Nothing in human life is inherently private.

Irish fiction is full of secrets, guilty pasts, divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of Gothic writing in a nation so haunted by history.

It is true that some liberals and humanists, along with the laid-back Danes, deny the existence of evil. This is largely because they regard the word 'evil' as a device for demonising those who are really nothing more than socially unfortunate.

If it is true that we need a degree of certainty to get by, it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal.

Language, identity and forms of life are the terms in which political demands are shaped and voiced.

Most students of literature can pick apart a metaphor or spot an ethnic stereotype, but not many of them can say things like: 'The poem's sardonic tone is curiously at odds with its plodding syntax.

If history, philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave in their wake may be a technical training facility or corporate research institute. But it will not be a university in the classical sense of the term, and it would be deceptive to call it one.