Machnamh is an Irish word meaning reflection, meditation and contemplation, a fitting word to describe Michael D Higgin’s musings on imperialism in today’s Guardian. Imperialism, as in the English kind, in Ireland. Interesting and timely to see it there. He talks of “a hospitality of narratives”, a term Irish philosopher Richard Kearney uses to acknowledge that different, informed perspectives on the same events can co-exist.
I explore this issue – imperialism – in Language Games, my third novel, to work through my own machnamh on baffling Brexit issues. Such as, how was Brexit actually possible? This is the one of the most interesting aspects of living abroad – the ability to engage in home issues with the perspective afforded by distance. Having grown up in Heaney’s “Whatever you say, say nothing” north of Ireland, and having lived in Dublin and in England for long periods of time, I feel uniquely placed to do so, now, from Sicily (which poses its own unique set of questions, to be explored in Book Number 4)…
Bronagh Slevin 