IASIL 2016 `CHANGE`

IASIL2016‘CHANGE’
InternationalAssociationfortheStudyofIrishLiteratures
UniversityCollegeCork,25-29July2016
BOOKOFABSTRACTS
MONDAY25JULY
1A:WOMENANDAGEINGINIRISHLITERATURE
Thenewinterdisciplinaryfieldofageingstudies,whichreassessesculturalrepresentationsofageing,
isatopicparticularlypertinentinIrishliteratureandculture,whereimagesofageingwomenhave
oftenbeenconflatedwiththoseofthenation.InYeats’srepresentationofCathleenNíHoulihan,the
Sean Bhean Bhocht is depicted with the potential to grow young again if patriotic men move into
battleanddieforhersake.Thehumandimensionsofageing–suchasawoman’sbodilyandmental
changes,disease,menopause,lossesandpotentialgains–arethuseclipsedandevadedinfavourof
acollectivefantasy.Morerecently,theeconomicboomoftheCelticTigersawdramaticsocialand
economictransformationinIreland.Asocietythatlaudedthepotentialforempowermentthrough
consumerismnowforegroundedthefigureofthewomanasaniconofexcess.Thesuggestionthat
this lifestyle was available to everyone contributed to the ‘vanishing’ figure of the ageing woman,
compelledto‘pass’asyounger.TheNeoliberalrhetoricofindividualresponsibilityandtheimpactof
austerity measures in the post-Celtic Tiger recession have further marginalised the ageing, as cut
backsinsocialwelfare,alackofpublichealthcareresourcesandinfrastructure,theimplementation
ofpropertytaxesandwatercharges,taketheirtollonthemostvulnerablemembersofsociety.In
view of the rapidly ageing society in Ireland (and the rest of Europe), cultural constructions and
perceptions of old age take on added significance as they impact society’s views on women’s
identitiesaswellaswomen’sownself-image.ThispanelwillanalysehowIrishwritersfromtheearly
twentieth century to the present have attempted to challenge dominant cultural constructions of
genderandageingaswellastogiveavoiceto,andcarveaspacefor,ageingwomen’ssubjectivities
inIrishwriting.
‘PoemstoGrowOldin’:WomenandAgeinginIrishPoetry
MichaelaSchrage-Früh(UniversityofLimerick)
EavanBolandhasarguedthattheIrishpoetictraditioncontainsanin-builtmechanismtoresistthe
themeofageingwomen.ThemostemblematicfiguretoillustratethisisCathleenNiHoulihan,the
femaleallegoryofIreland,madefamousbyWilliamButlerYeats'seponymousone-actplay.Inthis
play, set on the eve of the failed 1798 Irish uprising, Cathleen is presented as a poor old woman
lamentingthelossofherfourgreenfields,whoturnsintoayounggirl“withthewalkofaqueen”as
youngmenmoveintobattletodieforhersake.
Demanding “a poem / I can grow old in”, Eavan Boland employs a variety of devices to
rewriteandchallengethispoetictradition,mostnotablybydisruptingtraditionalwaysofstorytelling
andbymovingtheageingfemalepoet–herbody,hermemories,herlosses–tothecentreofher
poetry.AnothermajorIrishpoetwhoseworkhasfocusedonfemaleexperiencefromtheoutsetis
MedbhMcGuckian.Herfourteencollectionsofpoetry,publishedbetween1982and2015,contain
poems about women’s menstruating, pregnant, maternal and eventually post-menopausal, ageing
bodies.Inhermostrecentcollection,TheHighCaulCap(2012),thepoettriestocometotermswith
herownageingmother’sdeclineandeventualdeath.
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InmypaperIwilloutlineandcomparethewaysinwhichIrishpoetshavewrittentheageing
woman'sbodyandmindintotheirpoetry.Insodoing,IwillpayparticularattentiontoBoland'sand
McGuckian's respective approaches, but will also take into account relevant works by other poets
suchasMaryDorcey,PaulDurcanandRitaAnnHiggins.
DrMichaelaSchrage-FrühresearchesandteachesattheUniversityofLimerick.Sheistheauthorof
EmergingIdentities:Myth,NationandGenderinthePoetryofEavanBoland,NualaNíDhomhnaill
and Medbh McGuckian (WVT, 2004) and co-editor of New Selected Poems by Medbh McGuckian
(Winston-Salem: Wake Forest UP, 2015). Her monograph Philosophy, Dreaming and the Literary
ImaginationwillbepublishedwithPalgraveMacmillanin2016.
SamuelBeckett’s“hystericaloldhags”:TheAgeingMaternalFeminineintheRadioplayAllThat
Fall
BrendaO’Connell(MaynoothUniversity)
The question of gender is a pertinent one in Samuel Beckett’s oeuvre. From an initial prevailing
misogynypresentinhisearlyproseworks,thefocusshiftstoamoreuniversalist,albeitnotgenderindifferentview,especiallyinhislatetheatre.InBeckett’sfirstcompletedplayEleutheria(writtenin
French in 1947), the character Dr Piouk, in his solution to the ‘problem of humanity’, displays an
exuberant misogyny towards women, who exist solely for the propagation of the species. Piouk
declares:‘Iwouldbanreproduction.Iwouldperfectthecondomandotherdevicesandbringthem
intogeneraluse.Iwouldestablishteamsofabortionists,controlledbytheState.Iwouldapplythe
death penalty to any woman guilty of giving birth. I would drown all newborn babies. I would
militateinfavourofhomosexuality,andwouldmyselfsettheexample’(Beckett1996:44-5).Ifthe
femininehasasubordinateroleintheearlyplays,amajorshiftoccurswiththeradioplayAllThat
Fall(1957).Here,forthefirsttime,BeckettpresentshisfirstfemaleprotagonistMaddyRooney,an
ageingmenopausalwoman.Theplayfocusesprincipallyuponthefeminine,ormoreprecisely,the
maternal feminine. This paper analyses the portrayal of the maternal ageing body in this play and
themasculineviolencewhichthreatensit.
BrendaO’ConnellisaPhDcandidateatMaynoothUniversity.Thefocusofherresearchistheroleof
the mother figure in Beckett’s work. Her theoretical frameworks are drawn from feminism, queer
studies, philosophy, and the psychoanalytic theories of Bracha L. Ettinger. She has published on
twentieth-century and contemporary experimental theatre and performance art. Her research is
fundedbytheJohnandPatHumeScholarship.
TheAgeingMotherinAnneEnright’sTheGreenRoad
MargaretO’Neill(UniversityofLimerick)
Anne Enright’s The Green Road centres an Irish mother, Rosaleen, in a story that follows the
members of the Madigan family over fifteen years from 1980 to 2005. Rosaleen has four children
whohave,asshedescribes,lefther.When,asanageingwoman,shewritesontheirChristmascards
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thatsheissellingthehouse,eachtemporarilyrelinquishestheirnewlifetothepulloffamilyandof
home.TheworkofEnrightemphasisesinparticularthefigureofthemother,whomIrishliterature
andcultureastendedtorepresentasaculturalicon,ratherthanasaspeakingsubject.InTheGreen
Road,Enrightfurtherdevelopsherworkonthissubject,exploringthefigureoftheageingwoman
andmotherandthemanynamesbywhichsheisknown,‘Mammy’,‘Mama’,‘Ma’,‘Gran’,‘Rosaleen’,
and‘DarkRosaleen’.WhensheleavesherchildrenonChristmasdaytowalktheGreenRoad,aroad
thatrunsthroughtheTheBurren,intheWestofIreland,sheasksherself,‘wherediditbegin’,which
is,‘moreacadencethanaquestion’(259).Thecadenceishistoricallyandculturallydeterminedbut
thisisalsoajourneyofexplorationindividualtoRosaleen.TheGreenRoadexhortsustoforgetwhat
we think we know about the figure of the mother and the ageing women. It provides for an
exploration,alongsideRosaleen,notofwhoshewasinthepastorwhowemightwishhertobe,but
beyondpreconceivedideastoaplacewherenewmeaningmayemerge.
This paper will also explore allusions to James Clarence Mangan and to Samuel Beckett in
TheGreenRoad,drawingconnectionswiththeworkofmycolleaguesonthispanel.
Dr Margaret O’Neill researches and teaches at the University of Limerick. She has published on
contemporaryIrishwomen’swritingandpopularfictionofthepost-CelticTigerrecession.Herarticle
onthemotherinAnneEnright’sTheGreenRoadisforthcominginStudiesinGenderandSexuality.
1B:NEWANDCOMPARATIVEPERSPECTIVESONEAVANBOLAND
LossandCreativeChangeinEavanBolandandKerryHardie
CatrionaClutterbuck(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Loss is the most universal occasion and condition of change in human experience, operating
paradoxicallyasthebasisbothofdestructionandofcontinuityinnature.Thispapercomparesthe
poetryoflossbyEavanBolandandKerryHardie,includingtheirelegies,theirpoetryonthefemale
bodilyexperienceofillnessandageing,andtheirworkonthosewhohavebeenmarginalizedwithin
history.Itarguesthatbothpoetsposittheneedtoconfronttheimmutableharshnessofloss–its
darkness and chaos - as an under-acknowledged yet integral component of individual, communal
and national experience in Ireland. However, it further argues that for Boland and Hardie, such
sufferedandacknowledgedlosshasthecapacitytoopenupourunderstandingofthealterityofour
own and others’ lives in a transformative way. For Boland and Hardie, the grief work that follows
uponlosscanbeavitalmeansofturningawayfromculturesofdeathtowardsarenewedcultureof
life. This paper suggests that they show this outcome to depend upon how we negotiate a
relationshipbetweenmelancholiaandmourning,resistanceandacceptance,whiletakingaccountof
thedifferencesbothbetweenavoidableandunavoidableloss,andbetweenlosswhichisvoicedand
thatwhichremainssilent.Itthusreadsthesetwowomenpoetsasconnectedthroughtheirdifferent
explorationsofthetermsthroughwhichhumanscanfacilitatethepowerofcreativechangewhichis
embedded in the experience of loss – an exploration which in turn has implications for their
understanding of textual process and for their poetry’s reconfiguration of concepts of broader
politicalandaestheticrenewal.
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Dr Catriona Clutterbuck lectures in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College
Dublin. She specializes in contemporary Irish poetry, with broader interests in gender and
subjectivity, ethics and aesthetics, faith concepts, the elegy, and Irish critical cultures. She has
published on Heaney, Groarke, Boland, Ní Chuilleanáin, Kinsella, Mahon, and McGuckian, among
others.
EavanBoland:anApostleofChange
MaryMassoud(AinShamsUniversity)
AlthoughIrelandwonitsIndependencein1922,itwasnotuntil1949thatitwasofficiallydeclared
“the Republic of Ireland,” and the colonial attitude of the British towards the Irish was still very
muchprevalentthroughoutthechildhoodandgrowingupyearsoftheIrishpoet,EavanBoland(b.
1944).Infact,beingIrishcontinuedtobeasortofstigmawellintothesecondhalfofthetwentieth
century.Thispaperwillshowhow,asawoman,thepoetsufferednotonlyfromthewidely-spread
Irishimageofthecolonizer,butalsofromthelimitationsplacedonwomen;andhow,throughher
poetry,BolandstrovetochangethelowimagebothofIrelandandofwomen.
DrMaryMassoudisProfessorintheDepartmentofEnglishandComparativeLiteratureatAin
ShamsUniversityinCairo,Egypt,andhaspublishedseveralworksdealingwithEnglish,Irish,and
Americanliterarytopics,aswellastranslationsfromEnglishintoArabicofworksinthefieldof
theology.
ShiftingSights:TheSuburbinthePoetryofTempleLaneandEavanBoland
JaclynAllen(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Mid-twentieth-centuryIrishwomenpoetshavebeenseenasalostgroupwithnoconnectiontonext
generation.Thispaperraisestheideathatthereisaconnectionviathesharedthemeoftheposition
oftheIrishwomanpoet.IwillexamineTempleLaneandEavanBoland,amid-centurypoetandthe
other from the post-1960s generation, and their shared use of the suburb as the position of the
womanpoet.Bothusethisimagetodiscussthemarginalandliminalsubjectivityofthewomanpoet,
buttheyconstructthisspacedifferently.WhileLanewritesofthesuburbasmarginaleventoedges
ofthemainstream,Bolandconstructsitasasitetowriteherwayintothetradition.Althoughthese
constructionsaresimilar,thischangeindepictionofthesuburbmirrorsachangeintheconception
ofthewomanpoetseenintheirautobiographicalwriting.WhileLaneconstructsthewomanpoetas
anoutsiderwithnowayintoanalienatingtradition,Bolandseesthisliminalspaceasawaytowrite
herselfintothetraditionandforcethetraditionopentothisnewsubjectivity.Similarconstructions
of self are seen in other women poets of the same time periods; this suggests that this change in
perception is a generational shift which can influence the woman poet’s ability to challenge the
constrictionsofIrishpoetrywhichsilenceher.
Jaclyn Allen is a third-year doctoral student at University College Dublin (UCD). Her thesis is a
transnational study of mid-twentieth-century English and Irish women poets and focuses on the
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constructionofthefemalecreativeselfasexpressedbyspatialmetaphors/psychogeography.Sheis
aresidentscholaratUCD’sHumanitiesInstitute.
1C:SOCIALCHANGEANDTHEIRISHREVIVAL
TheIrishRevivalandtheCongestedDistricts:ActsofModernisation
SeánHewitt(UniversityofLiverpool)
Rather than being a man ‘by nature unfitted to think a political thought’, J.M. Synge was deeply
engagedinthepoliticalandsocialissuesofhistime.Hiswritingsfromthecongesteddistricts,which
begin with the recognition of an established journalistic and political discourse, implicitly draw on
the writings of a host of Revivalist scholars, journalists, and political figures. These articles were
written quickly, often within a day or two, and were not significantly revised; hence, they yield a
significantinsightintoSynge’sengagementwithcontemporarypoliticaltextsandsocialmovements.
Drawingonavastanddiscriminatingknowledgeofpolitics,schemesofmodernisation,constructive
unionistpolicyandtheaestheticresponsesoffellowRevivalists,Synge’sarticlesfromthecongested
districts are key to understanding not only the political engagement of their author, but also the
waysinwhichsocialchangeisfiguredintheLiteraryRevivalandthenationaltheatreproject.This
paperwilltraceSynge’ssources,plottinghispointsofnavigationthroughcontemporaryreactionsto
modernisationinthewestofIreland,andwillthusactasanarchaeologyofadistinctdiscourseof
thecongestedareas.Indoingso,itwillshowhowpoliticaldiscoursewasmanifestedinthenational
theatre’schangesofadministrationduring1905,andhowtheplaysofJ.M.SyngeandLadyGregory
inparticularrefractedthediscoursesofsocialmodernisation.BydrawingondiverseRevivalisttexts
suchasDana,TheIrishHomestead,TheWelloftheSaints,andKincora,alongsidebothBritishand
Irish newspaper correspondence from the congested districts, we can begin to shed light on the
mutually-informing political relationships between drama and reportage during the first decade of
theRevivalmovement.
Seán Hewitt read English at Girton College, Cambridge, and is currently a PhD candidate at the
Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool. His research explores the relationship between
modernisationandtheIrishRevivalwithaparticularfocusontheworksofJ.M.Synge.
“Doinggood”inParis:J.M.Synge&SocialThought
CatherineWilsdon(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Inautumn1896,KathleenSyngewrotetohersonSamuelexpressingconcernoveryoungJohnnie’s
intentiontoreturntoParistostudysocialismand“todogood”(CLI7).Whilsttheprovocative
natureofSynge’sdramaticworkhaslongbeenacknowledged,thispaperseekstodemonstratethe
waysinwhichtheleftistideologiesheencounteredinParisareinflectedinhisproseworkTheAran
Islands.Synge’seffortsweredirectedtowardsatheoreticalunderstandingofsocialorganisationand
inequality.Hisreadingdiarycorroboratesthiscommitmentlistingamongtextscovered:Victor
Considerant’sPrincipesdusocialisme(1843),KarlMarx’sCommunistManifesto(1848)andCapital
(1867),JohnA.Hobson’sProblemsofPoverty(1891),WilliamMorrisandE.BelfortBax’sSocialism
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anditsgrowthandoutcome(1893),andHenriBrissacandAlfredNaquet’sPouretcontrele
collectivisme(1895).Fromfoundationaltexts,includingAugusteComte’stheoriesofsocial
organisation,tocontemporaryinterventionssuchasGabrielDeville’s‘L’Étatetlesocialisme’(1895),
Synge’sreadingdemonstratesaconscientiousefforttoengagewithsocialistthoughtbothhistorical
andcontemporary.HealsoengagedwiththeworkofanarchistwriterssuchasPeterKropotkin,
FernandPelloutier,andAugustinHamon.Itismycontentionthatthesubjectivenarrative
perspectiveofhis“travelogue”,combinedwithauthorialselectionsintermsofsubjectandframing,
reconfigurethetextasakindofsocio-politicalstatement.UtilisingmaterialsfromSynge’snotebooks
anddiaries,itwillcharttheprogressionofSynge’sengagementwithsocialthoughtduringthese
formativeyearsspenttravellinginEurope.Consequently,itwillfurtherilluminatethisperiodof
travelandeducationbetween1895and1903.
CatherineWilsdonrecentlycompletedaPhDonJohnMillingtonSynge'sEuropeantravelsat
UniversityCollegeDublin.AsrecipientoftheFatherLiamSwordsFoundationBursary2016,sheis
currentlycarryingoutresearchinParis.Sheisalsoco-directoroftheIrishRevivalNetwork.
