It felt like a livelier affair than last year and all the events I attended were filled to capacity. Also, despite the erratic weather, Dalkey was en fete with crowded streets and bars and restaurants bursting at the seams.
But it’s all about the quality of the protagonists and apart from a stuttering start on the Thursday evening with Joseph O’Neill, there were many thought-provoking contributions and lively debate. On the opening night (12 June), O’Neill had a packed St. Patrick’s Church keen to hear from someone who is a bit of a rara avis on the festival circuit. His latest novel Godwin came out recently to mixed reviews, but many were keen to see the author of the marvellous Netherland. The evening never took off. Netherland was barely mentioned adn his non-fiction work Blood-dark Track about his family history wasn’t mentioned at all. This despite the fact that his two grandfathers (one Turkish and one Irish) were jailed by the British authorities – one in Palestine and the other in Ireland. Also, he had an uncle who was an active service IRA man in the North during the troubles. As the languid and relaxed O’Neill rarely moved beyond the bland, O’Shea continued to feed him irrelevant questions such as “what was it like to stay in the Chelsea Hotel”. O’Neill seemed bored and rarely sparkled – often pausing as he struggled to formulate responses. A damp squib.
John Banville is a hardy annual at these affairs and, although always worth a listen, his jaded sardonic shtick can become wearisome. I remember him declaring at a previous festival that his favourite book was the Catechism. However, his discussion with Neil Jordan about Roger Casement was a very animated affair with both men very well-informed in arriving at a consensus about the arc of Casement’s career. The audience included Bono and his entourage - including his good wife Ali. This event hosted by Caroline Erskine who had clearly done her homework and kept the debate on the rails. Both writers spoke glowingly about his heroic work in Africa and Peru exposing the atrocities around the rubber industry and were equally in agreement about the farcical nature of his engagement with the 1916 Rising. Both agreed with current historical thinking that the Black Diaries were genuine although Banville was struck by how boring they were. Having read extracts of them, I’d have to agree. Banville and Jordan had in the past tried to get a film made of Casement’s life but despite Banville writing a script, the deal fell through. Jordan, who was in fine form, felt a long-form TV series would best serve the project but saw no immediate prospect of that.
The other two events I attended featured James Shapiro the American Shakespearean scholar. In addition to being the definitive word on Shakespeare, Shapiro is a very engaged and articulate political commentator. In his appearance with Fintan O’Toole discussing Shakespeare in relation to American politics he told an amusing story about the disruption of a production of Julius Caesar (a depiction of another political character overreaching himself) in Central Park a number of years ago by a deranged woman who kept trying to interrupt the play. It tuns out that said woman was Trump’s number one supporter and advisor Laura Loomer. Shapiro and O’Toole had great fun looking at the many parallels between Shakeapeare’s work and the current state of the USA. Shapiro made the point that a large number of Shakespeare’s plays see rulers being punished for overreaching their authority.
Shapiro’s second appearance was more directly political in its focus – examining the parlous state of America under Trump. The panel, ably steered by Mark Little, featured Shapiro, Simon Kuper from the Financial Times, the impressively frizzy-haired and sleepy-eyed Paul Muldoon, and the always controversial Lionel Shriver. The debate was a lively one, made even more exciting by Shapiro’s evident antipathy towards Shriver. Her previous statements of some moral equivalence between the sins of the left (the Democrats) and Trump’s current excesses on the right sparked his wrath. Shriver backed off quickly from this position and made it clear that she was by no means a Trump supporter. But not before Shapiro had delivered a passionate assault on that position. Stirring stuff.
