Rebels with new causes
The Young Irelander’s Rebellion in 1840’s Ireland may have been a failure, but like every other rebellion in Ireland, it rekindled the dying embers just enough to spark off the next uprising. Coinciding, as it did, with the Great Famine, did not help matters, but it made the very idea of an uprising all the more poignant. Interestingly, this collection of short stories, entitled Young Irelanders, edited by Dave Lordan and published by New Island, coincides with another downswing in Ireland’s fortunes, but it keeps a fine tradition alive by wrestling with new concerns and refusing to churn out the issues that have been done to death by the last two generations of writers.
So, what is Young Irelander’s tackling in its first four stories? Acceptance of non-nationals in local communities, bullying on social media, teenage suicide, sexuality – nothing that would have registered on the list of concerns, say, fifty years ago. In 1965 the predecessors of these young Irelanders might have been brave enough to deal with unwanted pregnancies, emigration, the trauma of leaving religious life, or extra marital affairs. But in Ireland of all countries, the past really is a foreign country and where better to demonstrate this than in the first story in Young Irelanders, Kevin Curran’s Saving Tanya and seeing the world through the eyes of its narrator, Sam.
Sam’s observations and running commentary on the role of ‘social’ (oxymoron surely?) media in a marginalised and low functioning urban community exposes the unloveliness of being alive in so many pockets of contemporary Ireland. These pockets are becoming deeper and are riddled with holes from the weight of settling for the lowest common denominator and the burden this places on the Sam’s of this world just as it does on Benjy in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury or even Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. That mixture of innocence tempered with surprising insights, a sense of justice tempered by nagging guilt and most of all a strange resilience against the hogwash that life throws at you – a loveable sponge, as it were. Everything about Saving Tanya scared the bejaysus out of this fifty something reviewer, and that’s a good thing. We need to understand that thousands of teenagers are living a feral existence where adults are an inconvenient nuisance. Their cuddly toys are Likes and Friend requests on Facebook. Kevin Curran has nailed it, right down to the manky toes and fingers – residue of overuse of fake tan, or the casual pastime of humiliating anyone who diverts from the banal mundanity that passes for a code of behaviour. Rabelaisian it is not; more like post-apocalyptic satellite ‘any town’ camouflaged with a thin veneer of poorly applied bravado. People over a certain age that think they ‘understand’ need to understand that this work of fiction is being acted out in a housing estate near you every day. Kevin Curran has successfully crash landed us into a dystopia that passes for normal because nobody shouts ‘stop’.
Too many Irish people, I think, regard Ireland as being the centre of the universe, a misguided national notion that Roisín O’Donnell cannot be accused of. Her Brazilian protagonist makes her own wry observations on our ‘ways’ while struggling to do the equivalent of cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring – learn Irish in nine months. How to Learn Irish in Seventeen Steps juxtaposes dealing with the disappointment of a love match decreasing in intensity from boiling to barely simmering while coping with the ridiculous De Valera legacy of having to learn a dead language to get a teaching job. This impeccably written story is magnificently structured; the language is witty and intelligent and every so often you find yourself shaking your head in amazement at how O’Donnell captures a fleeting feeling. In the early nineteen eighties I was obliged to pass an Irish interview to be registered as a teacher of English and history and I remember the grief of having to take part in this senseless charade, and being jealous of the ‘country girls’ who seemed to think in Irish. I may as well have arrived fresh from Brazil myself for all the Irish I knew. I got one of these country girls to translate a few sentences for me. They went something like this: “I am very bad at Irish. I only got a D at ordinary level and I am very nervous.” Luckily I got the nice guy. He was rotund with ruddy cheeks and in his sixties. I think if he could have sat me on his lap, he would have. He ticked a few boxes and told me I had passed! O’Donnell’s protagonist has to work a little harder than I did.
Rob Doyle’s Summer tackles relationships in a more earthy, even visceral yet strangely cosmopolitan way. To me, it reads like a hedonistic inter-rail romp around Europe, and that is by no means a criticism. If Summer was a wine I might be saying things like “I detect notes of Beckett and Joyce with an aftertaste of Bellow and just a hint of Fielding – more raunchy than picaresque.” Moreover, this could be Krapp’s Last Tape after a shot of adrenalin. With no mention of social media and a reference to a New Order CD I am wondering if we are in the nineteen eighties; no harm either. Mia Gallagher’s 17:57:39–20:59:03 is a fast and furious read shaking through a big colander the detritus left in the wake of the Celtic Tiger – a before and after scenario – cleverly picking over the leavings driven by the random swinging of the pendulum of some erratic clock and a spivvy taxi driver – a literary vulture as it were. Gallagher’s writing is quick and it’s clever and it captures the seamier flavours of the boom and bust. But still, we are reminded that it’s not yet safe to be different, especially if you are alone on a dark night left to the mercy or otherwise of a band of marginalised youth.
These stories demonstrate the kind of powerful and experimental writing that this fifty-something reviewer would imagine reflective young readers are crying out for. Eight more to go; I look forward to reading the next four.
