Abstracts from the Winter 1999 Issue
CULTURAL
CHANGE AND THEOLOGY IN IRELAND
James Corkery, S.J.
One way of trying
to gauge the effect of cultural change on theology is to examine some
theological writing. A brief glance at two pastoral theological journals, The
Furrow and Doctrine And Life, and at two
more academic journals, the Irish Theological Quarterly and Milltown
Studies, will be helpful here.
[The Furrow:]
Many critical questions were faced: the future of belief; empty churches;
priests - their formation, their relationships (with laity, especially women),
celibacy, the future of seminaries; preaching; the ignoring of church teaching;
liturgical problems; the question of women's ordination. Shared ministry came
to the fore. Ecumenism and peace issues remained on the agenda, as did social
problems; unemployment/work, crises in the cities, injustice, etc.
The Irish
Theological Quarterly has been much less reflective of cultural and social change
and, of the four journals examined, it has enjoyed the
least growth as far as women authors are concerned. Nor has the feminist issue,
until very recently, been evident. The case is similar for liberation theology.
Yet the ITQ has been - and remains, in my view -
[Doctrine And Life] has been the best at grappling with
social-political issues. The issues of the 1990s have been rich in the
treatment of moral issues, issues frequently selected with current events in
mind: abortion, homosexuality, divorce, violence against women, sexuality, law
and morality, justice, work, conscience, business ethics, the just war,
medical-moral issues, third world debt, peace issues, concrete moral dilemmas
and so on. There was more on God, God images, understandings of God - in short,
a more typically 'postmodern' God focus. Language (again reflecting a postmodern
concern/shift) was prominent: God-language, pastoral language, inclusive
language. There was also a bit more on faith and the possibility of faith.
[Milltown
Studies:] My concern is basically with the question of how affected the
articles were by changes in society and culture, particularly in the last 10 -
15 years. Not hugely.
All in all, the
journals have attempted to move with the times, the pastoral ones succeeding
more than the academic ones. Other developments in Ireland's theological life
fare better in this regard : the activities of the Irish Theological
Association, the regular Trinity College Theology Lecture Series, the work of
the Irish School of Ecumenics, the arrival in
theology of new kinds of students and the changes in the `traditional' places
of theological learning that made their arrival possible.
Yet these
attempts to reach out to the postmodern and to find something positive in it
rather than seeing it just as a threat to Christianity's metanarrative,
have remained a reaching out from another place, as though theology itself
(theologians themselves) were not embedded in the postmodern too. The result
is, then, that the theological product or content is a response to
cultural change - and in that sense is influenced by postmodern culture - but
is not an actually re-shaped theology, a theology that is itself interiorly
culturally changed so that it has itself become postmodern and is able to speak
credibly in the contemporary idiom.
A frequent characterisation of postmodernity
is that it is marked by an "incredulity towards metanarratives". The fact is, however, ours is an age
- the first, perhaps, and surprisingly (given the plurality of religions and
`ways') - that does agree on a grand narrative: natural science's
account of the universe's origins and unfolding.
People's
acceptance of the scientific explanation of the universe is common now,
a feature of our supposedly anti-grand narrative-times. Thus it is not so much
that the grand narrative has dropped from view as that religion is no longer a
place where it is being sought.
Now that
confidence in modernity has collapsed, space is opening up for discovery;
discovery of the values and life-purposes inherent in the ways particular
individuals, groups and communities seek to live and possibly, just possibly,
through such discovery, the discernment of contours for a larger (I shrink from
the word `meta') narrative that might gently put humpty-dumpty
together again: faith with reason, values and purposes with science's
account of reality.
It is a matter of
meeting, not demonising, the other, of letting the
other be and, indeed, of entering the world of the other. This movement is
against the self-centricity that has been noted by David Schindler to be a form
in liberal, secular culture, a form or logic or pattern of human living
that is built on the conventional understanding of "rights" that is
found in the American liberal tradition and that is opposed to the agapic, kenotic form of Christ's love. "The
crucified Christ is the sacrament of a God who renounces omnipotence in order
to `let us be'. This Christian image of God's humility and `letting be' can
also be our guide when we encounter other religions. We too can adopt an
attitude of letting them be. Indeed this is the model for all human
conversation". I agree. And I add : it will be
necessary for Irish theology to build on this model if its desire is not merely
to respond to postmodern culture but to speak intelligibly in its language.