DisabilityandSocialReform:J.M.Synge,BrianFrielandEndaWalsh
MichałLachman(UniversityofŁódź)
Inthemostgeneralsense,disabilitycanbeseenasaformofotherness,aprocessandpracticeof
differing.Itisadeparturefromtherecognizablyhumanconditionintotheworldinwhichtheusual
patternsoflifeandthoughtundergodestructionoratleastdisruption.Therefore,thein-humanity,
un-humanityorab-humanityofsuchapositionparadoxicallyempowersdramaticprotagonistswith
moreinsightandvocabularytodiscussordebatethesocial,philosophicalandethicalconditionsof
life,totestthenormsandrulesofthe“abled”existenceortoexposethesuperficialityofvaluesand
definitionsofwhatiscommonlyconsideredappropriateandstandard.Disabilitymaybeusedasa
practicalconditionofmindandbodytosearchforanewdefinitionofthehumanandthesocialinan
attempttoassessandjudgetheconditionsoflifeofmodernman.
Thispaperexploresthreedistinctattemptstoemploydisabilityasatoolofsocialreformand
as a perspective to assess social life and its standards. Coming from three different literary and
philosophical backgrounds, Synge’s The Well of the Saints, Friel’s Molly Sweeney and Walsh’s
Bedboundofferdifferentimagesofdisabilityaswellaspresentdistinctversionsofsocialnormativity
withwhichitisinconflict.Theaimofthispaperistoanalysedisabledcharacterswhothroughtheir
otherness and alienation acquire knowledge and insight into the workings of social discourses
dominatingIrishmentality.Thepresenceofthedisabledprotagonistsandtheiralteredandcritical
narratives exposes both individual and national subconscious tormented by the need of
emancipation,stabilityandmodernization.
MichałLachmanisaLecturerinEnglishandIrishDramaattheDepartmentofDrama,Universityof
Łódź, Poland. His research interests include the history of the twentieth-century British and Irish
drama, literary theory and translation. He has published on Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh, Sarah
Kane,MarkRavenhillandHowardBarker.
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1D:LAWANDLITERATUREINIRELAND
In this panel three scholars will reflect on different aspects of the intersection between law and
literatureinmodernIreland.
The“shamelessthieves”andplagiaristsofSomervilleandRoss’stalesofanIrishR.M.
AnneJamison(UniversityofWesternSydney)
ThispaperwillconsiderSomervilleandRoss’slegalcaseofplagiarismin1913againsttheauthorsof
a collection of humorous short stories, By the Brown Bog (1913). It will argue that changing
definitions of originality and plagiarism in the late nineteenth century excluded popular women’s
writing, like Somerville and Ross’s Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. (1899), from the legal
protectionofcopyright.BasedonSomervilleandRoss’scorrespondencewiththeiragent,publisher,
and legal representation (the Society of Authors), this paper will further demonstrate how
Somerville and Ross’s case was defeated by aesthetic discourses of authorship, ownership, and
literary genius. These intellectual and public markers of literary value, this paper will conclude,
significantlyinfluencedthelaw’sattitudetowardsissuesofplagiarism.
Dr Anne Jamison is a feminist literary and cultural critic with a research focus on eighteenth- and
nineteenth-centuryBritish,Irishand,morerecently,Australianwomen'sliterature.Sheiscurrently
Lecturer in Literary Studies in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of
Western Sydney. She is the author of E. Œ. Somerville and Martin Ross: Female Authorship and
LiteraryCollaboration(CorkUniversityPress,2016).
LawandGenreintheworkofKevinBarry
RíonnaghSheridan(Queen’sUniversityBelfast)
Thispaperwillexplore,withparticularemphasisonCityofBohane(2011),theimplicationsoflawas
thenovelstrikesintoseveralregistersrangingwellbeyondrealismtoreconceivethemesandissues
of lawlessness in frontier or environments of ‘possibility’, including Western, noir, myth, science
fiction, political drama, gangster/Mafioso, boy’s own adventure, utopia/dystopia, romance and
gothic,allofwhicharecompellinglyalteredinthemilieuoftheurbanIrishwest.
LegislatorsoftheUnacknowledged:IrishPoetsandtheLawinthe1980s
AdamHanna(UniversityCollegeCork)
This paper will examine how a range of poets, in particular Paul Durcan and Paula Meehan,
responded to legal and constitutional controversies in Ireland during a decade that saw the fierce
questioning, and the equally fierce defence, of laws governing matters including abortion, divorce
andhomosexualacts.Thispaperarguesthat,althoughtheapproachesofDurcanandMeehanwere
verydifferent,bothgavevividandmemorablevoicetotheunspokenconsequencesofexistinglaws.
Both poets, too, provided a humane perspective that both acknowledged the diversity and
complexity of life in the Republic and granted the possibility of alternate futures. In this way,
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Ireland’s poets acted as (in George Oppen’s phrase) ‘legislators of the unacknowledged world’,
engaging with the reality of hidden and silent parts of Irish life in ways that the country’s legal
systemdidnot.
DrAdamHannaisanIrishResearchCouncilGovernmentofIrelandPostdoctoralFellowatthe
SchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCork.HehastaughtattheUniversityofBristol,University
ofAberdeen,andTrinityCollegeDublin,andpractisedasasolicitor.HeistheauthorofNorthern
IrishPoetryandDomesticSpace(Palgrave,2015)andhiscurrentprojectisentitled‘Literatureand
LegislationinIreland:PoeticJustice.’
1E:TRANSFORMATIONSANDTRANSLOCATIONSINIRISHFILM:IDENTITY,POLITICS,TEXT
TheTransformativeEffectofFilmmakingonYeats’“WhenYouAreOld”
DawnDuncan(ConcordiaCollege-Moorhead)
Howdoesonetakeabelovedpoemandchangeit,atleastsomewhatifnotutterly,forthesakeof
film?Oneofthemostenduringpoems,perhapsforitssimplicityaswellasonepowerfulphrase,is
W.B. Yeats’ “When You Are Old.” The notion of being loved for one’s “pilgrim soul” continues to
resonate. Taking my cue from this phrase, I wrote, directed, and edited a short narrative film
exploringdifferentversionsofwhomightloveinsuchamanner,inthisinstanceagrandparentanda
lover, and how those who love us in such a way live forever in our souls. My film, “A Heart
Remembers” is an 11-minute short, shot and edited during the summer/autumn of 2015; it is
showingatthe2016FargoFilmFestival.Thechangesinthefilmnarrativeareplaceandtime:the
early1970sandnow,setintheUSA.Derridaassertsthatanoriginalonlyhasmeaningbyvirtueofits
copies, and Deleuze argues that film is a “philosophical instrument” that “renders thought in
audiovisualterms”sothatitsmovementand“intensities”become“transformational.”Cartmelland
Melehaninsistafilmadaptationshouldnotbeacopyquacopyorthereisnoneedforitsexistence.
“AHeartRemembers,”afilmedversionof“WhenYouAreOld,”worksasaninter-textualexperience
that renders the poem anew. In order to allow screening of the film, the scholarly part of my
presentationwillbekeptto8minutes.
DrDawnDuncan,ProfessorofEnglish,Film&GlobalStudiesatConcordiaCollege-Moorhead,MN,is
wellpublishedinIrishliteratureandfilm,includingthebooksIrishMyth,Lore,andLegendonFilm
andPostcolonialIrishDrama,1800-2000.Inadditiontoherscholarlylife,shecontinuestoactand
direct.
ForgingaNewLife:Brooklyn(2015)andtheDualWorldsofIrishandAmericanIdentity
LorettaGoff(UniversityCollegeCork)
ThispapertracesthedualperformanceofIrishandAmericanidentityrepresentedbythecharacter
ofEilisLaceyinBrooklyn(2015),andexamineshowthetopicofthefilmmayhaveinfluencedactress
Saoirse Ronan’s own identity performance while promoting it. One of the key complexities of
emigration is the reconfiguration of identity that results from beginning a new life in another
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country. This alteration becomes even more complex when individuals return “home”, or travel
frequently between old and new homelands, and thus continue to re-negotiate their identities
basedontheirlocation.ThecharacterofEilisLaceyemigratesfromIrelandtoAmericainthe1950s
(reflectingarealityofthetimeformanyIrish),andstruggleswithidentitychoicesthere,andagain
after returning to Ireland. Her experience is made harder by the cost and difficulty of travel, and
slower communication methods of the time, which enforced the feeling of separation between
places (and identities). Now, with ease of travel and instantaneous connections afforded by
technological advances, this sense of separation has dissipated, allowing for greater flexibility of
identity. Saoirse Ronan, who plays Lacey, was born in New York, but grew up in Ireland. She now
travels between both countries for work and claims connections to each in interviews. Through a
consideration of both Lacey’s and Ronan’s identity performances, framed by film and media, I will
highlighttheperformativeandproteannatureofidentity,demonstratethewaysinwhichtheIrish
and American sides of Irish-American identity are kept separate (in their own worlds) during each
timeperiod,andinterrogatethereasonsforenactingdifferentidentitiesindifferentplaces.
LorettaGoffisasecond-yearPhDstudentinFilmandScreenMediaattheUniversityCollegeCork
where she is also a tutor at the School of English. Her research interests include film and identity,
representationsofIrish-America,andtheexportationofculturethroughfilmandnewmedia.
FromBoySoldiertobutchertoBranwen:ChangingWelshperspectiveson“theTroubles”
DilysJones(UniversityofManchester)
European Minority Nation films have attracted some academic attention (e.g. Petrie 2004; David
Martin-Jones2009;HuwDavidJones(ed)2014).However,perspectivesononeminoritynationby
filmmakersfromaneighbouringminoritynationhavesofarbeenneglected,partlybecauseofthe
relatively small number of films of this type made so far. This paper seeks to address this neglect
throughadiscussionofchangesinhowWelshfilmmakershaveportrayedNorthernIrelandand‘The
Troubles’.FromthegrittyrealismofastoryofanexploitedyoungWelshmanservingintheBritish
Army(BoySoldier:KarlFrancis:1986),throughtheretellingofanoldmythrelocatedtothe1990s
(Branwen: Ceri Sherlock: 1994), to the retelling of ‘true’ stories of paramilitary martyrdom
(Frongoch-UniversityofRevolution:WilAaron:1988&Frongoch:BirthplaceoftheIRA:IforapGlyn:
2007) and gangster type atrocity, (Resurrection Man: Marc Evans: 1998) Welsh film makers have
adoptedanumberofdifferentangles.Throughananalysisofthesethreefeatureandtwohistorical
documentaries,ithighlightschangesinnarrativesfromthecommunaltotheindividualandchanges
intheextentthesefilmsmaybeseentobecriticalofoppressionandinjusticestemmingfromthe
shared external power of England. Focusing on the main characters and their motives, notions of
‘insider’and‘outsiderness’,gender,religion,andviolence,thispaperdrawsattentiontomajorand
subtledifferencesinhowWelshfilmmakershaveneverthelessfocusedon‘TheTroubles’inurban
contexts as a prime means through which Northern Ireland has been depicted. It also discusses
differentdegreesofsympathythataudiencesmaybeexpectedtohaveforIrishcharactersinthese
films.WhatemergesseemstobechangesintheextentthatIrelandhasbeenusedasavehicleto
exploreaspectsofWelshness,andresistancetoEnglishrule.
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DilysJonescompletedherPhDonhowchangingnarrativesofWelshandBasqueidentityhavebeen
represented in film in 2013. She is currently researching Catalan identities in film as an Honorary
ResearchFellowattheUniversityofManchesterandhasalsobeenaself-employeddairyfarmerin
WestWales.
1F:TEACHINGIRISHLITERATUREANDHISTORY
Effortsatcapturingchange:ThecontemporaryIrishnovelfromaScandinavianperspective
SaraHåkansson(LundUniversity)
‘TheContemporaryIrishNovel’isacoursewhichhasrunatLundUniversity,Swedensince2007and
whichaimstointroduceandcontributetostudents’engagementwiththeIrishnovelgenerallyand
withthedebates,issuesandconflictsthatspecifictextsraiseinparticular.In2007,whenthecourse
wasintroduced,Irelandwasenjoyingalevelofunprecedentedeconomicprosperityandthetextson
the reading list (among them The Butcher Boy, The Snapper and The Blackwater Lightship) were
discussedagainstthebackdropofboomingTigertimes.
Soon after the course was launched, however, Ireland, and the world, was hit by the
financial crash and, interestingly, in the aftermath, the new generation of writers that were being
published(forexample,KevinBarry,PaulMurrayandClaireKilroy)presentednew‘Irelands’tobe
discussed, analysed and made sense of in relation to earlier representations of Irish society and
culture.
This paper reflects on the challenges involved in keeping up with major changes on the
literaryarenainacoursewhichservesasanintroductorysurveyoncontemporaryIrishliterature.I
willshownotonlyhowthecontentsonthecoursehavehadtobealteredinthespaceof8years(a
short period of time in most university reading list contexts) but also how Swedish students’ preknowledge and discussions of Irish literature and, not least, their perceptions of ‘Irishness’, have
changed and developed from when the course first ran in 2007. Accordingly, this study examines
developmentswithincontemporaryIrishliteraturethroughthefilterofaSwedishuniversitysurvey
courseforundergraduatestudents.
Sara Håkansson is a senior lecturer in English at Lund University, Sweden. She primarily teaches
literature and conducts research within nineteenth-century literature, narratology and Irish
contemporaryliterature.SheisalsoaneducationaldeveloperandLund’seducationaldevelopment
unitwheresheteachescoursesinteachingandlearningforseniorstaffmembers.
Change and Re-Evaluation during an age of Transition and Conflict; History teaching in the
RepublicofIreland,1959-72
ColmMacGearailt(TrinityCollegeDublin)
Ithasbeenwellestablishedbyhistorians,andthepublicatlarge,thatthelate1950s,1960sandinto
the1970swasaperiodofsustainedchangeinIrishsociety,fromapolitical,societalandeconomic
perspective. Education, both structurally and institutionally, also massively changed during this
period. My paper will examine whether the History that was taught during this period changed
alongside it? Seemingly deemed irrelevant by many of the leading politicians today, the history
taughtinschoolsaccordingtotheofficialgovernmentalprogrammein1924,wasanationalpriority,
10
andbythe1970s,(andthebeginningoftheNorthernTroubles),wasseenbysomeinfluentialfigures
as“quiteliterallyamatteroflifeanddeath.”
Thispaperexaminesthedevelopmentsinsecond-levelhistoryinIrelandduringthiscrucial
periodoftransitionandchangeandwillanalysetheteachingofIrishhistoryintheRepublicfroma
numberofangles.Itwillanalysetheextenttowhichclaimsthatschoolhistorysouthoftheborder
was promoting the creation of ‘little gunmen’ north of it can be substantiated. It will analyse the
effectswhichthehistorysyllabuswouldhaveonstudentsbyexaminingthecentralityofthesubject
tothecurriculum,theclasstimeallocatedtoit,andthemannerinwhichitwastaught.Thispaper
will briefly examine the relationship between academic history and school history to assess the
(potential) differences between the two whilst also examining the textbooks used to see whether
whatwasexpresslylaiddownforstudypromotedtheidealsofviolentrepublicanism,asarguedby
Minister Burke. What were the driving ideologies behind portrayals of second-level Irish history
during this period, and how did these change over time? How did the larger shifts in policy and
politicsmanifestthemselvesintheclassroom,ifatall?
ColmMacGearailtisfromAnGhaeltacht,Co.Chiarraí,andiscurrentlyinhissecondyearofresearch
asadoctoralcandidateatTrinityCollegeDublin.Thispaperispartofhiswiderresearchprojecton
thestudyandteachingofIrishHistoryinsecond-leveleducationinthefirstfiftyyearsoftheState.
PoppingtheAmericanBubble:U.S.StudyAbroadStudents'ChangingPerceptionsofIreland
NancyEffingerWilson(TexasStateUniversity)
Forsixteensummers,IhavetaughttravelwritingaspartofaU.S.universitystudyabroadprogram
toCorkCity,Ireland.Likemanyinvolvedinstudyabroadprograms,Ialwaysassumedthatimmersion
wouldautomaticallygenerateinmystudentsanappreciationforandadeepunderstandingofthe
host culture. Unfortunately, end-of-program evaluations reveal that some students leave Ireland
resentfulthattheirfive-weekIrishexperiencedidnotliveuptotheexpectations:theydidn’tseea
singlethatchedcottage;theyencounteredIrishpeoplewhowereneitherhappynorfriendly;inthe
pubs, Irish people drank Budweiser instead of Guinness. It's as though they thought they were
visiting a theme park rather than a country. Even when students note that they had a good
experience,thiswasmostoftenduetotheirloveofthelandscape,thefood,andtheattractions,not
theIrishculture.
Infact,withrareexceptions,ourstudentsspendthemajorityoftheirtimeinIrelandinthe
company of other Americans. Many particularly enjoy criticizing the Irish people, but also the
Italians, around them, even though their interactions with these individuals are minimal and
superficial. As Wagner and Magistrale have found, such behavior is fairly typical, noting that “it is
commonintheearlystagesofcultureshockforstudentstodonothingbut‘bashthenatives’when
they are among themselves” because “solidarity is found in sharing their hostility towards the
natives”(10-11).
This past summer, I decided to take a more proactive stance in challenging my students'
ethnocentrism. Specifically, I required my students to interview locals, participate in community
eventsandserviceprojects,andingeneralinteractwiththehostculture(s)ofIreland.BecauseIalso
wantedthemtobemindfuloftheirresponses,theyhadtoreflectinwritingontheseexchanges.
11
In this presentation, I will share examples of how my American students' perceptions of Ireland
changed--I would say deepened--as they left the safety bubble of their own American community
and were required to engage in meaningful dialogue with the locals of Cork. Even though this
processofde-centeringtheirownculture(s)wasmessyandattimesuncomfortable,thesestudents
did finally succeed in producing travel writing texts that did more than sell the tourist version of
Ireland.
