Issue 160, Spring 2026
In addition to the articles highlighted on our homepage, our Spring issue features:
Graham McCann on Graydon Carter and the golden age of journalism in New York City; Bess Rowen on the enduring subversiveness of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars; Michael G Cronin considers the challenges facing the gay community in contemporary Ireland and how best to navigate them; Peter Sirr on the heightened precariousness and importance of poetry in times of political crisis; Niall Ó Ciosáin cross-examines a recent report claiming that our school textbooks are antisemitic; Michael Laver on the question of whether traditional party politics is in terminal decline; Charlie Ellis on the professionalisation of everyday speech; and Ciarán O’Rourke on the ‘spirited, unsentimental, brightly alive’ poetry of Martin Dyar.
In This Issue
Unholy Thoughts
A skillful excavation of the ‘Presbyterian archive’ has produced a surprising and captivating history of Presbyterian life in eighteenth century Ulster, a veritable Bridgerton on the Bann. Drawing on a rich variety of contemporary records including letters, diaries, newspapers and church court records, this book reveals the personal moments that shaped the rhythms and rituals of Presbyterian family life. The result, says Lynsey Black, is ‘an absolute gem of a book’.
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.
Having a Reputation
A new biography of James Bryce, one time Chief Secretary of Ireland and supporter of Irish Home Rule, reveals the astonishingly varied and accomplished life of a long forgotten ‘greatest living Englishman’. This is an outstanding work of intellectual history, writes Stefan Collini, one that can be read with pleasure and profit even by those who may think beforehand that they have little interest in James Bryce.
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.
Palestinians and Other Strangers
Two new studies of the plight of Palestinians and other strangers offer a glimpse of how we might hold on to solidarity as strategy and human principle. Dolefully or otherwise, writes Tori Allen, we have all been looking through our screens at great violence against Palestinians. In the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Isabella Hammad, we are being invited to confront how we are implicated in this as bystanders. Our inability to stop this genocide will be a puzzle for the next hundred years.
Whither Gay Rights?
If there was nothing inevitable about the expansion of liberty for lesbians and gay men and today nothing inevitable about the future maintenance of that liberty, what should be the strategy of the lesbian and gay rights movement?
A Cosmopolitan Poet
Katrina Goldstone pays tribute to her much missed friend and mentor, the poet and scholar Gerald Dawe (1952-2024). By reflecting on his distinctive cosmopolitan sensibility, what his wife, Dorothea Melvin, dubbed ‘his European soul’, we get a surer grasp of Dawe’s enduring passions and preoccupations: his admiration of European poets; his preoccupation with the dark corners of European history, and his many visits to European cities and hinterlands, all of which were distilled and made tangible in his works.
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 adds to his enigma.
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 American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students’ (1987), a book that caused quite a stir on its publication almost forty years ago.
Poetry and Politics
Poets, more than any other kind of writers or artists, are called upon to defend their impulses and pretensions. This is particularly true in times in political crisis which we are living through right now.
When is bullshit real bullshit?
It may be comforting to assert that one’s political enemies are bullshitters but one can’t help wondering whether this assertion is itself a piece of bullshit.
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
Are Irish schoolbooks antisemitic?
A recent report claims that Irish school textbooks misrepresent Judaism and minimise the Holocaust. But do these charges stack up?
Blog Posts
Evidence of fullness
Ciarán O’Rourke writes: On the evidence of his work to date, Martin Dyar might be thought of as an able, and often savagely funny, dramatist of the universal human parish.
Party Time Over?
Michael Laver writes: While ‘The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t’ by Didi Kuo adds to a burgeoning ‘decline of parties’ literature, are we to believe that this decline is part of a global pattern or more specific to the US?
Centenary of ‘The Plough and the Stars’
Bess Rowen writes: 11 February 2026 marked a century since protesters disrupted Sean O’Casey’s ‘The Plough and the Stars’ by singing nationalist songs and rushing the stage.
Semantic Escalation
Charlie Ellis writes: The English lexicon is famously hospitable. Much to the chagrin of prescriptivist sticklers, it is a language that greets new arrivals with open arms. We are accustomed to technological neologisms like 'doomscrolling', 'podcast', and 'vibe coding' and track them with the obsessive energy of a birder spotting a rare migrant.