Topographia Hibernica by Blindboy Boatclub (Short Story Collection)

Thank you to those who came to the last meeting - it was great to hear your thoughts.

For the next month, we have decided to venture slightly outside the definition of the global south and to read this collection of short stories from Ireland.

Taking its title from a twelfth-century English manuscript of the same name, which dehumanised the people and culture of Ireland to facilitate domination, Topographia Hibernica is a collection that unravels the knotted threads of humanity, nature and colonisation from a contemporary Irish perspective.

“They sent a fella called Gerald of Wales over to Ireland,” says Blindboy. “He actually came over with King John, who built King John’s castle in Limerick. When the Brits were colonising Ireland they had to have a reason and a rationale. You can’t just go into a country and take it.
“So Gerald wrote this book where he looked at Irish folklore and Irish traditions and basically said, ‘These people are animals, they’re not properly human’ and he came up with all these mad bullshit stories. He said that the King of Limerick, in order to become a king, fucked a horse and cut the horses body up and then made a giant soup out of the disembodied horse that he just rode.”

This very story features in the final short story in the collection, also titled Topographia Hibernica.

“The Pope at the time happened to be English so the Normans could go to the Pope and go, ‘These Irish here, they’re not really Christian’,” says Blindboy. “I always think of it like, when the US was invading Iraq and they were like, ‘Oh they’ve got weapons of mass destruction.’ There were no fuckin’ weapons of mass destruction, they didn’t exist. But all you need is an excuse. So the excuse to colonise Ireland was – these people are animals, they fuck animals, they live with animals, they’re not fully human. So we need to civilise them – basically dehumanising the Irish people.”

Reviews say the book is insightful, unsettling, written in colorful language and an irreverent tone whilst being sprinkled with dark humour.

At 173 pages, the book should be a fairly light read.

Venue is TBC once we have numbers. We will meet in Halifax in any case.