Editor’s Note: This is the second part of an extended essay by Irish artist Terence O’Connell but can be read as a stand alone piece. Rationalism is a psychosis; a dissociation of intellect and feeling; the suppression of our intuitive, emotional, and sensual being (the heart’s domain). Enlightenment thinkers wished to replace the credulity of … Read more
Bonus Episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep8-bonus-flawed-103879168 Or via apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cassandra-voices-podcast/id1728086643 In our latest Podcast Frank Armstrong interviews Toby Green, Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at King’s College, London and the author of A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2019). Toby … Read more
It is a notable feature of the prevailing world order that citizens of Western states, in particular, are significantly ill-informed and mis-informed of the past and present contexts of either their disadvantage or their comfort. For centuries the corporate/political/church covenant (imperialism) has sucked the earth of its bounty, dissipated its coherence, shattered communities and brought … Read more
It’s Mother’s Day morning and I am on the brink. Desperate, determined, exhausted and certain all at once. I have passed an eternal night trying to push out a child, with no apparent progress. I don’t have a midwife gently coaching, or calling the ambulance, as the case may be. I am freebirthing. ‘Is that … Read more
In a seminal scene at the end of the film Joker (2019) the eponymous character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is being interviewed by Robert de Niro’s character, the TV talk show host Murray Franklin. The Joker asks: “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and … Read more
The first Cassandra Voices Podcast, hosted by Luke Sheahan, features a long form interview with the veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn. Patrick’s father Claud, a leading British Communist member and journalist fought in the Spanish Civil War and eventually settled in Ireland. Patrick says of his father: He used to say the big battalion commanders want … Read more
Editor’s Note: Readers of a sensitive disposition may find aspects of this account of drug-taking and sex difficult to stomach, but we believe this is a story worth telling. Our mission is to provide a home for independent voices that inspire new thinking. ***** I awake, into my usual morning of panic but today might … Read more
Imaginative fiction offers invaluable insights into everything from national characteristics to institutional malaise and pathological violence. The musings of psychologists, philosophers and historians often appear clumsy and verbose beside the epiphanies that flow from the creative hand. Thus, the visions of long dead novelists continue to colour our understanding of who we are, and where … Read more
I sat for a while by the gap in the wall Found a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball Heard the cards being dealt and the rosary called And a fiddle playing “Sean Dun Na Ngall” lyrics from ‘The Broad Majestic Shannon’ by Shane MacGowan. I wasn’t close to Shane – celebrity brings … Read more
The music was the code. It was the transliteration of the style. It was not giving a bollocks in a thoroughly musical manner. It was fuck this and fuck that and frankly fuck you. A rockety life came with the territory. You didn’t have to be Irish. Their England had been influenced by that Ireland … Read more