Cois Céim Guaranteed Irish

Cois Céim is a an independent publishing house which has issued over three-hundred Irish language titles over the past ten years. Padraig O’Snodaigh of Cois Céim states that, though the market for Irish books is obviously limited, it is growing steadily, particularly in areas like poetry and works of local interest. “It’s always difficult to predict what will do well,” he says, “but our poetry titles have sold particularly well in recent years.”

He highlights some of the problems in trying to get Irish language books to the customer. “Small book-shops are not that well disposed towards Irish language titles though some of the bigger stores like Waterstones, Hodges Figgis, and Fred Hannas have good Irish sections,” he says. “Even when they do carry stocks of Irish books they are very often on the bottom shelf.”

Another drawback he sees is in the lack of coverage in the media where Irish books are concerned. “The lack of reviews is a big problem,” he says. “The Irish Times was a particular disaster area until a few weeks ago when they started to take some notice of Irish books. I can remember having a run of two hundred books and not one was reviewed. RTE is better in this respect but the print media overall is still quite bad.”

In terms of regional trends in the sale of Irish books, O’Snodaigh points to Northern Ireland where there is a strong demand for Irish language material. “The market is unique in that Irish is seen as a badge of identity in the North,” he says, “so there is a strong market in the Belfast and Derry areas. The Gaeltacht areas, surprisingly, tend to go for mainly local interest titles as opposed to the more literary books.”

Recently issued titles by Cois Céim are An Coimhthioch Caol Dubh, a romantic novel by Tina Nic Enri, Cath Fionntra by Aogán O’Muircheartaigh an illustrated account of the old saga, Landrochshaol by professor Cormac O’Gráda, an account of the famine sourced from folklore and songs of the period and Scathach by Colm Breathnach, a collection of poetry which won the 1994 Oireachtas Poetry Award.