The Irish literary magazine, The Stinging Fly, has released a special edition for the centenary of the 1916 Rising. It features short stories, essays and poetry from famous and less well-known Irish authors. If you’re expecting flag-waving nationalism, you’ll be disappointed — some pieces are directly related to the Rising, others are only tangentially so, or explore the impacts of 1916.
They cover topics such as selfishness and ennui, sexual assault, romance, sectarian violence, and the moment of death. Like any collection, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. There’s good and bad contributions from both Ireland’s literary greats and lesser lights — some will render you speechless with their beauty, others will have you heading back to the table of contents to find something else. However as a snapshot of Irish literary talent one hundred years on, this is hard to beat.
_Anne Sexton