Life
1929- ; [Desmond Carolan Fennell], b. Belfast; ed UCD and Bonn; travelled
to Sweden, 1960, and was disappointed by its modern society; ed. Herder
Correspondence (1964-68); abandoned career in journalism
to settle at Maoinis, nr. Carna, Connemara, 1968, with wife and two sons,
in support of Iosrael an Iarchonnacnt campaign; wrote for An Phoblacht
as psuedo ‘Freeman’; lectured Political Science
and Modern European History, UCG, 1976-82; issued controversial pamphlet as The Heaney Phenomenon (1991); teaches College of Commerce
& communications, Rathgar, Dublin; established from his own publishing
house, Sanas; publishes new essays with Liffey Press as Cutting to
the Point (2003); moved to Italy. DIW FDA
[ top ]
Works
Mainly in Wonder (London: Hutchinson 1959); The British Problem:
A Radical Analysis of the Present British Troubles and of Possible Ways
of Ending Them (Dublin: Sceptick Press 1963), 32pp.; The State
of the Nation: Ireland Since the Sixties (Swords: [Poolbeg] 1983)
[infra]; The State of the Nation (1983);
Nice People but Rednecks: Ireland in the 1980s (1986); The
Revision of Irish Nationalism (1989); Beyond Nationalism (Swords
1985); ed. The Changing Face of Catholic Ireland, with a foreword
by Karl Rahner SJ (1968); Bloomsway; A Day in the Life of Dublin (Dublin:
Poolbeg Press 1990); Heresy: The Battle of Ideas in Modern Ireland
(Belfast: Blackstaff 1993), 289pp.; Uncertain Dawn: Hiroshima and The
Beginning of Post-Western Civilisation (Dublin: Sanas Press 1996),
198pp.; Dream of Oranges: An Eyewitness account of the fall of Communist
East Germany (Dublin [PO Box 4056 D4]: Sanas 1996), 161pp. See also
also ‘Nation of Navel-gazers?’ [letter to the editor], Books
Ireland (Nov. 1994), p.290; Heresy: The Battle of ideas in Modern
Ireland (Blackstaff 1993), 304pp.; The Post-Western Condition:
Between Chaos and Civilisation (London: Minerva Press 2000), 137pp.;
The Turning Point: My Sweden Year and After (Dublin: Sanas Press
2002), 223pp.; Cutting to the Point: Essays and Objections, 1994-2003
(Dublin: Liffey Press 2003), 288pp.;
Savvy and the Preaching of the Gospel (Dublin: Veritas [2003]), 38pp.
Miscellaneous, The Last Years of the Gaelteacht’, The Crane Bag: Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1981), rep. in The Crane Bag Book of Irish Studies, 1982, pp.839-42; ‘Choosing Our Self-image (The Problem of Irish Identity)’, in The Crane Bag, Vol. 7, No. 2 [The Forum Issue: Education, Religion, Arts, Psychology] (1983) pp.191-96; ‘Against Revisionism’, rep. in Ciaran Brady, Interpreting Irish History (IAP 1994) [c.p.186]; ‘The Heaney Phenomenon’ (1991), pamph. [also in The Irish Times, 30 March 1991), and ‘Nation of Navel-gazers?’ [letter to the editor], Books Ireland (Nov. 1994), p.290; ‘Our Fragile World: Post-Western Civilisation’, in Studies: An Irish Quarterly (Spring 1988).
Website: There is a Desmond Fennell web site at www.desmondfennell.com.
[ top ]
Criticism
Toner Quinn, ed., Desmond Fennell: His Life and Work (Dublin: Veritas),
169pp. [contribs. incl. Brian Arkins, intro.; Carrie Crowley, Bob Quinn,
John Waters, Mary Cullen, Joe Lee, Nollaig Ó Gadhra and Risteárd
Ó Glaisne].
Also Joseph McMinn, review of Heresy: The Battle of Ideas in Modern Ireland (Blackstaff 1993), 289pp., in Linenhall Review (Spring 1994).
John Kirkaldy, review of Cutting to the Point, in Books Ireland (April 2004), pp.84-85 [infra].
Brian Power, review of Savvy and the Preaching of the Gospel, in Books Ireland (Summer 2004), [ infra ].
J. H. Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (OUP 1991), p.138.
Seán de Fréine, The Great Silence: the Study of a Relationship Between Language and Nationality (Cork: Mercier 1978), p.103.
Barry Ó Séagha, review of Toner Quinn, ed, Desmond Fennell: His Life and Work (Dublin: Veritas), 169pp.; Fennell, The Turning Point: My Sweden Year and After (Sanas Press), 223pp., in The Irish Times (30 March 2002) [Weekend].
John Kirkaldy, review of Desmond Fennell, The Turning Point: The Postwestern Condition: Between Chaos and Civilisation, and Desmond Fennell: Life and Work, in Books Ireland, May 2002, pp.123-24
Conor McCarthy, Modernisation: Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969-1992 (Four Courts Press 2000), pp.17-18.
Brian Power, review of Savvy and the Preaching of the Gospel, in Books Ireland (Summer 2004), p.153.
[ top ]
Notes
Fennell’s scathing attack on the poetry of Seamus Heaney in The Heaney Phenomenon elicited strong response, not least from the poet who probably intended
him in the phrase ‘the anvil brains of some who hate me/As I sit
weighing and weighing/My responsible tristitia’ ("Exposure")
- quoted by Heaney in his Stockholm Nobel Award Address, 1996. Among stringent
critics of the pamphlet were Conor O’Callaghan, who called it ‘an
ignorant piece’ ‘State of Poetry’ [special issue], in Krino
(Winter 1993), p.51; others incl. Fred Johnstone and Mary Campbell [separately],
in Books Ireland (Summer 1991); Fintan O’Toole, ‘Second
Opinion’, in The Irish Times, and letters from Robert Welch
et. al.
Fennell is the dedicatee of Seán Lucy, Irish Poets in English (Mercier 1972).
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)