Monuments to truth
It all seems so innocent now, but O’Brien helped usher in modern Ireland, and has consistently tracked its course from 1960s innocence to the sour cynicism left in the wake of the Celtic tiger. Baba and Kate were young women who felt stifled, oppressed by the grey pieties of church and state, and optimistically hopeful of finding a life that reflected the vitality coursing through their blood.
But O’Brien has always been expert at reminding us that escape comes at a cost: the past stays with us, in the form of memory, family, or simply the psychological damage done in childhood. Some people can never escape from themselves and the world that formed them.
