Internationalist Review of Irish Culture

Eight o’clock and it’s still bright. Although bright might be pushing it a bit. Let’s just say that despite the weather, it hasn’t got dark yet out here on the city streets. That’s the way of it, you know: one evening – unsuspecting gobshite that you are – you slam the door behind you at work after a long hard day, and then look around aghast. Where did all that nice camouflaging anonymous darkness go to? You bring your reduced powers of deduction to bear on the issue and then remember: the frantic whirrings of forward-bound clock hands.
Well whaddya know, you think, April is upon us. It always manages to take you by surprise, and an increasingly unpleasant one at that. You’re affronted by the same old thing year in and year out. The birds and the bees, the buds and the bloody trees; everything goes into overdrive as the whole pantomime kicks off once again. New life, new promise, new love – flaunted shamelessly all around you. Touching, you concede, everything so libidinously new and all that...