Interest in the age-old problems of universals and individuation has received a new impetus from the current revival of ontology in the analytic tradition, the development of theories of individual properties (and the related application of mereological calculi to the analysis of predication), and the particular problems posed by relational predication and the nature of particulars. The essays explore aspects of the history of the issues and attempt to deal with the issues and with challenges to the distinctions that give rise to them. They continue the debates stemming from the revival of metaphysics rooted in Freges realism, the Austrian tradition of Brentano-Husserl-Meinong, and the early 20th century revolt against idealism embodied in writings of Moore and Russell and culminating in Wittgensteins Tractatus.

The newest volume in the Buildings of Ireland series covers the inland counties of Cavan, Monaghan, and Armagh, an area stretching from the thinly populated uplands around the Cuilcagh Mountains and the cradle of the Shannon to the fertile Blackwater valley and southern shores of Lough Neagh. Carrickmacross and Bailieborough typify the Irish market town with their generous main streets and lively architectural contrasts. The unpretentious Gothic halls at Carsan and Derryvalley contrast with the rogueish Gothic-Revival displays at Bessbrook and Butlersbridge. Country houses range from Lough Fea, Thomas Rickman's only Irish house, to Hilton Park, an ambitious Italianate mansion. Saint Peter's church, Laragh, a roadside Gothic fairytale in tin, is a memorable landmark, as is the august Rokeby obelisk at Armagh. Throughout South Ulster, the use of local building materials - ranging from dark gritstones to warm sandstones - adds to the rich architectural variety while establishing a sense of place.

Welcome to Fizzle, an isolated, backward place teeming with crisis. It is a nation like none other on Earth, and to survive in it, citizens have developed a state of mind equally unmatched.

With an antic group of revolutionaries on a quest for truth (more or less), the termination of a great warrior caste, and a pair of exiled lovers, twinned in ambition (one has discovered the urge to write a beautiful, sublime poem, and the other desires to avoid hearing it), Fizzle is a state of constant flux. Add to the mix a 500-year-old murder mystery, an offended comet aiming for vengeance, and an overseeing deity who delights in human bewilderment, and you have the key ingredients of author Kevin Mulligan's visionary novel, "The Envy of Topshelf."

A 1,200-year-old monarchy has recently collapsed, and the result is two decades of civil chaos, toggling between the comic and the tragic. Just when the political leadership thinks it has finally achieved stability, havoc cries out for second helpings.

"The Envy of Topshelf" is literary farce with an epic scope, Swiftian outlandishness infused with slapstick urgency.