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AOTW: Ireland always has been a hotbed of politics. Do those of you who write fiction intentionally make political statements in your work? How do those of you who write nonfiction choose your subjects?
Randy Lee Eickhoff: We cannot avoid the political atmosphere in Ireland in either case. I write both fiction and nonfiction on Ireland and find myself always caught up in the politics. Cromwell made certain of that, cementing, if you will, the relationship of politics to life with his infamous war upon Ireland and the Irish people. We find, for example, Cuchulainn being reflected in the Irish rebels adoption of Sinn Fein, Ourselves Alone. Who can forget the magnificent story of Cuchulainn standing alone against the invading Connacht army in Tain Bo Cuailnge? And how can we forget the similar guerilla activities of Michael Collins in Ireland's successful rebellion against English domination? We cannot. But we must also be cognate of how today's politics affect the lives in Ireland. My subjects are selected by the past (I am currently translating The Ulster Cycle for Forge Books, six books of which have been completed) and the present: THE GOMBEEN MANand FALLON'S WAKE. The internal intrigue of Ireland is both regrettable and fascinating, almost a horror story. If we consider that the politics have created a type of "siege mentality" within the people of Northern Ireland, we can understand that future lives will always be affected by the political scene.
Niall Williams: I make no attempt to make political statements. For me to do so would be extraordinarily arrogant I think, preaching out of ignorance. I only write about the little I know, which is something about men and women.
Jamie O'Neill: Is Ireland a hotbed of politics? True, there are great political moments in Irish history --- O'Connell and his Monster Meetings, the fall of Parnell, the Sinn Féin election after WW1. But it's hard to think of any political progress in the South since then. The North, of course, is an instance of politics failing, hence the resort to the gun. No, Ireland is a hotbed of history, rather than of politics: and history has not done with us yet. To the personal now, and the question of political statements in my work. Well, if you choose for your subject the 1916 Rising, you can't but be political. But I hope I'm fair also. I'm proud of my country, in the sense of its history and people, and proud to be of a nation that sought, through blood, its freedom. I may have doubts about the subsequent use that freedom was put to (little more than independence to retain and conserve). But I know as a gay man that freedom may never be granted, as England may have done for Ireland: to be of any value, it must be seized.
Máire B. de Paor: My subjects chose me no I them. The driving force behind all my writing is to contribute to making the wealth of our Gaelic Christianity available to the public. My sources are our Irish manuscripts which are written in both Gaelic and Latin. I have just published the Gaelic text of St. Moling Luachra, for example, with an English translation and extended commentary. I am currently working on the Latin "Life" of the same saint, which is packed with anecdotes and colorful 'parables' not found in the Gaelic Life.
Malachy McCourt: Whether we write fiction or non-fiction --- be it about love or adventure --- we can't help being political. To make wine you have to crush grapes. To make great literature you have to crush the Irish but (as the song says) Mother England loves us still!
Emma Donoghue: I avoid writing about Irish politics, in the party-politics sense, but issues of sex, class and religion do keep rearing their heads, so yes, I suppose I make political statements as often as the next writer. There's no way of writing apolitically; you're making political choices as soon as you decide who or what to write about.
Marita Conlon-McKenna: I usually leave talk of politics to the pub or round the table after a dinner party, but writing fiction does galvanise you into nailing your colours to the mast. Many of my books have been about controversial topics here in Ireland, famine, emigration, land ownership, illegitimacy, travellers, marriage break-up, church, media. I remember in FIELDS OF HOME, the final book of my famine trilogy, Eily handing her young daughter Mary Brigid a sod of earth from the land beneath their feet, the land they had toiled and worked for long years as tenants and telling her child to remember this day, the day the land finally became theirs. It was probably the most political statement I have ever made. Now I think about it I like stirring things! I like to write about what interests me and have a passionate sense of justice, which gets me into all sorts of trouble.
