Abstract
In ‘Blood Relations’, a poem from his 2002 collection, Exemplary Damages, Dennis O’Driscoll references the ‘tribal fights and cattle raids’ of Ireland’s mythic past and calls on his contemporaries to ‘liquidate your / hate-bearing genes’.1 These lines combine the language of the capitalist system with the mythic past of cattle raids and the historical violence of the not-too-distant sectarian struggles. By merging these different systems of interpretation (capitalist, mythic, historical), O’Driscoll makes the structural violence of the capitalist system as apparent as the physical violence of the raids or Troubles.
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Notes
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© 2015 Amanda Sperry
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Sperry, A. (2015). Dennis O’Driscoll’s Beef with the Celtic Tiger. In: Kirkpatrick, K., Faragó, B. (eds) Animals in Irish Literature and Culture. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137434807_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137434807_4
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