Epilogue

Abstract

This epilogue offers a meta-analysis across the book’s twenty chapters on Classics and Irish politics through three unifying and recurrent themes: contiguity, affinity, and chance. Contiguity is witnessed in physical spaces, objects, and monuments, but it also functions beyond the material in finding homologous realms between ancient and modern while at the same time respecting differences and acknowledging the challenges inherent in appropriating or translating from one culture into another. Affinity reveals the personal choices and experiences underlying examples of classical reception in Irish culture. Chance inheres in the serendipitous encounters that often lie at the heart of cultural transmission.