Ed. Kevin Barry, Tom Dunne, Richard Kearney and Edna Longley.

CONTENTS

Eamon O’Flaherty, ‘"Atavism and Innovation": reflections on culture and nationality in Ireland, pp.1-6. Debates the continuing cultural crisis in Northern Ireland, drawing on concepts put forth by A. T. Q. Stewart in The Narrow Ground and Conor Cruise O’Brien in States of Ireland; develops the ‘Two Nations theory’ where twentieth century Ireland is ‘confessionally and culturally exclusive’ and Ulster Protestantism is ‘doomed’ to a ‘coercive ... takeover’; includes theories relating to a universal high-culture discussed by Ernest Gellner in Nations and Nationalism and Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities.

Kevin Barry, ‘"Lullabies for Insomniacs": the writer and contemporary Irish society’, pp.7-13. Discusses the romanticisation of the literary writer as opposed to script writers and editors; quotes Plato’s theories on poets in The Republic, 398, and Umberto Eco on the media; notes that the repetition of icons in Irish poetry serves a unified societal form and contrasts this to Beckett’s remarkable irony in Not I as well as the individual artistry of Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian and Dorothy Nelson’s In Night’s City; hopes that the illumination of societies within Irish society will ultimately over-ride expectations of subject matter.

John A. Murphy, ‘"Post-war Society": the ambience of a college’, pp.14-19. Outlines the position of U.C.C. in the first half of the nineteenth century in an elitist and conservative atmosphere yet with the charm of a ‘(literally) free-thinking fraternity’; relates the exuberance of Alfred O’Rahilly as lay theologian and his achievements as one of the two ‘great modernising presidents’, Dr. M. D. McCarthy being the second.

Frank Barry, ‘"Between Tradition and Modernity": cultural values and the problems of Irish society’, pp.20-30. Points out the failure of political discourse to circumscribe relations in Ireland between cultural attitudes, a changing economic structure and family traditions; contrasts the liberating yet alienating existence of contemporary Americans with Ireland’s consistently friendly yet culturally-oppressive and stagnant social position; cites extensively from political, anthropological and social works such as Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Basil Chubb’s Government and politics of Ireland.

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Anthony D. Buckley, ‘"The Chosen Few": biblical texts in the symbolism of an secret society’, pp.31-40. Explains the organisation of the Orange Order, the reasons behind its existence and outlines the possible influence for the Ulster Protestant; includes a list of 17 texts from the Bible, 14 of which display similar themes of confrontation and faith, the other 3 providing background material.

Louis De Paor, ‘Ni fheadfadh si e a inseacht don tsagart ...’, pp.41-48 [poem].

Richard Pine, ‘‘The Suburban Shamrock’: the embourgeoisment of Irish culture’, pp.49-58. Considers the schizophrenic aspect of Irish life in terms of ‘real’ Ireland versus an ‘imagined’ Ireland; expresses reservations about political and economic stability, quoting Gay Byrne as ‘utterly disillusioned’; faults cultural leadership and asserts the absurdity of wishing to return to ‘De Valera’s aisling’ expounds the imperative for Irish people to stop yielding to the ideal and ‘to be’ themselves.

Luke Gibbons, ‘"Romanticism in Ruin": developments in recent Irish cinema’, pp.59-63. Examines the New German Cinema’s captivation with Ireland and the inter-relationship of landscape and tradition with social and politically historical issues in Irish cinema; exposes the association of collective violence as an untamed power while symbolising the irrepressible Gaelic nation with images of ancient ruins; speculates on the role cinema may play in creating and maintaining a ‘new image of Ireland’.

Peter McDonald, ‘"Ireland’s MacNeice": a caveat’, pp.64-69: Investigates the displacement of Louis MacNeice and compares his style to the regionalism of John Hewitt and Seamus Heaney; suggests that MacNeice’s lack of roots denied him principle convictions; includes 6 lines of Carrick Revisited 1945, and also quotes from Hewitt’s The Bitter Gourd(1945); frequently cites Lagan, Rann and The Irish Review.

Paul Durcan, ‘The Rape of Europa (after Titian)’, ded. To Seamus and Marie [Heaney], pp.70-71 [poem]..

Medbh McGuckian, ‘Four Poems’, ‘Head of a Woman’; ‘The Invalid’s Echo’; ‘To Call Paula Paul’; ‘Girl-Mother and Child’, pp.72-78 [poem].

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Michael Foley, ‘The Apollinaire Blues’, pp.79-81 [poem]..

