Articles
Essays, reviews, and commentary on literature, history, politics, and ideas.
The Reunion
Leonard Cohen’s fusion of sacred and profane, of words and music
On the Brink
Breaking away from the empire: the dilemma of the 1921 Treaty negotiators
Wild Child
Early to late: questions about the conventional Jane Austen timeline
A Man of Many Parts
A brilliant historian and teacher who kept faith with the republic
The Man From Nowhere
Rallying the great and the good to build the European project from above
Now This Is The Truth
A satire on the political PR industry reminiscent of Waugh’s ‘Scoop’
The Destruction Principle
A working class striver and skiver in one, at home with the underdog
Whatever You Say
No news: letters from John McGahern, who didn’t like writing letters
Cain’s World
A protest against ‘the developer’ and paean to the wildness within
This Happy Breed
Multiple British fractures leave England alone to feast on its past
Eastward Ho!
Dublin’s expansion on the basis of the reclamation of land from the bay
Killing Bad Guys
Lara Marlowe’s memoir of her years with Robert Fisk in love and war