SOURCE: Moynahan, Julian. “A Modern Master.” New Republic 183, no. 22 (29 November 1980): 40-3.

In the following laudatory review of The State of Ireland, Moynahan contends that “this richly varied and beautifully produced collection puts Benedict Kiely in the front rank of modern short-story writers.”

This richly varied and beautifully produced collection [The State of Ireland] puts Benedict Kiely in the front rank of modern short-story writers. While he follows from such Irish masters as Moore and Joyce, O'Connor and O'Faolain, the temper and manner of this northern Irishman's writing are very different from his predecessors'. Though once destined for the priesthood, Kiely secularized his outlook so thoroughly that he can express a fascination for women and their lives and a guiltless pleasure in the attractions of sex that are never undercut by any note of damp Jansenist remorse. His sense of society is democratic and complicated, reflecting the experience of...