International – Page 2 – For the fainthearted . . .

Ledwidge and Evans

Visiting Ypres last month, the list of places to be visited included Artillery Wood cemetery.

It is a location that blends into the agricultural land around. Down a side road, it is a place of tranquility. There is nothing to disturb the wandering among the lines of white headstones.

Ledwidge and Evans lie near each other: Francis Ledwidge, a labourer from Co Meath, and Humprey Ellis Evans “Hedd Wyn” (Blessed Peace), a farmer’s son from Merionydd.

On 31st July 1917, Ledwidge was one of a group of men detailed to …

Dostoevsky’s anticipation of the world of TikTok

In his 1872 novel Devils Fyodor Dostoevsky describes the gathering of a group of intellectual and affluent potential revolutionaries for an evening of discussion.

The meeting takes place in the salon of a large house in a provincial town far from Saint Petersburg. There is an atmosphere of risk, but also of excitement. Some of those in the room are devout, some of them are atheist; some of them are financially-independent individuals, others are army officers; some of them are ageing sceptics, others are young zealots some in the room …

VE Day was not the end

‘VE Day was not the end of the war,’ led one article today.

Indeed, it was not, the war in Asia continued. It was not even the end of the violence in Europe. Across Europe, hundreds of thousands more people were to die. In some cases, perhaps the killings would be seen as a just punishment for the atrocities those killed had committed. In other cases, the cold-blooded slaughter of men, women and children was a further war crime to add to the litany of those already committed.

In France, …

May Day Revolutionaries

The unrest in Paris reported on the evening news is nothing new, it would perhaps be more newsworthy if Paris were to be passive on May Day.

It is some seven years since I was last in Paris, it was May Day and there was a thought that Sean O’Casey might have found inspiration for The Plough and the Stars character the Young Covey among those gathered in the Place de la Bastille on that May Day morning.

In a Dublin bar with Rosie Redmond and a barman, the Young …

Thomas’ anniversary

Second Lieutenant Edward Thomas of the Artists’ Rifles died at the Battle of Arras 106 years ago today.

The account of his death said that on Easter Monday, 9th April 1917, a shell had passed close by to him. His body was said to have been unmarked, but the shock was said to have killed him. The truth of the story seems to have been more prosaic.

Edward Thomas’ poem Adlestrop must be one of the most evocative in the English language.

Yes, I remember Adlestrop —
the name, because

…

Billions for the rich

‘SVB shows that there are few libertarians in a financial foxhole,’ says the headline in the Financial Times. A comment piece in the newspaper says that, ‘like banking titans in 2008, tech tycoons favour the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of losses’.

Where are the champions of free market capitalism when another banking crisis threatens to devour billions? Interventions by governments to save banks were meant to be the antithesis of the late 20th Century capitalism of the late Milton Friedman and the neo-liberals.

Friedman was the patron …