Literary Theory Irish Studies

The topic of pederasty in "The Sisters" has attracted extensive commentary. In this discussion, the boy's confusion, growing up at the crux of two views of masculinity, has not been explored. Moreover, Father Flynn's nostalgic view of boyhood, and his dependency on the company of the boy, also warrants exploration. Furthermore, little has been made of the boy's antagonistic relationship with Father Flynn's sisters, as there is evidence in the story that the boy is considered corruptive. It is my contention that pederasty is not the larger issue, as in another context, this could be contested. Rather, the boundary between the boy and adults is constructed across two opposing ideals of masculinity, obliterating any possibility of contestation. Subsequently, sentient and reflexive aspects of the boy's characterization deviate from how children are viewed by adult characters in Dubliners.

The following dissertation will explore the following selection of the word of Brian O'Nolan; At Swim Two Birds, The Third Policeman, The Dalkey Archive and his final novel An Béal Bocht, along with his columns for The Irish Times, Cruiskeen Lawn. Completed during my degree at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick City.

Music and song are both important influences on, and themes in, the poetry of Thomas Kinsella. His poetry also features several individuals associated with music, none more frequently than his close friend, the composer Seán Ó Riada, a central figure in the revival in popularity of Irish traditional music since the 1950s. This paper charts some significant developments in Kinsella's work from the late 1950s, and indeed, intriguing parallels, and shared emphases, apparent in the comments and work of both Kinsella and Ó Riada. For Kinsella, his experience of traditional song - described in his poem 'The Shoals Returning' - preceded the incorporation of Gaelic literature into his poetry while his recurring emphasis on the audience's role in the act of communication echoes his own identification of a central characteristic of the performance of traditional song, or sean-nós, in Irish.

Seamus Heaney’s poetry is rich in detail about agricultural and food practices in his native Northern Ireland from the 1950s onwards, such as cattle-trading, butter-churning, eel-fishing, blackberry-picking or home-baking. Often studied from an ecocritical perspective, the abundance of agricultural and culinary scenes in Heaney’s work makes a gastrocritical focus on food and foodways suitable. Food has been recognized as a highly condensed social fact, and writers have long tapped into its multi-layered meanings to illuminate socio-cultural circumstances, making literature a valuable ethnographic source. A gastrocritical reading of Heaney’s work from 1966 to 2010, drawing on Rozin’s Structure of Cuisine, shows that the foodstuffs and culinary techniques featured in the poetry reflect historic and contemporary Irish cuisine and culture as explained by food-historical and folkloristic research, giving his work a particularly Irish cultural signature. In turn, Heaney’s poetic sensibilities and language craft may contribute to our verstehen of Ireland’s culinary heritage.

One of the changes that compose history is the migration of peoples. The human drama of development of colossal numbers from one geographical area to another, and their first acquaintance with other social and economic backgrounds is a major source of change in the human state. For at least two centuries long before the great stream of the Hungry Forties, Irish immigrants had been making their way to the New World. Yet, the tragedy of the Great Famine is still seen as the greatest turning point of Irish history for the future of Ireland was forever changed by it and its people are still living its wake.
This thesis explores the conception of emigration and how it steadily became “a predominant way of life” in Ireland, so pervasive and integral to Irish life that it had affected the broad context of both Irish and American histories simultaneously. From the post-colonial perspective, my study presents emigration as one of the greatest emotional issues in Irish history, as it tends to have a very negative image especially in the post-Famine era. People are generally seen as involuntary “exiles”, compelled to leave Ireland by “British tyranny” and “landlord oppression” - an idealized Ireland where everyone was happy and gay and where roses grew around the door of the little white-washed cottage.
My study further examines the experiences of the Irish people who immigrated to America as a result of the Potato Famine during the years 1845-1851. Once surviving the journey across the Atlantic, many of the Irish immigrants chose to stay in Eastern cities that had been established for hundred of years. Chapter Two adopts New York City as a place where many groups sought refuge and new opportunities. In so doing, they faced not only the challenge of assimilating into American culture but also overcoming racial prejudice. The determination of the Irish to not only survive the Famine in Ireland, but to succeed in America is the eventual underlying theme of my study.