Dr Nancy Effinger Wilson is an Assistant Professor and Director of Lower Division Studies in the
DepartmentofEnglishatTexasStateUniversityinSanMarcos,Texas.Shehastaughttravelwriting
toU.S.studentsforthepastsixteenyearsaspartoftheTexasStateinIrelandprogram.
1G:TRANSNATIONALNARRATIVESINTHEPERIODICALPRESS
BelfastandBeyond:AliceMilligan’sInternationalisminTheShanVanVocht(1896-99)
DathalinnM.O’Dea(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Untilrecently,AliceMilliganwasperhapsbestknownasaperipheralparticipantintheIrishRevival.
CatherineMorris’s2012studyofMilligancorrectsthisoversight,rightfullyacknowledgingMilligan’s
contributions to the movement and addressing the diversity of her cultural and political activities.
BuildingonMorris’sworkandotherrecentstudiesoftheNorthernRevival,thispaperwillexamine
Milligan’s editorship of The Shan Van Vocht (1896-99), a Belfast-based nationalist newspaper. In
particular,itwillconsidertheextenttowhichMilligansoughtnotonlytoreconciletheNorthwith
thelargerrevivalistproject,butalsotoestablishUlster’slikenesstootherregionsabroad.Indeed,as
the founder of nationalist initiatives in 1890s Belfast, Milligan was aware of both the political
tensions and cultural ferment unique to Northern Ireland in the period, and of a broader
internationalatmospheremotivatingrevolutionaryculturalactivityelsewhere.Accordingly,TheShan
VanVochtaddressedsubjectsasdiverseastheactivitiesoftheGaelicLeagueandtheLondonIrish
Literary Society, and further from home, guerrilla warfare in Cuba – views absorbed by its wideranging readership, spanning Ireland, Britain, Scotland and the United States, as well as Mexico,
Argentina and South Africa. In shifting the focus from London and Dublin to the peripheries of
empire, including Ulster itself, The Shan Van Vocht routinely diverged from the provincialism of
other Irish publications, instead attempting to re-frame Ulster’s own political history in a
transnational context. This paper will consider how Milligan deployed modernist print culture to
imagine her own regional and aesthetic communities in relation to other places and cultures.
Further,itwillhighlighttherolesheplayedinmarketingtheRevivaltoaninternationalreadership–
an approach that deepens our appreciation of the changes revivalism underwent as it was
(re)interpretedinnewculturalandpoliticalcontexts.
Dr Dathalinn M. O’Dea is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of English,
Drama and Film, University College Dublin. She received her PhD from Boston College, and her
researchinterestsincluderegionalmodernisms,gender,printculture,anddigitalhumanities.Sheis
currently working on the comparative study of regional writing in Ireland and the United States,
‘WomeninPrint:IrishandAmericanPrintCultureandtheModernistAtlantic,1895-1936.’
12
“CornerboysSpittingintotheLiffey”:J.P.Mahaffy’sWritingsintheEnglishPeriodicalPress
NoraMoroney(TrinityCollegeDublin)
John Pentland Mahaffy, the Irish classicist, controversialist, and lifelong scholar of Trinity College
Dublin, is an underappreciated figure in Irish history. Described by Oscar Wilde as ‘my first and
greatestteacher’,MahaffywasoneofthegreatVictorianintellectuals,publishingwidelyonavast
rangeoftopicsandcontributingtopoliticaldebatebothinIrelandandEngland.Thispaperexplores
asectionofthesepublicinterventionsintheformofhisEnglishperiodicalwritingsofthe1880sand
1890s. As a regular commentator in such high-brow journals as The Nineteenth Century and The
ContemporaryReview,MahaffyarticulatedhisopiniononissuesfromEgyptologytocontemporary
education to (infamously), the worthlessness of the Irish language. His cosmopolitan range of
interestdidnotconfineitselftosolelyIrishaffairs,however,andintheseelitejournalsdisplaysthe
‘self-confidenceofanacademicwellaccustomedtoinfluencingpublicopinion’.
This paper places Mahaffy in the context of the London periodical press in the latenineteenthcentury.ItwasanarenainwhichmanyaspirationalIrishwritersfoundafootholdinthe
publishing world, and represented a change from traditional narratives of the Irish in Victorian
London.NeitherMahaffynormanyofhisIrishcontemporariesinthepress(suchasStephenGwynn,
W.E.H.LeckyorHannahLynch)wereoverlyconcernedwiththecurrentsofIrishpoliticalorcultural
nationalism. Instead their contributions reveal a cosmopolitan mindset that reflected trends in
European literature and modern political discourse as well as Irish affairs. In articles and
correspondencewithsomeofthemostprominentwritersofhisday,Mahaffy’swritingsrefuteany
claimstoprovincialism,anddemonstratetheintellectualvoracitytypicalofa‘manofletters’inthe
Victorianperiodicalpress.
NoraMoroneyisasecond-yearIrishResearchCouncilPhDcandidateattheSchoolofEnglish,Trinity
CollegeDublin.HerthesisexaminesthecontributionofIrishwriterstotheBritishperiodicalpressin
the1890s,andisunderthesupervisionofProf.EvePatten.
(R)emigration,theRegionandCulturalChangeinLocalColourFiction,1891-1905
MarguériteCorporaal(RadboudUniversityNijmegen)
Thelongnineteenthcenturysawtheemergenceofthegenreoflocalcolourfiction,bothinNorth
America(FetterleyandPryse2005;Foote2001;Lathbury2005)andacrossEurope(Donovan2010;
Griswold 2008; Koch 2006). As Josephine Donovan has observed in her pioneering, comparative
study of nineteenth-century fictions of the region, European Local-Color Literature (2010), these
Europeanlocalcolourliteraturesrespondedto“forcesofmodernity”,exploring“theclashbetween
modern and pre- or anti-modern without overly romanticizing or mystifying rural life” (12, 10). In
theselocalcolournarratives,Donovanwrites,thisconflictisoftentheresultof“theenforcementof
nationalsocialnorms”(6)andprocessesof“standardization”(8)onanationallevel,aswellasthe
impositionofcolonisedculturalforms.
Donovaniscertainlyrightinthusanalysingthenarrative“templates”(Wertsch2009:23)of
conflictthatunderlieregionalworksoffiction,andherargumentalsoappliestotheflourishinglocal
colour literary movement in Ireland that deals with the processes of modernisation that were
13
importedfromDublinaswellastheheartoftheBritishempire.However,asIwanttoargueinthis
paper,thedynamicsofIrishlocalcolourliteraturearemorecomplexinthatitfrequentlyrepresents
regional cultures and communities that do not just engage with issues of nationalisation and
colonisation,butareadditionallysubjecttotransnationalinfluencesandinteractions.
The long nineteenth century was marked by several tides of emigration – most notably to
NorthAmericaduringandinthewakeoftheGreatFamine–andthisisreflectedbyregionalstories
that, though set in a specific rural region, depict strong mutually affective and reconfigurative
connectionsbetweentheregionandIreland’sdiaspora.AsIwilldemonstratethroughareadingof
fourregionalshortstoriesfromtheIrishLiteraryRevivalperiod—JaneBarlow’s“OneTooMany”(in
IrishIdylls,1892);ShanF.Bullock’s“HisMagnificence”(inRingO’Rushes,1896);CharlotteO’Conor
Eccles’ “Toomevara” (in Aliens of the West, 1904) and George Moore’s “Homesickness” (in The
UntilledField,1904)—Irishlocalcolourfictionoftenincludednarrativesof(r)emigrationasawayto
negotiatethechangingrealitiesofregionalculturesandidentities.
Marguérite Corporaal is Associate Professor of British Literature at Radboud University Nijmegen
anddirectoroftheInternationalNetworkofIrishFamineStudies.Shewasprincipalinvestigatoron
RelocatedRemembrance:TheGreatFamineinIrish(Diaspora)Fiction,1847–1921(2010-15)which
was funded by the European Research Council. She is co-editor of Travelling Irishness in the Long
Nineteenth Century (Palgrave, forthcoming 2016) and Irish Studies and the Dynamics of Memory
(PeterLang,forthcoming,2016).
1H:MAPPINGCHANGEINTHEWORKOFGEORGEMOORE
Thispanelwillchartpersonal,artisticandsocialchangeinGeorgeMoore’sdepictionsofkeynational
events and core social concerns. Although not well-known, Moore’s contemporary engagements
with the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising (published in June 1916), and his subsequent
incorporationofthatmaterialintoAStoryteller’sHoliday(1918),provideyetanotherperspectiveon
popularreactionsaswellasanillustrationofliteraryinnovation.Moore’sframingofsocietaldecay
and collapse in that period was preceded by his equally brave delineation of social snobbery and
religioushypocrisyinanumberofnovelsandshortstories.Itwillbesuggestedthat,byembracing
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s pattern of confrontation with puritanical strictures (for example, in The
Scarlet Letter), Moore was freed to espouse and promote a new and more tolerant world view in
TheLake.Inthatlattertext,andinTheUntilledField,changeisapparent–inperspective,inliterary
structure,inauthorialpurpose,inMoore’sexposureofthecrueltyofrestrictiveinstitutionsandhis
subtle endorsement of freedom to choose. Was Moore right in claiming that ‘The falsetto scream
thatcomesoutofIrelandandacertainuntrustworthinessinthenationalcharactermaybetraced
backtotherelinquishmentoftherighttoprivatejudgment’?Washefair?Or,havingsaidthat‘One
writesbadlywhenoneisinapassion’,didhispassiondistorthisrepresentationsofCatholicismand
oflayersofruralsociety?
This panel will investigate some important Moore texts and, in true Moorian spirit, tangle
withamyriadmanifestationsofchangewithinandwithouttheirtextualwalls.
14
Changes and Similarities: from Nathanial Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) to George
Moore's The Lake (1905)
AkemiYoshida(KindaiUniversity)
Prof. Akemi Yoshida is Associate Professor at Kindai University, Japan. Her recent research has
focusedonrepresentationofmusicandmusicallytalentedcharactersinthelate-Victoriannovel.Her
publicationsinclude‘MusicalPhenomenaaroundTess’and‘StanleyMakower’sContributiontothe
“WomanComposerQuestion”:AReadingofTheMirrorofMusic(1895)’.
One writes badly when one is in a Passion': George Moore's problematic relationship with
Catholicism
EamonMaher(InstituteofTechnologyTallaght)
DrEamonMaherisDirectoroftheNationalCentreforFranco-IrishStudiesinITTallaght,wherehe
alsolecturesinHumanities.HeisGeneralEditorofthehighlysuccessfulReimaginingIrelandseries
withPeterLang,Oxford,andistheauthor,editorandco-editorofanumberofbooks.
Moore's prognostications on a future for the arts: 'I deprecate calling change progress'
MaryPierse(UniversityCollegeCork)
Dr Mary Pierse has taught at the School of English and on Women’s Studies MA courses at UCC.
Compiler of the five-volume Irish Feminisms 1810-1930 (2010), instigator of the George Moore
international conference series, she has published on Moore’s works, on Franco-Irish artistic
connectionsandoncontemporaryIrishpoetsandwriters.
15
TUESDAY26JULY
2A:CONTINUITYANDCHANGEINCONTEMPORARY(NORTHERN)IRISHWOMEN’SPOETRY
PoetictopographyofNorthernIrelandinElaineGaston'sTheLieoftheLand(2015)
MichaelaMarková(TrinityCollegeDublin)
This paper will consider Elaine Gaston’s poetic topography of Northern Ireland as depicted in her
collection The Lie of the Land (2015). Gaston is, in terms of poetic treatment of the subject she
addresses-theeponymouslieoftheland,heirtoarichpoeticlegacybequeathedbyauthorssuch
asHewitt,Heaney,andLongley.Whiletheauthordrawsoncertainpoeticconventionsarisenfrom
this legacy, the paper will argue that her work reverberates with its own creative originality and
intensity.ItwillexamineGaston’srangeandsuccessatcapturinginherpoemsthesights,sounds,
andmovementsofparticularplacesin(andpeopleof)NorthernIreland.Thisexaminationofcritical
imaginative and discursive spaces about and from which Gaston writes will evidence that, despite
the burden on her poetic shoulders, the author succeeds in a quest for poetic identity and selfassertion. The paper will further support this claim by elaborating on the theme at the heart of
Gaston'scollection-personal/communalloss,andherpoetictreatmentofit.AlthoughTheLieofthe
LandisGaston'sdebutcollection,thispaperarguesthatitestablishestheauthorasavoiceworthy
of attention. ‘Singing of things small and large,’ to use Linda France’s words, Gaston manages to
representthecomplexitiesoflifeinNorthernIreland.
DrMichaelaMarkováholdsaPhDfromtheSchoolofEnglish,TrinityCollegeinDublin.Herresearch
hasfocusedonnarrativesofdifferenceincontemporaryNorthernIrishfiction.Sheistheco-editorof
PoliticsofIrishWriting:ACollectionofEssays(2010),BoundaryCrossings(2012)andTraditionand
Modernity (2014). Since 2006, she has taught at the Irish Studies Workshop organised by Charles
UniversityPragueandPalackýUniversityOlomouc.
NarrativizingthearchiveinMoyaCannon’sKeatsLives
KacieHittel(UniversityofGeorgia)
One of the reasons we return to archives is to come to terms with the things therein; it is a
compulsion to return to the origin, but must also involve an eye to the future, with all the
implications of responsibility. This paper will document that Moya Cannon adopts an archivist
approachinherlatestcollectionofpoetry,KeatsLives(2015).Itisnotaneworforeignimpulse,the
tendency of the archivist is evident in her earliest work. InKeats Lives, she turns to the archive of
natural and human history, taking a minute to study the object she has found, depicting for her
readersthemomentofserendipitousdiscovery.ThispracticeisameansforCannontocontendwith
andchallengestructuresofpower,investigatingwhatremains.Thenarratives she constructs from
herarchivalworkcomplicatetheobjectsandtheirsignificance.Thearchiveisonlyasmeaningfulas
its accessibility and the conclusions we draw based upon it. In this way, the archive becomes a
complex network that complicates our understanding of space, place, time, and experience.
Cannon’spoetrydemonstratestheanimationoftheobjectsanddocumentssheencountersand,in
doingso,complicatesmemory.Thesenseofloss,oftenassociatedwitharchivalwork,ispresent,but
16
there is also joy and hope and tenderness. This paper examines the archival impulse in Cannon to
explore how she treats her subjects, what stories evolve from the engagement, and what the
theoreticalandaestheticimplicationsareofsuchwork.
Kacie Hittel is a PhD student at the University of Georgia where she specializes in twentieth- and
twenty-first-centuryBritishandIrishliteratureandwritesoncontemporaryIrishwomenpoets.She
holdsanMPhilinAnglo-IrishLiteraturefromTrinityCollegeDublin.
Visuality,technologyandarchivalmemoryinthepoetryofSinéadMorrissey
AnneSofiaKarhio(NUIGalway/UniversityofBergen)
The archiving and preservation of cultural products and artefacts since the late 19th century is
inseparable from the period’s rapid developments in media technology, from sound recording to
photography,cinemaanddigitalstoragesystems.AsStephenHeathhasobserved,newtechnologies
themselves were often initially objects of curiosity ("Technology as Historical and Cultural Form”,
1980).Theyalsoeventuallybecameobjectstobearchived:theybothparticipatedintherecording
and archiving of social, cultural and personal memory, and became material embodiments of this
memory. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the poetry of Sinéad Morrissey through the
ideaofvisualandtechnologicalarchive.Inparticular,thepaperwillfocusonthevariousapparatuses
createdinthelate19thandearly20thcenturythataredepictedinMorrissey’swork,andhowthey
tell the story of the radical recalibration of the processes of seeing and remembering during the
emergence of electronic visual media. Each new device would not only constitute its own way of
seeingandrecording,butwouldalsobecomeapartofthetechnologicalarchiveofvisualmediation,
as many of these inventions quickly became obsolete. In Morrissey’s work, the innocence and
utopianpromiseoftechnologyiscounterbalancedbythemoresinisterimplicationsofcontroland
politicalpowerthattheyembodied.
AnneSofiaKarhioisanIrishResearchCouncil/MarieCurieActionsELEVATEPostdoctoralFellowat
theUniversityofBergenandtheNationalUniversityofIreland,Galway.Herresearchfocusesonthe
relationshipbetweennewmediatechnologiesandlandscapeinrecentIrishpoetry.Sheisaco-editor
ofCrisisandContemporaryPoetry(PalgraveMacMillan,2011)andhaspublishedontwentieth-and
twenty-first-centuryIrishpoetry.SheisalsosecretaryoftheNordicIrishStudiesNetwork.
2B:CHARLOTTEBROOKEANDTHOMASMOORE
“OurIrishMuse”:“JacobiteRelics”inCharlotteBrooke’sReliquesofIrishPoetry
HirokoIkeda(HiroshimaOpenUniversity)
CharlotteBrooke(c.1740-1793)hasbeenhighlyacclaimedasapioneerofculturalnationalism.Her
ReliquesofIrishPoetry(1789)providesherEnglishtranslationofIrishlanguagepoetryfollowedby
theoriginal.WhilehertranslationhasbeencriticizedforbeingtoodistancedfromtheIrishoriginals
bothincontentandinstyle,themeaningsofdifferencesthatBrookecreatedhavenotyetbeenfully
explored.IshallattempttoreconsidertheReliquesinthelightofBrooke’schallengeofchanging.
