Hiroshima: Eoghan O Tuairisc and World War II

In his poem "Blianta an Chogaidh" ("The War Years"), Mairt?n ? Dire?in (1910-1988) created an Ireland remarkably like that portrayed in Louis MacNe ice's poem "Neutrality." It is, in other words, remarkably dissimilar to the Ireland of Yeats's "The Statues." Like MacNeice, ? Dire?in pictures Emergency Ireland as a state of paralysis: "Is sinn ar thaobh an d?din / Den ph?in i den ph?is" ("And us on the sheltered side / of pain and passion"). Like Yeats, he recognizes the protection offered by a proper dark of native rhetoric: "f?l fil?ochta is arg?na" ("a wall of poetry and argument"). Unlike Yeats, ? Dire?in does not see the point in such a wall. Isolation is shown to be a barren, rather than productive, exercise: "Ni or chuireamar is ni or bhaimeamar" ("We neither sowed nor reaped"). For Yeats, Irishness was a pedestal above the filthy modern tide. For ? Dire?in it is a dam threatening to burst. Nior chuireamar is nior bhaineamar Is nior th?gamar f?l go hard, Ach f?l fil?ochta is arg?na, Idir sinn is an smaoineamh; Go rabhamar silte gan sinsear Go rabhamar gan gaisce gan gr? Gan aisce don fh?istin Ach scr?bhinn i gcomhad.1