For years, life remained equally bleak in the countryside, where Edna O'Brien's lusty portraits of people trapped in bucolic hell were not exactly fodder for the Irish Tourist Board. A nation of poets Today the Irish are as well-traveled as anyone, and if they leave home at all, they are more likely to be commuters than emigrants. Gone are the days of the sulky existentialists. Gone are the black clouds. Ireland is booming.
Poetry collections top the best-seller list here.
A recent minister for arts and culture, Michael D. Higgins, was himself a poet. Perhaps Brendan Kennelly is the prime exemplar of the respect poetry engenders in Ireland. True testament to his clout is the fact that Kennelly has never sat behind the wheel of a car in his life. He walks everywhere, and he is as readily recognized, and revered, as any sports figure. It's a well-oiled rumor that artists in Ireland are exempt from the mundane task of paying taxes.