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Thefocusofthispaperisapossibleinfluenceof“Jacobiterelics”onBrooke’sReliquesthat
makesnodirectreferencetoJacobitepoetry.TheReliquesrevealsherkeeninterestintheroleofa
patriot as well as in a possibility of “cordial union” between opposing countries or factions. While
Brookewishestopromotetheestablishmentofastableandpeacefulsociety,herviewofapatriot
reflects her sympathy with revolutionary patriotism that involves revolt against the oppressive
power.Inthatshedeeplyappreciatestheideaofchivalry,whichinvolvesthedevotiontotheweak
andoppressed,sheismostlikelytobeattractedtothemotifessentialtoJacobitepoetry,thatis,its
appeal to the rescue of an oppressed woman who symbolizes Ireland. According to Brooke, a
patriot’scentralroleistofightagainsttyrannyasarepresentativeoftheoppressedandtodefend
those whose lives and laws are at stake. Because being “disinterested” is at the core of Brooke’s
view of a patriot, the Protestant Anglo-Irish who just pursue self-interest or Anglo-Irish interest
cannotbecalledapatriot.Jacobitepoetryprovides Brookewithanimageofthemostunwelcome
union,whichinturnseemstoencouragehertoexploreimagesofadesirableunionintheReliques.
Prof.HirokoIkedaisanAssociateProfessorintheFacultyofInternationalStudiesatHiroshimaCity
University. She obtained an MA from University College Dublin (1999) and a PhD from Kyoto
University(2005).Hermostrecentessay,‘TowardourownMurúch:ReadingNualaNíDhomhnaill’s
TheFiftyMinuteMermaid’(2010),ispublishedinJournalofIrishStudies.
ThechangingfaceofThomasMoore:StyleandIdentityinThomasMoore’sProse,1814-1846
FrancescaBenatti(TheOpenUniversity)
The “author-function” (Foucault, p.20-22) has long been central to how we interpret works of
literature,withtheauthorbeingperceivedasaguaranteeofcertainlevelofstylisticuniformityand
quality. However, Foucault himself acknowledged the limitations of such an assumption of
unchangeable authorial identity and observed that the author-function is characterised by “a
pluralityofegos”(p.23).
This is certainly true in the case of Thomas Moore, who throughout his career adopted
severalidentities,fromCaptainRocktothebiographerofSheridanandByron,fromthecriticofthe
EdinburghReviewtothetheologianofTravelsofanIrishGentlemaninSearchofReligion.Hedidso
inparttohidehisidentityfromcensorsandpoliticalopponentsortocritiqueromanticnotionsof
authorship (Tonra, p. 565). But when Moore adopted these multifarious identities, did he also
significantlychangehiswritingstyle,givingadistinctvoice,notjustaname,tohischosenpersona?
This paper will chart Moore’s changing style over the course of his long career as a prose
author.ItwillusemethodologiesdrawnfromcomputationalstylisticstoquantifytraitsofMoore’s
style such as vocabulary size, vocabulary richness, length of sentences, distribution of parts of
speech,anddistinctivevocabularyofeachpersonausingmethodssuchastermfrequency:inverse
document frequency, John Burrows’ Delta and Zeta methods, Franco Moretti’s Most Distinctive
Words Method, and Principal Component Analysis. I will assess whether the changes to Moore’s
style could be due to ageing processes, as shown by Pennebaker (2011), or whether they could
insteadbeattributedtoaseriesofconsciousdecisionsbasedontheadoptionofdeliberateauthorial
personas,andinterprettheresultantstatisticsthroughliteraryandbookhistoricalperspectives.
18
Francesca Benatti is a Research Associate in Digital Humanities at The Open University. She is a
memberoftheReadingExperienceDatabaseandaConsultantEditorfortheOpenArtsJournal.Her
research interests are digital scholarly editions, text encoding, stylometry, the writings of Thomas
Moore(1779-1852),andbookhistory,withafocusontheroleofIrishperiodicalsandnewspapersin
nineteenth-centuryIrishculturalnationalism.
2C:BOOMANDBUSTINIRISHFICTIONANDDRAMA
“MostFoul,StrangeandUnnatural”:RefractionsofModernityinConorMcPherson’sTheWeir
MatthewFogarty(NUIMaynooth)
In his recent analysis of Irish Theatre in the 1990s, Victor Merriman puts forward the proposition
that Celtic Tiger dramas bifurcated “drama itself into a theatre of social critique, and a theatre of
diversionary spectacle”. As a consequence, the former became ever less prevalent upon Ireland’s
foremost theatrical stages, while the latter continually reproduced what Merriman describes as
“reductive stereotypes of Irishness” which served only to alienate the population of Tiger Ireland
from a “national past in which the correlatives of such figures presumably exist and make sense”.
WhilethisisanaccurateappraisalofagreatnumberofthedramaticworksproducedbyIreland’s
National Theatre during the mid-1990s, this paper will demonstrate that the Gate Theatre’s 1998
production of Conor McPherson’s The Weir offered a point of critical resistance to this regressive
modeoftheatreproduction.Writteninthemidstofthevariouspoliticaldebatesgeneratedinthe
run-up to the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, The Weir simultaneously manipulates
thefamiliartropesoftheGothicgenreandexploitstheliminalityitcreatesonstagebyjuxtaposing
this crucial moment in Ireland’s socio-political development against the equally pivotal point at
whichtheFreeStategovernmentlaunchedtheShannonElectrificationSchemeinthe1920s.Inso
doing,McPhersonsuccessfullymanagestoembedaprofound“socialcritique”beneaththepalatable
veneerofaplaythatostensiblyappearstoofferlittlemorethana“diversionaryspectacle”.
Matthew Fogarty is a PhD candidate at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where he
holds a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Research Scholarship. His research is primarily
concernedwithexploringthecomplexandcontrastingwaysinwhichtheliteraryworksofWilliam
Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett respond to the philosophical legacy of Friedrich
Nietzsche.
“Madness Comes in Cycles”: Traumatic Repetition and Narrative Revision in Donal Ryan’s The
SpinningHeart
BrandiByrd(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Inhis2012novelTheSpinningHeart,DonalRyanrepresentsthecrashoftheCelticTigerasacrisisof
temporality.AsthecollapseofthehousingmarketleavesconstructionforemanBobbyMahonoutof
ajob,hesimultaneouslyfeelsrobbedofhisfuture,discoveringthathisemployernevercontributed
tohispension,andhauntedbyhistraumaticchildhood,fantasizingaboutmurderinghisfatherand
burning down his childhood home. If the Celtic Tiger years are often characterised as a kind of
19
collectiverepression,“ajettisoningofthepastinthe nameofprogress”,1thenRyanimaginesthe
crash as precipitating a Freudian “return of the repressed,” wherein the past is perpetually and
traumaticallyrepeated.
Paul Ricoeur, addressing the collective “illness of memory” which characterises societies
haunted by a traumatic past, suggests that this metaphoric “compulsion of repetition” is best
addressedthroughthe“workofmemory,”aprojecthedefinesas“modifyingthepast,consistingin
tellingitdifferentlyandfromthepointofviewoftheother”.2Inordertoactualiseafuturethatis
notanemptyrepetitionofthepast,onemustchangethenarrativeframeworklinkingpast,present,
andfuture.
Narrated from 21 unique perspectives, The Spinning Heart illustrates on the one hand the
fracturedanddistortednatureofindividualmemorynarratives,aswellastheirdebilitatingimpact
on these characters’ imagined futures. On the other hand, Ryan demonstrates how revising one’s
memorythroughempatheticengagementwithothers’perspectivesnotonlyaddressesthetrauma
ofthepast,butalsoenableshopeforachangedfuturewhereintheconstraintsofhistoryhavebeen
loosened.
Brandi Byrd is a third-year PhD candidate at University College Dublin, studying memory in
contemporary Irish fiction under the supervision of Dr Emilie Pine. Her research investigates the
waysthatcontemporaryIrishfiction,initsresponsivenesstoparticularsocialandculturalanxieties,
negotiatesnewethical,narrativestrategiesforrememberingtherecentpast.
“That time is long gone. But aren’t we still the same people?”: Continuity and Change in The
SpinningHeart
MollySlavin(EmoryUniversity)
Inthesummerof2011,whilestudyinginGalway,Icameacrosssomegraffitionacementwallon
thatcity’sfamedSalthillpromenade.Setagainstthebackdropoftheentertainmentfacilities,leisure
centres, and restaurants that comprise the walk from Galway city to Salthill, the spray-painted
graffiti read, simply, “IMF SCUM OUT! #JULY16.” These words referred to the International
Monetary’s Fund visit to Ireland from July 6-16 of that year. The subsequent hashtag had become
associatedinvariousonlinecircleswithacorrelatingcallfor“#irishrevolution”anda“reclaiming”of
the country from neoliberal austerity measures and reforming measures, designed to protect the
IMF’sbrandoflatecapitalism.
This graffiti is a symbol for how, in the post-Celtic Tiger years, all has changed, changed
utterly in Ireland – from booming economy and supposed European miracle to the ensuing slump
and perceived need for a new “#irishrevolution.” Donal Ryan’s 2012 novel The Spinning Heart,
publishedduringtheheightoftheEurozonebailoutandausterityperiod,looksatacommunityin
thewestofIrelanddevastatedbythehousingcrashandsubsequenteconomicrecession.Thenovel,
toldin21shortvignettes(asbefittingthenewlyfracturednatureofthecommunity),isbothatime
capsule of a changing Ireland and a reach back to established traditions in Irish literature and
culture. Though many of his concerns are contemporary, from the town’s ghost estate to the
tensionsoverthepresenceofeasternEuropeanimmigrants,RyanreliesonIrishliteraryarchetypes
fromthedrunkenfathertothewantonwomantotheyoungemigranttoillustratehistwenty-firstcenturythemes.ThispaperwilllookatbothcontinuityandchangeinTheSpinningHearttoexamine
20
the tensions, articulated by the quote referenced in the title of this abstract, between these
conceptsinpost-CelticTigerIreland.
MollySlavinisaPhDcandidateatEmoryUniversity.SheholdsaBAinEnglishfromtheUniversityof
NotreDame,andanMAinCultureandColonialismfromtheNationalUniversityofIreland,Galway.
HerresearchinterestsincludecontemporaryIrish,British,andpostcolonialliterature.
2D:ROGERCASEMENT’SLITERARYAFTERLIVES
DesireandtheDeathPenaltyinUlysses
KatherineEbury(UniversityofSheffield)
This paper examines the confluence of treason, sexuality and the capital punishment in ‘Sirens’,
‘Cyclops’ and ‘Circe’ episodes of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The paper will have a double context,
examining the impact of both 1798 and 1916 on Joyce’s representation of the execution of Irish
patriotsinrelationtogenderandsexuality.InDerrida’sposthumouslypublished2014volume,The
Death Penalty, he notes that ‘The death penalty can seduce…There are those who desire it’. Such
newtheorisationsofthedeathpenaltyrequireareconsiderationofJoyce’sapparentlythrowaway
and burlesque references to sexuality in the scenes of execution of Emmet, the Croppy Boy and
Bloom himself. R.F. Foster’s Vivid Faces has recently highlighted more complex expressions of
sexualityamongtherevolutionarygenerationthathadhithertobeenforgotten;thispaperwillbuild
onthatpictureinrelationtothedeathpenalty.Itisofcourseworthnotingthatthesemomentsof
executioninUlyssesoccurmostfrequentlyinthecontextofBloom’smarriageanditsfidelitiesand
adulteries. While Casement’s execution has necessarily been viewed through the lens of queer
theory, this paper will contend that the state’s concern with the biopolitical brings death and sex
into close contact in connection even with executions that have no such taint of scandal. For
example, Joseph Plunkett’s eve of execution wedding to Grace Gifford, and popular discourses
around it, will provide a useful point of comparison both with Casement and with Joyce’s parodic
executionscenes.Inshort,thepaperwillconsidertherevolutionarypotentialof thebodyandthe
way that potential is policed and elaborated in Joyce’s texts and in Ireland in the early twentieth
century.
Dr Katherine Ebury is a lecturer in modern literature at the University of Sheffield. Her first
monograph, Modernism and Cosmology was published by Palgrave in 2014. Her articles have
appeared in Joyce Studies Annual, The Dublin James Joyce Journal, Hypermedia Joyce Studies, Irish
StudiesReview,JournalofModernLiterature,andSocietyandAnimals.
"IturntoourIrish-Americancousins":PaulMuldoonandRogerCasement'squeerghost
AlisonGarden(UniversityCollegeDublin)
OnSt.Patrick’sDayin1992,theNorthernIrishpoetPaulMuldoonpublished‘AClearSignal’inThe
New York Times. The dense, sardonic poem, written across 32 couplets, explores the deeply
intertwined politics and histories of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Beginning
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withthe‘tit-for-tat’violenceoftheNorthernIrish‘Troubles’,thepoemalsocritiquestherestrictions
placedonthereproductiverightsofIrishwomen–and,byironicimplication,womenintheUnited
States – and ends by invoking the ‘ghost of Roger Casement’ as a riposte to the Ancient Order of
Hibernians refusal to let the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization march in the 1991 New York St.
Patrick’sDayParade.
ExploringMuldoon’striangulationofIreland,NorthernIrelandandtheU.Saroundissuesof
sectarianviolenceandfiercedebateonthematterof‘Irishness’,thispaperwillexplorehow,inso
invoking the queer ghost of Casement, Muldoon mobilises a set of questions regarding the
inclusivity,orperhapsmoreaccurately,exclusivity,ofIrishness.InthecaseoftheSt.Patrick’sDay
fallout, Irishness became an ethnicity, or a diasporic ethnicity, officially legislated through strictly
policed contours of race and sexuality. However, Casement’s own writings reveal that his own
complex notion of ‘Irishness’ was politically and religiously inclusive. Therefore, although Muldoon
presumably invokes Casement for his infamous – and endlessly contested – homosexuality, this
paper will illustrate that Casement’s political and personal legacy provide greater material for
Muldoon’sprojectofqueering(diasporic)Ireland’snational,religiousandpoliticalfabric.
Dr Alison Garden is Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin. Her research
includes work on Roger Casement’s literary afterlives, the postcolonial Atlantic and contemporary
NorthernIrishculture,andhasbeensupportedbytheUKArtsandHumanitiesResearchCouncil,the
BritishAcademyandtheFulbrightCommission.
Roger Casement and Rooted Cosmopolitanism: a Reading of Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Dream of
TheCelt
MarianaBolfarine(UniversitySãoPaulo/FederalInstituteofSãoPaulo)
TheDreamoftheCelt(2010/2012)byPeruvianwriterMarioVargasLlosashowstheextenttowhich
the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement’s actions continue to reverberate across the Atlantic. The
novel depicts chief moments in Casement’s life, ending with his death on 3 August 1916 at the
gallows of Pentonville Prison in London. The aim of this paper is to explore Roger Casement’s
emergenceasatransnationalactivistasahistoricalcharacterinTheDreamoftheCelt.Iarguethat
he is depicted by Vargas Llosa as a ‘rooted cosmopolitan’, a concept first advanced by sociologist
Sidney Tarrow, who claims the special characteristics of these activists to be “not their cognitive
cosmopolitanism,buttheirrelationallinkstoothersocieties,toothercountries,andtointernational
institutions.”Followingthistrainofthought,IwillpinpointinVargasLlosa’snovelthewayinwhich
Casement’stransatlanticactionsandmovementsacrossthreecontinents–Europe,AfricaandSouth
America – led him to engage in the cause of his own people, the Irish, shedding light on early
generationsoftransnationalstruggle.
Dr Mariana Bolfarine is member of the board of the Brazilian Association of Irish Studies (ABEI),
researcheroftheWBYeatsChairofIrishStudies(UniversitySãoPaulo),andlecturerattheFederal
InstituteofSaoPaulo.HerPhDfocusedonfictionalrepresentationsofRogerCasement.Shehasalso
translated Roger Casement in Brazil: Rubber, the Amazon and the Atlantic World (2011) and The
AmazonJournalofRogerCasement(2016)intoPortuguese.
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2E:LITERARYCHILDHOODSINIRELAND:FROMTHEENLIGHTENMENTTOTHECELTICTIGER
TheEnlightenmentandNarrativesofChildhoodinIreland,1752-1794
ClíonaÓGallchoir(UniversityCollegeCork)
ExtensivedescriptionsofchildhoodfeatureinWilliamChaigneau’sTheHistoryofJackConnor(1752),
HenryBrooke’sTheFoolofQuality(1765-70)andJamesDelap’sTheHistoryofHarrySpencer(1794).
Although comparisons were drawn between Brooke’s novel and Rousseau’s Emile, there has been
no sustained attempt to analyze Irish representations of childhood in the eighteenth century in
relationtotheincreasinglysignificantdiscourseofchildhoodthatemergedinEuropeintheperiod.
This paper proposes a discussion of Irish Enlightenment by situating these three narratives in
relationtokeyEnlightenmentconstructionsofthechild,inparticularthoseofLockeand(inthecase
ofBrookeandDelap)Rousseau.
Aparticularfocusofmydiscussionwillbetoanalyzethewaysinwhichtheconstructionof
thechildrelatestothecomplexsocialandpoliticalpositionoccupiedbyAnglo-Irishintellectualsand
the Anglo-Irish elite. Their self-construction as bearers of enlightenment and ‘improvement’
highlightssomeofthecomplexitiesinherentinEnlightenmentthought.Advocatesofimprovement
could be seen either as claiming (and defending) epistemological privilege or as imagining a new
Ireland in which the violent divisions of the past could be transcended. In practice, these two
positions often co-existed. A focus on the representation of the child and childhood in these texts
offers a new perspective on a familiar debate in the context of eighteenth-century Ireland. In
addition, by paying detailed attention to the relationship between these novels and Locke’s Essay
Concerning Human Understanding (1690), his Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) and
Rousseau’sEmile(1762),IhopetoprovidenewinsightsonthereceptionofkeyEnlightenmenttexts
inIreland.