The paper assesses the importance of local geology as an inspiration to the mythology and folklore of County Sligo, Ireland. The contribution of artists Gabriel Beranger and Angelo Maria Bigari; and historians Rev. William Henry and Archdeacon Terence O’Rorke, in raising the monumental and historical profile of the county is discussed. The work during the early 19th century of the officers of the Ordnance Survey (George Petrie, John O’Donovan, Thomas O’Connor and Patrick O’Keefe) in documenting and interpreting Sligo’s ancient monuments is assessed as is the contribution of local collector Roger Chambers Walker. The contribution to the development of scientific archaeology by Sligo antiquarian William Gregory Wood-Martin and his collaborator the artist and scholar William Frederick Wakeman, is noted as is the iconic role of the mythic battle of Moytura in their research and fieldwork. The overall contribution of the mythology, folklore and archaeology of Sligo to the Irish Literary revival, especially under William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory is discussed.

Throughout history, the Druids have always been seen as sorcerers who had a strong bond with nature. Ancestral knowledge holders within Celtic society, directed all religious activity as the highest authority linked to the gods, practiced human sacrifices and festivals organized as Imbolc, Beltaine, Lugnasad or Samain, etc.. all aspects of which are discussed in this article.

"The oldest records indicate that the performance of poetry in Gaelic Ireland was normally accompanied by music, providing a point of continuity with past tradition while bolstering a sense of community in the present. Music would also offer, particularly for poets writing in English from the eighteenth century onwards, a perceived authenticity, a connection with an older tradition perceived as being untarnished by linguistic and cultural division.

While providing an innovative analysis of theoretical work in music and literary studies, this book examines how traditional Irish music, including the related song tradition (primarily in Irish), has influenced, and is apparent in, the work of Irish poets. While looking generally at where this influence is evident historically and in contemporary Irish poetry, this work focuses primarily on the work of six poets, three who write in English and three who write primarily in the Irish language: Thomas Kinsella, Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó Searcaigh."

The purpose of this study is to foreground the ethical consequences of the attitudes to Irishness, and to Irish identity, that are to be found in the writings of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce. It is my contention that their work enunciates an ethical definition of Irishness which has overt and covert political and societal implications for Ireland today.

While there are many justified caveats entered in the field of academic study about the dangers of any imbrication of the literary, the aesthetic, and the political, nevertheless, I intend to argue that there are concomitant positive and emancipatory results of such an imbrication, and that these results have ethical implications for notions of Irishness and of community. Hence, I propose to theorize the different aspects of Irishness that are to be found in both writers, by contrasting them with others that were hegemonic at that time through an articulation of the theoretical writings of Theodore Adorno, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida.

Given that this study has been written during the ongoing peace talks in Northern Ireland, talks wherein definitions and categorizations of ‘Irishness’ have been crucial, I feel that this book is a timely exploration of issues dealing with the literary, political and ethical dimensions of Irish culture and identity.

While the commentary on whether or not Joyce's 'Portrait' fulfils the potential of the Bildungsroman is extensive, both views support the idea that childhood is a deficiency. Proper human qualities belong to adulthood, and there is critical discord as to whether or not maturity quilts the child's lack. In this article it is argued that the child's characterisation is constructed as a material/spiritual nexus, creating an indivisible synthesis of the child as both a human deficiency and a redemptive potential. However, both portrayals are distortions, and being forces that repel each other, their unalterable fused state creates a self-negating oscillation, splitting experience. As 'Portrait' is narrated retrospectively, memory is unable to merge with experience creating a doubling of alienation. Consequently, neither trajectory is in itself grounds for arguing maturity, as self-awareness is dependent on an understanding of the mutual dependency of the two trajectories. Unless Stephen realises the relational dependency of both views of the child, therefore, and how they constitute a doubling of alienation, there

For know the controversial history of the Druids in the Celtic world, will investigate the sources of its origin, through stories of classic texts and medieval legends of Gaul, Britain and Ireland. His role in Celtic society surpassed the religious sphere, covering war, politics, medicine and the law. Almost unknown is the participation of women in this institution.

