Belfast confetti essay

Both ‘ Belfast Confetti ’ and ‘Bayonet Charge’ present individuals caught up in conflicts. However, the speaker in ‘ Belfast Confetti ’ is a civilian whereas ‘Bayonet Charge’ the subject is a soldier who has chosen to go to war. Carson is writing about a topic he knows well as he is an Irish poet living during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The title of Belfast Confetti is a slang reference to the nuts, bolts and other metal items from shipbuilding that were used for throwing at people during riots. Heaney wrote Docker before the Troubles officially began, while Belfast Confetti was published in 1990 after over twenty years of conflict and riots.

Carson's very name may embody a cross-cultural project (Ciaran is Catholic, Carson is Protestant; an ancestor enthusiastically converted), but when he was growing up there was no such mixing. The family lived in a space about a mile square marked by graffiti. He resides in Belfast.

The poem ‘Belfast Confetti illustrates the aftermath of a bomb during the troubles that people in Belfast experienced. The title ‘Belfast Confetti’ is a heading that has a dual meaning. On one had the homemade bombs that the IRA used are referred to as Belfast confetti due to the nuts and bolts they put in the shrapnel.