‘The Troubles' and the peace process in Northern Irelanda in Seamus Heaney’s "The cure at Troy"

Based on Philoctetes, the tragic play by Sophocles, the poet Seamus Heaney creates his own version in The Cure at Troy to present the political and social problems in Northern Ireland during the period that became known euphemistically as ‘the Troubles’. This paper aims to highlight the significance of Heaney’s play in the final years of the conflict. Heaney uses the classical Greek play to bring to light the plight and suffering of the Northern Irish people as a consequence of the atavistic and sectarian violence between the unionist and nationalist communities. Nevertheless, Heaney also provides possible answers that allow readers to harbour a certain degree of hope towards peace and the future in Northern Ireland.

Imagination and Reality

This paper investigates how John Millington Synge uses the theme of imagination in his play The Playboy of the Western World to introduce a critical view of the construction of personal and national identities of those people, Irish people. It argues that the play juxtaposes two contradicted images of the construction of personal and national identities. On the one hand, the play satirizes the way that the villagers use their imagination to create their own hero to help them revive their primitive national identity. On the other hand, it emphasizes the importance of imagination in creating personal identity. The play questions the authenticity of the notion of national identity by depicting it as a human-made phenomenon, but at the same time it makes use of it by showing how imagination helps to change human life.

Where are the paediatric patients with testicular torsion during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Introduction The Irish people were put on lockdown in mid-March 2020 due to concern of the spread of coronavirus. With these societal changes came a notable reduction in emergency department attendance. Our aim was to analyse emergency urological procedures performed during the COVID-19 era versus the previous year. Methods A retrospective review of theatre logbooks was undertaken comparing numbers of emergency urological procedures performed between 1 March 2020 and 31 May 2020 (i.e. the COVID-19 era) with the corresponding 3-month period in 2019. Results A total of 173 cases were analysed between the two time periods. Similar overall numbers of cases were performed in 2019 (n = 90) and 2020 (n = 83). In particular, similar patient case numbers are also noted in both scrotal explorations (13 vs 9) and ureteric stone surgeries (69 vs 70). However, orchidectomies for testicular cancers were reduced by 63% (3/8). On further analysis of the scrotal exploration group, only 3 were performed in the period after lockdown regulations were instated. Conclusion Whilst patients with ureteric colic continue to present, those with acute testis pain requiring exploration attended less frequently, raising the possibility of undiagnosed testicular torsion in the community.

Irish Jacobites in Continental Europe at End of 17th — 18th Centuries

The problem of migration of the Irish military to the European continent in modern times is examined in the article. Particular attention is paid to their role, political attitudes and adaptation in host societies. The relevance of the study is due to insufficient knowledge of the specifics of the Irish military migration of the 18th century and the degree to which Jacobite ideology influenced the political mood of Irish people in Europe. The novelty of the study is seen in the fact that the study of the mass migration of the Irish military to Europe in the period between the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 and the end of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748 will complement the Irish military history of modern times. The study of personal correspondence, memoirs and literary works allows a deeper study of the issues of identity, ideology and collective memory of the Irish military, to determine the degree of participation of the Irish in various dynastic wars and conspiracies in Europe in the XVIII century, to restore some details from the life of the Irish Jacobites, conspirators, spies and social net-works migrants. Analysis of various sources has led to a rethinking of the situation of the Irish diaspora in France and Spain. It was found that through an extensive migration network, the Irish Jacobites communicated with the world community of Irish-in-exile, posing a threat to the Hanoverian government.

Composing Counter-Narratives in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

This chapter explains how denigration of all Irish people by apocalyptic authors, and the conquest that it legitimized, proved traumatic for all Irish people whether at home or in exile. Annalists despaired of the future but Irish authors from Gaelic and English ancestries who had found refuge in Catholic Europe took inspiration from Catholic histories they encountered there to compose histories in Latin, Irish, and English defending Ireland’s reputation, and arguing from history that foreign powers should sustain Ireland and Catholicism. Divisions emerged between authors, notably Philip O’Sullivan Beare, who advocated renewed warfare, and those, notably David Rothe and Geoffrey Keating, who wrote conciliatory narratives. These argued from history that Catholics of both ancestries in Ireland had been bonded by religion into a single nation, and that Catholics who still prevailed in Ireland should owe allegiance to the British monarchy.