We need to sing again. We need to be Irish. We need to socialise. We need to be ourselves. So said Sarah, professional singer and mother from Ballina, County Tipperary, on the Late Late Show, only a few hours after Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheal Martin’s address to the nation and his surprise announcement that most … Read more
At a recent debate organised by the English-Speaking Union (ESU) at its HQ, Dartmouth House in London, we considered whether the British government’s response to Covid placed too great a priority on security rather than liberty. Naturally I took the liberty side of the argument. I expressed the fear that such a public forum as … Read more
Last week, the Russia-Ukraine-NATO tensions reached a crescendo when Russia decided to recognize both Luhansk and Donetsk as independent states. Shortly after that, Putin proceeded to launch a full-scale invasion of the Ukraine. The day the news broke I felt great sadness. You see, although I’ve never been to either Russia or Ukraine, I have … Read more
I knew the game was up when my mother told me that Santy had given her a list. I had heard about his many imitators and knew they were just benign North Pole ambassadors who lacked his Arctic magic. I met one of them once in Lee’s on the main street of Dun Laoghaire, in … Read more
Banality is the byword of mass consumerism There’s a piece of public art that for a year or more languished on the edges of Union Square in Manhattan, before moving to a more innocuous location in Midtown. It’s a piece of bronze and laser cut steel in the form of a thick-waisted businessman, peering up … Read more
One Big Union is a self-published collection of essays by Irish poet Ciarán O’Rourke. The essays, many of which have been previously published in such outlets as Poetry Ireland Review, Irish Marxist Review, and indeed, Cassandra Voices herself, are a mix of literary criticism, political theory, and personal writing. The book’s introduction locates itself in … Read more
Unaware of the roaring cataract ahead, a small boy splashes in the dark river named Dodder, cheap buoyancy aids on his arms, flailing them in the manner called the dog’s paddle, eyes and mouth squeezed shut, neck stretched to keep his head above the surface. I shout a warning, which he must hear because he … Read more
Often overshadowed by his elder, Nobel laureate, brother W.B., Jack Butler Yeats occupies an exalted position among Irish painters. ‘Jack B. Yeats: Painting & Memory’ is a new exhibition in the National Gallery commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the painter’s birth, and exploring a stylistic evolution that draws on both Irish and … Read more
For Christmas two years ago, my mother bought me a copy of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People (2018). I tried to read it, I really did, but gave up after twenty pages. Looking back now, I can’t remember exactly what it was that turned me off it. I recall saying something along the lines of … Read more
In a rousing introductory speech, retired diplomat Philip McDonagh described the publication of Cuban Love Songs as a ‘significant moment for the Irish province of the Republic Letters.’ He spoke of the ‘importance of the Republic Letters for us all’, that space where we ‘can explore intelligently and in a disinterested way both the world … Read more