Custom of the Coast by Paul Muldoon with illustrations by Martin Gale.
In Paul Muldoon’s typically inventive drama for two voices one strand recounts the adventures of Anne Bonny, an eighteenth- century pirate from County Cork who roamed the Caribbean until, after being apprehended, her death sentence was commuted because she ‘pleaded the belly’.
A parallel strand reports the shameful case in which the lost pregnancy of an Indian dentist in Galway, Savita Halappanavar, became her death sentence because the law in Catholic Ireland of that time forbade a termination to save the mother’s life.
Custom of the Coast, with music by Kamala Sankaram, will be performed as part of Kilkenny Arts Week 2025 and the book will be launched at Kilkenny Arts Week 2024. In this event, Muldoon celebrates the launch of his libretto for Custom of the Coast. Created in collaboration with composer Kamala Sankaram (and receiving its world premiere at next year’s Festival), Custom of the Coast is a powerful operatic work that forges unexpected links between the stories of Anne Bonny, an eighteenth-century pirate, and Savita Halappanavar, whose tragic death caused a national outcry and mobilised the campaign to repeal the 8th Amendment of the Irish Constitution.
Paul Muldoon’s most recent book of poems is Joy in Service on Rue Tagore. One of the world’s great writers, he is Ireland Professor of Poetry. He lives in New York.
Martin Gale is arguably Ireland’s finest painter and illustrator. He shows with the Taylor Galleries and lives in County Kildare.