This study aims at shedding light on the Mother figure as a symbol in Yeats' Cathleen ni Houlihan. While most of the writers favour to present the female figure as a young and beautiful, Yeats contradicts this attitude by identifying Ireland with an old and dignified lady. The study aims at justifying Yeats' choice of the old female figure as opposed to the young. The study proved that Yeats aimed to create double cultural function: the first was for a national purpose; where the young men decide to help the old lady only for her own sake without having any personal benefit. The second function had a cultural depth that aimed at reviving Irish culture by reintroducing Celtic figures adopted from the Irish culture as major characters in his plays. Therefore; the study proved that Yeats' choice of the old female figure was a very influential way to foster national awareness and to revive the Celtic heritage as well.

Yugen - Awe-Wonder & Popular Beliefs!
The sense of deep and profound emotions and feelings intimately intertwined with life and the universe are so widespread that in the Japanese language, there is actually a special and unique word, Yugen! Yugen is widely defined and described as "an awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and mysterious for words."

In spite of a dramatic decline in religious affiliation among the younger generation, Madeleine Thomas observes “But younger generations aren’t necessarily so self-involved that they don’t believe in forces larger than themselves: Millennials may be less religious, but they are just as likely to be as spiritual as their elders. More than 40 percent “feel a deep sense of wonder about the universe at least once a week,” according to Pew.” - This observation was made by Madelaine Thomas, in her article Millenials May Be Less Religious, But They Are Just As Likely To Be As Spiritual As Their Elders. Studies do show many young people are consistently going back to their roots in a sense - taking more interest in crystals, shamanism, as well as pagan or Norse beliefs in spirit. The well known Irish poet-theologian John O'Donohue (1956 – 2008) is among those returning to nature and the wonder intrinsic to nature's beauty as a profound inspiration for life. He observes, "I think that that’s the magnificence of beauty, that even in landscapes of control, corrugated categories, that you can be swept off your feet by just beauty!"   

John O'Donohue (1956 – 2008), an Irish poet was raised in a native Gaelic speaking family, on the “family-farm” located in County Clare, Ireland. When he was still very young, John O’Donohue entered seminary and became a Catholic priest for 19 years. Krista Tippett observed that John O’Donohue “insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner human landscape and what he called “the invisible world,” constantly intertwining with what we can know and see.” (On Being with Krista Tippett John O'Donohue The Inner Landscape of Beauty)

Now open access at https://edition.fi/kalevalaseura/catalog/book/956.

