The Stony Thursday Book - Golden Jubilee

 

The Stony Thursday Book

Golden Jubilee

By Kieran Beville

When a small poetry journal outlives governments, economic booms and busts, and whole movements in literature, something extraordinary has occurred. This November marks the publication of the fiftieth-anniversary edition of The Stony Thursday Book, a Limerick-born poetry journal that has quietly, doggedly, and with admirable grace become one of the longest-running literary publications in Ireland. Fittingly, its founders, John Liddy and Jim Burke, have returned as guest editors for this golden jubilee edition, closing a remarkable circle that began in 1975 when they first decided that Limerick deserved a literary voice of its own.

Fifty years on, that voice still rings — sometimes softly, sometimes with a rougher edge — but always with sincerity. The story of The Stony Thursday Book is one of perseverance and poetry, of civic imagination and cultural stubbornness. It is also, as its title hints, a story of Limerick itself: resilient, stony, and proud.

The Birth of a Book and a Name That Stuck

It was 1975. Limerick was a city of stone and smoke, full of character but not yet known as a centre of literary activity. John Liddy and Jim Burke were young poets determined to change that. The idea was simple but brave: to create a poetry anthology that would gather the best new writing from Limerick and beyond, a publication open to anyone with something to say and the courage to say it in verse.

The Stony Thursday Book derived its name from a moment in Limerick’s history. On 27 August 1690, when the Williamite army launched its assault on the city’s breach. According to contemporary accounts, as the attackers swarmed through the gap, the city’s defenders — soldier and civilian alike — rose to meet them, and among them stood local women who, from the walls and streets threw stones and bottles down into the fray. That spontaneous act of defiance, stones in hand, sent a clear message: this stony city would not yield quietly. The journal’s title, The Stony Thursday Book, can be seen as a nod to that spirit of pride and resistance. It sounded local and elemental, grounded in both the city’s texture and the poet’s craft. It announced a publication that would not be smooth or slick but sturdy and enduring. Half a century later, that name still feels right.

From Local Venture to National Institution

The first issues of The Stony Thursday Book were typed, mimeographed, stapled together. There was no budget to speak of, only conviction. Liddy and Burke were determined that poets in Limerick should not need to send their work to Dublin or London to find readers. The journal soon became a rallying point for regional voices, a kind of counter-capital to the dominance of the big literary centres.

As word spread, submissions began to arrive from elsewhere — first from Cork and Galway, then from across Ireland, and eventually from abroad. By the late 1980s, the Book had evolved from a local anthology into an established journal of poetry, fiction, and commentary, attracting contributions from writers of international reputation. That broadening scope was one of its great achievements: The Stony Thursday Book never allowed itself to be trapped by geography. It celebrated its roots while inviting the world in.

The Limerick City Arts Office later took the journal under its wing, ensuring continuity and professional support, but the spirit of the founders remained intact. Each new editor brought something distinctive: some favoured formal experimentation, others a return to lyric clarity. Over the decades, editors have included notable poets and critics — many of whom began as contributors themselves. The Book became a rite of passage, a place where emerging writers might first see their name in print beside poets of renown. 

The Virtues of Perseverance

If there is a single word that defines The Stony Thursday Book, it is perseverance. While other journals flickered into life and vanished after a handful of issues, this one kept going — through recessions, funding crises, cultural shifts, and the digital revolution. That endurance speaks to something rare: a communal will to keep a space open for poetry, year after year.

Part of its magic lies in its openness. From the beginning, the editors declared that The Stony Thursday Book would welcome submissions from “local, national, and international” writers. That invitation has never closed. Each year, poets from across the world — from India to Iceland, New Zealand to New York — send their work to Limerick. In some editions, over a hundred poets appear side by side, their voices converging in a single thick volume.

This inclusivity has given the journal a democratic energy. It is not a gated citadel of the already celebrated; it is a conversation among equals. Young poets have often described the thrill of finding themselves printed alongside established names — a signal that their voice, too, belongs in the broader chorus.

A Few Kind Stones Thrown in Gentle Critique

Despite its venerable history, the Book remains something of a well-kept secret outside poetry circles. It deserves to be better known. In an era when literary culture often lives online, its physical format — the familiar paperback, the smell of ink and paper — feels both charmingly traditional and slightly anachronistic. A more robust digital presence might help introduce its legacy to younger audiences. The editors have begun to adapt, but there remains untapped potential to showcase its archives, readings, and contributors through digital means. Still, these are small stones in a vast, well-built wall. They point not to failure but to opportunity. The Book’s enduring independence means it can evolve as it chooses. Its modest imperfections are part of its character — evidence of life, not decay.

The Stone and the City

In Limerick, poetry has often been a communal affair, shared in pubs, schools, and civic halls. The Book has helped sustain that culture. Its annual launch has become a fixture of the arts calendar, Through its five decades, The Stony Thursday Book has reflected a broader evolution in Irish poetry: from nationalist and rural themes toward cosmopolitan diversity; from male-dominated rosters to richly varied voices of women, migrants, and the Irish diaspora. Each edition is a time capsule of its moment, collectively forming a mosaic of changing Ireland.

The Book’s editors have occasionally used their introductions to comment on the times — austerity, peace processes, pandemic isolation. These short prefaces, sometimes overlooked, read today as miniature essays on Ireland’s cultural weather. In that sense, the journal is more than a collection of poems; it is a chronicle of how language responds to circumstance.

What Fifty Years Mean

A fiftieth anniversary is not merely a number; it is proof of endurance. Few literary magazines reach such an age, and even fewer remain relevant. The Stony Thursday Book endures because it has never tried to be fashionable. It has persisted through quiet conviction that poetry matters — that the act of writing and reading verse remains one of the surest ways to connect people across time and place.

In celebrating this anniversary, we are really celebrating community: the thousands of poets who have sent their work, the readers who have kept faith, the editors who have donated their energy year after year. They have collectively ensured that a small, locally founded journal could carry Irish poetry’s pulse across generations.

For Liddy and Burke, returning to the editor’s desk must feel like meeting old friends: familiar ghosts of poems long published, echoes of conversations held in the 1970s when the idea was still fragile. Their stewardship now is both homage and benediction — a sign that what began as a local experiment has become a cultural legacy.

The Last Word

Half a century after two young poets stapled together their first issue, The Stony Thursday Book remains true to its name: stony, enduring, and unmistakably grounded in the real. It is not a glossy monument but a living quarry from which language is still being cut and shaped.

Its imperfections are part of its beauty, like tool marks on old stone. Its virtues — openness, inclusivity, persistence — have made it one of the quiet glories of Irish letters. If it occasionally stumbles, it does so with honesty and humility, never losing sight of its founding purpose: to give poets a place to speak and readers a reason to listen.

As the fiftieth-anniversary edition lands in readers’ hands this November, it asks us to remember that poetry, like stone, endures because it is worked upon — chipped, polished, and sometimes left rough, but always part of something larger. Here’s to another fifty years of Thursdays — still stony, still ringing, and still, wonderfully, alive.