James Corkery,
SJ lectures in Theology at the Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy.
IRISH
/ POSTMODERN LITERATURE : A CASE OF EITHER/OR ?
Brian Cosgrove
Postmodernism
interrogates traditional notions of truth, and, in Patricia Waugh's summary,
'tends to claim an abandonment of all metanarratives
which could legitimate foundations for truth'. The resort to fictionality derives, then, from a profound scepticism as to the availability of any assured truth.
Since there is no such privileged centre of meaning, the writer in a spirit of
ironic self-consciousness offers provisional fictions which s/he recognises as such.
[Marx-inspired
critic Terry] Eagleton, while accepting that a 'whole
traditional ideology of representation is in crisis', has castigated
postmodernism for 'the apocalyptic error of believing that the discrediting of
this particular representational ideology is the death of truth itself'.
Yet one need not
be a Marxist to be offended by those glib formulations by which some
postmodernists attempt to screen out all socio-political reference. When, for
example, Alan Wilde endorses the willingness of postmodern irony 'to tolerate,
and, in some cases, to welcome a world seen as...absurd', there is an irrestible urge to highlight the moral vacuity of such a
comment by referring such comments to a political situation - say, Rwanda or
Kosovo - where 'tolerance' is exactly what is not appropriate or
justifiable, even if the horrific events invite the epither
'absurd'.
If in the
previous [sentence] you replace '
One of the major
dramas in [Seamus Heaney's] work over the past two
decades concerns the writer's obligation to respond to the pressure of
political actuality while holding on to a sense of imaginative autonomy. Not
surprisingly, Heaney is largely dismissive of `the irony and self-knowing
tactics' of postmodern poetic art; and the express hope is rather that `poetry
can break through the glissando of post-modernism and get stuck in the mud of
real imaginative haulage work'.
Far from
celebrating fictionality at the expense of truth (as
a postmodernist might insist), [Eavan] Boland's
critique of the mythic involves her in an earnest endeavour
to move beyond the fictive. Women can be released from mythic iconicity only
when 'the high-minded search for euphony' and 'the midnight rhetoric of poesie' yield to the kind of poetic utterance the
mythically fictionalised women themselves ask for : Make
us human / in cadences of change and mortal pain / and words we can grow old
and die in. One possible candidate for the label 'postmodernist' might be Roddy Doyle. [However, his] neutrality of description
betokens not so much an absence of ulterior meaning as a suspension or
bracketing of any such quest: neither in the characters nor in the text is
there a sense of cognitive urgency since there is, it appears, no narrative
pattern in either the individual or collective life. Yet a work like Paddy
Clarke Ha Ha Ha is
curiously haunted by a sense of absence: the disappearance of a once-stable
order in the protagonist's domestic situation (with the separation of his
parents) generates a nostalgic contrast between painful present and happier
past which achieves wider socio-cultural relevance.
If the society to
which [Irish playwrights like Brian Friel, Tom Murphy
and Frank McGuinness] respond is in some loose sense
'postmodern' (insofar as it is rapidly losing a reliance on foundational
certainties, and is open to the multiple influences and rapid changes
associated with consumerism and late capitalism), it is by no means certain
that their dramatic writing is equally deserving of the name. It might be said
that 'postmodern' society is perceived as a problem which the dramatist
seeks to address by attempting to establish (in spite of the
postmodernist insistence on the impossibility of a Kantian 'view from nowhere')
a perspective not fully implicated in the problematic.
There remains at
least one egregious candidate for the role of Irish postmodernist, John Banville. It is significant that Banville
appears to arrive at a possible postmodernism by screening out those insistent
Irish realities that would otherwise compromise a programme
of radical fictionality.
...Is it the
case, one wonders, that at this juncture (or, at least up until the recent
dramatic changes in the political situation in the North) a writer can be either
Irish or postmodernist, but not both? I have here ended on a binary
opposition which postmodernism itself might dismiss as suspect; yet, whatever
its shortcomings, that binary formula may indicate a real tension at the heart
of recent Irish writing.
Brian Cosgrove is Professor of
English at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
THE
UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Can human rights stand without natural law?
Sinead Duffy
Theories of
natural rights have been criticised vehemently since
the Enlightenment. This criticism was not simply part of the secularisation that the Enlightenment represented. Natural
rights theory had ostensibly been secularised since
the early 1600s with the system of positive law developed by Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius. It was in this secular tradition that Hobbes and
Locke developed their theories of natural rights.