Thomas McCarthy, ‘‘The Solitude of the Party’: extract from a novel in progress’, pp.82-87.

Thomas McCarthy, ‘Two Poems’, pp.88-89: ‘The Emigration Trains’; ‘A Bowl of Peas’, ded. for Catherine.

Fintan O’Toole, ‘Murphy’s True Stories’, pp.90-94, review of Tom Murphy, Bailegangaire (Dublin: Gallery Books). Develops the notion of a writer as magician in a deluded and deceptive society; plays with the individual psychology relating to language, home and God.

David McCormack, ‘John Banville: Literature as Criticism’, pp.95-99, review of John Banville, Mefisto (London: Secker and Warburg): Notes the disparity between the intellectual’s desire for order and the chaotic quality of ordinary experience, noting the cyclic movement from order to chaos and back the familar order in the novel; identifies ‘despair’ as the key to Banville’s fiction.

Jennifer Fitzgerald, ‘Feminist Literary Criticism’, pp.100-07, review of Elaine Showalter ed., The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature and Theory (London: Virago Press), Moira Monteith ed., Women Writing: A Challenge to Theory (Brighton: The Harvester Press), Mary Eagleton ed., Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), Maggie Humm, Feminist Criticism: Women as Contemporary Critics (Brighton: The Harvester Press), Toril Moi, Sexual / Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory, New Accents Series (London: Metheun). Discusses contributions of the authors to Feminist Critical Theory, viz., Showalter on images of women; Montieth on women’s writing; Eagleton on literary theory; Humm on women writers as feminist critics; and Moi on the psycho-analytical significance of this discourse.

John Wilson Foster, ‘Letters from Denis: Donoghue’s Irish Criticism’, pp.107-12, review of We Irish: The Selected Essays of Denis Donoghue, Vol.1 (Brighton, Harvester Press). Characterises this essay as ‘fitfully impressive’ which pertains to Donoghue’s estimation of the use of symbolism with specific reference to Yeats and Joyce and is written with an autobiographical sub-text.

Tom Hadden, ‘Legal Abuses’, pp.113-15, review of Derry: Field Day, Field Day Pamphlets 4: Emergency Legislation; Eanna Molloy, Dynasties of Coercion; Michael Farrell, The Aparatus of Repression; and Patrick J. McGrory, Law and the Constitution-Presents Discontents. Records oppressive policing and the abuse of the emergency laws without appropriate safeguards; Molloy adopts a liberal viewpoint in his account of British legislation from 1882-87; Farrell views the evolution of the supply and use of emergency power in the Free State and the Republic from a more historical position; and McGrory, as disillusioned lawyer lamenting the injustice of policing abuses, lacks imagination and produces the least compelling account of the three.

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Ailbhe Smyth, ‘Voices of Feminism’, pp.116-19, review of Jenny Beale, Women in Ireland: Voices of Change (London: Macmillan) (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan); Leah Levenson and Jerry H. Natterstad, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington: Irish Feminist (NY: Syracuse Univ. Press; Dublin: Arlen House); comments on this documentation of the evolvement of women’s lives in the past fifty years with interviews of thirty women from varying backgrounds covering areas such as Family, Sexuality, Education, Religion and Equality Reforms, and criticises Beale for dismissing the issue of women in Northern Ireland; enthuses about the memoirs of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington which describes her as ‘a pacifist, a socialist, a nationalist and above all a feminist’.

Paul Bew, ‘Paisley Unlimited’, pp.119-21, review of Ed Moloney and Andy Pollak, Paisley (Dublin: Poolbeg); Steve Bruce, God Save Ulster: the religion and politics of Paisleyism (Oxford: The Clarendon Press). Disapproves of the repudiation of any other unionist politics when dealing with ‘Paisley’; Bruce writes from a sociological standpoint and gives pre-eminence to the religious aspect of the Northern Ireland crisis.

Bernard O’Donoghue, ‘Voice-Shifts’, pp.121-25, review of Paul Muldoon, ‘Selected Poems 1968-83’ (London: Faber). Regards this as a liberal and appeasing collection of Muldoon’s images from past and present including many quotations from works such as ‘Mule’, ‘Quoof’ and ‘Why Brownlee Left’.

Peter McDonald, ‘Challenging Patagonia’, pp.125-29, review of Sebastian Barry ed., The Inherited Boundaries: Younger Poets of the Republic of Ireland (Mountrath: Dolmen Press). Excoriates the ‘high comedy’ of Barry’s introduction and is scathing in his brief assessment of his poetry, however, he is encouraged by the compilation of poetry itself which is comprised of poets born after 1950 in the Republic.

