On 'The MacFiach Anthology of Irish Verse from the First Rhyming Grunt to Last Tuesday Week'
Time stood still as I pored over ancient manuscripts, deciphered ancient scrolls and pondered long and hard over the merits and demerits of Ireland’s first transsexual poet, Joseph ‘Mary’ Plunkett. Tough one this. Plunkett’s cross-fertilisation of the two known genders was bordering on the heroic at the time, and certainly led to the acceptability of cross-dressing among the Catholic hierarchy in an otherwise repressive state. But does this excuse the blandness of his verse? His place in the psycho-sexual history of his native country is assured, but that history has yet to be written, and I, whatever the blandishments on offer, am not the man, or woman, to do it. Having said which, I admit to an early obsession with Ireland’s first solo husband and wife team. An interesting footnote to a highly controversial career was his proto-feminist anthem, ‘If…’ Such was it’s controversial nature that it was given its first, and last, airing at Opus Dei’s 1887 celebration of the arts, ‘B