Secular natural
law had jettisoned the claims of a universality based on the universality of
God's law, but still maintained a quasi-divine notion of an absolute and transhistorical truth. The nineteenth century saw a
criticism of the rights born of this idea. Jeremy Bentham
held that "there are no such things as natural rights - no such things as
rights anterior to the establishment of the government". Natural rights
relied on an essentialism - the belief that man
possesses some crucial human attribute that elevates him above all other
animals, a specific human faculty: man's inherent rationality.
[But] while
espousing universal norms, the natural rights tradition was by its very nature
socially determined and exclusionary - for example it was an objective fact
that Blacks and women had not been endowed with the same capacity to reason as
men, and so these 'universal' rights did not extend to them.
Not only are the
bearers of rights dependent on recognition for their [being accorded] those
rights, but the rights themselves are totally contingent on socio-political
factors. The 'inherent rights' of natural law were conceived of only in terms
of what are today known as negative rights - that is, rights that
require the state not to intervene. Today, there is some recognition of positive
rights - that is, rights that require state intervention for their
implementation.
Another factor
that undermines the natural rights theory of inherent rights is that rights, by
their very nature, conflict. "To get any list of rights that we can take
seriously and live with without infringing, we must deny or severely limit
other worthy candidate-rights, ones some others can be counted on to be
proclaiming. Different groups make different trade-offs among the candidates
for universal rights". (Anette Baier).
Unfortunately the
nineteenth century historicism has not had as much influence on the human
rights culture as the Kantian legacy. There remains an implicit belief in the
possibility of a universal rationality. The danger in this view cannot be
exaggerated. The possible conclusions one can reach from this perspective
include that of viewing our western liberal human rights culture as a template
for the rest of the planet and, perhaps worse, a belief that our `truth' would
be as obvious to everyone if they were as intellectually advanced as we are.
The justification
for the human rights project is not born of a faith that the rights it calls
for reflect a predetermined and objective truth. Human rights are not the only
or even an adequate means of addressing global injustice. But it is one way and
it has had its successes. Criticisms of the regime are essential to its progress
and as such I welcome [David] Quinn's critique [in Studies].
Universality is not a state we have achieved or are ever likely to achieve but
rather a concept to keep us constantly mindful of those excluded by our current
rights culture. "The shift from `natural rights' to `human rights' marks a
loss of faith in our ability to justify rights on the basis of truths about
human nature. To call them human rights is now to characterise
the scope of the claims being made" (Jeremy Waldron). "There is a
growing willingness to neglect the question 'What is our nature?' and to
substitute the question 'What can we make of ourselves ?'"
(Richard Rorty).
Sinead
Duffy has just completed a European Masters in Human Rights and Democratisation and is currently working with Goal in
SURVIVE
OR THRIVE ? A Theology of Flourishing for the next
Millennium
Mary Grey
At the recent
opening of the Bluewater Shopping Centre in
We speak of
cyclic time, the time of endless return of the same, in a negative way
contrasted with the rebirth of nature, and our own living out of the rhythm of
birth and death in a positive way. It can be no coincidence that the Victorian
era invented the idea that woman, "The Angel in the House", had no
share in public time - her domestic role trivialised
in the time constructs of modernity. Women in these gender dualisms represent
place, space, Mother Earth and not time. In this culture/nature split, culture
has lost touch with time rooted in place. Yet, thankfully, I know that
alongside the fever and fret of daily routine, mythic time lures us into a
different experience, inviting us to step into the narratives of beginnings and
endings. And in terms of Christian faith, the event of incarnation represents
the decisive nodal point of time.
[We must] attend
to time, to the here and now, to the rediscovery of nature's rhythms and to the
sacredness of ordinary life. [We must also] build a spirituality of
resistance to the destructive systems that destroy our hope. The heart of a
spirituality of resistance [is] prophecy. And prophecy, if it is to be earthed
or embodied, has three principal ingredients - critique, vision and lament - as
well as six others: anger, compassion, remembering, imagining, ritual and
storytelling.
I begin with a
very practical, earthed dream of flourishing: true peace, food in plenty,
celebration, bodily integrity - within a situation of renewed and restored
relation. Something to be celebrated as a this-worldly reality - not endlessly
deferred to eternal bliss.
