A truly awesome Brit Blog Round Up from Redmption Blues. She raises a number of topics, not least the abortion non debate in Northern Ireland, a few thoughts on which I hope to kick in later today. Good reportage and some warm words on the Slugger Awards too…
Colin Neill’s first novel Turas peeks into a world in which many Ulster Protestants feel uncomfortable. It’s 2020 and the Irish unification that unionists and loyalists confidently predicted would never happen has become a reality. President Adams is ensconced in Phoenix Park. The newsreader reported that … a short ceremony at Stormont had confirmed the [...] read our review »
Is the best way to overcome the legacy of conflict simply to forget about it? Author and journalist David Rieff spoke on this subject last week in a seminar at the Institute for International Integration Studies (IIIS) at Trinity College Dublin. Rieff has recently written a book titled, Against Remembrance (published in Ireland by Liffey [...] read our review »
It’s not often we get free things to give away to our readers, but courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan we have a nice paperback copy of Brian M Walker’s excellent history of partition of the island and how identities shifted in both the north east and the south and west: as most of the territory that [...] read our review »
“Religion offers a balm to ease the pain of the sheer wretchedness of existence, especially for those near the bottom of the pile. It can function as a frustration-abatement/containment mechanism. Often our capacity for self-reflection can torment us, appear as a curse and we seek the temporary numbing relief of alcohol, drugs, or the opiate of the people. The real miracle is the tenacity of religion, which may be attributed to our inherent futility, the transitoriness of our individual being, which may be too unpalatable, unbearable for us to confront. Religion is our comfort blanket as we shiver in the coldness of the infinite indifference of the cosmos. And it offers the ultimate revenge fantasy: those who prosper now will burn in hell. Similarly, whilst there is no justice in the here and now, there might be in the hereafter.”
…..and so true too!