'The fire i' the flint'

Essays on the creative imagination

Mary Shine Thompson, editor

Seamus Heaney and other eminent artists, scientists and commentators examine what happens when art is created. Is the imagination still seen as the driving force of creativity within the contemporary 'knowledge economies'? What does the artistic process say about the struggle against trite lives and trivializing education?

The essays are introduced by the composer John Buckley, and former Arts Council Director Ciaran Benson offers an afterword. This sparkling, rigorous dialogue is based on the third series of the Seamus Heaney lectures, delivered at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, in 2004–5.

Contributors: Ciaran Benson (UCD), Kieran Egan (author), Patricia Flynn (St Patrick's College, Drumcondra), Seamus Heaney (poet), Peter Michael Hamel, Jones Irwan, Susan McKenna-Lawlor (NUI, Maynooth), Seymour Papert, Bridget Riley (Painter), Mary Shine Thompson (St Patrick's College, Drumcondra), Alan Titley (UCC).