Category: Culture & Arts
A Proposal for a Course on National Studies
What with the “Beast from the East”, the upcoming abortion referendum and the ongoing crises in health and housing, you’ve most likely missed a double celebration of the Irish language that’s languishing at the bottom of the media’s priority list....
Reviving the Irish Revival
Many years ago, I tried to read Clive Barker’s gargantuan fantasy novel Weaveworld, which centres around a magical world hidden in a carpet. I didn't make it even half-way through its six hundred pages, and I only have a very...
The Perilous White Male Rhetoric
The students’ union in Trinity has a new president, one Shane De Rís. He apparently doesn’t like me (or indeed himself) very much. “I want this to be the last time four white male candidates stand upon this stage. I...
Book Review: Borstal Boy
Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan is a book that I’ve meant to read for a long time, and I finally got around to it last year. My main interest in Brendan Behan is as an icon of Irishness, and as...
Judging 80’s Ireland
The long overdue apology by an Garda Síochána issued last month to Joanne Hayes, whose life was blighted forever by the almost forgotten “Kerry Babies” scandal, has triggered a thoroughly risible campaign to re-write recent Irish history. The media coverage...
The Curious Case of the Canadian Psychologist
One day I requested Jordan B. Peterson’s first book, Maps of Meaning, from the university library stacks. I already had an electronic copy and watched the whole lecture course, so the hassle was probably a waste of time, but I...
W.B. Yeats: Irish Revolutionary Conservative
“I do not appeal to the professional classes, who, in Ireland, at least, appear at no time to have thought of the affairs of their country till they first feared for their emoluments – nor do I appeal to the shoddy society of...
Book Review: The Strange Death of Europe
“Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide. Whether the European people choose to go along with this is naturally, another matter.” Thus begins Douglas Murray’s recent and controversial bestseller: The Strange Death of...
Feelings Versus Freedom: The New Censorship
In response to the comments raised by the Minister for the Diaspora and International Development regarding John Waters' speech at the University of Notre Dame, Hugh Treacy takes to task the ever-increasing "feelings based" censorship. John Waters has been through...
Book Review: A Conflict of Visions
“It would be good to be able to say that we should dispense with visions entirely, and deal only with reality. But that may be the most utopian vision of all. Reality is far too complex to be comprehended by...