About John Waters

The Examiner ran a hit-piece, or rather a hit opinion piece, on [John Waters] this morning. It also targeted a few other prominent alternative voices in Irish society. I won’t name the journalist author other than to say, in my opinion, he’s average. He’s been an average journalist for all of my adult life-time and I don’t suppose he’ll be getting any less average as he hits the twilight of his career. Articles like this have become all too familiar over the last few years.

Another of John Water's deeply moving books about modern Ireland. Written over 15 years ago, Waters has yet to mature into the darker vision he has of Ireland today, but a great deal here is very rewarding and shrewd. I, for one, suspect Waters will one day be remembered as a prophet for what he says of the tragedy of modern, globalised, capitalist Ireland.

Poetic, prophetic, pure as the blackbird's song despite its doom-laden rhetoric, this eyewitness account of the decline of Irish and indeed all of Western civilisation by one of the very best journalists. Focussing on the tremendous upheavals in his native Ireland, where the breakdown of two millenia's worth of culture is particularly evident, Waters eloquently dissects the malaise at the heart of society in Europe and throughout the First World countries, and provides an insider's guide to the role played by the mainstream media in ushering in a nihilistic, sterile, topsy turvy, trash-politics culture where literally nothing is of intrinsic value.