It has become a commonplace observation in Irish studies that historians (notably Roy Foster) now move freely in the area of literary studies while literary critics (notably Terence Brown) produce important writing on history. Declan Kiberd is unquestionably one of the leading Irish literary critics of our time, notable not least because of the scope of his more recent work (Inventing Ireland [1995] and Irish Classics [2002]); this scope involves his willingness to venture into the dangerous mode of generalization. The Irish Writer and the World collects eighteen previously published essays from 1979 to 2003, plus a new introduction. One of the earliest essays, “Writers in Quarantine: The Case for Irish Studies?” (1979), argues, precisely, for dismantling the barriers between the various disciplines involved in Irish studies.

The essays are grouped, loosely, by topic rather than date, so that five deal with literary relations between the Irish and English languages. Three are concerned with nationalism in the postcolonial situation, while another four take a critical approach to contemporary Ireland's view and presentation of its own past. Three are discussions of the prosperous, urbanized, secular, and multiethnic Irish Republic of the present day. The remaining three essays are less easily classified, but the collection as a whole is united by Kiberd's political and cultural positions. A recurring concern is a reconsideration of Irish and English relations in literature, culture, and politics generally. Kiberd's stated aim is to dismantle binary oppositions in cultural and political thinking and to replace them with pluralist understandings. He defends what he refers to as “liberal nationalism” while attempting (yet again) to establish that this position does not involve being a supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

The title of the collection is accordingly rather misleading, as several of the pieces are concerned wholly or mainly with relationships within Ireland, and some of them, such as “The Celtic Tiger: A Cultural History” (2003), are by no means focused on writers and literature, while “Multiculturalism and Artistic Freedom: The Strange Death of Liberal Europe” (1993) gives only tangential attention to Irish writing. It is stated that some of the texts have been edited to remove repetitions. A number that remain could, with profit, have been edited out.

The essays printed earliest in the text, and with one exception, written earliest, on relations between the English and the Irish, are perhaps the most satisfying. As an undergraduate, Kiberd studied both Irish and English at Trinity College Dublin. His publishing career began with Synge and the Irish Language (1979), which is still the standard work on the subject. Few people are as well placed as he to deal with this area, one in which he moves with ease and authority.

While these pieces are not without iconoclastic elements, the essays placed later in the collection are generally more polemical and combative. A middle group, from 1996 to 2001, relate to the question of whether the Irish situation can best be understood by means of a postcolonial analysis. The debate has moved on to other topics, but Kiberd here makes unequivocally clear that he takes the side of the postcolonialists, while not necessarily endorsing all of their practices (“Introduction,” 15–17).

The collection as a whole does create an impression of Kiberd as one who sees many opponents but few allies in his world. His admiration for those among the living seems reserved mainly for a few writers, most of whom use the Irish language, and some non-Irish philosophers and scholars. Nevertheless, he rarely says anything directly negative about living individuals, perhaps out of a healthy respect for the laws of libel. Instead, the opponent being castigated is often referred to in collective and frequently vague terms, and this approach sometimes makes the argument hard to follow.

This is especially the case in “The Elephant of Revolutionary Forgetfulness” (1991), perhaps the least satisfactory piece in the collection. Here Kiberd's topic is the changes in commemorations of the Easter Rising since Independence and since the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969; his main contention is that the rebels did a good job and shouldn’t be blamed for the activities of the IRA in the late twentieth century. While many come in for Kiberd's criticism, Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), the Irish broadcasting organization, is particularly accused of pursuing a tendentious political line in its handling of the Rising and of the IRA through the activities of its “workerist media operatives” (193), notably in the 1980s. Presumably you would have had to be on hand at the time to recognize the target here and to know that there was a widespread belief that supporters of Official Sinn Féin (later the Workers’ Party) dominated RTÉ's news services for a period. Kiberd offers no evidence to support this contention; he merely asserts it.

This piece and its companion, “The War against the Past” (1988), also offer some examples of the dangers of generalization: “The rebels who walked into the Post Office were writers and artists, consciously literary in their demeanour” (200)—a description that certainly leaves out Michael Collins, who in fact is later said to have “found the theatricality too self-conscious for his pragmatic tastes” (202). The argumentation also appears (unintentionally, one assumes) to place Conor Cruise O’Brien, reinforcer of the “Broadcasting Ban” prohibiting interviews with Provisionals, in the ranks of the supporters of Official Sinn Féin. Such self-contradictions and inconsistencies are to be found in many places in the collection, but that is perhaps natural in a retrospective that has been only lightly edited.

The concluding essays, on multiculturalism and contemporary Irish conditions, are, again, rather more political than historical, although they offer a long and broad look, notably in the welcome piece “The Celtic Tiger: A Cultural History.” If Kiberd does not write pure history, his approach is almost always based upon a historical understanding, often a highly individual one that promotes new perspectives and invites reevaluations.