The Honest Ulsterman played a huge part in the literary environment of mid/late 20th Century Northern Ireland giving a platform to many of the early work of the leading lights of the local literary scene including Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson and Paul Muldoon amongst others. It was also the longest running local small literary magazine running from 1968 - 2003 and often the most deliberately provocative and contentious.

It was as much a cultural phenomenon as a literary one, particularly with its ‘Business Section’ critiquing the society that surrounded it and the narratives that held sway in Northern Ireland society at the time and to an extent still do.

A Magazine of Revolution? seeks to create a conversation  about what it is like to found, edit and publish
a literary magazine in a divided society. Though the violence has for the most part gone there are still huge divisions within Northern Irish (and increasingly because of Brexit) British society. It is valuable today to discuss why literature and literary magazines were important in times of conflict in the past and what lessons can those wishing to publish a literary magazine draw from examples of past practice. The magazine also seeks to emphasise the importance of small magazines as the soil of a local literary eco-system that assists in the development and aesthetic (and sometimes) financial prosperity of future literary talent early in their career.

Click the link below to check out the full HUMAN archive which highlights trends in local literature and indicates the literary response to important local, national and international historical events of the era.

Check out HUMAN here