"Flourishing"
means all that is life-giving for people, earth, and earth creatures
together. It evokes ideas of "blossoming" - over and above
concepts of equity, equality and basic human rights. "Flourishing"
offers another starting point for Liberation Theology - beyond dichotomising language of oppressor and victim : everyone
wants to flourish!, the word touches the roots of our desire and yearning;
it suggests coming into flower, blossoming. The term "thriving" when
applied to a baby's growth refers to a quality of both physical and emotional
care. (Hence the title of this article). There springs
to mind the Isaian messianic feast, and the prophetic
agenda for restoring the streets - again depicted by the Book of Revelation, in
the sparkling vision of the new Jerusalem, where the
leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations (Rev.22).
Formal
theological education takes place in the context of a fin-de-siecle time of apocalypse, where society sees
"flourishing" as the accumulation of wealth, idolatry of money; where
the cult of beauty ("the body beautiful") is attained and maintained
by various addictions (drugs/drink/money/sex/power), where nobility of spirit is
crushed by the prevalence of trivia. (The domination of trivia is exemplified
by the unending string of soap-operas, and our appetite for trivia is whetted
by the sound-bite - which is both diminishing our ability to concentrate and
also focussing our attention on acquiring and
spending). I suggest some key directions:
(1) Since global
capitalism depends for its success on hi-jacking our desire, it is on the re-education
of desire that theological education should concentrate.
(2) Let us
recover the positive dimensions of eros, such
as self-esteem, and let us image the self-in-relation, the gendered self in all
its positive connections, as a focus for faith. Feminist Theology has a
language for eros where erotic energy means a
life-giving, vitalising flow, transforming a
broken-hearted world.
(3) We need to recognise that the core of much addictive behaviour comes from a profound disconnection from the
natural - needing to be remedied by education. Christianity has an ancient
sacramental tradition. We can recover the sacramental practices of ordinary
life, the practices of flourishing which reveal life as sacred and put them at
the heart of the process.
(4) There is
plenty [in our revelation-texts] about the flourishing of the most vulnerable
people, and the privileging of the poorest in the
(5) A theology of
flourishing is sustained by a cultural imagery, fostering all that is
life-giving. Here is found the initiative of the Spirit of Life - giving breath
and energy to the entire creation.
Mary
Grey is Scholar-in-Residence at
TRIVIALISING
THE SACRED
In places such as
the
Occasions which
would have been once seen as too sacred to allow the intrusive presence of
media, are now set up to facilitate the needs of the media. [The radio
commentator at the 1937 Coronation in Westminster Abbey] had to switch to
another church for sacred music as the newly crowned King received communion,
because it was considered too sacred a moment to intrude upon. One only has to
contrast this with the near media razzmatazz of Diana's funeral, which even
featured applause from the crowd at one point.
Meyrowitz examines what he calls
the great leader phenomenon in relation to American presidents. He
believes that the great leader mythology can only be sustained if
distance can be maintained from the majority, if a leader is allowed to
maintain mystique. Television bulldozes that distance away. We see our leaders
sweat, fumble and doze. One of the most important effects of this levelling effect is the undermining of the notion of
authority.
Another
consequence of the levelling effect of mass media
that militates against religious faith is that everything is reduced to the
banality of a sound-bite. Neil Postman [says that] the jumbling of everything
together and the treatment of all issues with the same degree of respect (or
rather disrespect) ultimately renders everything trivial. It is Postman's
thesis that television is an inescapably trivial medium, best suited to entertainment.
Meyrowitz would concur, but he would also say the
effect leaches out into every aspect of our lives, rendering everything and
everyone small enough, metaphorically speaking, to fit on a screen. The decay
of reverence, of introspection, is in no small way due to the all-pervasive
influence of television.
The intrusion of
television into every aspect of our lives also smashes the boundaries between
the sacred and the profane. The levelling effect of
media where everyone's opinion is just as valuable as the next is one which
does not transfer easily to the world of spirituality. Or rather it does, but
something is lost when the great traditions of the world religions become just
somewhere to loot for spiritual soothers. To really find God everywhere, one
first has to find God somewhere. It is just too easy to deceive oneself that one is being authentically spiritual, if the
yardstick of a living tradition is not present. "If I am living within an
authentic Christian community I will be challenged when I am deceiving myself.
