Nicholas
Furlong – historian, novelist, journalist,
lecturer – has become synonymous in his native
Ireland
and wherever English is spoken with a dramatic
narrative sweep of history as first pursued by
Herodotus, achieved in his many books by means
of digression.Furlong brings tapestries of the past
alive, embellishing his impeccable gift for
story telling with a style that is unique.
Consider the prose which can be lyrical with the
lilt of a stream in free fall, an anarchic serif
of sentences blazing meteor-like across the
page, the literary equivalent of counterpoint.
He
is a prose writer of the highest command: in his
book, Diarmait of Leinster, one of the foremost
kings of Ireland, Furlong demonstrates his keen
eye for detail, perhaps the natural offspring of
a writer who is also a formidable traveller, and
without apparent bias or occlusion of thought,
he resurrects with indefatigable interest the
man credited with inflicting 800 years of strife
in Ireland.
His writing has the affect on history:decisiveness married to enlightenment.
That he is a distinguished journalist might
explain partially why he is not in the least
credulous: what makes him so readable,
particularly as an historian though not
exclusively (read the first chapter of his novel
Young Farmer Seeks Wife in one sitting) is his
commitment or veracity in the presentation of a
tableau.
Part
of his armoury as a writer when distilling the
essence of another era, as a paragraph is lifted
from the monochromatic past and abruptly brought
to life, is his penchant for the concealed
brilliance of the unassuming, the fledgling
miracle thawed from the tomb of history by the
stroke of a pen.Writing, for Furlong, is life.In the beginning was indeed the word.
To his histories he brings the enthusiasm and
the passion of an archaeologist among
undisturbed relics of a misunderstood time, and
as a writer he has the breadth of language that
is required for a huge subject whose time span
may be enormous, such as before, during and
after the 1798 rebellion in Ireland (Fr John
Murphy of Boolavogue, 1753 – 1798).
Furlong
taking a tour through
Selskar Abbey
He
discovers new sources, compiles pages and pages of
notes, and brings clarity where once there was
obscurity.‘I
could hear that ring from Anvils as pikes were
fashioned on hot summer nights,’ said one critic
after reading the aforementioned tome.
In his introduction to the Wexford Man – Essays
in Honour of Nicky Furlong, editor Brenard Browne
described him as ‘a writer of extraordinary
originality and prolificacy.His work is always passionate, vivid and
uniquely brilliant.’As a journalist and columnist one of his
earliest editors, Dermot Walsh, remarked that
Furlong could couch his writing in such a way that
few could possibly take offence.‘His was not a writing style, but an
art.’
Librarian Celestine Rafferty once compiled a
bibliography of the works of Nicky Furlong , his
contributions to the stage, journalism, books,
periodical and journals, which necessitated eight
pages, testament to his versatility as a writer
and to his formidable intellect, switching in a
flash from editing County Wexford In the Rare
‘Oul Times (four volumes, no less) to revisiting
the heroics of Nicky Rackard in ‘The Greatest
Hurling Decade.’
As a chronicler of times past and in particular
the analysis of the dramatis personae of a period
under the microscope, Furlong is in the Edward
Gibbon tradition of producing the standard of work
of reference: his modus operandi as a writer and
researcher is best extrapolated from his own
introduction to ‘Diarmait King of
Leinster
’.
‘It
is important that his life is examined, not with
the wisdom of hindsight, but with an appreciation
of the society with its political, religious and
sexual currents, into which he was born.’ That
single sentence captures the essence of the
empathy Furlong brings to his material.He is at one with Robert Graves who
believed that history must be distinguished from
fable, propaganda and philosophical drama.
After reading Young Farmer Seeks Wife, Gerry Dukes
commented that ‘the novel is a space and place
where justice and poetic justice can be freely
administered and where the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune can hit re-designated
targets.’ A journalist and social commentator of
long standing, he is noted for his humour and for
the precision of his deliberations in his
newspaper columns.