Articles
Essays, reviews, and commentary on literature, history, politics, and ideas.
Whiskey In The Jar
Keith Payne was the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award winner for 2015/2016. His collection Broken Hill (Lapwing Publications) was published in 2015. It was followed in 2016 by Six Galician Poets (Arc Publications) .
The City Spreads Out
Dublin is often eulogised for its houses’ brickwork and fanlights, for its smoky bars and pseudo-poets declaiming over stout and whiskey, but a short walk from the centre of the city are places which are more interesting and more important…
Deep Work at Dollarton
1947 saw the publication of Under the Volcano, a novel written by a prodigiously hapless alcoholic who had spent much of the previous decade occupying a squatter’s shack in the Canadian boondocks.
A Soul in Wonder
Michael Longley has said that he hopes that by the time he dies his work will look like four really long poems: “a very long love poem; a very long meditation on war and death;
In Love With Death
When ISIS declared the caliphate in 2014, initial analyses highlighted a new terrorist logic at odds with that of previous forms of jihadi terrorism.
The Virags and the Blooms
It’s often said that Ulysses “has no story”. This is true in the sense that it doesn’t have a single story which captures the essence of the work as a whole.
His Poor Materials
Sigh upon sigh till all sighed quite away. All the fond trash. Destined before being to be no more than that. Last Sighs. Of relief. Samuel Beckett, Ill Seen Ill Said
Leading from the Left
The short answer is a snap general election took place in between and it produced a result that very few expected. But there is also a longer answer that is worth exploring in some detail.
Christian Knowledge
There are many factors that made the Irish state that came into being in 1922 different from other nation states, not least that it was born out of colonial conflict, that its coloniser dominated the world capitalist system, that its…
The German Friend
German writer Heinrich Böll was born in December 1917, one hundred years ago. Such anniversaries are a popular time to take stock, but not always the best way to gauge the ongoing impact and legacy of a writer. Likewise, to ask questions ‑ such as what would Böll have thought about reunification (which happened four…
Wandering in the Desert
Joyce is just one Irish writer who is alert to the Exodus story and its specific resonance within a national context. Hence the parallel between Moses and Parnell, each of whom ‘led a turbulent and unstable people from the house…
A Tale Retold
The Gothic novel has been entertaining and thrilling readers for centuries and while critics have often rejected it as showy, populist and over-formulaic, readers have responded more positively, returning to the genre first in novels, then in film and television…