Ireland has a strange effect on the English. A fantasy land so near and yet so far; at once foreign and, in some intangible sense, never entirely so. “Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,” reflected Philip Larkin in …
Ireland’s migration election
In many ways, Dundrum looks like the average Irish village. There’s a family butcher, a pub called Bertie’s, and rows of squatting slate-grey terraces. Yet walk down the R505, where Dundrum melts into the hedgerows of County Tipperary, and you’ll …
Sally Rooney’s therapy trap
If you’ve ever had the curious pleasure of reading a Sally Rooney novel, you may guess what you’re in for with Intermezzo. There will be endless intimate descriptions of the psychology and behaviour of her characters; sex scenes full of …
The war for the Irish language
Last Thursday, a clutch of Irish-language (Gaeilge) activists burst into Belfast’s gleaming new station shouting “Tír gan Teanga, Tír gan Anam (A country without a language is a country without a soul)”. “What’s this all about?” a woman asked a …
In defence of stereotypes
Everyone seems to agree that you shouldn’t put people in boxes. Men and women are uniquely individual, and therefore not to be stereotyped. Why not, however, isn’t so clear. It can’t be because all stereotypes are negative and offensive. The …
The worst novelist in the world
Budding novelists are always instructed to start their books in an arresting fashion. L.P. Hartley knew exactly what he was doing in The Go-Between (1953): “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” As did Anthony Burgess …
My day with the Belfast rioters
“This is my first protest, like,” says an affable man to no one in particular. The anti-immigrant protest assembles on Donegall Place, just where the main shopping street feeds into Belfast’s central square. There’s a line of armoured police land …
How Britain abandoned Scotland
It’s half past midnight on the Isle of Benbecula — far, far away on the outer edges of Europe — and Angus Brendan MacNeil MP is getting into his stride. “If you want Scotland to stay, you should want Ireland …
The Portal has revealed the best of mankind
This, as some will say, is why we can’t have nice things. The Lithuanian artist Benediktas Gylys has set up an installation that creates a “portal” between a street in Dublin and one in Manhattan. A giant sculpture containing an …
Ireland’s populist insurgency
The first thing that strikes you about Dublin is how different the political stickers on lamp posts are: while in Belfast the overriding theme is either pro-Palestine or Irish unity, in Dublin’s central O’Connell Street, it is “Defund The NGO …
The problem with Byron’s debauchery
In 1798, a lame, rough-mannered 10-year-old boy from Aberdeen called George Gordon Byron inherited a peerage, along with an abbey in Nottinghamshire, and grew up to be one of the most notorious Romantic poets of all time. He died two …
The return of the Irish Right
“The transformation of Ireland over the last 60 years has sometimes felt as if a new world had landed from outer space on top of an old one,” wrote Fintan O’Toole, a commentator who is generally approving of this new …
Leo Varadkar’s ruthless pursuit of power
Leo Varadkar resigned as all political leaders do: dispirited and unpopular, the sheen of his early years long since wiped away by the grinding realities of government. His party, Fine Gael, now trails badly in the polls. Ireland’s housing crisis …
Ireland’s referendum is an attack on women
The constitution of the Republic of Ireland was voted into law by the Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament) in December 1937, having been approved earlier in the year by a referendum. After centuries of existing as a British colony, this was …
Northern Ireland’s anguish isn’t over
Northern Ireland’s unionists have agreed to do what the Conservatives could not: pay the price for Brexit. The magnitude of this moment should not be underestimated, but nor should it be particularly celebrated. Right or wrong, the DUP’s decision to …