Complex revenge tale casts light on a darker side of rural Donegal

[Patrick McGinley]'s Bogmail (1978) is one of the few Irish crime novels to bear comparison with Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (1967), but Bogmail's whimsical and absurdist treatment of the genre has been replaced here with a gimlet-eyed obsession with truth and righteousne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBelfast telegraph
Main Author McGinley, Patrick
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Belfast Independent News & Media 18.05.2013
Subjects
McGinley, Patrick
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Summary:[Patrick McGinley]'s Bogmail (1978) is one of the few Irish crime novels to bear comparison with Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman (1967), but Bogmail's whimsical and absurdist treatment of the genre has been replaced here with a gimlet-eyed obsession with truth and righteousness. Can murder ever be justified? The novel's arc incorporates a kind of Socratic dialogue between the avengers' ' ringleader, Muriris, and the unbiddable Tom Barron, fleshing out the arguments with references to an Old Testament-style eye-for-an-eye retribution, the difficulties faced by the state-sanctioned executioner Albert Pierrepoint, folk memories of the murder of an absentee landlord's feckless agent, and a rather radical interpretation of Brehon law.
ISSN:0307-5664