If I am supermarket shopping among the great world religions and picking what
suits me, there is no one to call me to account, or to
care for me". (Eamonn Conway).
What do we as
Christians enshrine at the heart of our beliefs, Christ or the New Age ? If it is the latter, why do we go on calling ourselves
Christian ? And if it is the former, why, oh why, are
we so uninspiring ? The sacred is often trivialised within so-called orthodox Catholicism because
we do not make the effort to make our worship beautiful and profound. The
various "new movements" within the church such as Sant'
Egidio and Focolare offer a
sign of hope so long as they do not become mini-churches within the church.
Many of these movements are the only encounter people have with the idea that
Christianity is something which we live together. This is sad, because some
people are in danger of never receiving the comfort and challenge of a real
religious faith. What we really need is the courage to be out of step, to be
politely mocked by the post-moderns for claiming that one can attain to truths
which are not purely subjective. We need to see how community can be
constructed in a shattered, frazzled, urban world of gridlock and escalating
house prices and parents who desperately juggle work and child-rearing.
CHANGING IMAGE OF IRISH SPIRITUALITY.
The Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart.
1888 - 1988.
Terence
J. Fay, S.J.
The Irish
Messenger of the Sacred Heart from its beginning was a strong ally of the Irish
bishops in their struggle to sacralize their
communities and to protect them from secularization.
The Jesuits
around the world sponsored the Messengers of the Sacred Heart. Each
national Messenger was individually composed and edited, with the common
ground among them being the promotion of the papal monthly intention of the
Apostleship of Prayer and the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
[Father James
Cullen, founding editor from 1888 to 1904,] had a practical mind, and he
selected articles to meet the needs of his readers and their families. He knew
that many Catholics lived in dishevelled homes in the
countryside and needed assistance to make them habitable and healthy. He
believed that family life could be enriched by regular attendance at church,
making the nine first Fridays, consecrating the home to the Sacred Heart, and
saying the daily rosary. When he handed the editorship to his successor, The
Irish Messenger rejoiced in the character of a popular magazine and its
circulation was 73,000.
Joseph McDonnell
[editor 1904 - 1928] immediately adjusted the magazine to the new needs of its
readers. Analysing the signs of the time at the turn
of the century, he perceived the popularity of the national struggle against
the British government. An Irish clerical-nationalist alliance hoped to gain
control over education, land and governance. The magazine spoke of the
importance of intensifying industry, agriculture and fishing to provide
employment and careers for the youth. This new dynamic, it was hoped, would
persuade young people to remain at home. Writers advocated policies that would
avoid both emigration to foreign lands and commerce
with unbelieving peoples. The Catholic Church would be reinvigorated by the
youth at home fully employed. Ultimately, a strong church could only be built
with crowded parishes and numerous laity. McDonnell launched a series of
articles on improvement in agriculture and industry. Seeing the supplies of
flax dwindle at the advent of the Great War when they might have increased, the
author encouraged the peacetime expansion of the Irish flax crop to let the
south benefit from the needs of the northern mills and the rising prices they
were paying. The Irish Messenger offered other suggestions such as
expanding the sugar beet and fishing industries.
[When Charles Scantlebury - editor from 1930 to 1962 - took over the
magazine was] publishing 250,000 copies. [It] appeared to be very successful
but locked itself into static piety. It represented the best of Catholic
devotion but with sectarian narrowness. Its spirituality was romantic but at
this point it lacked appeal to the better educated. The Messenger
manifested all the marks of success as it served the traditional goals of the Tridentine Irish church. Instructional articles presented
traditional Catholic catechesis, informational articles were intended to imbue
readers with Irish identity and culture and mould them in a pious and scholarly
Christian tradition. Reader responses to the magazine reflected an interactive
emphasis.
Paul Leonard
[editor 1962 - 1989] directed the renewed Messenger that included
articles more firmly based on contemporary theology, history, scripture and
Irish culture. Professional writers like Bernard Bassett and Paul Andrews were
called upon to enrich the content for readers who were now secondary school and
post-secondary graduates and openly critical of traditional devotional
material. Articles progressed from devotional maaterials
urging temperance, self-sacrifice and the do's-and-don't's
of the moral life to discussions on current Irish culture, Christian
literature, and personal relationships. The reconstructed magazine avoided
giving attention to the sentimentality of excessive devotions, unusual miracles,
and Marian visionaries. It sought to disseminate the fresh theology of the
Second Vatican Council. The controlled cover transition in the late 'sixties
and early 'seventies revealed how carefully the magazine proceeded and how
determined it was to change from the pre-Vatican II format to a contemporary
format. The devotional content of the new theology and new scripture, the
visual images and colour displays renewed the thought
and expression of the magazine. The refurbished design - and its circulation of
140,000 - allowed it to go beyond the traditional formulas to communicate a conciliar vision of international peace, interfaith
ecumenism and respect for the rights of all people.
