Causes for Concern: Irish Politics, Culture and Society - Hardcover

Higgins, Michael D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1905483090 ISBN 13: 9781905483099

Publisher: Liberties Press, 2014

Synopsis

Causes for Concern collects some of Michael D Higgins's best and most insightful writing on Irish society, culture, human rights and the larger context of Ireland in Europe and the wider world. While four of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation were poets, you would be hard pressed to find the same number in today's Dáil chamber. A man who fits the bill as poet and politician is Michael D. Higgins, perhaps one of the few public representatives today who enjoys widespread respect across all political hues. Causes for Concern covers some aspects of Michael D's early personal history, Irish politics, culture and broadcasting, global politics, and the human condition. Drawing on material produced over more than forty years, Michael D Higgins discusses the Irish political system, the role of the Left, Nicaragua and South American politics, Irish film, his own personal journey and the issue of human rights and the best ways to protect them. In the extensive section on Ireland and the Global Community there are pieces on Turkey, Iraq, Somalia and Lebanon amongst others, which are sure to be of interest to any observer of international relations and Ireland's role therein. The book features an extensive foreword by commentator and writer Declan Kiberd.

About this title

Review:

The flowing prose, the literary allusion, the evident siding with the marginalised and the presentation of ideas from an international Left position that are characteristic of all the work in this splendid Liberties Press collection. --Verbal Magazine

...a unique critique of pervading ideologies and contradictions, as it combines a socio-political appraisal of the present with a personal vision of what the future can be. --Irish Book Review

About the Author:

Michael D. Higgins was born in Limerick and moved to County Clare when he was five. He studied at University College Galway, Indiana University and Manchester University. He has worked as statutory lecturer in Political Science and Sociology at University College Galway and was Visiting Professor at the University of Southern Illinois. He has served in the Dáil for more than twenty years. In 1993 he joined the Cabinet as Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. He is currently Labour Party President and Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs. Higgins has campaigned for human rights and written about conflict in many parts of the world. He became the first recipient of the Seán MacBride Peace Prize of the International Peace Bureau in Helsinki in 1992. He is also a poet, author and broadcaster: he wrote and presented a television film on Montserrat, 'The Other Emerald Isle'. He also presented a documentary on the life of Dr Noel Browne for RTÉ, 'Dr Browne Also Spoke', and he has had three volumes of poems published, including, most recently, 'An Arid Season'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Liberties Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1905483090
• ISBN 13: 9781905483099
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 340