Post by Administration on Mar 8, 2010 20:26:39 GMT
Occasions of Sin, By Diarmaid Ferriter
Reviewed by Patricia Craig
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/occasions-of-sin-by-diarmaid-ferriter-1796026.html
When the social reformer Josephine Butler paid a visit to Dublin in 1878, she appeared to be under the impression that the Irish nation was naturally more chaste and virtuous than others. This view would have gone down well with church and civic authorities, whose policy was to promote an idea of the Irish as spiritually well-endowed, and strongly resistant to "the tide of filth" seeping in from elsewhere.
We have to wait more than 60 years to get a truer assessment of the actual state of affairs prevailing in the 19th century and later. The Irish-born author and social commentator, Francis Hackett, writing in 1945, came out with a pertinent and witty observation: "About the problems of sex they pretend to be doves when in fact they are ostriches."
Reviewed by Patricia Craig
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/occasions-of-sin-by-diarmaid-ferriter-1796026.html
When the social reformer Josephine Butler paid a visit to Dublin in 1878, she appeared to be under the impression that the Irish nation was naturally more chaste and virtuous than others. This view would have gone down well with church and civic authorities, whose policy was to promote an idea of the Irish as spiritually well-endowed, and strongly resistant to "the tide of filth" seeping in from elsewhere.
We have to wait more than 60 years to get a truer assessment of the actual state of affairs prevailing in the 19th century and later. The Irish-born author and social commentator, Francis Hackett, writing in 1945, came out with a pertinent and witty observation: "About the problems of sex they pretend to be doves when in fact they are ostriches."