SOURCE: "Cult of Blood," in The Observer Review, August 18, 1985, p. 18.

In the following review, O'Brien addresses certain nuances of Irish politics, nationalism, and revisionism examined in Celtic Revivals.

The modern writers examined in these essays [Celtic Revivals] are Joyce, Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, Patrick Pearse, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Brian Friel, Derek Mahon and Seamus Heaney.

At his best, and especially when contemporary politics don't come into play, Mr Deane is a very good critic. Most of his essays are illuminating in one way or another—though sometimes verging on the precious or the pompous, and sometimes going over the verge. Some pages are brilliant; some are profound; some are both (and a few are neither).

The essay on 'Joyce and Nationalism' is, I believe, the best thing that has been written on this subject. Mr Deane shows that what is often called 'Joyce's repudiation of Irish...