Abstract

Both these collections are constructed around ideas of place and space. Seatown is Conor O'Callaghan's second collection, folowing the History of Rain at a recent interval of six years. Seatown is a name for the medieval community which preceded the modern town of Dundalk, where O'Callaghan lived during the times these poems were written. In recent decades Dundalk has acquires an ambivalent reputation as a frontier town, sited as it is just south of the border crossing on the Dublin to Belfast road. The original Seatown itself had a second irish name, Traigh Baile or Ballytra.