Writing can be a form of action. Few writers in recent decades have embodied this maxim better than the Irish critic Seamus Deane, who died two years ago in May 2021. Another politically engaged intellectual, the current Irish president Michael D. Higgins, described his death as “an incalculable loss to Irish critical writing, indeed Irish writing in general.”

Deane began his career as a poet and will likely be remembered best for his semi-autobiographical work, Reading in the Dark (1996), one of the finest novels composed in response to the Northern Irish Troubles. He was, however, primarily a writer of literary and cultural criticism.

Deane’s criticism challenged the revisionist intellectual current that sought to downplay the impact of British colonialism on every facet of Irish development, political, economic, and cultural. Yet Deane also rejected the kind of nationalism that, in his view, simply turned colonial ideology inside out. His work and his example can be a vital resource for those seeking an alternative to both.