tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17085938.post954007246731449655..comments2023-10-29T07:54:36.000+00:00Comments on georgiasam: Irishness Now Among Leading Causes of Innumeracyputhwuthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05606399161863289851noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17085938.post-51814679878987575232009-07-31T15:36:52.551+01:002009-07-31T15:36:52.551+01:00Derek Mahon did indeed say that, almost forty year...Derek Mahon did indeed say that, almost forty years ago now. But has the reception of even Derek Mahon's work, even among avowedly anti-nationalist readers of Irish poetry, has had the sum effect of prolonging the shelf-life of that question or of putting it to bed, once and for all? The former, I would argue. Whose fault this is I can't claim to know. It seems that history is to blame.puthwuthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05606399161863289851noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17085938.post-25168312017889182552009-07-31T10:56:13.862+01:002009-07-31T10:56:13.862+01:00I think it was Derek Mahon who said years ago that...I think it was Derek Mahon who said years ago that asking whether or in what sense so-and-so was an Oirish wroiter was enough to clear a room. The figurative room in question was surely not a classroom, more likely a reception room for a literary event.<br /> Blame the summer schools for allowing students to write essays on the Oirishness of Roddy Doyle and others and get credits for doing so.<br /> This endemic tendency needs to be exorcised by having these students start the day wearing leprechaun hats and singing the fields of Athenry and Oirland's call on alternate days of their programme. Plus, for each, a compulsory module on Religious and National Stereotypes in the Father Ted series.sean lysaghthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04775517970287151958noreply@blogger.com