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Close Analysis of John McGahern’s ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’

(For those of you who would like to revisit the novel in your own time all page references are from the Faber and Faber paperback edition.) That They May Face the Rising Sun was published in 2001…

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Austin Clarke - Three Poems Revisited

Austin Clarke – Three Poems Revisited

My beloved copy of Soundings

Recently I was browsing through my precious, dog-eared and scribbled-on copy of Soundingsand came across the three Austin Clarke poems featured in that anthology.  ‘The Lost Heifer’, ‘The Blackbird of Derrycairn’, and ‘The Planter’s Daughter’ brought back fond memories of English classes long ago!  The Clarke poems selected in Augustine Martin’s infamous Interim (!)…

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An Analysis of 'Follower' by Seamus Heaney

An Analysis of ‘Follower’ by Seamus Heaney

                                My father worked with a horse plough, His shoulders globed like a full sail strung Between the shafts and the furrow. The horses strained at his clicking tongue.

An expert. He would set the wing And fit the bright-pointed sock. The sod rolled over without breaking. At the headrig, with a single pluck.

Of reins, the sweating team turned round And back into the land.…

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Two Sample Answers on 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens

Two Sample Answers on ‘Hard Times’ by Charles Dickens

  It has been suggested that Dickens, the social crusader, outdoes Dickens the novelist.  Discuss with apt reference from the text of Hard Times. Discuss.

 Sample Answer:

Dickens is rightly regarded as a crusader against injustice; all his novels are concerned with one or more of the defects of society as a whole or of the individual human being.  ‘Hard Times’ is a case in point.  There is a…

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Contemporary Aspects of the Novel 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens

Contemporary Aspects of the Novel ‘Hard Times’ by Charles Dickens

  Hard Times is unusual in several respects. It is by far the shortest of Dickens’ novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it.[1] Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London.[2]Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian…

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Notes on 'Hard Times' - by Charles Dickens

Notes on ‘Hard Times’ – by Charles Dickens

 THE THEME OF HARD TIMES IN THE NOVEL

The theme of ‘hard times’ applies to all characters in the novel – those exploited and those who exploit.

Coketown is depicted as a cage that imprisons all – it is a microcosm that comprises of good and evil.

Hard times evolve from the greed for wealth and power. The Government Inspector is ready to fight all England instead of trying to help all England.

Th…

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Exploring Michael Hartnett's early development as a poet....

Exploring Michael Hartnett’s early development as a poet….

Bridget Halpin’s Small Farm in Camas Formative Influences on the young Michael Hartnett

Brigid Halpin’s cottage in Camas as it is today. The photograph is by Dermot Lynch.

  Bridget Halpin, formerly Bridget Roche, was born in Cahirlane, Abbeyfeale in 1885 to parents John Roche and Marie Moloney.  According to parish records in Abbeyfeale, she married Michael Halpin from Camas, near Newcastle…

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In Memoriam Sheila Hackett

In Memoriam Sheila Hackett

Michael Hartnett on Confirmation Day circa 1953

In Memoriam Sheila Hackett

By Michael Hartnett

No great dreams were found

in our nineteen-forties streets:

Newcastle West

slowly turned its face

from a bitter past.

We were a complicated sum perhaps

but made of simple needs

and demanded no world-changing vision.

We moved along the scale

living our own lives,

made separate, but never split,

by time’s…

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In Memoriam Sheila Hackett

In Memoriam Sheila Hackett

Michael Hartnett on Confirmation Day circa 1953

In Memoriam Sheila Hackett

By Michael Hartnett

No great dreams were found

in our nineteen-forties streets:

Newcastle West

slowly turned its face

from a bitter past.

We were a complicated sum perhaps

but made of simple needs

and demanded no world-changing vision.

We moved along the scale

living our own lives,

made separate, but never split,

by time’s…

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Stoner by John Williams - A Belated Review

Stoner by John Williams – A Belated Review

  Better late than never I suppose!  But then it seems I’m in good company!  My son suggested Stoneras part of my required reading on a recent week of rest and relaxation, good food and daily rambles by the sea.  His only comments were that it was achingly sad and that it came with a glowing imprimatur from John McGahern.  He was right – it is a stunning page-turner of a book, depicting the…

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Characters and Relationships in 'Philadelphia Here I Come!'

Characters and Relationships in ‘Philadelphia Here I Come!’

    Since Gar is the central character in this play it is important to consider his character in relation to the other characters.  What first strikes us about the play is, perhaps, the dominance of the male characters. There are only three female characters in the play – Madge, Kate Doogan, and Lizzie Sweeney – and they take up only a small part of the plot.  We could see this absence of women…

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TheTheme of Communication in 'Philadelphia Here I Come!'

TheTheme of Communication in ‘Philadelphia Here I Come!’

  Joe Dowling, who directed productions of ‘Philadelphia Here I Come!’ at the Abbey and Gaeity Theatres has said that the play deals primarily, ‘with the failure of people to communicate with each other on an intimate level.  It also makes us examine the nature of Irish society dominated by the church, the politician and the schoolmaster’.  Gar is being forced to leave Ballybeg because Ballybeg…

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The Theme of Escape in 'Philadelphia Here I Come!'

The Theme of Escape in ‘Philadelphia Here I Come!’

  One of the most frequently recurring themes in Anglo-Irish literature is the flight or escape from a harsh environment.  The linked themes of escape, exile and emigration are frequently found in drama, prose and poetry.  One of its well-known representations is Stephen Dedalus in Joyce’s,  A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, who chooses exile from his native land because he cannot come to…

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A great love poem for the day that's in it!

A great love poem for the day that’s in it!

from Anatomy of a Cliché

by Michael Hartnett

9 ‘I want you to stand with me…..’

I want you to stand with me

as a birch tree beside a thorn tree,

I want you as a gold-green moss

close to the bark

when the winds toss

my limbs to tragedy and dark.

You are to be the loveliness

in my cold days,

the live colour in my barrenness,

the fingers that demonstrate my ways.

I can anticipate no days

unless your…

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‘Water Baby’ by Michael Hartnett Water Baby By Michael Hartnett Already the chestnuts, each a small green mace, fall in the rusted chainmail leaves. 

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The Troubled History of The Crooked Tree

The Troubled History of The Crooked Tree

The Crooked Tree today – You can see the remnants of the old Limerick – Newcastle West road on the left of the photograph and the new road layout on the right.

The Crooked Tree is a very well known landmark on the main Limerick-Newcastle West road, about two kilometres out on the Limerick side of the town.  The tree is situated in the townland of Gortroe and is, in fact, situated in the parish of…

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Shakespearean Tragedy Defined

Modern definitions of the word tragedy don’t help when trying to explain the niceties of Shakespearean tragedy.  Our sensationalist news channels such as Sky and CNN are very quick to bring us the latest tragedy; a passenger jet crashes with the loss of all on board; a bridge collapses causing mayhem for home-bound commuters; a school is in lock-down after a young student kills his teacher and…

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