Articles
Essays, reviews, and commentary on literature, history, politics, and ideas.
Rereadings 1 – ‘On The Closing of the American Mind’
Welcome to a new series called ‘Rereadings’ in which writers are invited to consider a notable work of their own or of another author. Our first instalment features the reflections of Richard Kraut on Allan Bloom’s ‘The Closing of the…
Get Carter
Likening the editor’s role to that of a choirmaster seeking harmony from ‘all these disparate voices’, Graydon Carter courted a younger, brighter and more distinctive breed of writer. It worked. The new style sold.
Ligatured to Contraction
Irish Catholicism: its Rise, Fall and (possible) Revival. Brief thoughts on a large question
Virginia Woolf’s juvenilia
‘The Life of Violet’ brings together three interconnected short stories, written by Virginia Woolf at 25, that reveal her beginning to think about something she would return to throughout her career: how to tell the story of a woman’s life.
The Leap Takers
Stubbornness and resistance under pressure became Hume’s and Trimble’s common strengths in withstanding attacks from inside and outside their respective political camps.
What’s up, Doc?
Leo Varadkar was a paradox, the quintessential Tory Boy who oversaw massive increases in welfare spending. His sudden, unexpected departure from politics only adds to his enigma.
Are Irish schoolbooks antisemitic?
A recent report claims that Irish school textbooks misrepresent Judaism and minimise the Holocaust. But do these charges stack up?
Making It, Faking It
A century has now elapsed since F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published. Its author had had high hopes for it, especially after the embarrassing failure of his play The Vegetable. Not only did he want this new book to be a commercial success, he also hoped it would lead to his being taken…
Our Sinéad
Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters, by Allyson McCabe, Texas University Press, 209 pp, £20, ISBN: 978-1477325704 The Real Sinéad O’Connor, by Ariane Sherine, Pen & Sword Books, 179 pp, £22, ISBN: 978-1036108236 Sinéad O’Connor’s Universal Mother, by Adele Bertei, Bloomsbury, 98 pp, £10.99, ISBN: 979-8765106914 Sinéad O’Connor was only twenty-four years old when people started writing…
Autumn in Kyiv
September 6th, 2025: On Shevchenko Boulevard, plums are being sold by old women clad in anoraks and scarves in spite of the September sun. Every time I come to Kyiv, I can sense the mood of the nation through the military posters. Female soldiers are more prominent this time and there are images of soldiers…
Aschenbach’s Last Journey
In May 1911, a few months before Gustav von Aschenbach first became a figment of his pen, Thomas Mann was staying with his wife and brother Heinrich on the wooded island of Brioni on the Istrian peninsula, holiday haunt of the Habsburg monarchy. Moving the holiday across to the other side of the Adriatic was…
It’s all ‘Mesearch’
My sister-in-law has been a lifelong fan of Sean Combs (Puff Daddy as was – Diddy if you will). In March 2024, the redoubtable icon of hip hop found himself, not for the first time, at the receiving end of some unwanted criminal justice attention. The scrolling public watched as searches were carried out in…