Derek Mahon’s Humane Perspective

Abstract

A pervasive aspect of the poetry out of the North of Ireland from John Hewitt and Louis MacNeice onwards is a shrewd, reticent humanism. One cannot avoid the term ‘Protestant’ in describing this humanism because it involves the habitual workings of a conscience and/or of a consciousness which seem interchangeable. Catholicism, with its inbuilt sacramental structure of forgiveness, its absolving paternalism, offers a certainty of pardon which can have a desensitising effect on conscience because it takes, or seems to take, the consequences for the workings of the individual conscience out of the individual’s hands. A system of forgiveness can help to foster a system of criminality. A crime forgiven can become a licence to commit a crime. The humanism I have in mind has little to do with forgiveness; it has everything to do with responsibility.