The philosopher E. M. Cioran knew Beckett in Paris, not very well but well enough to appreciate that he must keep his distance. When they met, he took care not to intrude: he allowed Beckett to lead the conversation, such as it was. Origins were not alluded to, either by a philosopher born in Romania or a dramatist and fiction-writer born in Ireland, both now resident in Paris. In 1976, thinking about those meetings, Cioran wrote:

I'll try to take that admonition into account, short of knowing precisely what it entails.

On April 21, 1935 – Easter Sunday – Oliver Sheppard's sculpture “The Death of Cuchulain” was unveiled in the centre of the General Post Office in Dublin. It was not designed for the occasion or commissioned by a government to celebrate, the following year, the twentieth anniversary of the Easter Rising, 1916. Sheppard created the sculpture in 1911/1912 before there was any symbolic or political call for it. The sculpture depicts Cuchulain, the mythical Celtic warrior, dying, tied to a rock to help him stand up to face his enemies, his body limp, his head rolled to one side, his shield falling from his grasp. A raven, signifying death, sits on his shoulder.