London Review of Books (Sept. 1999): Reading Notes

Garret Fitzgerald, ‘What Happened to Good Friday?’, London Review of Books, 2 Sept. 1999, pp.9-10: [I]t took time for outsider observers to see that without the provision which postponed the start of decommissioning the IRA would never have allowed the Sinn Fein leadership to sign the Agreement. To have expected them to give way later on the very point on which their participation had depended was unrealistic. (p.10.)

Martyn Bedford, ‘Satire Rebounds’, review of Mondo Desperado, in Literary Review, Sept. 1999; stories, persona of Phildy Hackball of Barntrosna town; barely mustered a smile from first page to last; here the style is nude-and-a-wink irony, and the wryly jocular tone is that of a man too amused at his own smartness.’ (p.50); ‘stepped out naked into the flashbulb glare of deferential congratulation.

John O’Donoghue, ‘In Performance: Seamus Heaney and Liam O’Flynn’, London Magazine, Aug./Sept. 1999, pp.100-01; Barbican; talks up Heaney’s gift as performer and his selection of poems for the seisun. Incl. Comment: ‘The Celtic Tiger is a curious beast, almost like something out of an illuminated manuscript. It is at once mythical, miraculous, and contradictory.’ (p.101).