In Derek Mahon's poetry it is possible to see what can be made of the Irish urban and suburban experience…. [Mahon] has produced a small body of remarkable verse, developing out of a sense of the complex, aesthetically uninspiring tensions of Northern Protestant middle-class identity. Mahon has spoken of the difficulties of writing out of such a background, from a 'suburban situation which has no mythology or symbolism built into it'…. (p. 192)

In 'Glengormley' and 'As It Should Be' Mahon considers the implications of suburban existence in a country whose past has been heroic, dramatic, mythological. 'Glengormley' recognises the new heroism of suburban survival, contrasting it, a little too predictably, with Ulster's prehistoric titanism…. The tone throughout is ambivalent, suggesting only partial acquiescence in suburban order…. The quality of life has no doubt superficially improved … but the poem concludes with ironic deflation…. For Mahon is no eulogist of...