Ecological Theory, Protestant Theology, and Derek Mahon’s Sense of the Natural World

Abstract

A close reading of Derek Mahon’s ocean-grounded and meteorologically rounded poems with direct reference to his stance on ecology and the environment. The article argues that Mahon’s sense of the natural world – and the ways in which it is under siege at the hands of man – finds a certain resemblance in his background as a Northern Irish Protestant who was brought up on a theology of apocalypse.