Martin Mooney, ‘Patagonia’, pp.129-34, review of Roy McFadden, Letters to the Hinterland (Dublin: Dedalus Press); Padraic Fiacc, Missa Terribilis (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press); James Simmons, Poems 1956-86 (Gallery Books). Portrays McFadden as a regionalist writer and venerates his open honesty, plain speech and unassuming approach which results in memorable and arresting texts; condemns Fiacc for facilitating writing conventions with his ‘crude modernism’ and lack of originality; commends Simmons practical style and controlled verse and appreciates his treatment of language and the difficulty involved with the use of it.

Sean Lysaght, ‘Beauty and Atrocity’, pp.134-38, review of Neil Corcoran, Seamus Heaney (London: Faber). Outlines Corcoran’s sketch of Heaney’s early life and education and follows with a brief appraisal of some of his works, taking in political importance and the conflict between political and artistic endeavours as well as noting the poignant absense of reference to childhood memories.

Tadhg Foley, ‘Flower Power’, pp.138-40, review of W. J. McCormack, The Battle of the Books: Two Decades of Irish Cultural Debate (Mullingar: The Lilliput Press). Applauds this critical summary of Irish cultural discourse and refers to the involvement of The Crane Bag journal while praising McCormack’s own skills as a writer, poet and historian which duly qualifies him as a literary ‘referee’.

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Brendan Bradshaw, ‘An Old Fogey on the Young Turks’, pp.140-42, review of Ciarán Brady and Raymond Gillespie eds., Natives and Newcomers: Essays on the making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534-1641 (Dublin: IAP). Compliments authors for critical survey of the outcome of historical revisionism so far and proposals for new procedures; work contains eight essays by young scholars covering topics such as bardic poetry, the Gaelic Society, the triumph of the Counter Reformation in Ireland and the failure of the Protestant Reformation.

Ronan Sheehan, ‘Solo Performers’, pp.142-45, review of Bob Geldof, Is That It? (London: Penguin Books); Noel Browne, Against the Tide (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan). Binds both writers through their early life experiences which triggered their individual search for justice and their moral campaigns; Geldof tells of the loss of his mother at an early age and the subsequent turbulent relationship with his father; Browne remarks on the tragic loss of his family to Tuberculosis and his successful programme which deals with the investigation and control of this disease.

Michael Viney, ‘Towards The Ultimate Stride’, pp.146-47, review of Tim Robinson, Stones of Aran (Mullingar: Lilliput Press) (Dublin: Wolfhound Press); Frank Mitchell, Shell Guide to Reading The Irish Landscape (Dublin: Country House). Depicts Robinson as ‘an Irish-speaking Yorkshireman’ and congratulates his succinct observances of his surroundings which are captivating for those who share his appreciation of the environment; compliments Mitchell on his revised recording of ‘The Irish Landscape’ which dwells on pre-palaeolithic influences and acts as an informative ‘first half’ of the entire story.

John Cronin, ‘Operatics’, pp.147-48, review of David Marcus, A Land Not Theirs (London: Bantam); Michael P. Harding, Priest (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press). Admires Marcus’s affectionate treatment of the familiar aspects of Jewish life in Cork at the time of the War of Independence and also his handling of issues of nationality and identity; commends Harding’s striking imagination when dealing with the priesthood though disapproves of his omniscient narrative tone.

Edna Longley, ‘Regional Variations’, pp.149-52, review article on Graph, Nos. 1 & 2. Oct. 1986/Spring 1987 (8 Claremont Park, Sanymount, Dublin 4); Honest Ulsterman, No. 82, Winter 1897 (709 Eglantine Ave., Belfast, BT9 6DY); Linenhall Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1987 (17 Donegall Sq. N., Belfast 1); Krino, No. 1 & 2, Spring 1986/Autumn 1986 (Gleerevagh, Corrandulla, Co. Galway); North, No 7 Winter/Spring 1987 (c/o Crescent Arts Centre, 2/4 University Rd., Belfast 7); Riverine, No. 1 (c/o Garter Lane Arts Centre, 5 O’connell St., Waterford); The Salmon, No. 16, Winter 1986 (Auburn House, Upper Fairhill, Galway); Threshold, No. 37, Winter 1986/1987 (Lyric Players Theatre, 55 Ridgeway St., Belfast 9); Tracks, No. 7, 1987 (The Deladus press, 46 Seabury Sydney Parade Av., Dublin 4) [with prices and ISBNs].

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