Articles
Essays, reviews, and commentary on literature, history, politics, and ideas.
Out of the Doldrums
The second Irish cultural revival of the late 1950s and early ’60s
Too much too soon
The unconsidered perils of the nationalist rush to Irish unity
On the Precipice
The short but productive life of Joseph Roth, elegist of Habsburg Austria
Murder Most Foul
The achievement of a great entertainer, ‘queen of crime’ Agatha Christie
I’m Dangerous, Me
Shriver’s irritation: a pose that doesn’t add up to a set of ideas
‘The Catholic Church’
What ‘everyone knows’ about Catholic Ireland, and the more complex reality
Celebrating Bricktop
A recent serendipitous find in the Oxfam shop in Belfast and costing all of £1.75, Professor Sharpley-Whiting’s account (she’s a US academic specialising in African-American and Diaspora studies) of the African-American women who travelled to Paris during the roaring 1920s to showcase their creativity away from the restrictive Jim Crow laws of their native land…
Death in the Valley
Poems of flight, new beginnings, sad partings and rich harvests
Rumpled Giant
The greatest 20th century poet writing in English along with WB Yeats
The Grapes of Mirth
The traditions and development of a very special Spanish wine
Their Story
Nine families of sister siblings who were influential in Irish history
A Surrealist’s Journey
The life and myriad achievements of scientist and artist Desmond Morris