When my sister brought her tall English boyfriend home from Liverpool and into the local pub while the Troubles were still lurching on, he attracted attention. When someone at the bar remarked to him ‘No surrender’, he sensed it was meaningful but had no idea what the response was meant to be. ‘Cheers,’ he said.
For the winter issue of the Dublin Review, we asked Irish writers to reflect on their relationships to the people and/or culture and/or geography of England, that Brexit-shadowed land. The diversity and vivacity of the essays that came in – from Brian Dillon, Naoise Dolan, Anne Enright, Patrick Freyne, Sinéad Gleeson, Selina Guinness, Roisin Kiberd and Susan McKay – suggests that the connection between England and Ireland is and will remain deep, complex and defining, no matter how horrible Brexit ends up being for Ireland, or how profoundly it poisons the well of Anglo-Irish relations.
Also in the winter issue, Louise East tells the remarkable story of her ill-fated obsession with a little holiday home – a datscha – near the banks of the river Spree in Brandenburg. Darragh McCausland writes with heartbreaking honesty and intensity about his experience of bulimia. Nicola White accompanies scientists to the Orkney Islands to study fulmars. And short stories by Niamh Campbell and Georgina Parfitt.
From the Archive
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