Quote of the Day (Tana French, on Irish Speech as a Product of Colonialism)

“Ireland is a postcolonial country and that makes a huge, huge difference to the entire mentality. What I was talking about just now where people are quite oblique about communicating anything —especially anything with any heavy emotional charge—I think that has a certain amount of post-colonial resonance, where if you've spent centuries culturally in a position where anything that you say could in fact have huge consequences and be used by an occupying power, an oppressor, it makes you quite cautious about what you say and what you say openly….We've got a weird relationship with authority over here where we don't like to defy it openly. We don't like to stand up against it, but we really like finding clever ways around it. So, it makes for an interesting combination where you can see these people who have been the subject of really brutal penal laws and oppression like valuing the skill of finding a clever way to outward authority. But now it's changed because the people who are in authority, the government, are in fact elected by the Irish. They are the Irish. And yet you still have this mentality that you'll get some politician who took a ton of bribes or something and there's a slight undercurrent of ‘fair play to him--stuck it to the man.’  [Now,] it's like, dude, you are the man. We are the man. What do you mean we stuck it to the man? But there's still that respect for outwitting authority underlying.”—American-born Irish mystery novelist Tana French, in conversation with Anna Kusmer, Boston Globe, “Say More” podcast, “Tana French’s Endless Fascination with the Irish,” aired Apr. 9, 2026