SOURCE: Neary, Michael. “Whispered Presences in Seán O'Faoláin's Fiction.” Studies in Short Fiction 32 (winter 1995): 11-19.

In the following essay, Neary explores the ambiguities in O'Faoláin's depictions of the Irish psyche.

When Seán O'Faoláin describes “The Bell” as the name chosen for the journal of Irish literature he edited, he brushes aside the word “Bell” as unimportant. In the first issue he says, “Any other equally spare and hard and simple word would have done; any word with a minimum of associations” (5). Later he continues, “All our symbols have to be created afresh, and the only way to create a living symbol is to take a naked thing and clothe it with new life, new association, new meaning, and with all of the vigour of the life we live in the Here and Now” (5-6). He might just as well, in the editor's note...