Maurice Earls writes: Gaelic culture and society collapsed in Ireland from the late seventeenth century on following several centuries of attack and military defeat. Ancient mores, which had acted as a force for social cohesion and comprised a complex web of energies and values that gave meaning and form to life, faded away. For the…
Enda O’Doherty writes: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future,” the celebrated American baseball catcher Yogi Berra is reported to have said. And yet we go on making them, even in a field as volatile as electoral politics in its current phase seems to be. We have of course every right by now…
When Johnny Goes Marching Maurice Earls writes: As some may recall, a few years ago genetic studies emerged which revealed that in excess of twenty per cent of males in the northwest of Ireland are descendants of one individual (possibly Niall of the Nine Hostages) or, perhaps more likely, of a few closely related males…
Richard Bourke Two years after the 1920 Government of Ireland Act which first established Northern Ireland as a distinct jurisdiction within the United Kingdom, Ronald McNeill published a book justifying partition under the title Ulster’s Stand for Union. When it was finally completed in February 1922, McNeill’s work amounted to the fullest attempt to date…
John Fanning The Irish, Terry Eagleton wrote, were put on earth for other people to feel romantic about. If the positive image we have long enjoyed internationally is now slipping, one reason could be our perceived status as a tax haven. Given the benefits attached to having an attractive ‘brand’ as a nation, we might…
If we were to pledge not to buy another book until we’d read every last one we have on our shelves at home, booksellers and publishers would soon go out of business. They should not worry, however, for our desire to buy and to collect seems to be unquenchable. As Italo Calvino observed, behind the doors of the bookshop a formidable array of volumes is always waiting to ambush you.
Those who partake in ‘decommemorating’, in the form of pulling down statues or otherwise, frequently see themselves as agents of oblivion, determined to efface an undesirable memory. But in the very act of calling attention to an offensive monument, they are in effect agents of memory, unwittingly reviving remembrance of the memorial they seek to supplant.
This article is adapted from the introduction to Reclaiming the European Street: Speeches on Europe and the European Union, 2016-2020, by Michael D Higgins, published by Lilliput Press. The streets of Europe, from Berlin to Bucharest but also including Dublin, have regularly been pounded during the ongoing pandemic by demonstrators of often very diverse kinds….
And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? … And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto…
Reading an issue of the drb is like splashing happily in a pool of ideas. Maurice Earls’s dash across several centuries of Irish history, “No Myth No Nation”, is an exhilarating exploration. At moments, it might seem like a ballon d’essai but the essay is written with serious intent. One could imagine a whole module…