Dr Clíona Ó Gallchoir is a lecturer at the School of English, University College Cork. Her research
interestsincludeIrishwomen'swriting,IrishandBritisheighteenth-andnineteenth-centurywriting,
the figure of the child in eighteenth-century Ireland,and children's literature. She is the author of
Maria Edgeworth: Women, Enlightenment and Nation (University College Dublin Press, 2005) and
co-editorofAHistoryofModernIrishWomen'sLiterature(CambridgeUniversityPress,forthcoming
2016).
CúchulainnversusTomBrown:CompetingModelsofChildhoodintheChildren'sCollectionofCork
PublicLibrary1922-1939
MairéadMooney(UniversityCollegeCork)
In his memoirs, Cork-born writer Frank O’Connor wryly presents his child self as a quixotic figure,
imposingthebehaviouralcodehehadinculcatedfrommiddle-classBritishpublicschoolnovelson
an unreceptive and uncongenial working-class Irish community. The consequences range from
comedic-heisrebukedbyapolicemanforwieldinga“homemadebatbeforeawicketchalkedona
wall” in imitation of the ubiquitous sporting hero - to shocking: the hubris of O'Connor's “glow of
self-righteousness”subsequenttohisinterventiononbehalfofarun-awayboyisrevealedwhenhis
precocious meddling results in the boy being beaten by his father. O’Connor remarks that “[t]he
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trouble was that I was always a little bit of what I had picked up from book or song or picture...”,
articulatingtheincompatibilityofhisreadingandlivedexperiences.
The young O'Connor's recreational reading was largely dictated by the stock held in the
children'ssectionofthecity'spubliclibrary,aswasthatofmanyofthechildrenlivinginCorkcity.A
library is an agent of cultural dissemination and its pivotal role as a repository and incubator of
ideologically-endorsed material has been attested in, for instance, the Soviet-era suppression and
manipulation of library stock incompatible with political doctrine. It is therefore surprising that in
theearlydecadessubsequenttoindependencefromBritain,CorkPublicLibrary'sjuvenilecollection
continuedtoconsistpredominantlyofBritishtexts.Theself-imageofimperialBritain,togetherwith
its assumptions of cultural superiority, was thus effectively embedded as a norm for the children
who were to be the future citizens of the new state. This paper will consider the continued
circulation of a literature largely “cross-Channel garbage and khaki-tinted West British” to the
childrenofCorkcitysimultaneoustothenationalmomentumtopurgetheFreeStateofitscolonial
legacy.
MairéadMooneyiscurrentlyresearchingchildren'sliteratureandlibrariesasmediatorsofnational
identityandisfundedbyanExcellencePhDScholarshipfromtheCollegeofArts,CelticStudiesand
SocialSciences,UniversityCollegeCork.
TeenageTransitionsinCelticTigerandPost-TigerFiction
SusanCahill(ConcordiaUniversity)
Thetwenty-firstcenturyisthecenturyofthe‘kidult’.Whileinthelate-nineteenthcenturychildhood
was seen to be the pinnacle of human existence, the teenager is the ideal condition of the
contemporary - we want teenage bodies, teenage lifestyles, even teenage culture - witness the
popularityoftheTwilightphenomenon,theHungerGamesseries,theglutofsuperheromovies,and
the ubiquity of video games. Ireland is no exception. In the Irish context moreover, the teenager
easilyembodiesthetriumphsandfailuresoflatecapitalism.Thesatisfactionofindividualdesire,so
indicative to the burgeoning self of teenage subjectivity, readily maps onto a Celtic Tiger society
invested in hyper-consumerism and self-interested neo-liberal ideologies. Additionally, the
experienceofteenagetransition,ofthe‘kidult’asin-between,alsospeakspowerfullytoaculturein
majortransformativeculturalchange.
Givensuchcorrelations,itisinterestingtonoteaconsiderableincreaseinIrishwritingboth
forandabouttheyoungadult.Ireland’sYAhasexperiencedahugeboominrecentyearswiththe
successes of Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours (2014), a feminist dystopia in which young girls are
manufactured to the specifications of a patriarchal culture. Her new novel, Asking for It (2015),
explores contemporary rape culture. Other emerging and significant voices in Ireland’s new YA
canon include Sarah Crossan, Paul McVeigh, Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, Sarah Bannan, Elske Rahill,
SheenaWilkinson,and,ofcourse,themoreestablishedworkofRoddyDoyleandJohnBoyne.
ManyofthecritiquesoftheCelticTiger’sexcesseschoosetheteenagerastheirfocalpoint,suchas
Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies (2010) set in a boy’s boarding school, Rob Doyle’s Here Are The Young
Men (2014), and a strong teenage presence in Donal Ryan’s The Spinning Heart (2012), Anne
Enright’sshortstory“Natalie’(2008),andEimearMcBride’sAGirlisaHalf-FormedThing(2013)all
engage with teenage subjectivity, so as to consider a cultural state of liminality, of a society in
24
changeandliminaltransformation.Ultimately,thispaperconsiderstherepresentativeandfigurative
functioningoftheteenagerincontemporaryIrishliterature,whilecarefullyparsingtheactualitiesof
thegendereddifferencesoftheteenageboyandtheteenagegirl.
SusanCahillteachesattheSchoolofCanadianIrishStudies,ConcordiaUniversity.Herresearch
interestsincludeIrishchildren’sliteratureandcontemporaryIrishfiction.SheistheauthorofIrish
LiteratureintheCelticTigerYears:Gender,Bodies,Memory(Continuum,2011)andco-editorof
AnneEnright:IrishWritersinTheirTime(IrishAcademicPress,2011)andThisSideofBrightness:
EssaysontheFictionofColumMcCann(PeterLang,2012).
2F:SCREENINGINTERROGATIONSOF1960s-1990sIRELAND
TheRockyRoadtoChange:PeterLennon’sTheRockyRoadtoDublinandtheSearchforanIrish
FilmAesthetic
CarolineBlainHeafey(NewYorkUniversity)
Peter Lennon’s 1967 documentary, The Rocky Road to Dublin, simultaneously provokes viewers to
demand a conceptualization of an Irish film aesthetic, while also challenging the very parameters
that such a concept requires. The recent global success in the Irish film industry, calls for a reexamination of Irish films that have not received their due acclaim, and The Rocky Road to Dublin
providessuchanexample.Thereisnootherfilmofthisperiodthatdirectlyaddressesquestionslike,
“What does one do with a revolution once you’ve got it? Where does the role of the Church and
clergy rightfully fit in Dublin life? What agency has been limited because of this involvement and
how might a new generation change the social climate exhibited in the film?” In the discourse of
Irishfilmmaking,theinfluenceofNewWavecinemaonLennonandRockyRoad’sreleaseinFrance
situatesthefilminabroaderglobalconversationaboutfilmaestheticinthemid-twentieth-century.
Rocky Road’s position in this global discourse is essential to understanding what makes Irish film
specific to Ireland. This paper situates Rocky Road within the contemporary context of Irish film
discourse in order to both track and understand how the Irish film industry has developed and
changedsince1967,butalsotounderstandwhatthefilmaccomplishesforitsaudiencesthenand
now.
CarolineHeafeyisanMAstudentspecializinginIrishliteratureatNewYorkUniversity’sGlucksman
IrelandHouse.Herworkfocusesontwentieth-centuryIrishwomenwriters,andliterarymodernism.
MooneBoy:SocialChangeMadeFunny
ErinMitchell(SUNYPlattsburgh)
Usinghumortheoryandaclosereadingofthetext,IwillexaminethewaysMooneBoy,asituation
comedy,helpsuslaughatsocialchangeinIrelandduringthelate1980’sandearly1990’s.Theshow
featurestheanticsofatwelveyearoldboy,MartinMoone(playedbyDavidRawle),andhisadult
imaginary friend, Sean Murphy (played by a co-creator of the show, Chris O’Dowd), who acts as
Martin’s friend, mentor and judge. Set in Boyle, Roscommon during a period of social change in
25
Ireland, Moone Boy humorously asks what it means to be Irish in the late 20th Century. In an
increasinglyglobalizedeconomy,theMoonefamilyandtheBoylecommunityreacttoshiftsinthe
status of: the Irish language; Travellers; women; and, the Catholic Church. Goofy misadventures
aboundMartinmistakesRomanianforIrish,sinceMartin’sfather,Liam,istheonlyfamilymember
who speaks Irish. Martin develops a crush on a Traveller girl. Martin’s mother attempts multiple
careers, and supports Mary Robinson’s Presidential campaign. Martin participates in an altar-boy
Mafia. The men create a support group rather than seeking counselling from the local priest. The
priest endorses Dessie’s religious bookstore that caters not only to Catholics, but to Hindus and
Muslims(butnottoProtestants!).MooneBoyisasweetlysillylookatthewaysaboy,hisimaginary
friend,hisfamilyandhistownattempttonegotiateanewIreland.
DrErinC.MitchellreceivedherPhDfromNorthwesternUniversity.Sheteachesasanadjunctinthe
English, Honors, Gender & Women’s Studies, and Interdisciplinary Studies Programs at State
UniversityofNewYork(SUNY)atPlattsburgh.Shehaspresentedand/orpublishedon:Joyce,Yeats,
Wilde,Beckett,McGuckian,andFlynn.
‘OfCourseHomosexualsCanbeCured’:PoliticsofChangeandResistanceonTheLateLateShow
PáraicKerrigan(NUIMaynooth)
In the opening broadcast on Telefís Éireann on New Year’s Eve 1961, President Éamon de Valera
noted television as ‘an instrument so powerful’ it could influence ‘the thoughts and actions of the
multitude’. As broadcast history would now suggest, de Valera’s foreboding was not unfounded.
With this new medium of television came radical change, bringing what Tom Inglis refers to as ‘a
new symbolic structure, habitus and practice nightly into people’s homes’. Social transformations
began to take place in Ireland over the subsequent decades, with much of this attributed to the
nationalbroadcaster’sflagshipshow,TheLateLateShow.
TheLateLateShowintroducedapublicforumwherethevaluesandbeliefsthatdominated
Irishsocietywerechallengedandhelduptopublicscrutiny.GayByrneandhisproductionteamused
thetelevisionmediumtopubliclyexamineandchallengethenatureofIrishsocietyand,inessence,
put a mirror up to the face of the country to reflect the transformations taking place. This was
particularly the case regarding the social transformations evident with gay rights and politics. This
paperwillnotethehistoricalchangeofgayrightsinIrelandmediatedthroughTheLateLateShow,
specificallyonthesoapboxdebatebroadcaston1stDecember1989.
This paper will argue how this episode of The Late Late Show served to highlight the
ideologicalconflictcausedbytheprogressionofgayrights.Itwillalsohighlighthowtheprogression
of sexual rights in Ireland was not part of a neat historical symmetry. Although David Norris had
succeededinhiscaseattheEuropeanCourtstodecriminalisehomosexualactsinthecountry,this
legislativechangewasnotreflectedintheattitudespresentedonthedebate.Thispaperwillassert
how the agents of social change, the gay rights advocates, came into conflict with institutions
resistingsuchchange,theCatholicChurch.
PáraicKerriganisadoctoralstudentattheDepartmentofMediaStudiesattheNationalUniversity
of Ireland, Maynooth, where he is a John Hume and Irish Research Council Scholar. His research
26
topic is Gay (In)Visibility in Irish Media, 1974 – 2014. He has a chapter forthcoming in 2016 from
Routledge,inLGBTQs,MediaandCultureinEurope.
2G:EXPERIMENTSINIRISHWRITING:PUSHINGAGAINSTFORM
IdealFragments:CitizenshipandPointlessDebateinFlannO’Brien’sAtSwim-Two-Birds
KeelanHarkin(McGillUniversity)
FlannO’Brien’sAtSwim-Two-BirdsusespointlessdebateasawayofcritiquinganIrish-nationstate
struggling to form a unified definition of belonging. Published two years after a plebiscite vote
narrowly passed the 1937 Irish Constitution, the novel exposes ambiguities in the definitions and
legalparametersofidealcitizenshippresentedbythestate.EamondeValera’sgovernmentuphelda
nationalismfoundeduponaGaelicChristianpastwhilealsooperatingasamodernstateinaglobal
atmosphereteeteringonthebrinkofchaos,whichcreatedtheproblemforIreland“intheinter-war
periods…to be both new and old at the same time” (Wills 21). The effect of this ambiguity on the
nationasawholeisapparentintheproliferationofpopulardebateinthepress.Writingunderthe
pseudonymMylesnagCopaleen,O’Brien’s“CruiskeenLawn”columnintheIrishTimesapproached
these debates with a sardonic, ironic, and parodic tone in order to highlight their frivolity and
pettiness. At Swim-Two-Birds takes a similar route, but its narrative structure and metafictional
qualities go further than mere critique by offering an imaginative space of coalescence wherein
alternative forms of belonging can arise. The central unnamed narrator of the novel creates this
imaginativespacethroughhismanuscript,whichallowshimtoplaythroughrebelliousfantasies.By
doing so, the unnamed narrator is able to make amends with his Gaelic revivalist uncle and the
university system in order to become a dutiful citizen without strictly adhering to a prescribed
Catholic, conservative, and nationalistic ideal. A quiet and cognitive revolution, O’Brien’s At SwimTwo-Birds suggests a way of pushing back against, and potentially changing, state definitions of
belongingwithoutcompletelyinvalidatingorrejectingthenation-state.
KeelanHarkinisasecondyearPhDcandidateatMcGillUniversity.Hiscurrentresearchfocuseson
issuesofcitizenshipandbelongingintheworkofSeánOFaoláinandFlannO’Brien.Otherauthorsof
interestincludeJamesJoyce,FrankO’Connor,ElizabethBowen,EdnaO’Brien,andColmTóibín.
KateandKathleen:IrishWomenWritersChangingPlaceinSearchofIdentity
AngelaRyan(UniversityCollegeCork)
Kathleen Fitzpatrick Bernard (1917-2009), feminist and Catholic intellectual, left Ireland, like her
cousinbymarriage,KateO’Brien(1897-1974),togainexperienceabroad,awayfromtheconstraints
and restrictions on young women of their time and milieu: Spain in the case of the celebrated
O’Brien,FranceinthecaseofFitzpatrickBernard,alsoawriter,butwhopublishedlittleduringher
lifetime,andwasbetterknownforherencouragementofartistsandwriterswhovisitedherinParis.
Thethemesofotherness,exileandtravel,andthechangeofperspectivetheybringonIrishness,the
gendered quest for identity, are present in both writers, as is the critique of censorship and
theocracyinIreland,andtheneedforliberalchange.O’BrienreturnedtoIrelandfromSpain,while
27
FitzpatrickBernardspenttherestofherlifeinPariswithherFrenchhusbandandtheirfourchildren,
writing, and struggling to publish. Some of her poems were published by Máire Cruise O'Brien in
Poetry Ireland. Her novel and many other writings are not yet published: "If there was something
sadinherlife,itwasherfeelingthattherewasapublishingbiasagainstwomen,"saidthepoetPaul
Durcan,aclosefriend.
Dr Angela Ryan is a senior lecturer at the Department of French, University College Cork. She has
published extensively and is editor of Un hiver a Majorque de George Sand. Edition critique par
Angela Ryan (2013). Her research has included a focus on the tragic heroine in fifth-century BCE
Greek, seventeenth-century French, and contemporary drama. She is completing a monograph on
theheroinesofEuripidesandRacine.
“Broken pieces into a perfect glass”: fragmentation and continuity in Anne Enright’s The Green
Road
CarolineEufrausino(UniversityofSãoPaulo)
The reviewers from the most known newspapers in Ireland and in the United Kingdom would
similarly characterize the recent published novel The Green Road (2015) by Anne Enright: it is “an
exquisitecollageofIrishlives”;“anovelwhichisasfragmentedasitscharacters”;oritscharacters
are“assatellitesoutofsync”.Then,ingeneral,thenovel’sstructureaswellasitscharacterswere
consideredasfracturedanddiscontinued.Ifinherpreviousnovels(astheacclaimedTheGathering
or The Forgotten Waltz), Enright has already exposed her unique (fragmented as it is said to be)
narrative style, it is in The Green Road that issues such as Celtic Materialism, Irish Diaspora and
Familytiesarebroughttogethertothesurfacethroughnarrativestrategieswhichthispaperaimsto
analyze.Thecharacterconstructionandthenarrativeperspectiveisalsorelevantwhenquestioning
fragmentationinitasthenoveltellsthestoryofafamily,theMadigans,throughtheperspectiveof
each member. Also, each chapter could be considered as a short-story emphasizing the sense of
discontinuity. Regarding that genre,Frank O’Connor postulated in 1963 that a short-story is about
giving voice to “a submerged population group”. In 2016, a sense of change would be perceived
whilereadingEnright’srecentworks:thereisnosubmergedpopulationgroup,thenarrativeopens
uppossibilitiesofrepresentationintheformitselfandinsteadofsubmerging,itemerges.Thispaper
aims to demonstrate the narrative strategies proposed by Enright in The Green Road enlightening
the move from the inner self to the outside world in an aesthetic attempt to construct her own
authenticnarrativespace.
CarolineEufrausinohasaBAinEnglishfromtheUniversityofSãoPaulo,Brazil.SheholdsanMAin
Twentieth-Century Irish Writing and Cultural Theory from NUI Maynooth. She is currently a PhD
candidateinIrishStudiesattheUniversityofSãoPaulo.HerresearchinterestsincludeAnneEnright
andtheportrayalofwomenincontemporaryIrishwriting.
