Fifty years ago a politician published a manifesto which, if implemented, would have changed the nature of Irish society, would have defied the ethos of contemporary political culture and would have spared us so much of the misery caused by the recent crisis. (Vincent Browne ‘Remembering when Fine Gael flirted with a left-wing agenda’, Irish … Read more
The Centre for Ethics in Public Life at University College Dublin is inviting questions and reflections on all philosophical aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic. What are your thoughts about the crisis? Is our freedom threatened? Should we rethink the welfare system? If different countries are dealing with it better, how do we know which experts … Read more
In a powerful 1997 essay, Seamus Deane suggested that the twin forces that beset modern Irish writers such as W.B. Yeats and James Joyce were those of Apocalypse and Boredom.[1] Both the culture in which the writers lived and the art-works they produced are marked by phasic interruptions into colonial despondency of revelatory dramas and … Read more
Like errant flames from the dying embers of a once great fire, there is much fakery to be found emanating from a previously proud tradition of public intellectualism in the U.K., and elsewhere. The English philosopher John Gray (1948-) is at least not one of the self-help gurus, such as Jordan Peterson, that have gained … Read more
London-based Barrister David Langwallner, the founder of the Innocence Project in Ireland, responds to the latest interview with Edward Snowden. He distinguishes between private concerns and socio-economic rights; with the latter more urgent than ever during this period of crisis. By comparison, he says, privacy considerations are not essential: ‘the most important human rights are … Read more
No picture of the modern world is complete without a Marxist analysis. The fundamental point – even for anyone who is not a fellow traveller – is that a materialist analysis of capitalism’s inherent instability is essentially correct, and now more relevant than ever. The problem has always been around how a post-capitalist society emerges … Read more
In December 1899 Honolulu-based physicians attributed two deaths to bubonic plague, and a local paper duly announced that the ‘scourge of the Orient’ had arrived.[i] Within months a first plague fatality was reported in continental U.S. as Chinese-American Chick Gin (Wing Chung Ging or Wong Chut King depending on the transliteration) succumbed to the disease … Read more
I first heard the story of Gene Shepherd after receiving a 46th rejection slip for my novel. Shepherd was a New York radio presenter who broadcast regularly for twenty-two years. What interested me about him was that he created a best-selling book which did not exist. Because he thought disc jockeys were just an extension … Read more
Hardly a week goes by without someone asking me about my connection to Christopher Hitchens. Such enquiries are clearly predicated on our common concerns. I suspect at one level my own modest bohemianism and libertarianism has invited comparison. Although we share an unbridled enthusiasm for talking Hitchens was, however, also a great listener, something I … Read more
They who have put out the people’s eyes reproach them of their blindness. John Milton, ‘An Apology for Smectymnuus with the Reason of Church-Government’ (1642) Unfortunately I just missed out on meeting one of the totemic figures of our time in Noam Chomsky. In 1997, as a Boston-based Harvard student, I was taken to visit … Read more