Publications
Engagement in a variety of theatre, literary and community based arts initiatives over many years has resulted in our company publishing or becoming an associate publisher for a number of books.
These publications are available here on a not for profit basis, with pricing set to cover production and shipping costs only.
In the summer of 2018, Tread Softly launched a broadsheet of poetry and short prose. Since then, six issues have featured both familiar and unexpected voices from all over the world. Emerging writers were placed beside established, urban next to rural, a story of here beside a story of elsewhere. This democracy and collision gave the broadsheet energy. Submissions flooded in. Now, a selection of this work is collected in a perfect-bound book, its variety of perspectives and ways of telling more than the sum of its parts.
Edited by Louise Kennedy, Eoin McNamee & Una Mannion
Curated by Seán Golden; Maugherow beneath the blowing sands is a community response to historical events in Maugherow and environs. Entire villages were inundated by sand there in the nineteenth century. Historical texts and visitors’ chronicles describe the blowing sands and their consequences. Extracts from traditional emigration songs and oral history compiled by local schoolchildren in the 1930s combine with contemporary artworks, poetry and prose to give voice to the inhabitants, the anonymous victims of the blowing sands, the Famine and epidemics.
During Tread Softly 2021 a group of seven artists were given a guided tour of the Caves of Kesh by archaeologist, Dr Marion Dowd. Their resulting exhibition, Walking Keshcorran, explored the cave’s history, mythology and human relationships.
Two of these artists, Julianna Holland and Tommy Weir, created this beautiful book, Keshcorran, with the series of caves echoed in the sequence of their poems and photographs.
Linen-bound with concertina layout.
The celebrated community arts event The Book of Sligo was published by Blue Raincoat Theatre Company in November 2021.
An elegant and beautifully designed publication The Book of Sligo is a completely unique celebration of one county. The book draws upon ancient Civic Parish structures, to bring the reader an eclectic taste of Sligo’s profound social, archeological, and ecological heritage from every corner of the county.
32,000 free copies of the book were distributed to households throughout County Sligo as the key part of one of the largest community arts projects yet staged in Ireland. The delivery programme was carried out by a host Community Groups and volunteers between November 2021 and April 2022.
Due to the high level of enquiries from Sligo people who are not resident in the county we are now offering to forward the book anywhere in the world through our website.
As a publicly funded arts organisation, our company is not in a position to distribute The Book of Sligo free of charge beyond the existing project commitment of delivering one free copy to each household in County Sligo. Accordingly, the book is being made available for the cost of printing, nominal cost charges for packaging and administration, plus the delivery charge appropriate to the delivery address specified in online orders.