Terence J Fay, SJ lectures in
Church History at St Augustines Seminary, Toronto,
The
Development of the theme of Hope and Resurrection
in the late work of Richard J. King
Ruth Sheehy
Many of the
paintings exhibited in l948 are concerned with the theme of the suffering
Christ. These pictures show his debt to Rouault in
their stark light and dark contrasts and expressionism. [King's] art during the
1940s and 50s was also affected by the emphasis on the sacrificial nature of
Christ's passion and death on
However in the
late 1950s and even more in the 1960s, King developed a deeper interest in the
Scriptures and theology which produced a greater integrity, a stronger
meditative quality and a more intellectual dimension to his handling of
religious symbolism. He was in his own way a theologian as well as an artist.
During this time, he read the works of the French theologian Teilhard de Chardin whose
spiritual vision was especially centred on
eschatological hope in the risen Christ and on the evolution of the universe.
This is demonstrated by a greater sense of hope which permeated his treatment
of religious subjects from the middle 1960s to the early 1970s. It was
expressed in themes such as the Incarnation, the Cross and Resurrection, the
Holy Spirit, the Eucharist, the Book of Revelation and the eschatological
nature of the Christ-event. The depiction of these subjects in his liturgical
commissions during this period also reflected the theology of Vatican II.
The way in which
darkness gradually yields to and is overcome by light signifies the
predominance of hope and the power of resurrection, with the tragic dimension
of Christ's death already in the process of being transformed and transfigured.
It also demonstrates that the glorified Cross became a major theological symbol
in King's work during this period where it appeared frequently. A quality of
transcendence pervades his best work and there are times when the power and
originality of his religious interpretation suggest that he was in some way
inspired. A highly original vision of Pentecost shows the impressive and
slightly austere figures of Mary and the apostles surrounded by a large circle
of red in which there are tongues of fire. This expressionistic handling of colour combined with abstract shapes evokes their
experience of being enveloped by the love and energy of the Holy Spirit. It
also reflects the greater importance which the theology of Vatican II placed on
the eschatological action of the Holy Spirit in the world and its creation.
Although the
subject of the resurrection was specifically commissioned for [the Newport, Co.
Mayo 1973] window, it is nonetheless clear from the transfigured quality of
Christ's appearance and the radiance as well as gravitas of his demeanour, that
the artist himself believed in the importance of this particular subject. As
his career developed, King's most authentic spiritual voice is to be found in
his representations of the joyful element of Christianity. His late depictions
of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Resurrection,
the Ascension, the Eucharist and Pentecost show how hope
and transcendence mediated through the skilled blend of style and technique are
ultimately transformative.
Ruth Sheehy
is an art historian and works as Slide Librarian in the Dept of the History of
Art at Trinity College,
'A
MUZZLE MADE IN
Lis Pihl.
Signe Toksvig
and [her Irish husband,] Francis Hackett did not appear in the roles of
innocents abroad when they settled in
"The dull
and dreary life for young country girls is linked to the main reason for
emigration: the cruel poverty in the enormous families...The priest, actual
whip in hand, still walks the lanes at night on the hunt for those committing
the grievous sine of `company-keeping'...I think the priests would do better to
set up free birth control clinics than to be doing this futile police
work!"
A warm,
long-lasting friendship with the Solomonses enabled
her to become further acquainted with hospital life at the Rotunda, the
Eve's Doctor was widely reviewed and on
the whole favourable received in
It is suggestive
that the presumably complete bibliography in [Ben Kiely's]
Banned In Ireland lists only two Irish-published
contributions on censorship from the thirties: one is by 0'Faolain...The other
contribution is Hackett's trenchant assault, `A Muzzle Made In Ireland',
written soon after the banning of his [own] book.
Lis Phil edited "Signe
Toksvig's Irish Diaries 1929-1937".