The essay form is uniquely fitted for ‘writing to the moment’, and the Irish writer Hubert Butler was a supreme exponent of the art. One of his unique distinctions remains his ability to sense the zeitgeist, inferring through small daily events the shape of larger and ominous things to come.
In several scintillating collections published by Lilliput Press, he compressed multitudes; moving easily from memory and observation to reflection, in a style which was subtly inflected, sometimes laceratingly vivid, and utterly his own. His analytical cut-and-thrust could skewer double-think or sloppy reasoning with one swift metaphor. And he was unnervingly prescient about questions of religion, national identity and the fractured histories of Central and Eastern Europe, no less than Ireland.
This was evidently in Jeremy O’Sullivan’s mind when, five eventful years ago, he founded the Hubert Butler Essay Prize – now happily established in Butler’s home territory under the appropriate aegis of the Kilkenny Festival. O’Sullivan, who has recently arrived in Dublin to work at the European Parliament Liaison Office on cultural projects, held a similar role in London before Brexit. But the world was about to change, and this was reflected in the subject of the first prize, awarded in 2018: What happened to “Europe without frontiers”?
This echoed a preoccupation of Butler’s. Along with his steady commitment to small communities, minority nationalities and the humane traditions of cosmopolitanism in its widest sense, he sustained a lifelong interest in the way states are made – particularly in the drastic reordering of national boundaries after the first World War. Time and again, his questing intelligence probed the question of borders, and what they signified. As a southern Irish Protestant who disliked partition, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic held particular interest for him.
Many of the 30-odd essays submitted back in 2018 reflected the way Brexit had thrown the gearing of the EU into reverse, and the tragic migration crisis which brought boundaries and frontiers into critical focus. The winning essay, by Nigel Lewis, was distinctly Butlerian, interrogating the era of Adenauer, Schuman and Monnet, and the competing ideas of “Europe” as a common cultural heritage, or a new Holy Roman Empire in the making – while recognising (unlike many English commentators) the important point that ‘the EU, like the EEC before it, has been defusing Europe like an unexploded bomb left over from World War II’.
Lewis’s essay also pinpointed the brush-fires sparked by separatist nationalisms and ‘alt-right’ identity politics within European borders, and the dangers inherent in over-expansion and unprecedented migration.
The subjects of the subsequent prizes similarly followed Butlerian themes. In 2019, following the maladroit statement which is the only thing that Teresa May’s premiership will be remembered for, we asked ‘Where does a citizen of the world belong?’ Andrew Hammond’s winning essay interrogated the question of belonging versus the rise of disruptive xenophobic politics, pointing out the failures and lacunae inherent in the concept of globalist identity, variable ideas of ‘belonging’, and the possibilities of peaceful coexistence in divided societies.
In 2020, candidates were asked whether communal solidarity and individual freedom were antagonists or allies. Michael Amherst was awarded the prize for an incisive essay focussing on identity politics, and how they operate when several kinds of ‘identity’ clash. Its exploration of how to negotiate ‘multiple points of belonging and conflicting interests’, as well as its vivid touches of personal experience, delivered a nuanced yet punchy impact, fully in the spirit of this prize.
In 2021, the question was posed of ‘who or what benefited from Covid-19?’ The winner, Alison Williams, squarely confronted the connections between privilege, vulnerability and self-sufficiency, and analysed the way her own experience allowed space to breathe and make connections in a new way, at a time full of paradoxical revelation.
Thus previous essays have explored ideas such as cosmopolitanism, internationalism, group identity and the fall-out from global pandemic; in different ways, the themes of freedom and personal autonomy have resonated through the rich haul of entries, from a strikingly wide range of countries and nationalities. And they vividly reflect issues of the moment. As Butler knew, when history repeats itself, it is too often as tragedy rather than farce.
In 2022 of all years, the question of resistance to aggression, east and west, hangs over us as it did in the 1930s – when Butler lived through the downward spiral of events in central and eastern Europe, inspiring some of his most searingly perceptive commentary. 2022 is already being pinpointed as a turning point in history.
So this year the judges – Catriona Crowe, Nicholas Grene, Eva Hoffman, Barbara Schwepke and myself – are asking for essays on the theme: ‘In dark times, what can be done to resist the abuse of political power?’ On the form of the four previous prizes we expect a wide and varied range of approaches , styles and origins, showing not only that the essay form is alive and kicking, but that the themes which preoccupied Hubert Butler remain as pressing as ever.
The Hubert Butler Essay Prize for 2022, worth €1,500 with two runner-up prizes of €500 each, will be presented at the Kilkenny Festival in August. To enter – the deadline is June 10th, 2022 – see the website hubertbutleressayprize.com
