January reading list

Short stories, essays, interviews, history.

I had intended to send out a list of links and reading recs before Christmas, but I was working up until the wire (rude to the baby Jesus, I know, je regrette tout) and then over Christmas I was stressed for the people who did send out emails. I was very “you should be watching movies and drinking wine with celebrities’ names on them” to my laptop/phone. But, saying that, if sending out something brought you peace, ignore me. I just don’t want anyone working too much ever. See above.

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I read some of Julia O’Faolain’s 1982 slim short story collection Daughters of Passion - there is a story in it I was gleeful reading and I’m going to retrace in the coming weeks. It’s called Diego, and it’s about a man, his mistress, his wife, his spoiled daughter and a, we could argue innocent, dog. It’s told in a first-person narrative, someone relaying gossip, their stumbling into a supporting role. There’s a fabulous line about a child wanting to be told no, some hints to contemporary global politics. God, I loved it.

Now, if you go looking to the buy the collection, you’ll be led to a recent Faber number that’s the titular story from the collection, a 90th birthday initiative from the publishing company where they printed single stories from their archives etc. Might be nice to check out for a supply of simple gifts, light postage. Here is a link to buy the full Daughters of Passion: MW Books (Irish-based). You can also find Diego and his women in a Julia O’Faolain selected stories collection from 2016 called Under the Rose. That book is readily available in Irish libraries. Here is the link to the Irish Libraries catalogue where you can search every library in Ireland. If you have a flexible schedule and can travel to Dublin city centre, you can always become a member of the National Library of Ireland and request a copy of Daughters of Passion from that collection and sit and read in the green Reading Room. It’s a magical spot.

Julia O’Faolain died in the autumn of 2020. She led a fascinating life and has a memoir I’m picking my way through. I’m very glad to have discovered her work in recent times. Eavan Boland reviewed Under the Rose a few years ago in the Irish Times, and gave a nice and tight appraisal of O’Faolain’s writing and life.

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Louise O’Neill’s newsletter ‘Savage Hunger’ is on pause at the moment, but you can still read old entries. I loved this piece on our inner child: ‘Say Hello To My Little Friend’. Being kind to yourself can be hard, but its vital. ‘I thought she was dead’ fixed my heart.

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Charles Haughey’s master bedroom is about the size of the average Irish parish hall. I don’t wish to speculate too broadly about the man’s nocturnal proclivities, but he could have hosted a five-a-side football league in here, had he been so inclined. There is a grand fireplace to one side, a enormous balcony overlooking the house’s main entrance and more dust imprints on the walls where, presumably, expensive artworks once hung. The carpet is badly discoloured. Cobwebs hang from the ceiling and the window sills are strewn with dead insects.

In the adjoining bathroom, there is a freestanding marble bath in the centre of the room and massive illuminated wardrobes where, it is impossible not to speculate, Haughey’s Charvet shirts must once have been kept.

Noreen notes that the couple’s respective bedrooms were accessed by separate stairways.

‘How did she put up with him?’ she sighs.

My mother shakes her head. ‘He married up,’ she says. ‘That was the cruel thing. She was a Lemass. He was a nobody.’

I don’t know how I stumbled across this essay on The Dublin Review. It was one of my many tabs. 20th century Irish history, 21st century recessionary decay, civil service employment, a big house - a siren of a piece.

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For the past few years, I’ve talked to anyone who will listen about the Irish diplomat Seán Lester, the last Secretary General of the League of Nations. He oversaw the League’s work during the Second World War and its winding down. I’m so obsessed with the man I’m making him the basis of the short play I’m writing as part of a course through my local library/arts office.

I’ve never written something which will be performed, so who knows how it will all go, maybe I’ll never write a play again.

Róisín Ingle did a great profile of and interview with Niall Williams, a bestselling writer who wouldn’t dot Irish arts coverage despite his international status. It’s a great read and led me to buying one of Williams’ books. I’m hoping to read it this year (I’m a slow reader, which I don’t mind, I think you can put a lot of pressure on yourself to be reading every new book within four weeks of it being on shelves, also the freedom of not having an opinion on something - not exactly quiet luxury in my circumstances, but something). Anyway, in the piece, Niall Williams recalls the reception to his first play:

To hear him tell the full story is to experience second-hand trauma and embarrassment on an almost overwhelming scale. Breen reckons Williams should write a book about it one day. Perhaps he will. Later, I look back in the Irish Times archive and find the review. “Total waste of a bad idea” is the headline. “That was the last review I ever read,” he says.

Terrifying.

Lester kept diaries, which I’ve read and am rereading, alongside lots of books about his work and the League of Nations. (One book I have describes Lester as ‘noticeably aged’ in a photograph. I took huge offence. That’s my man you’re talking about.) The diaries are stunning records of a dark time. On 1st September, 1939 he writes: ‘The news comes in that German troops have entered Polish territory at three points and that Polish towns are being bombed from the air. So it begins’.

At this moment in time, reading Lester’s diaries and other materials about the rule of law floundering and the Great Powers sitting back as evil make land gains is unsettling, but also it feels like I’m doing something important. Over the holidays, I read about and witnessed hospitals in Palestine being bombed and attacked (again and again and again). Babies froze to death. In a just world, such an act would be the full stop. Israel would face repercussions. But they do not. Humanity may have failed Palestine, but history won’t forget. Shame on anyone who excuses the ethnostate, who contorts themselves into knots to avoid the use of the word genocide. Shame on anyone who collaborates with murderers. May anyone who is complicit never know peace.