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Summer 2026
Welcome to the latest issue which includes Edna Longley on Seamus Heaney’s Collected Poems; Kevin Power on the Dunblane massacre; Luke Gibbons on the world of John McGahern; a new poem by James Harpur; Yvonne Galligan on Charlie Haughey and Garret Fitzgerald; Paul Seabright on wealth and empires; Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh on the genesis of Irish modernity; Carla King on politics and dirty hands; Julian Padraic Young on the alleged virtue of hope; Enda O’Doherty on the far-right in France; Patricia Thane on the rise of miserablism in Britain; Charlie Lynch on illicit love in modern Ireland; Ruth Harris revisits her award-winning study of Alfred Dreyfus in our Rereadings series; Eamon Maher on Proustian thoughts from Ireland; David O’Connor on Rob Doyle’s latest novel; and Brian S Campbell on reinventing the Italian Renaissance.
The next issue of the drb is due out in September and will feature a new poem by Vona Groarke, Ireland Professor of Poetry; Conor McCarthy on Stefan Collini’s Literature and Learning; and Wolfgang Streeck on the question of Europe’s future.
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In This Issue
When More is Less
This colossal volume of Heaney’s poems ‘almost disguises the fact that he is a poet by entombing his lyric in a mass of annotation, exegesis and “uncollected” poems’.
Messy versus Tidy
The shadow of Edward Gibbon and Adam Smith hangs over two contemporary efforts to explain what makes nations wealthy and what makes empires decline.
John McGahern’s World
The deliberate blurring of inside and outside is central to McGahern’s vision, the writer at once being absorbed in his surroundings and yet stepping back to articulate what goes without saying on the daily round.
Massacre in Dunblane
He never married, had no children, lived alone. He had few friends, and kept none for long. He ran a small DIY shop and was a keen photographer. He was also interested in guns.
Are we there yet?
Arthur Balfour’s remark on the Irish Free State, ‘What was the Ireland the Free State took over? It was the Ireland we made’; a verdict that contained more than a grain of truth. But it was not the whole story.
Rereadings 2: Dreyfus Returns
Ruth Harris reflects on her prize-winning study of the notorious Dreyfus case, 'The Man on Devil’s Island', and discovers new, fascinating parallels with our times.