28
2H:POSSIBILITIESANDLIMITATIONS:CURATINGEXHIBITIONSANDDIGITALARCHIVES
Re-readingtheRyanReportonInstitutionalChildAbuse
EmiliePine(UniversityCollegeDublin)
This paper will discuss ways of re-reading the Ryan Report, seven years after its publication. The
Reportdetailed70yearsofinstitutionalchildabuse,compiledduringa9-yearstateinvestigationand
culminatingina2,600pagedocument,withover1,500witnessstatements.Therearefewmoments
in a social history when it can be said that attitudes experience a complete sea change, and the
publication of this Report is one of those moments, when attitudes to the history of institutional
care run by the Catholic Church were completely inverted. This major change followed decades
during which individual cases of abuse or religious misconduct gained media attention, and these
cases,combinedwiththegradualsecularisationofIrishsociety,createdareceptiveaudienceforthe
publication of the Report in 2009. Nevertheless, the scale of the Report’s findings – of systemic
abuse–werestilldeeplyshockingtothemajorityofthepopulation,whileatthesametimebeinga
vindicationofthoseisolatedvoiceswhohadlongclaimedthistobethecase.
Thispaperaddressesdifferentwaysofreadingthismaterial,fromthedocumentaryplayNo
Escape,compiledbyMaryRaftery,tonewdigitalmethodsfortextanalysis.Thepaperaskstowhat
extentpeopleactuallyreadtheReportandwhatethicalandmemorychallengesareembeddedin
usingtheReportasanarchiveorsource?AndwhethertheReport’spublicationledtomeaningful
socialchange.
This paper will draw on the UCD project Industrial Memories, which aims to render the
Report more accessible via a combination of digital text analysis (e.g. generating word clouds
denotingdifferentlanguagespacesforvictimsandChurchresponsetestimony),digitalmedia(e.g.a
walkingtourappofthesiteofoneoftheDublininstitutions),andtraditionalhumanitiesapproaches
usingmemoryandtraumatheoryto‘read’thewaysinwhichtheReportmakesthepastpresent.
DrEmiliePinelecturesinmoderndramaatUniversityCollegeDublin.SheisthefoundingDirectorof
theIrishMemoryStudiesNetwork,PIonIndustrialMemories(IRCNewHorizons2015-18),Assistant
EditoroftheIrishUniversityReview,andauthorofThePoliticsofIrishMemory.
‘What will the internet turn into?’ Digital growths and online lists: A History of Ireland in 100
ObjectsandAisteach:TheAvantGardeArchiveofIreland
ClaireLynch(BrunelUniversity)
“[websites]certainlycross-fertilise,orcross-infect.Butwhenpeoplesay‘whatwilltheInternetturn
into?’maybeitwon’t‘turninto’anything,itwilljustspread(getlessaccurateattheedges,more
stodgyinthemiddle).”–AnneEnright
Researching the life story of Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cell line, novelist Anne Enright draws a
parallelbetweenthecancerousgrowthofthebodyandtheseeminglyunstoppableexpansionofthe
Internet. The websites she reads contradict one another, containing both too much and too little
information.Returningtotheessayyearslateronlyemphasisesthisdigitalmetastasis.WhenEnright
29
types Lacks’ name into a search engine in 2000 she retrieves 52 results ‘within minutes’; by 2016
Googleisabletoprovide429,000resultsin0.74seconds.
This paper looks to the changes that occur between and because of digital texts. As
information seems to replicate, mutate and expand uncontrollably, practitioners are increasingly
drawntomechanismsofcontrolandimposedorganisation:thelist,thedatabase.Thispaperoffers
twocasestudies,bothdigitalresourcesandprintedbooks:FintanO’Toole’s,AHistoryofIrelandin
100ObjectsandJenniferWalshe’sAisteach:TheAvantGardeArchiveofIreland.
In one sense, O’Toole’s History is a monument to continuity – 28. Book of Kells, 29. Tara
Brooch, 30. Ardagh Chalice – in another, it is an engine for change – 98. Intel Microprocessor, 99.
AngloIrishBankSign,100.DecommissionedIRAweapon.
Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, Walshe’s Aisteach is a generative online archive-
‘preserving’theworkof‘TheKilkennyEngagists’and‘GuinnessDadaists’.Thepaperwillexplorethe
change captured by this project, and most importantly, the change in understanding which occurs
betweentwoshorttexts:‘AboutAisteach’andthe‘Disclaimer’.
A History of Ireland in 100 Objects and Aisteach present as conventional while subverting old and
new forms. Curated and, therefore, implicitly hierarchical they challenge conventions about what
may or may not ‘signify’ Ireland. These digital resources are ‘accompanied by’ printed books, as if
thematerialobjectmightpindownthedigitalexperiment.
Dr Claire Lynch is a Senior Lecturer at Brunel University London and Secretary of the British
AssociationofIrishStudies.SheistheauthorofCyberIreland:Text,Image,Culture(Palgrave,2014),
IrishAutobiography(PeterLang,2009).
Printing1916
LucyCollins(UniversityCollegeDublin)
The Easter Rising was a formative event, not only for Ireland’s political future but also for her
culturalidentity.TheIrishRevival,whichbeganinearnestinthe1890s,transformedtheliteraryand
artistic landscape, and helped to sustain a vibrant culture of newspapers, pamphlets and books –
publications that played an important role in disseminating ideas of cultural and political
independencebeforetheEasterRising,andinshapingpublicunderstandingofthoseeventsatthe
timeandinsubsequentdecades.Theinsurrectionitself,andthechangingpublicattitudestowards
it, left a rich cultural legacy. From works of literature to political pamphlets, memoirs to pictorial
reviews,thechangesbroughtaboutbytheRisingwererepresentedandcommemoratedinavariety
ofprintedforms.Reading1916,anexhibitionheldatUCDSpecialCollectionsthisspring,showcased
thishistoryandinviteddiscussionoftheseprintedmaterialsinthelargercontextofearlytwentieth-
centuryculturalproduction.InthispaperIwillexploreaselectionofitemsfromtheexhibitionand
considerthesignificanceofthesematerialsforourunderstandingoftherevolutionaryperiodasa
whole.
DrLucyCollinsisalecturerinEnglishLiteratureatUniversityCollegeDublin,wheresheteachesand
researches on modern poetry. Recent publications include Poetry by Women in Ireland: A Critical
Anthology 1870–1970 (2012) and a monograph, Contemporary Irish Women Poets: Memory and
Estrangement(2015),bothfromLiverpoolUniversityPress.
30
3A:AFTER1916:WOMENRETHINKTHEPAST
ConstanceMarkievicz'sPrisonReading
LaurenArrington(UniversityofLiverpool)
AftertheRising,duringherimprisonmentsinAylesbury,Holloway,Cork,andMountjoy,Constance
Markievicz undertook a programme of reading in history and political philosophy. These books
shapedherunderstandingofdemocracyandrevolution,andinformedherunderstandingofJames
Connolly's vision for Ireland. Even in sympathetic portraits, Markievicz has been described as a
womanofactionandnotanintellectual;however,thispaperwillsuggestthatMarkievicz'sintense
engagementwithimportanttheoriesofsocialismandimperialismareessentialtounderstandingthe
rootsofIrishRepublicanismandthegenesisofthecivilwar.
DrLaurenArringtonisSeniorLecturerattheInstituteofIrishStudies,UniversityofLiverpool.Sheis
theauthorofW.B.Yeats,theAbbeyTheatre,Censorship,andtheIrishState:AddingtheHalf-Pence
to the Pence (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Revolutionary Lives: Constance and Casimir
Markievicz (Princeton University Press, 2016). She is currently preparing the monograph, Rapallo:
W.B.Yeats,EzraPound,andLateModernism.
Tea,sandbagsandCathalBrugha:KathyBarry'scivilwar
EveMorrison(UniversityCollegeDublin)
KathyBarrywasoneofseveralmembersofanti-treatyCumannnamBanwhoremainedwiththeIRA
in the Hammam Hotel on Sackville Street after the outbreak of the civil war in Dublin on 28 June
1922. Famously, she refused to leave when Cathal Brugha ordered the women to go. This paper
exploresBarry'svariousaccountsofthisincidentoverthedecades,aswellashercontributiontothe
struggleforIrishindependencegenerally.
Dr Eve Morrison is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of History and
Archives, University College Dublin, working on the projectRemembering violence and war:
contexualisingtheErnieO'MalleyNotebooks.ShepreviouslystudiedhistoryatTrinityCollegeDublin,
and is currently writing a book on the Bureau of Military History based on her doctoral work for
LiverpoolUniversityPress.
WomenWritetheRising:2016and‘theintimatepublicpoem’
LucyMcDiarmid(MontclairStateUniversity)
Thispaperwilllookatthepoemsabout1916speciallycommissionedfor2016,withafocusonthose
byEiléanNíChuilleanáin,NualaNíDhomhnaill,VonaGroarke,andPaulaMeehanandanemphasis
onrevisionistpoeticversionsoftheRising.
Prof.LucyMcDiarmidisMarieFrazee-BaldassarreChairofEnglishatMontclairStateUniversity.Her
scholarlyinterestinculturalpolitics,especiallyquirky,colourful,episodesisexemplifiedinTheIrish
31
ArtofControversy(CornellUniversityPress,2005),PoetsandthePeacockDinner:theliteraryhistory
of a meal (Oxford University Press, 2014), and most recently in At Home in the Revolution: what
womensaidanddidin1916(RoyalIrishAcademy,2015).
3B:NORTHERNIRISHPOETRY
Makingsenseoftheearth:MacNeiceandthepoliticsofmuseumculture
RuiCarvalhoHomem(UniversidadedoPorto)
LouisMacNeice'svastoeuvreincludesaseriesofpiecesthatconcernvisualityandmuseumculture.
This paper will acknowledge and discuss the range and prevalent features of this strand in his
writing,consideredbothinthecontextofhisevolvingpoeticsandinlightofdominantconcernsin
theworkofhiscontemporaries.
Theproposeddiscussionwilltakeintoaccountthebroaderconsequenceofmuseumculture
inMacNeice'swritings,whichreflectedcloseacquaintancewithBritishandIrishvenues,asalsowith
major galleries elsewhere. Its main focus, however, will be the contribution of MacNeice's
pictorially-related writing to a deeper understanding of some of the issues that have energised
discussions on word-and-image relations in contemporary culture – the critical perplexities, the
sociopoliticalimplications.
ThispaperwillhighlightMacNeice'sambivalentandevolvingattitudetowardsartgalleries,
an attitude made of knowledgeable fascination but also a considerable measure of ideologically
groundedscepticism.Itwillponderhissardonicresponsetotheassumptionthatartcancapturethe
complexitiesofaselfhood,andhisviewthatmeaningrelevanttoasenseofthehumanmayoften
arisefromrepresentationsofinanimateobjectsmoreeasilythanfromthosethatpromiseaglimpse
of an inner life through the lineaments of a face. In connection with such specific poetic
pronouncementsasMacNeice'sresponsetothereturnofthecollectionstotheNationalGalleryin
London after World War II, this paper will stress the continuity of his diagnosis of the escapism
afforded by those 'windows' onto 'a day-dream free from doubt' – but also his openness to an
acknowledgementof'thepattern,thelight,theecstasywhichmakesenseoftheearth'.
RuiCarvalhoHomemisProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityofOporto,Portugal.Hehaspublished
extensivelyoncontemporaryIrishpoetry,EarlyModernEnglishdrama,andword-and-imagestudies.
As a literary translator, he has published versions of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Seamus Heaney and
PhilipLarkin.HeiscurrentlytheChairofESRA,theEuropeanShakespeareResearchAssociation.
CarsonandTrad
MatthewCampbell(UniversityofYork)
ThispaperwillbeaboutthepoetryandcriticismofCiaranCarsonanditsrelationtovexedquestions
of tradition, borrowing, influence and authenticity. The concept 'Trad' as it appears in the title is
taken from a word used since the '60s to describe a certain authenticity in the performance of
musicalforms:tradjazzortradfolk.Itsbiggersister,theword'Tradition',isawordthatfromthe
criticism of T.S. Eliot onwards has created a means for thinking about literary histories and their
32
continuities, a sense with a much greater conception of the formation of literary canonicity and a
certainculturalelitism.SometheoreticalandcriticalimplicationsofCarson'songoingtreatmentand
practice within these seemingly competing notions of these related words will be explored in this
paper. It will address his writing on music and authenticity and the recurrence of the phrase 'the
thing itself' throughout his work - a concept related both to 'trad' in the populist sense and
'tradition'inthesenseofEuropeanandAmericanpoetry.Thewordtradisalsorelatedtoquestions
oftasteandtheseeminglynecessarylimitsplacedonthosewhocanpossessit:justwhocanreally
know'thethingitself'whentheymeetit,andinwhatelitecompanymustwefindourselvesinorder
toownit?ForCarson(aswasperhapsalsothecasewithTSEliot),thistasteisinthepossessionofa
smallnumberofperformersandlistenersinakindofidealspace,the'smallbackroom'.Thispaper
willthinkaboutwhomightgainaccesstothatspace.
Matthew Campbell is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of York. His research has
recentlyfocusedontheinventionofthedistinctivemusic,prosodyandlanguageofIrishpoetryin
EnglishwrittenwithinandagainstthevexedpoliticsofIrishandBritishliteraryhistoryfrom1801to
1921andbeyond.HehasalsopublishedoncontemporaryIrishpoetry,Romanticpoetry,Celticism,
elegy,andwarwriting.
‘TheImpactofTranslation’onSeamusHeaney’sTranslationWork
AidanO’Malley(UniversityofRijeka)
At first sight, Seamus Heaney’s essay ‘The Impact of Translation’ (The Government of the Tongue,
1988) tells us nothing about Heaney the translator. In large part, this is because the processes of
translationaretakenasgivenintheessay,withtheresultthatitishardlyabouttranslationperseat
all. Instead, it is concerned with how the honest witnessing and sounds of authenticity emanating
from Eastern European poetry might re-energise an insular Anglo-American poetics that has
produced“aprocessionofironistsanddandiesandreflexivetalents”(p.40).Havingsaidthat,this
paper explores how illumination may be cast on Heaney’s own translation practice through a
considerationoftheelisionsandsilencesofthispiece.Implicitly,translationisnotconstruedinthis
essay as a secondary or subsidiary activity, but as a fundamental opening of the poetic self to
otherness.Furthermore,whileHeaneyrecognisesthattheadmirationforEasternEuropeanpoetry
comes,inlargepart,fromanacknowledgementoftherepressivepoliticalcontextsoutofwhichit
emerged, he never extends his comparative overview of twentieth-century Anglophone poetry to
NorthernIrelandor,indeed,Ireland;infact,hepositionshimselfintermsof“[w]ewholiveandhave
ourbeinginEnglish”(p.43).Inthislight,andpayingparticularattentiontoSweeneyAstray(1983),
The Cure at Troy (1990), Beowulf (2000) and The Burial at Thebes (2004), this paper assesses the
political and ethical valences of Heaney’s evolving attitudes to the place of translation in his own
oeuvreandtohisplaceasatranslator.
DrAidanO’MalleyteachesattheUniversityofRijeka,CroatiaandistheauthorofFieldDayandthe
Translation of Irish Identities: Performing Contradictions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Amongst his
other publications is Ireland, West to East: Irish Cultural Connections with Central and Eastern
Europe(PeterLang,2014),whichheeditedwithEvePatten.
33
3C:QUEERIDENTITIESINIRISHDRAMAANDFICTION
PortraitofaMenopausalIrishGentleman:Irish-AmericanIdentityintheQueerPerformanceArtof
PeggyShaw
GavinDoyle(TrinityCollegeDublin)
In a Theatre Journal review of Peggy Shaw's Menopausal Gentleman production (1998), Marcia L.
FergusonsetstheopeningsceneofShaw'ssoloperformance:“Shestandsinthedarknessbutunder
aswinginglight,thekindusedinB-moviestointerrogatetoughguysfromJimmyCagneytoEdward
G. Robinson.” Illuminated under this light is a physicality that exteriorises the allusion to Shaw's
mobster masculinity: a dark suit over a starched shirt under a pair of braces—a further revival of
Cagney, the original Irish-American “tough guy” of 1930's and 1940's Hollywood. Ferguson's
comparison not only reaffirms Shaw's reputation as the iconic butch lesbian artist who has been
instrumentalininstallingpostmodernandqueerinterrogationsofidentityonstagesincethe1970s,
butalsointimatestheartist'sethnicinspirationforhernotoriousstagepersonae.Shawwasbornin
Boston,“[o]nthewrongside,theIrishsideofthetracks”(BOMB1999)intoalarge,poor,workingclass Irish Congregationalist family. Her work remains excluded from the canon of Irish-American
literary and cultural productions—a truism symptomatic of the wider exclusion of queer
subjectivities from the national, ethnic and diasporic archives. This paper will focus on scripts of
Shaw'ssoloperformances(1995-2013)assamplesoflifewritingwhichofferinsightintothewaysin
which the artist's Irish-American background has acted as a site of inspiration, resistance and
transformation in her highly influential work, produced at times of great change in the realm of
gender,sexual,andqueerpolitics.Atthesametime,thepaperexploreshowShawexaminesissues
of ageing, menopause, and the life-altering consequences of a stroke in 2011 through poignant
memories of a troubled family life and her transformative adolescent years, as well as through
meditationsonherIrishroots.
GavinDoyleisasecond-yearIrishResearchCouncilPhDcandidateattheSchoolofEnglish,Trinity
CollegeDublin.HeholdsanMAinGender,SexualityandCulturefromUniversityCollegeDublin.His
doctoral research explores queerness in Irish-American literature and culture from 1960 to the
present, and includes the works of Eileen Myles, Peggy Shaw, Alice McDermott, Mart Crowley,
StephanieGrant,andAoibheannSweeney,amongothers.
‘You can change the law, you can change the rules, but you will not change who we are’: the
subjectofchangeanalysedfromtheperspectiveofIrishlesbianfiction
AnnaCharczun(BrunelUniversityLondon)
Overthepasttwocenturies,Irishlesbianfictionhasexperiencedanimmeasurabletransformation.
Therefore, the subject of change, understood in context of time, seems to be, in large measure,
applicable to the development of Irish female lesbian writing. From the first discernible traits of
lesbian presence in the early nineteenth-century fiction to present, Irish lesbian narrative was
shaping, re-shaping, and shifting between stages of an absolute openness to the obsolete
covertness.
34
In my research, I am analysing the entire canon of Irish female writers who have made a
considerablecontributiontotheliteraryfieldbyincluding,alludingto,anddiscussinglesbianismin
theirworks,thuscreatingIrishlesbianfemalefiction.SinceIhavebegunmystudyoflesbiantraitsin
Irish narrative, with the point of departure in the nineteenth century, it became evident that the
existenceoflesbianinfictionbyIrishfemaleauthorshasnotbeenapproachedopenlyuntilthelate
twentiethcentury,whenMaryDorceyrevolutionisedtheliteraryscenebypublishinghercollection
ofshortstories,ANoisefromtheWoodshed(1989).
Theabsence,orratherundefinedpresenceoflesbianwithinIrishfemalenarrativelastedfor
nearly a whole century, and it can be placed around two memorable dates in Irish homosexual
history, preceding the famous trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, and following decriminalisation of
homosexualactsin1993.Thefocusofmypaper,therefore,willbeplacedonthechanges,literary
andliteral,inrepresentationsoffemalesame-sexdesireonthepagesofthenineteenth-centuryand
contemporary Irish women’s fiction that, concomitantly, had its reflection in Irish homosexual
politics.
Anna Charczun researches Irish lesbian fiction at Brunel University London. She analyses in depth
the interference of various factors and institutions of power in the homosexual politics of Ireland,
and her thesis examines the development of Irish lesbian narrative from the nineteenth to the
twenty-firstcentury.
3D:C19thIRISHFICTIONINNATIONALANDTRANSNATIONALCONTEXTS
GothicAffectations:ThePostcolonialTurninIrishAnglicanFictionafter1801
AoifeDempsey(TrinityCollegeDublin)
The1801ActofUnionbetweenGreatBritainandIrelandinstigatedarippleofchangethatwould
ultimatelyleadtotheeventsofEaster1916.Overacenturyofpoliticalandsocialinstabilitywould
follow the Act, including the closure of the Irish parliament, the Great Famine, the movement
towardCatholicEmancipation,aswellasseveralviolentuprisings.Amidthesurgeinnationalism,the
Irish Anglican Middle Class, who previously dominated political and social life in Ireland, found
themselves in a precarious position. Born in, but not indigenous to Ireland, Irish Anglicans were
increasingly alienated in their own “homeland”. At the height of imperialism in the nineteenth
century, colonial self-definition was crystallised with the emergence of racial and ethnic Other.
“Under the union”, Kevin Whelan writes, “[Ireland] became the other within, whose poverty,
violenceandsurlyseparatismbecameacuriouslycomfortingantithesistoBritishVirtue,prosperity
andstability”(25).Gothicliterature,thispaperargues,cametotheforeforIrishAnglicanwritersas
a means of articulating the unsettling existence of their hyphenated state, of their existence
betweenthecolonialSelfandthecolonisedOther.ThedualityinherentinGothicfictionenacteda
method of double-speak, expressing the lingering fear of indigenous insurgence and yet also
uncovering the inherent violence of Empire. A growing Postcolonial consciousness was expressed
throughGothicaffectation.ThispaperwilldemonstratehowthefictionofJosephSheridanLeFanu
andBramStoker–asexamplesofIrishAnglicanwriterswhosefictionindicatesaPostcolonialturn–
reveals a distinct uncertainty surrounding Empire, and reflects the political, social, and cultural
upheavalintheperiodfollowing1801throughaGothicartifice.
35
Aoife M. Dempsey is a third-year PhD candidate and Peter Irons Scholar at the School of English,
TrinityCollegeDublin,undertheco-supervisionofProfessorDarrylJonesandDrJarlathKilleen.Her
researchexploresthepostcolonialityofnineteenth-centuryIrishAnglicanGothicfiction.Sheholdsa
BAinNewMediaandEnglishfromtheUniversityofLimerickandanMAinPostcolonialLiterature
andCulturefromtheUniversityofLeeds.
GeraldGriffinandBoucicault’sColleenBawn
MarkCorcoran(NUIGalway)
JohnCronin’s‘GeraldGriffinand'TheCollegians':AReconsideration’wasanearlyattempttoreclaim
theimportanceofGeraldGriffin’sworktonineteenth-centuryIrishculture.TodateGriffin’sThe
Collegians:ATaleofGarryowen(1829)islesswellknownthantheworksitinspiredsuchasDion
Boucicault'sTheColleenBawnandJuliusBenedict'slibretto,TheLilyofKillarney.Croninassertsthat
Griffin’scomplextreatmentofmoralitywithinTheCollegiansisnotonlyoverlookedbutimportant
toIrishliterature.ThispaperarguesthatGriffin’sportrayalofIrishcharacterinTheCollegians
generatescomplextransnationalcontextsconnectedtolocalityandmoralitythatsucceeding
generations,includingYoungIrelandandFenianism,struggledtochampionandincorporatewithin
itspoliticalnewspapers.Griffin’streatmentofIrishidentitywasnotnationalistinthemodeofThe
Freeman’sJournalandTheNation.YetthehybridityofIrishculture,whetherthroughBritishor
Europeanelements,ispresentinHardressCreganandMylesnaCoppaleen,asGriffinsetabout
revealingsomeoftheblurredlinesofatransnationalIrishidentity.
DionBoucicault'sTheColleenBawndidnotrepeatthecomplexityofthetransnational
dimensionofcharacterthatbackbonedGriffin’swork.TheColleenBawn’sreceptioninAmericaand
Britain,andthedifferentmediumoftheatre,resultedinamoreheightenedandlong-lasting
responseandstatusforBoucicault.
MarkCorcoranisadjunctlecturerfortheCentreofIrishStudiesandtheEnglishDepartmentatthe
NationalUniversityofIreland(NUI)Galway.Hehasarecordofpublicationsinnineteenth-and
twentieth-centuryIrishliteratureandteachessuchmaterialatNUIGalway.
RereadingGaol:TheTerriblePrison
JasonHaslam(DalhousieUniversity)
ReadingOscarWilde’sBalladofReadingGaol(1898)alongsideWaltWhitman’s“TheSingerinthe
Prison”(1869),andwithreferencetoJohnSarsfieldCasey’sprisonmemoirGalteeBoy(c.1871),this
paper discusses the historical shifts in transatlantic prison practices in the mid to late nineteenth
century in order to revise current understandings of what Victor Brombert famously called the
HappyPrisonoftheRomanticperiod.Ratherthantranscendentreformation,Iarguethattheprison
reformsoftheperiodencodetheirowngothicundoing.
It has become a staple in much recent studies of transatlantic prison literature to revisit
Brombert’s“happyprisonmotif.”WritingspecificallyoftheFrenchRomantics,Brombertarguesthat
theprison,likethemonasticcell,becomesaspaceofisolationfromandsubsequenttranscendence
beyondthealienatingforcesofmateriallife.Criticshavetranslatedthe“happyprisonmotif”beyond
36
Brombert’s initial poetic--and largely fictional--literary context to autobiographical accounts by
prisoners writing in the US, England, Ireland, and elsewhere, and to the later nineteenth and
twentiethcenturies.
Focussingonthetensionbetweeninsideandoutside,interiorityandobjectification,thatlies
attheheartofboththemodernprisonprojectandRomanticontologies,IarguetheHappyPrison,
liketheRomanticsublime,issimultaneouslyprefiguredandhauntedbyitsgothicother,whatIwill
callherethe“TerriblePrison.”WheretheHappyPrisonisafigureofandmeanstotranscendence,
the Terrible Prison is the site and sign of a longing for death. Where the Happy Prison is a site of
reformation,theTerriblePrisonisasiteforsocialandpersonaldissolution.
Theradicalinstabilityofthisdualismisoftenfiguredatthetensesurfaceoftheprisoner’s
skin. The moment at which the Happy Prison becomes the Terrible Prison is when the prisoner’s
bodyistouchedand/orbroken.Therefashioningoftheinterior,inotherwords,canhappeneither
in a transcendent rapture of rehabilitation or in a terrible recognition of the objectification of the
bodyasmeat,andtheyoftenhappensimultaneously.Caseymakesthismomentclear,reversingthe
“happy prison” by turning the effects of solitary confinement inside out: “Separate confinement is
themostseverepartof…imprisonment.…OhGod,howisitthatthecrustoftheunhappybeing’s
skulldoesnotburst--doesnotwrenchasunder,andscatterhisbrainsonthewall?”(158).Likewise,
Wilde’s poem focuses on the interplay of inside and outside through murder, execution, and
salvationpointingtotheinseparabilityofthesublimeandthegothic.
Whitman’s poem, however, is a quintessentially happy prison poem, in which the
transformation,throughsong(art),ofthefallenbodyintothetranscendentspiritismademanifest.
RereadingWhitman’ssongthroughWilde’sballadand|Casey’smemoir(ascriticalanalysesofthis
romanticization of the prison) can allow one, however, to see the irruptions of the Terrible Prison
throughout the transatlantic in this period—the unchanging same of systemic abuse disguised as
enlightenedprogress.Theseworks,writteninprisonsinthreeseparatecountries,singnotthebody
electric,butthebodyelectrified.
JasonHaslamisAssociateProfessorofEnglishatDalhousieUniversity.Hisresearchcurrentlyfocuses
on transatlantic gothic, science fiction, and prison studies. He is the author or editor of several
books,including,mostrecently,themonographGender,Race,andAmericanScienceFiction(2015),
the textbook Thinking Popular Culture (2015), and the essay collection American Gothic Cultures
(2016).
3E:MENTALHEALTHINCONTEMPORARYIRISHDRAMA,POETRY,PROSE
Reinventing the Passion play: Mental illness and creativity in Neil Watkins’ The Year of Magical
Wanking(2010)andSeanMillar’sFourScenesintheLifeofJesus(2015)
AlexandraPoulain(UniversitédeLille3)
Thispaperlooksattwounconventionalplays/performanceswhichusetheparadigmoftheChristian
passiontoinvestigatethetensionbetweennon-conformistidentitiesandthenormalisingforcesstill
atworkinachangingIrishsociety.Thispaperdemonstratesthatbothplaysqueertheconventional
narrativeofthePassionandexperimentwithnewdramaturgiestocelebratethepotentialcreativity
inwhatisconventionallyapprehendedasmentalillness.
37
Alexandra Poulain is Professor of Irish Studies at the Centre d’Etudes en Civilisations, Langues et
LettresEtrangères,UniversitédeLille3.Herresearchinterestsinclude:Irishtheatre,Irishliterature,
modernism, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial studies, and modern and contemporary
theatre. Irish Drama, Modernity and the Passion Play which discusses versions of the Passion
narrativeinmodernIrishdramaisforthcomingfromPalgraveMacmillan.
ShineOn:Anthologisingmentalillness
ClíonaNíRíordáin(UniversitédeLille3)
This paper examines the anthology, edited by Pat Boran and produced in 2011 by Dedalus Press,
Shine On: Irish Writers for Shine. With its subheading “Supporting People affected by Mental Ill
Health”,theanthologyexploresandrespondstotheissueofmentalillness.Throughananalysisof
thereceptionofthebookanditscontents,Iproposetoshowhowtheanthologyformatallowsthe
anthologizerstocreateaspacethatexploresboththecreativityassociatedwithmentalillnesswhile
combating the stigma that has for the moment continued to be attached to it, thus exploring
anotherfunctionoftheanthology–thatofanenergizing,campaigningandoftenradicalgenre.
ClíonaNíRíordáinlivesinPariswheresheteachesattheUniversitédelaSorbonneNouvelle.Sheis
the editor of the bilingual Poetes du Munster: 1960-2015 (Illador) and of Four Irish Poets / Quatre
poètes irlandais, a bilingual (English/French) selection of the work of four Irish poets: Pat Boran,
Katherine Duffy, Mary Montague and Gerry Murphy, with translations by Anne Mounic, Paul
Bensimon,YvesLefevreandIsabelleGénin.
EdnaO'Brien'sTheLittleRedChairs:intimateviolence,violentintimacy
FionaMcCann(UniversitédeLille3)
InEdnaO'Brien'smostrecentnovel,publishedin2015,Ireland'smostprolificcontemporaryauthor
continuesherforaysintothewaysinwhichviolencecanberepresented,yetTheLittleRedChairs
takesthisinteresttonewlevelsinitsportrayalofunbearableviolenceandthepsychologyofawar
criminal. This paper will firstly contextualise O'Brien's interest in perpetrators of violence,
particularly in the name of politics, and will then offer an analysis of the representation of one
particularlyharrowingsceneofextremeviolence.Finally,IwillconsiderO'Brien'snuancedyetfrank
portrayalofawarcriminalandthelimitsbetweensufferingfrommentalillnessanddisplayingallthe
hallmarksofasociopath.
Fiona McCann works at the Centre d’Etudes en Civilisations, Langues et Lettres Etrangères,
Université de Lille 3. Her PhD thesis focused on the interplay between history and story in South
African and Zimbabwean women’s writing, and particularly on the representation of gendered
violence.HercurrentresearchfocusesontheaestheticsofviolenceinIrishandAfricanliteratures,
particularlyindiasporicwriting.
38
3F:NEWAPPROACHESTOJOHNBANVILLE
Of Oranges and Coffee Entering Breakfast Menus in Bohemia: an Exploration of Change, the
HistoriographicandtheMetafictionalinDoctorCopernicusandKeplerbyJohnBanville
AuroraPiñeiro(NationalandAutonomousUniversityofMexico)
The aim of this paper is to explore two possible meanings of the word ‘change’ in relation to the
novelsDoctorCopernicus(1976)andKepler(1981)byJohnBanville.Firstly,atthematiclevel,both
works deal with how newness enters the world, and the diverse challenges the protagonists face
whenitcomestothe(internalandpublic)struggleimpliedinthepursuitofknowledgeandbeauty,
atthesametimethatanattemptat‘savingthephenomena’takesplace.Secondly,themeaningof
the term ‘change’ will be considered in relation to shape and literary genre: although both novels
have been associated to categories such as ‘historical novels’, ‘fictional biographies’ or ‘novels of
ideas’,itisinthelightofwhatLindaHutcheoncalls‘historiographicmetafiction’thatwewillanalyse
these writings as texts where the complex interaction of the historiographic and metafictional
foregrounds the rejection of the claims of both ‘authentic’ representation and ‘inauthentic’ copy
alike, and the meaning of artistic originality is challenged as well as the transparency of historical
referentiality.Bothnovelsdemandachangeinourapproachtotheactofreadingitself,andwhat
weconsiderthegenericcontractsoffictionandhistory.
Aurora Piñeiro is Associate Professor of the Department of English Literature at the National and
AutonomousUniversityofMexico(UNAM),wheresheteachesseminarsoncontemporarynarrative
inEnglish,includingtheworksofauthorssuchasBanville,TóibínandDonoghue.Shewasavisiting
researcheratUniversityCollegeDublinfromSeptember2014toJune2015.
“Exterminate all the brutes”: Modernism and the Affects of Ambivalence in John Banville’s The
Sea
DougBattersby(UniversityofYork)
ThispaperexploreshowJohnBanville’sfictionengageswiththelegacyofmodernistwriting.Where
critics such as Rüdiger Imhof, Joseph McMinn, Derek Hand, and John Kenny have approached this
concern via Banville’s own stated views, I take up David James and Urmila Seshagiri’s notion of
“metamodernism” - “contemporary fictions distinguished by inventive, self-conscious relationships
with modernist literature” (88). Following James and Seshagiri, my contention is that Banville’s
fiction is better illuminated by addressing how it thematises, invokes, or responds to modernism
(rather than by aligning it with the author’s declared affinities). I suggest that Banville’s writing
evokes the spectre of modernism in peculiar and intensely affective ways, and explore the
implicationstherein.
This paper focuses on a single passage of The Sea (2005) which alludes conspicuously to
JosephConrad’sHeartofDarkness(1899),whilstdrawingconnectionswithBanville’soeuvreanda
wider modernist canon. The discussion begins by illustrating how the allusion brings the
dehumanising discourse of colonialism into dialogue with a Freudian evocation of mourning. The
Sea,byplacingapparentlydisparateexperiencesanddiscoursesintostrangeanddisturbingcontact,
exemplifieshowmetamodernisttreatmentsofmodernismcanbeasmuchaffectiveasconceptual-
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aninsightwhichshouldguideourapproachestothesefictions.Significantly,intheHeartofDarkness
passage, Marlow stresses the powerful affects Kurtz’s language provoked in him. I show how,
through this intertextual connection, Banville’s fiction both exploits and thematises the affective
potentialoflanguage.Further,themarkedambivalencetowardsmoderniststylisticexperimentation
found in Banville’s fiction enables us to contextualise the peculiar instability between fine writing
andclichéthatcharacteriseshisstyle.Intheconclusiontothepaper,Isuggestthatmydiscussion
notonlyoffersanewreadingofBanville’sfiction,butcancontributetoourwiderunderstandingsof
whatisstakeinthepraxisofbothmodernistcriticismandmetamodernistwriting.
DougBattersbyisaPhDcandidateattheUniversityofYork.Hisresearchexplorestherelationships
betweenknowingandfeelinginthefictionofSamuelBeckett,VladimirNabokov,JohnBanville,and
J.M.Coetzee.HeisaLeverhulmevisitingscholaratTrinityCollegeDublinfor2015/16.
