In New Green Fool, Alan Cunningham reflects on the fragile truth of his countless identifications and denials, on the often excessively private nature of his positions and, finally, on the consequences of favouring private certainty over the more complicated, relational aspects of ourselves and our sense of being – and being in – a society.

Initially blending quotations from poet Patrick Kavanagh’s work The Green Fool with lyrical reflections on Cunningham's life, the collection eventually starts to draw on a wider range of sources as it progresses and becomes more chaotic and cannibalistic.

The trope Irishness – the "Irish" identity – that Kavanagh utilised in The Green Fool was later discarded by Kavanagh as a "pack of lies". Over the course of thirteen interconnected essays, Cunningham considers the potential for foolishness and self-delusion in setting one's own identity – or identities – far too strongly in any direction.

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