Writings from the margins

by reestheskin on 28/11/2019

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I was back in Dublin a few weeks ago for a family celebration. Then last night — on C4 I think— I was listening to an interview with Fintan O’Toole. Something stirred and below are two quotes from Brian Friel: the context may be Brexit, the reality is something much more.

As a character in Translations says, describing his own fading Gaelic world, “a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of fact”.

 

To remember everything is a form of madness,” warns one of Friel’s characters.

(1) Brexit, the UK and Ireland: a dialogue of the deaf | Financial Times