if you ask me. I like my poems to be peopled. Muldoon takes plenty of liberties with his translations, but I'll forgive him because he's Paul Muldoon. The standouts are the volume opener: "Feis/Carnival," "Caitlin/Cathleen," and "Deora Duibhshleibhe/Dora Dooley."
September 3, 2007
Beautiful, haunting, strongly feminist Irish poetry. Both the Irish originals and their English translations are provided. Paul Muldoon provides the brilliant English translations.
May 15, 2008
i love the contemporary irish poets and i think ni dhomnaill is probably my favorite poet.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews