Ballynahinch Castle has for decades been a place of inspiration and retreat for some of Ireland leading writers, poets and artists. Writers such as Margaret Atwood and Edna O’Brien, poets including Seamus Heaney, Peter Fallon and Michael Longley and artists such as Donald Teskey, Dorothy Cross and Cecil Maguire have all been regular guests at Ballynahinch.
In 2006 the poet and publisher Peter Fallon approached the team with an offer for Ballynahinch to publish a collection of new poems he had written while on retreat in a private house on the grounds. So started a series of collaborations with artists and writers who gave their work freely for the hotel to publish. Turning to the visual artists David Lilburn and Jim Savage who constitute Occasional Press we published our first book, “Ballynahinch Postcards, new poems by Peter Fallon in 2007. This proved to be a great success.
Following the success of Postcards, we invited the wider community to contribute to an anthology the profits of which would be donated to Cancer Care West. The resulting “Captivating Brightness”, featuring a veritable Who’s Who of Irish cultural life was an immediate success and after paying all bills a donation of €10,000 was made to the charity.
And so, we continued, with further visual arts and poetry collections being published each year. The same approach been taken each time the poet or artist gave their work without fee and the costs were split between Occasional Press and Ballynahinch Castle. The poetry projects were easier to deliver as the contributors rarely required to stay however Ballynahinch Castle always hosted the artists when they came to work. The diary for this work would be agreed around times of excess capacity in the hotel.
 | | This Flight Tonight by Tony Curtis & illustrated by David Lilburn is published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Alcock and Brown flight by Occasional Press. In a weave of archive documentation with his original narratives and poems, poet Tony Curtis explores the remarkable story of Alcock and Brown’s daring and dangerous journey into the unknown. |
Hardback edition €45
Paperback edition €22 |
 | | Into the Mountains is published by Occasional Press in collaboration with Ballynahinch Castle, August 2014 in a limited edition of 150 hardbacks carrying an original print, signed and numbered by the artist and in a paperback edition of 150. The images are accompanied by a vivid response of world-wandering ruminations on the fascination of mountains and the images they inspire from one of Ireland’s most celebrated contemporary authors: Colm Tóibín. |
Limited Edition €80.00
Paperback Books €25.00 |
 | | Montenotte & Fountainstown by Dorothy Cross is published in collaboration with Ballynahinch Castle and Occasional Press. Two related books published in a slipcase, special hardback, limited edition of 150, which also includes a folio containing an original print made especially for this edition signed by the artist and in a slipcase, paperback, edition of 850 without print. With evocative glimpses of previously unpublished autobiographical material, these books present surprising visual juxtapositions and fascinating sequences of photographic images, where autobiography and artworks are linked, disclosing intriguing fragments of a personal history. |
Read More Limited Edition €220.00
Paperback €45.00 |
 | Pony a collection of poems by Tony Curtis and images by David Lilburn. Pony is published by occasional press in collaboration with Ballynahinch Castle, 2013 in a limited edition of 130 hardback copies which include a signed original print by David Lilburn and Tony Curtis and 320 paperback copies. A poet, a printmaker and ... a pony meets in the wild Connemara landscape of Ireland’s Atlantic coast to conjure this highly idiosyncratic collection of observations and imaginings. David Lilburn, printmaker, painter, draughtsman of the first order, brings his powerful improvisational skills to play in feisty visual responses to poet Tony Curtis’s brilliant original and unpredictable imagination, as it deftly moves through the wandering poems in this beautiful book.
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Read More Limited Edition €65.00 Paperback €18.00 |
 | | Connemara Folio is published by Occasional Press in collaboration with Ballynahinch Castle, August 2011. There are two editions: a paperback edition of five hundred and a limited edition of one hundred and fifty hardbacks, with an original hand painted intaglio print: 'Solitude' (location Roundstone Bog), signed by the artist. Donald Teskey RHA has recorded his responses to the Connemara landscape in a series of vivid studies in pencil, pen, watercolour and acrylic paint - presenting us with images of Connemara; ranging from the woodlands of Ballynahinch to the wide open tracts of the Roundstone Bog; from the imposing mountains that rise from the bog to the shining beaches of the Atlantic shore. |
Read More Paperback €45.00 |
| | Walking Drawing Making Memory: A Ballynahinch Sketchbook is published in a limited, numbered edition of 300 by Ballynahinch Castle and Occasional Press, July 2009. Numbers one to one hundred and fifty include a frontispiece of an original intaglio print signed and numbered by the artist. |
Currently Unavailable Read More |
 | | Ballynahinch Postcards was first published as a collaboration between Ballynahinch Castle and Occasional Press in June 2007 in a limited signed edition of 185 hardback copies and 1000 paperback copies. |
Paperback €15.00 |