SOURCE: Mullaney, Kathleen. “A Poetics of Silence: Derek Mahon ‘At One Remove.’” The Journal of Irish Literature 18, no. 3 (September 1989): 45-54.

In the following essay, Mullaney links Mahon's observations on silence to his relationship to the violence in Ireland. Mullaney reads silence as a representation of oppressed voices, as a commentary on the empty talk of political figures, and as an optimistic indication of the potential to return to peace.

This is at one remove, a substitute for final answers. … 

Derek Mahon, “Preface to a Love Poem”

In “Man and Bird,”¹ the second of four in his series entitled “Breton Walks,” Derek Mahon dolefully remarks the seemingly insurmountable reality of man's inability to participate fully in his natural environment. Implying that birds have good reason to avoid man's advances, he writes:

All fly away at my approach As they have done time out of mind And hide in the...