The Young Irelander’s Rebellion in 1840’s Ireland may have been a failure, but like every other rebellion in Ireland, it rekindled the dying embers just enough to spark off the next uprising. Coinciding, as it did, with the Great Famine, did not help matters, but it made the very idea of an uprising all the more poignant. Interestingly, this collection of short stories, entitled Young Irelanders, edited by Dave Lordan and published by New Island, coincides with another downswing in Ireland’s fortunes, but it keeps a fine tradition alive by wrestling with new concerns and refusing to churn out the issues that have been done to death by the last two generations of writers.
So, what is Young Irelander’s tackling in its first four stories? Acceptance of non-nationals in local communities, bullying on social media, teenage suicide, sexuality – nothing that would have registered on the list of concerns, say, fifty years ago. In 1965 the predecessors of these young Irelanders might have been brave enough to deal with unwanted pregnancies, emigration, the trauma of leaving religious life, or extra marital affairs. But in Ireland of all countries, the past really is a foreign country and where better to demonstrate this than in the first story in Young Irelanders, Kevin Curran’s Saving Tanya and seeing the world through the eyes of its narrator, Sam.
Sam’s observations and running commentary on the role of ‘social’ (oxymoron surely?) media in a marginalised and low functioning urban community exposes the unloveliness of being alive in so many pockets of contemporary Ireland. These pockets are becoming deeper and are riddled with holes from the weight of settling for the lowest common denominator and the burden this places on the Sam’s of this world just as it does on Benjy in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury or even Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. That mixture of innocence tempered with surprising insights, a sense of justice tempered by nagging guilt and most of all a strange resilience against the hogwash that life throws at you – a loveable sponge, as it were. Everything about Saving Tanya scared the bejaysus out of this fifty something reviewer, and that’s a good thing. We need to understand that thousands of teenagers are living a feral existence where adults are an inconvenient nuisance. Their cuddly toys are Likes and Friend requests on Facebook. Kevin Curran has nailed it, right down to the manky toes and fingers – residue of overuse of fake tan, or the casual pastime of humiliating anyone who diverts from the banal mundanity that passes for a code of behaviour. Rabelaisian it is not; more like post-apocalyptic satellite ‘any town’ camouflaged with a thin veneer of poorly applied bravado. People over a certain age that think they ‘understand’ need to understand that this work of fiction is being acted out in a housing estate near you every day. Kevin Curran has successfully crash landed us into a dystopia that passes for normal because nobody shouts ‘stop’.
Too many Irish people, I think, regard Ireland as being the centre of the universe, a misguided national notion that Roisín O’Donnell cannot be accused of. Her Brazilian protagonist makes her own wry observations on our ‘ways’ while struggling to do the equivalent of cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring – learn Irish in nine months. How to Learn Irish in Seventeen Steps juxtaposes dealing with the disappointment of a love match decreasing in intensity from boiling to barely simmering while coping with the ridiculous De Valera legacy of having to learn a dead language to get a teaching job. This impeccably written story is magnificently structured; the language is witty and intelligent and every so often you find yourself shaking your head in amazement at how O’Donnell captures a fleeting feeling. In the early nineteen eighties I was obliged to pass an Irish interview to be registered as a teacher of English and history and I remember the grief of having to take part in this senseless charade, and being jealous of the ‘country girls’ who seemed to think in Irish. I may as well have arrived fresh from Brazil myself for all the Irish I knew. I got one of these country girls to translate a few sentences for me. They went something like this: “I am very bad at Irish. I only got a D at ordinary level and I am very nervous.” Luckily I got the nice guy. He was rotund with ruddy cheeks and in his sixties. I think if he could have sat me on his lap, he would have. He ticked a few boxes and told me I had passed! O’Donnell’s protagonist has to work a little harder than I did.
Rob Doyle’s Summer tackles relationships in a more earthy, even visceral yet strangely cosmopolitan way. To me, it reads like a hedonistic inter-rail romp around Europe, and that is by no means a criticism. If Summer was a wine I might be saying things like “I detect notes of Beckett and Joyce with an aftertaste of Bellow and just a hint of Fielding – more raunchy than picaresque.” Moreover, this could be Krapp’s Last Tape after a shot of adrenalin. With no mention of social media and a reference to a New Order CD I am wondering if we are in the nineteen eighties; no harm either. Mia Gallagher’s 17:57:39–20:59:03 is a fast and furious read shaking through a big colander the detritus left in the wake of the Celtic Tiger – a before and after scenario – cleverly picking over the leavings driven by the random swinging of the pendulum of some erratic clock and a spivvy taxi driver – a literary vulture as it were. Gallagher’s writing is quick and it’s clever and it captures the seamier flavours of the boom and bust. But still, we are reminded that it’s not yet safe to be different, especially if you are alone on a dark night left to the mercy or otherwise of a band of marginalised youth.
These stories demonstrate the kind of powerful and experimental writing that this fifty-something reviewer would imagine reflective young readers are crying out for. Eight more to go; I look forward to reading the next four.