Much of both Icelandic and medieval Irish literature is, in one way or another, storytelling about places, reflecting a deep engagement with the concept of ‘place’ and the creation of a ‘sense of place’. This book takes as its starting point the shared interest that Icelandic and Irish storytelling have in ‘place’ and asks whether the medieval Icelandic sense of place, as reflected in Icelandic narrative culture, has been influenced by the close contacts that existed during the Viking Age between Iceland and the Gaelic-speaking world of Ireland and Scotland. In attempting to answer this question, the book contributes to the long-standing debate about Gaelic influences in Icelandic culture, the much more recent discourse on the spatiality of medieval Icelandic literature and storytelling, and the cultural history of the Icelandic Settlement Period. Obliquely, the findings of the book may even shed light on the origins of Icelandic saga literature.
The books offers critical insights on a number of general points of spatial theory, as both the Gaelic and the Old Norse-Icelandic material can offer valuable contributions to the theoretical-systematic study of ‘space’, ‘place’, and ‘home’. The focus of the monograph, however, lies on an in-depth study of material drawn primarily from toponymy and two especially place-focused medieval Icelandic texts: Landnámabók, the ‘Book of Settlements’, and Eyrbyggja saga, the ‘Saga of the Inhabitants of Eyr’.
The book’s first chapter (“Place, Naming Place, and Playing with Place”) starts out with presenting the reader with an introduction to fundamental aspects of current theorising on the concepts of ‘space’, ‘place’, and ‘home’. After this theoretical prelude, the discussion takes a more empirical turn, making a survey of Icelandic place-names that seem to have been directly transferred from Britain (esp. Scotland and the Scottish islands) and undertaking a comparison of three medieval Irish and three medieval Icelandic place-stories that highlights remarkable structural parallels in how stories are told about places in both the medieval Gaelic-speaking world and in early Iceland.
The second and main chapter of the book (“Narrating Place: a Survey of Place-Stories on the Move”) then undertakes an in-depth study of nine specific examples of Icelandic-Gaelic place-lore adaptations:
1. the water-horse story in Landnámabók H71/S83;
2. the account of Ørlygr Hrappsson’s settlement in Landnámabók H15;
3. the biographies of ‘Saint’ Ásólfr in Landnámabók S24 and H21;
4. the account of Auðr the Deep-Minded and the Krosshólar Hills in Landnámabók S97;
5. the accounts of papar in Landnámabók (S1/H1, S320/H280, S323=H283) and Íslendingabók (ch. 1), which can be shown to be purely pseudo-historical constructs playing on Gaelic approaches to the semantisation of space rather than relating any factual presence of Gaelic monks in pre-Settlement Iceland;
6. the early modern folklore of the Ódáinsakur in the Hvanndalur Valley and its possible Viking Age prehistory;
7. the accounts of houses of excessive hospitality in Landnámabók (S72/H60; S86/H74; S200=H168) and Eyrbyggja saga (ch. 8);
8. the story of Þórólfr Twist-Foot and his transformation into a splendid but violent bull in Eyrbyggja saga (especially chs 33–34, 63);
9. and the report of Hvítramannaland in Landnámabók (S122/H94).
All these narratives seem to be based on an adaptation of prominent and common Gaelic storytelling motifs as they are found in medieval Irish literature, esp. Irish hagiography and the heroic storytelling of the Ulster Cycle of Tales. With some important caveats, these nine examples aim to be an exhaustive survey of major Icelandic adaptations of Gaelic place-lore. The chapter also pays particular attention to the use of toponyms in such narratives and to the specific historical situation of the Icelandic settlement. In particular, this includes the strong emphasis on the narrative construction of ‘home’ that results from this historical situation and which in many ways is mirrored in the narratives under scrutiny: it seems that some early settlers made themselves at home in Iceland by inscribing Gaelic stories into their newly-taken land.
Chapter 3 (“Epiloge: Hoofprints and Sagas”), the book’s final chapter, focusses on patterns and cross-connections rather than on individual tales. It takes the material introduced in chapter 2 and analyses it laterally, highlighting themes that appear to recur and play dominant roles across this data set. Among the most notable of these recurrent themes is a strong impression that the way how Gaelic material is adapted in high medieval Icelandic place-storytelling seems to imply an element of a genuinely Settlement Period-tradition in thirteenth-century Icelandic literature: this literature seems to preserve much more early material than the author would have thought possible before the conclusion of the project presented by this book. Another recurrent theme is the importance of the Hebrides for the transmission of Gaelic place-lore to Iceland: more than half of the (it seems) clear cases of an Icelandic adaptation of Gaelic place-lore are explicitly connected with early Icelandic settlers that reached Iceland not directly from Scandinavia, but first emigrated to the Hebrides before finally moving on to Iceland. The Hebrides, it seems, acted as a central corridor for the transmission of Gaelic cultural elements to Iceland: for some early Icelandic settlers, the reference point for what ‘home’ should be like was not Scandinavia, but was the Gaelic landscape of the Scottish isles, and so after their arrival in Iceland they went on to turn the Icelandic landscape conceptually into a facsimile of the landscapes of the Gaelic world. This last point, furthermore, already plays into one of the two final important points to note: Gaelic-inspired Icelandic place-lore seems to show a marked emphasis on the Christian religious semantisation of the land as well as a pervasive focus on the creation of ‘home’.
Both of the latter points, of course, arise naturally from the overall historical situation of the Settlement Period: during this period, early Icelandic Christianity was first and foremost dependent on Irish and Scottish Christianity, and the settlement on a previously entirely empty island necessitated a concerted effort to establish a bond between the settlers and this new, empty land. Taking the implications of this emphasis on the creation of ‘home’ one step further, the third chapter – and the book – conclude by considering some recent and classical contributions to the discussion about the origins of Icelandic saga literature. Thus, the book closes with the question of whether the reception of Gaelic place-lore in Iceland, which first and foremost seems to reflect a deep yearning for ‘home’ by partly Gaelicised settlers that had reached Iceland via Britain and Ireland, might not be just another expression of the same need that later on would bring forth Icelandic saga literature.

Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after an actual historical figure, and it has become a dominant literary form over the last 35 years. What has not yet been scholarly acknowledged or documented is that the Irish played a crucial role in the origins, evolution, rise, and now dominance of biofiction.

Michael Lackey first examines the groundbreaking biofictions that Oscar Wilde and George Moore authored in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the best biographical novels about Wilde (by Peter Ackroyd and Colm Tóibín). He then focuses on contemporary authors of biofiction (Sabina Murray, Graham Shelby, Anne Enright, and Mario Vargas Llosa, who Lackey has interviewed for this work) who use the lives of prominent Irish figures (Roger Casement and Eliza Lynch) to explore the challenges of seizing and securing a life-promoting form of agency within a colonial and patriarchal context.

In conclusion, Lackey briefly analyzes biographical novels by Peter Carey and Mary Morrissy to illustrate why agency is of central importance for the Irish, and why that focus mandated the rise of the biographical novel, a literary form that mirrors the constructed Irish interior.

This is a Persian translation a biography of Irish novelist,short story writer and poet James Augustine Joyce(1882-1941) is regarded as one of the greatest,most innovative,Literary talents of twentieth century,Joyce revolutionized the structure of the modern novel.

A history of how the American Conference for Irish Studies championed Irish studies in U.S. Academia, established a network of regional an conferences, and fostered publication.  Included are candid portraits of founders Emmet Larkin and Lawrence McCaffrey, as well as leading figures such as John V. Kelleher, James S. Donnelly, Jr.,Irish and Maureen Murphy.

The Irish Literary Revival of the late Nineteenth Century was in search of a Heroic Ireland and along the way unearthed the enigmatic Deirdre. Today many questions remain as to how this Celtic heroine’s role should be described. Does she represent destiny, choice, love, tragedy, all of these, none of these?  In her article “Celtic Heroine? The Archaeology of the Deirdre Story” Maire Herbert makes some interesting arguments concerning the underlying themes within the Deirdre story and about the greater social context in which these themes may have existed at the time of the story’s creation. This essay will join in her exploration of the Deirdre story by first following in her footsteps as she sifts through the cultural debris covering the most ancient of Deirdres and then by reexamining her find in hopes of bringing to light  a few alternative perspectives, as well as a few issues deemed worthy of discussion.

Anáil an Bhéil Bheo brings together a stimulating range of interdisciplinary essays considering the connections between orality and modern Irish culture. From literature to song, folklore to the visual arts, contributors examine not only the connections between oral and textual traditions in Ireland, but also the theoretical concept of “orality” itself and the corresponding significance of oral texts in Irish society. Featuring work by emerging scholars in the fields of history, literature, folklore, music, women’s studies, film and theatre studies and disciplines contributing to Irish Studies, this multifaceted volume also includes contributions from scholars long engaged with issues of orality such as Gearóid Ó Crualaoich and Henry Glassie.

Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after an actual historical figure, and it has become a dominant literary form since the 1990s, resulting in spectacular publications from luminaries as varied as J.M. Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Penelope Fitzgerald, Peter Carey, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Hilary Mantel. And yet, there is still considerable confusion about the aesthetic form. Take, for instance, the consistent claim that the biographical novel is a subgenre or a version of the historical novel. Scholars from the 1930s until the present have made this claim. But Colum McCann, who has authored three extraordinary biographical novels, says that he “hate[s] the historical novel” in two separate interviews, and he explains why in another. McCann is not alone. Prominent biographical novelists like Olga Tokarczuk, Daniel Kehlmann, Rosa Montero, Joanna Scott, Colm Tóibín, and Bruce Duffy, to mention only a notable few, unambiguously distance themselves from the historical novel. The question is why. In this interview, Michael Lackey, editor of two volumes of interviews with famous biographical novelists and author of The American Biographical Novel and Ireland, the Irish, and the Rise of Biofiction, will get some answers from McCann to pressing questions about biofiction.

Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy (1992) has been critically examined from a very large number of perspectives for over a quarter of a century. Instead of a comprehensive look at the entire Irish novel or an analysis of the compelling language, psychology, or its historical context, this article will narrowly focus on Derrida's look at the ethics of gifts and exchanges and apply his notions to the nature and eventual deterioration of the close relationship between Francis (Francie) Brady and his childhood friend Joe Purcell as a contribution to an understanding about the homicidal behavior of the narrator Francis Brady.

Working with definitions of hybridity found in cultural criticism this paper's aim is to suggest that the hybrid nature of Carson's text is a reflection not only of his myriad influences and interests - from Williams and Benjamin to Irish history and pop culture - but also of the hybrid nature of the poet's interior and exterior world. The text itself resists traditional poetic classifications just as the poet resists traditional cultural classifications. It is this resistance that exemplifies hybridity and, in Carson's case, a move toward a new poetics expressive of the poet's own hybrid space.

Back home in Connemara, a copy of Old Moore’s Almanac was as much a staple of our household as Ireland’s Own or The Connaught Tribune. It was purchased in January, a patriotic De Valera green cover which hinted at perpetual rainfall, comely maidens, the mail boat to England and Glenroe on a Sunday.  It was a compendium of bad astrology, the dates for the major cattle marts and weather predictions which were uniformly deranged – ‘I have to tell you that the average temperature in January was 6.2 degrees. In July it was 25 degrees. At this rate of increase, by December it will be 58 degrees and human life will be unsustainable.’ I bring this up because Old Moore’s Almanac will go some way in explaining the fiction of John McGahern...

This book uses popular culture to highlight the intersections and interplay between ideologies, technological advancement and mobilities as they shape contemporary Irish identities. Marshalling case studies drawn from a wide spectrum of popular culture, including the mediated construction of prominent sporting figures, Troubles-set sitcom Derry Girls, and poignant drama feature Philomena, Anthony P. McIntyre offers a wide-ranging discussion of contemporary Irishness, tracing its entanglement with notions of mobility, regionality and identity. The book will appeal to students and scholars of Irish studies, cultural studies, as well as film and media studies.

Anthony P. McIntyre is a Teaching Fellow in Film and Media Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland. He is Co-editor of The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness (2017) and recent publications have appeared in Television & New Media, Feminist Media Studies, and European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Whilst the imaginative act of home-making is intensely personalised in the relationships we construct to our own spaces of habitation, the symbolic potency of the home-place within Irish cultural and political discourse suggests that the understanding of what it means to be at home is always also a shared one. As an examination of Irish cultural discourses over the past decades reveals, that understanding necessarily shifts over time in response to wider social, economic and cultural changes. This essay traces how such shifts have found expression within Irish cinema, how cinema as a medium has articulated a changing relationship to the ‘symbolic fiction’ that is home. In particular, it tracks a movement within Irish films from the traditional association of home with a specific, bounded place, to the image of an Ireland which conceives of itself inhabiting a fluctuating global space. It suggests that both these images of belonging express a tension between what might be termed local and global perspectives on space; indeed that the purpose of home as an imaginative construct is to negotiate between those two seemingly divergent understandings of the physical and social spaces in which we live our everyday lives. Furthermore, in the troubled home-places of recent Irish cinema, it discerns a collapse of home’s comforting fictions as Irish society experiences a visceral encounter with the economic forces which determine our ability to imagine a space in which we belong.