Republic of Ireland

Around this time of year, people in all parts of the world have celebrated the Celtic festival known as Halloween. The reason I chose this topic was my fascination of the holiday, dressing up as the supernatural, carving Jack-o-Lanterns, and trick or treating. I have always wondered how Halloween became such became such a popular holiday. The origins of Halloween can be traced back to the pre-Christian festival of the dead, also known as Samhain. This ties to the theme of Religion since it was…

There are several parallels between the eviction of renters in the Ireland by the rich landlords and the dispersion of people from New Orleans after Katrina. Some of the major ones include the exploitation for profit and the turning of a blind eye by government officials. During the Irish Potato famine, wealthy landlords would routinely kick out tenants without notice. To prevent them from returning, they would sometimes tear down or even burn down their homes. This was done to gain economically…

William Butler Yeats was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century; his works were inspiring and embraced a culture lost with the changing of times in Ireland. Yeats was born in the spring of 1865, to John Butler Yates and Susan Mary Pollexfen, during the time of the protestant ascendancy in Ireland; he was the oldest one of his three siblings. His father John, dissatisfied with his current standings, dropped out from law school to pursue a career as a painter and became a well…

moved from place to place. He spent the time of his childhood in County Sligo. In 1876, he moved with his father to London to pursue his father's career in art. WB Yeats moved back to Dublin and was educated there. He spent his summer in the west of Ireland in the family's summer house at Connaught. In 1917 Yeats, bought the Thoor Ballyle near Coole Park. He restored the Thoor Ballyle and he made it into his summer home. “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our sense to…

this satirical proposal is to shock the English into seeing how oppressive they are, in order to bring about change in Ireland. The critical tone of Swift’s writing leads me to believe that this article is intended namely for the English, who he hopes will consider change after reading his article. Swift opens his essay by briefly discussing the situation and the problems in Ireland. Swift then begins to introduce his plan of selling off Irish babies to the wealthy English, speaking of the…

Bunnies of the Pillar Lights One day, three big greedy bunnies visited a house backyard with a big bag in hand looking for food to eat. They would always seek for carrots but never was able to find any. Then they came across a hole with a family of carrots hiding inside of it. The bunnies decided to take the carrots back home with them, keeping them hostage as bait. The next day all of the carrots were hidden again, now day by day the bunnies would find a carrot and take them home. They thought…

burdens for the people of Ireland. His plan was quite simple. Fatten, sell, and devour the young. Although Jonathan Swift’s writings were misinterpreted and found controversial “I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration…that the remaining hundred thousand may at a year old be offered in sale… (233), it was this type of irony or indirect contradiction that he obviously felt was needed to capture his reader’s attention. The grimness of the condition Ireland had allowed…

I think everyone has a place where they can always go to. A place where they can call home. The warmth and the comfortability of it makes you never want to leave. With the nurturing suffocations from childhood memories always remaining etched in the back of your mind. My definition of a home can be quite different than most. Whereas, my home is not something physical, but purely psychological. The road to a physical home may also have various curves and streets that you have to cross in order to…

In Jonathan Swift`s A Modest Proposal, Swift expresses his soaring agitation with Ireland`s political leaders, the hypocrisy of the affluent, the despotism of the English, and the squalor in which he catches so many of his people living. Swift uses logos, visual imagery, and a desperate, satirical and serious tone to convey his thoughts. He demonstrates that a nation`s most significant problem can come from oppression in hopes that not only outsiders but that other Irish people will stand up and…

Swift’s use of satire is what truly makes his message so powerful. I can imagine that there were many do-gooders at the time breathlessly trying to convince the greedy British government that they need to act at solving the humanitarian crisis in Ireland, but that none likely got quite as much airtime as Swift’s outlandish essay. Through satire he must have shocked the upper class into realizing how guilty they are of indifference towards the starving Irish. First, his matter-of-fact tone and…