Carol Taaffe
Articles by Carol Taaffe
2017
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Irish Literature
Lost on Leeside
The hero of Lisa McInerney’s ‘The Glorious Heresies’ is back in her second novel, ‘The Blood Miracles’. Ryan Cusack, now pushing twenty-one, has just come…
2016
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Irish Literature
Suffering and Sanctity
Emma Donoghue’s new novel, set in nineteenth century, post-Famine Ireland and centring on the case of a ‘fasting child’ who refuses all food, is at…
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Irish Literature
Far from Home
Mia Gallagher’s new novel is a capacious one. It is difficult to capture all at once, and as such it is a work that would…
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World Literature
Art And Power
Dmitri Shostakovich achieved success and fame as a composer early in life, and that may have made him particularly vulnerable. He had been one of…
2014
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Irish Literature
Gianni in Buncrana
He came from out foreign and he spoke wild funny. All the older girls thought he was the last word from the day and hour…
2013
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Against the Tide
In the 1970s an obscure provincial schoolmistress created an organisation to be reckoned with whose aim was to purge British television of filth and blasphemy.
2012
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The Truth Teller
Casement’s achievement was to observe and to testify, proving that the gross myths and exaggerations reaching Europe about these places were not gross myths and…
2011
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Back To The Reader
In the opening interview, Enright expresses her impatience with endless questions about “Irishness”. And that leads her into a telling digression:
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Behind The Curtain
The memory of Robert Emmet would remain venerated in the James family - Henry James Snr was adept at reciting the speech from the dock.…
2010
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Opening Up
To many readers, the attraction lies in this firm refusal of mystery about the act itself (though to Philip Larkin, the prospect of visiting universities…
2009
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Working in the Dark
European literature has a long history of casting Africa as a disturbing enigma; the image of “the dark continent” lingered long beyond its time. But…