Martin Roper: If I ever make a political statement in my writing it will be accidental. I suppose writing about sexual relationships --- the dynamics of it --- is a political statement. Everything is politics.
Eoin Colfer: My work is generally non political, but I suppose general ethical content does seep through because that's in my own nature. I cannot help but comment on injustice cruelty or environmental issues.
Andrew M. Greeley: I tell stories. If political statements emerge (like my insistence on the terrible abuse of human freedom by federal prosecutors) that's part of the story.
Regina McBride: I never intentionally make political statements in my fiction. I find that themes and meaning issue from the work on their own. I hope only to depict human complexity as profoundly as I can, because I believe that if people can follow a character into scary, unexplored human territory and feel empathy for him or her, that that in itself is political.
Mary E. Lyons: Intentional political statements in fiction don't work for young readers. KNOCKABEG: A FAMINE TALE is fiction, and while I was aware that 19th century politics were gnawing at me as I wrote, I deliberately chose a format that would make the Great Famine of 1845-1852 not too overwhelming for kids. In KNOCKABEG, readers experience the disaster through the eyes of faeries who are starving alongside the mortals. Yes, politics are in the book, but disguised in an allegorical way.
Several fires were burning when I decided to compile the nonfiction FEED THE CHILDREN FIRST. Why, I wondered, are there so few quality trade books for young readers about the famine, when the children's literature field offers hundreds of titles on the Holocaust and slavery? Children are incredibly empathetic creatures when we give them a chance, but they need books to lead the way. This was the beginning of the idea for FEED THE CHILDREN FIRST: IRISH MEMORIES OF THE GREAT HUNGER. The book is a compilation of Irish art depicting the famine and oral recollections of children of famine survivors. As the subtitle suggests, it's not meant to be a full history. Rather, it invites young readers to hear and see the famine via the Irish themselves. Second, I heard a nationally known white scholar say, "At least Irish immigrants could write about their experiences. African Americans were not permitted to write about slavery." Technically, it's true. Literacy was illegal for enslaved African Americans. But the scholar's statement was uninformed --- many moving narratives were written by African Americans still legally yoked to slavery ---- and simplistic. There are lots of ways to keep someone from writing. My Irish Catholic great-grandfather, who was a child during the famine, signed his wedding certificate with an X. Like many Irish in the West, he grew up miles from a school, and that school was staffed by a Protestant school master. It's easy to see why he never learned to write. Famine survivors were physically and emotionally traumatized, so most likely he couldn't bring himself to talk about it, either. I'm amazed to this day that I didn't speak up when that scholar made her unfortunate remark. Why are we Irish Americans so timid and private about our past? Is this why we've written so few children's books about the famine? It's a question with tangled answers, and I'm addressing it in a panel discussion on Friday, March 22, at the upcoming Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, VA.
Morgan Llywelyn: I have always been fascinated by politics and power, the factors that control all our lives to greater or lesser degree. In my historical novels I do my utmost to recount history as it really happened, rather than altering it for dramatic effect. Researching Irish history in minute detail, going back to primary sources rather than simply accepting the interpretations put forward by revisionist historians during the last thirty troubled years, has given me a definite political bias. For the foreseeable future my work will explore this theme.
Liam Clancy: In my youth, as described in THE MOUNTAIN OF THE WOMEN, I make no apologies for treating my uncle and cousins as heroes for their part in the IRA. Those men would have been appalled at the so-called IRA planting bombs in pubs and other areas where they killed civilians, many of the Irish, in more recent times. In America the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem toured to raise money for CORE. No one came to the concerts.
Maureen Dezell: I think there's been an overemphasis on politics in Irish American fiction and nonfiction, which is one reason I wrote my book. There's a lot more to the Irish experience in America than the long march from Tammany Hall to the White House --- the legacy of women, for example.
That said, I enjoy politics as a spectator sport as much as any Irishwoman. And when I covered city of Boston politics for the Boston Phoenix, my editors insisted I was a natural at it; that understanding politics is part of the Irish DNA.
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