Reflections on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by 31 Irish writers with an introduction by Seamus Heaney

The Articles

How this project happened

Séan Love explains how this unique series came about

THE Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was a remarkable statement in 1948, a moral response to the dreadful inhumanity of the second World War. It was very much of its time, and would probably never have existed had its drafting been delayed by even a year. It was agreed by all nations at the UN, just before the start of the Cold War. It is the closest humankind has ever come to agreeing a common global understanding of human rights and obligations.

This series developed from a conversation between myself and Roddy Doyle in late 2007, followed soon after by a meeting with Irish Times managing editor Gerry Smyth.

We reckoned that most people had heard of the UDHR and, generally, thought it was a “good thing”. But how many had actually read it?

The document is by its nature quite legalistic, and we thought it would be interesting to try to illustrate each of the document’s 30 articles with a piece of creative writing, rather than a lecture.

So we decided to ask 30 Irish writers to choose an article each and do precisely that. Each story or essay was to be about 1,500 words long. Polemics were banned. And we agreed that it would be fairer and more interesting not to run the stories chronologically, or else all the writers would be fighting for Article 30.

We asked about 17 writers each. Almost everyone we asked signed up immediately, and delivered wonderful and varied pieces. There is another story to be told about how the writers approached the task, and how some ended up writing totally different stories to those they’d originally intended. Many of the writers remarked that they’d assumed the UDHR would be all about fair trials, prison, torture, war, refugees, but were intrigued to discover that it is as much about education, poverty, health, leisure, employment, housing.

One more thing: in 1948, all member countries solemnly undertook to publicise the text of the UDHR and to ensure it would be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded in schools and in society generally. Most countries have not been great about this element of the deal. Hopefully, this series helps to redress the situation.

Sean Love, creator of the Amnesty series, was executive director of Amnesty International (Ireland) from 2001-2008. During that time he was also a founding director of Amnesty Education and Art for Amnesty. Since February 2008, he has been executive director of Fighting Words, a new creative writing centre established in Dublin by Roddy Doyle and Sean.