How can we cope with despair? I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 80s, when continuous sectarian hatred and state-sponsored violence seemed inevitable. The world was falling apart, so we joked about it. At funerals. In school. How could we not? I read Flann O’Brien’s The Poor Mouth—An Béal Bocht in Irish—and found my […] The post 7 Darkly Surreal Irish Books to Read This St. Patrick’s Day appeared first on Electric Literature .