From the Back Cover

“Hubert Butler’s works warn that a debate about whether Ireland should become American or Swedish is missing a point — his point. Beware of enthusiasm for distant abstractions, at the cost of close and familiar details. Never mind America and Sweden: Ireland has not yet become Irish, until the alienation between majorities and minorities has been overcome in a new sense of community. There is a world to win. But there is also a family of neighbours down the road, and unfinished business with them. Hubert Butler enjoyed history’s poxy ironies. But not that Irish history should now repeat itself inside out: that one part of Ireland should again march away and sign up under the flag of some vaster identity — and leave the other part forgotten in the rain. Yes, there’s a threat to Ireland’s ‘unique identity’ — but it’s to the identity which has not yet been created.”

from “Unfinished Ireland: Hubert Butler’s Contemporary Relevance” by Neal Ascherson