3G:DIGITALIRELAND:TRANSFORMINGTHEMEDIEVALPAST
PerhapsthegreatestchangetoaffectthestudyofIreland’smedievalhistoryandliteraturehasbeen
the digital turn in the humanities, and few disciplines have been as active in embracing the
possibilities afforded by emerging technologies as interdisciplinary medieval studies. Access to
digitised collections, interactive editions and searchable archives have revolutionised the way that
westudy,interpretandvisualisethepast,whilstalsopresentingprofoundchallengestotraditional
researchmethodsandideasofcanonicity,andraisingquestionsaboutstandardsofrepresentation,
preservationandthelimitsofthearchive.Thispaneladdressesthechallengesandpossibilitiesthat
inhereinremediatingIreland’smedievalpastbyfocusingonthreeongoingresearchinitiativesinthe
CollegeofArts,CelticStudiesandSocialSciences.Allthreepaperswilladdressprofoundchangesnot
justinthewaythatweaccessinformationandconductprimaryresearchasmedievalists,butinthe
waythatweunderstandthediscipline.
ContextualisingKnowledgeandMakingMeaning–RepresentationandRemediationofIreland
DrOrlaMurphy(UniversityCollegeCork)
Thispaperhighlightsthenecessityforgeneratingaprofounddigitalliteracywithinourscholarship–
movingbeyondthesurfacewebsite,tothecreationofdeeplymeaningfulsustainabledigitalobjects
aspartofourresearchalongsidemoretraditionalpublication.
DrOrlaMurphyisalecturerattheSchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCorkinthenational,interinstitutionalDigitalArtsandHumanitiesPhDprogram.Sheisco-coordinatoroftheMAinDigitalArts
and Humanities and online MA in Digital Cultures at UCC. Her research focuses on intermediality;
howthetextis,was,andwillbetransmitted;howweread,represent,andshareknowledgeinnew
networkedandvirtualenvironments.
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CollectingIreland’sVikingHeritagewiththeWorld-TreeProject
DrRuarighDale(UniversityCollegeCork)
This paper will discuss the opportunities for community collection to bridge the gap between
academicandpublicinterestinthemedievalpast,andthechallengesfacedinreconcilingdesirefor
accesstoliteraryheritagewiththerigoursoftraditionalscholarship.Itwillalsoreportononeofthe
mostrecentdigitalinitiativesinthefieldofOldNorse-VikingStudies,whichusesthelatestcollection
tools to crowd-source material on Ireland’s Viking heritage and to situate the literature of early
medievalIrelandinaninternationalcontext.
DrRuarighDaleisaPost-DoctoralresearcherontheWorld-TreeProjectatUniversityCollegeCork.
RestrictedAccess:ResearchingMedievalCultureinIreland’sDigitalAge
PatriciaO’Connor(UniversityCollegeCork)
PatriciaO’ConnorisaDigitalArtsandHumanitiesPhDcandidateattheSchoolofEnglish,University
College Cork. Her thesis, for which she has recently been awarded an Irish Research Council
PostgraduateScholarship,isentitled“RetrievingtheTextualEnvironmentofthe‘OldEnglishBede’:
ADigitalRemediationofCambridge,CorpusChristiCollege41.”SheisalsoPhDrepresentativeofthe
TeachersofOldEnglishinBritainandIreland.
4A:CHANGINGTHEPOLITCALLANDSCAPE:IRISHWOMEN’SWRITING,1878-1922
FemaleHomosocialityinL.T.Meade’sSchoolgirlNovels
WhitneyStandlee(UniversityofWorcester)
Through her promotion of homosocial bonding between females in her schoolgirl novels, L. T.
Meadeoffersacompellingcounter-narrativetotherhetoricsurroundingdenominationalschooling
thatservedtodividegirlsinIrelandinthelatenineteenthcentury.ThischapterhighlightsMeade’s
advocacynotonlyofwomen’seducationbutalsoofequalaccesstoandtreatmentwithineducation.
Bypromotinghomosocialbondsbetweenfemalesandcritiquingandpunishingdissension,shealso
posits female solidarity as the most advantageous expedient to a productive and fulfilled life. In
doingso,shewritesnotoflonefemaleswhoareanomaliesinsocietybutofgroupsofwomenwho
aretheprospectiveagentsforchange.
WhitneyStandleelecturesinHumanitiesattheUniversityofWorcester.SheistheauthorofPower
toObserve:IrishWomenNovelistsinBritain,1890-1916(PeterLang,2015)andco-editor(withAnna
Pilz) of Irish Women's Writing 1878-1922: Advancing the Cause of Liberty (2016). Her research
interests include late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century Irish women's writing and women's
contributionstopopularcultureafter1880.
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CharlotteRiddell’sTheNun’sCurseandtheLandWarnovel
PatrickMaume(DictionaryofIrishBiography)
Theliteratureofthefindesièclecoexistedwiththatofolderwriters,whoshowhowearlierliterary
tropesandculturaldebatescontinuedtoinfluencethelaterperiod.ThenovelsofCharlotteRiddell
indicate that long-standing debates about the possibility of regenerating the Irish land system
survived into the era of the Land War and the New Woman. Her references to a wide range of
nineteenth-centuryIrishwritersandherreimaginingofcontemporaryeventssuchasthemurderof
LordLeitrim(1878)andthelandagitationinDonegalreflectnotonlyherowninabilitytoturnher
literary success into financial security but also a perceptible ambivalence on her part. This paper
focuses on Riddell’s novel The Nun’s Curse by showing how her late Victorian self-questioning
reflectsthemesofearliereras’hopesforpoliticaleconomyoraristocraticregeneration.
PatrickMaumeisanativeofCorkandaresearcherwiththeRoyalIrishAcademy’sDictionaryofIrish
Biography. He has published many papers on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Irish political,
media, and literary history as well as a monograph on early twentieth-century nationalist political
cultureandbiographiesofDanielCorkeryandD.P.Moran.
BilingualManoeuvresinSomervilleandRoss
MargaretKelleher(UniversityCollegeDublin)
A development in recent Somerville and Ross scholarship (including work by Nicole Pepinster
Greene, Ann McClellan and Anne Oakman) has highlighted Somerville and Ross’s vivid and
painstakingrepresentationsofdialectandHiberno-Englishusage.Thisfeatureoftheirworkhasto
date been discussed in relation to individual texts (most frequently The Real Charlotte) while the
significance of bilingualism, language shift and socio-linguistic change as dynamic themes across
their work remains to be fully explored. This paper will resituate such narrative representations in
the context of the wider language and cultural revival movements. It will argue that such a reexamination of Somerville and Ross’s work not only brings to light significant patterns of
interrelationbetweenthewritersandthebroadermovement(s),butalsoexposesthelimitationsof
alanguage‘cause’understoodonlythroughtheparadigmoflanguagelossandrevival.
MargaretKelleherisProfessorofAnglo-IrishLiteratureandDramaatUniversityCollegeDublin.She
has published widely in the areas of nineteenth-century literature, Famine studies, women’s
writings, and cultural studies. Her current project is a cultural history of the 1882 Maamtrasna
episodefromtheperspectiveofnineteenth-centurylanguagechange.
42
4B:YEATS,LANGUAGE,FORMANDINFLUENCE
TheGreatHouseandColonialPolitics:WalcottandYeats
DeborahFleming(AshlandUniversity)
EdwardSaidwroteinCultureandImperialism,“Themainbattleinimperialismisoverland”(xii-xiii),
and Yeats cannot be severed from this quest (236). Said numbers Yeats among poets of
decolonizationbecausehestruggledto“announcethecontoursofanimaginedoridealcommunity”
(232);hisworkgavetheworld“amajorinternationalachievementinculturaldecolonization”(238).
For this paper I will focus on Yeats’s “Coole Park, 1929”; “Coole and Ballylee, 1931”; “Ancestral
Houses”(PartIof“MeditationsinTimeofCivilWar”);and“Introduction,”or“AGeneralIntroduction
for my Work” and compare them with the postcolonial voice in Derek Walcott’s “Ruins of a Great
House,” “A Far Cry from Africa,” and “Return to D’Ennery, Rain.” Each poet laments the loss of
nationallanguageandindigenousculturebutatthesametimeembracesthelanguageandculture
which has formed their poetic voices. While the great house symbolizes colonial culture, it also
stands as a bastion of the best that culture has to offer. The language of the conqueror has—
fortunatelyornot—givenYeatsandWalcottallthattheylove.Intheessaythatcametobecalled“A
GeneralIntroductiontoMyWork”Yeatsaffirmedthat“nomancanthinkorwritewithmusicand
vigour except in his mother tongue” (CW5.211), which for him was English, not Irish. Walcott
laments in “A Far Cry from Africa” his inability to choose between his African heritage and the
Englishlanguageheloves.In“RuinsofaGreatHouse”and“ReturntoD’Ennery,Rain”hemeditates
on the fact that, while he hates slavery brought by Europeans, he cannot forget that England was
once also a colony and the subject of bitter fighting. He, like Yeats, chooses to accept with
compassionallthatthecolonialnationgavehim(mostlyitsliteraryheritage)ratherthanfocusingon
whatittookaway.
DeborahFlemingteachesModernAnglophoneLiterature,ModernPoetry,andPoetryWorkshopat
AshlandUniversity.HerresearchinterestsincludeAnglo-Irishliterature,environmentalstudies,and
modernpoetry.ShehaspublishedTowersofMythandStone:Yeats’sInfluenceonRobinsonJeffers
(2015),thenovelWithoutLeave(2014),poetrycollectionsMorning,WinterSolstice(2012)andInto
aNewCountry(2016),andiseditoroftheAshlandPoetryPress.
Appropriating“NoSecondTroy”:OtherTroysin“Troy”andin“Yeats’sGrave”
MarieseRibasStankiewicz(UniversidadeTecnológicaFederaldoParaná)
This paper addresses Sinéad O’Connor’s “Troy” (1987) and Dolores O’Riordan’s “Yeats’s Grave”
(1994)inthecontextofculturalstudiesandasawayofappropriationofWilliamButlerYeats’s“No
SecondTroy”,considering,amongotheraspects,theideologicaltraitsofthedialogueamongthem.
It is verified that the author’s memories of past happenings and their understanding of those
memoriesareinconstantrevisionandblendwithnewfashionsandtrendsoftheircontemporaneity.
Inthissense,MikhailBakhtin’stheory,specifically,hisconceptofdouble-voiceddiscourse,andsome
ideas about appropriation by theoretical critics such as Julie Sanders, Linda Hutcheon and Robert
Stam, among others, may help with some reflections on how O’Connor and O’Riordan show
43
particularhistoricalsituationsintheirsongsthatmakethelistenerpayattentiontotheconditionof
presence/absenceofchangethatpermeatestheculturalmemoryofapeople.
MarieseRibasStankiewicz(PhD,UniversidadedeSãoPaulo)isprofessoroflanguageandliterature
attheUniversidadeTecnológicaFederaldoParaná.ShehasstudiedIrishliteratureandtheatresince
2003andhasrecentlydevelopedresearchoninterculturalaspectsofIrishliteratureinBrazil.
‘ThePathoftheChameleon’:AVisionofChangeinW.B.Yeats’“LedaandtheSwan”
DonaldGivans(UniversityofAberdeen)
This paper will consider the significance of Yeats’ system of thought, his Vision, to the formal
development of his sonnet “Leda and the Swan”. Both sonnet and system engage variously with
historical, cultural, revolutionary, and periodic change. Drawing from early drafts of the poem,
throughitsvariouspublications,includingaspartofYeats’1925and1937versionsofAVision,and
in its “final” form as it appeared in The Tower, I will suggest that the poem is an embodiment of
significant aspects of A Vision’s thought – a combination of various antinomies which Yeats found
fascinating.
Thispaperwillalsoreconsiderhowthepoem,asitwasenvisionedandrevised,engagedin
what Vendler called ‘war with the sonnet form’, suggesting that as Yeats developed his Ledaean
sonnettheformdrewmorefromAVision’smultiplicioushoardofoppositionsthantheVendlerian
binary‘hybrid’ofShakespearean/Petrarchansonnettraditions.Multiplecorrespondencesbetween
Yeats’sonnetandAVisionsuggestthemselvesasdevicesofcreativetensionwhichexertedformal
pressures upon the poem as it developed toward its “final” form. These correspondences are
primarily found in Yeats’ description of the “Great Wheel”, which illustrates, and attempts to
explain, the significance of what Yeats called the alternate cardinal points of “Head”, “Heart”,
“Loins”,and“Fall”,andthe“FourFaculties”of“Will”,“Mask”,“BodyofFate”and“CreativeMind”.
ExplanationsofthesetetradsdrawfromYeats’ideasofthe“Antithetical”and“Primary”energies.
To avoid the confusion and disorientation of Yeats’ technical terms, wandering down the ‘Hodos
Chameliontos’ (The Path of the Chameleon), the textual correspondences between Yeats’ sonnet
andhisVisionswillfirstbepresented,beforearguingfortheirformalandinterpretativeimplications
withreferencetoAVision’ssystemicthought.
DonaldGivansisaPhDcandidateattheUniversityofAberdeenresearchingconflictinthesonnets
ofW.B.Yeats,SeamusHeaney,andPaulMuldoon.
4C:THETHEATREOFMARINACARR
ReimaginingDeathonStage:MarinaCarr’sBytheBogofCatsRevisesEuripidesMedea
DanielKeithJernigan(NanyangTechnologicalUniversitySingapore)
Death is perhaps the most profound change we confront, whether it is the deaths which happen
around us, or our own impending demise. And just as an unexpected death might be a “wake up
call” about our own mortality, so to a death on stage can serve to awaken us to the illusion of
44
theatre. Indeed, the very boundary between life and death is itself reminiscent of the boundary
betweenthefictionalandthereal.Oneoftheassumptionsofthispaperisthatthisisespeciallytrue
of the theater, where dying on stage has so much potential for drawing attention to the illusory
natureoftheatre.Indeed,whatdoesitmeanthata“death”onstagecanitselfdrawattentiontothe
veryartificialityofthestage,exceptthatonedeathinevitablyentailsanother?Thedeathofillusion.
Thelossofinnocence.PerhapsthisiswhythedeathintheGreektheatrealwaysoccurredoffstage–
tolimitthepossibilitythatactingdeathwouldnotdisrupttheillusionoftheatre.
This paper explores the tension between death and theatrical illusion in Euripides Medea
andMarinaCarr’scontemporaryre-visioningofMedea,BytheBogofCats.Withsomanydeathsin
Medea (including infanticide) it is hard to imagine that the Greek tradition did much to retain the
suspensionofdisbeliefinthiscase.Myargumentisthatitdidnot.And,moreover,thatthiswasin
part the point of Euripides’ play. I also argue that Marina Carr’s play pushes this suspension of
disbelieffartherstill,asthereisverylittleonstageinCarr’splaywhichcouldevenbethoughtofas
fullyalive(mostespecially,thebog).Andsoevenwhiledeathanddyingareverymuchapartofthe
naturalorderofthingsinCarr’splay,thereisnotableironyinthefactthattheplaybreathesnewlife
intoalongdeadtheatricaltraditionbyinvokingandenactingdeathasthoroughlyandconspicuously
aspossible.
DanielKeithJerniganisanAssociateProfessorwiththeDivisionofEnglishatNanyangTechnological
University (NTU), Singapore. His interests include drama and theatre studies, postmodernism and
creativewriting.HiscriticalworkonCarylChurchillandTomStoppardhasbeenpublishedinModern
Drama and Comparative Drama. He is a published playwright and is currently working on a
manuscriptentitledCarylChurchill:EpistemologicalUpheavalandIdeologicalResistance.
AngryWomen:ConflictandMarinaCarr’sHecuba
ClareWallace(CharlesUniversityPrague)
On 24 September 2015 the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Marina Carr’s Hecuba
openedattheSwanTheatre,Stratford-upon-Avon.Responsestotheplayhighlightedthestrengthof
performancesbyDerbhleCrotty(Hecuba)andRayFearon(Agamemnon),buttheattentionafforded
the play was muted in comparison with the Abbey Theatre revival of By the Bog of Cats in midAugust.HecubaseesCarrreturntooldstampinggrounds,afascinationwithGreektragedy,complex
female characters and reimagining foundational myths. But the play offers more than the rather
abstractpleasuresofintertextualityandcitationalgames.ThethemesCarrprisesopeninHecuba–
of violence, desire, gendered experience and the politics of perspective – may not have struck a
chord with reviewers in the British press, but they have arguably a very different resonance in an
Irishcontext.Indeed,Carr’sdiscussionofherworkinanIrishTimesinterviewinAugust2015,where
she speaks of women’s rage in the face of inequality, strikingly anticipates the frustrations and
debates that erupted on 28 October 2015 in response to the unveiling of the Abbey Theatre’s
“WakingtheNation”programme.ThispaperwillexplorenotonlyhowHecubareorientsitssources,
butalsowillsituatetheplayinrelationtoquestionsofthepoliticsofperspectiveandinthelightof
existing scholarship on women in Irish theatre, and currently unfolding debates about gender
inequality.
45
ClareWallaceisanassociateprofessorattheDepartmentofAnglophoneLiteraturesandCultures,
CharlesUniversity,Prague.SheisauthorofTheTheatreofDavidGreig(2013)andSuspectCultures:
Narrative, Identity and Citation in 1990s New Drama (2006/7), editor of Monologues: Theatre,
Performance, Subjectivity and Stewart Parker Television Plays (2008), and co-editor of Giacomo
Joyce:EnvoysoftheOtherwithLouisArmand(2002).
The Change in the Representation of Motherhood on the Irish Stage: Martin McDonagh’s The
BeautyQueenofLeenaneandMarinaCarr’sBytheBogofCats
KübraVural(HacettepeUniversity)
SincethefoundationoftheAbbeyTheatrein1904,theconceptofmotherhoodhasbeenoneofthe
mostfrequentlyrepresentedsubjectsontheIrishstage.Fromthe1990sonwards,thedepictionof
maternity on the Irish stage has become more intensified as the dramatists began to stress the
psychologyofmothercharactersovertly.TwocontemporaryIrishplaywrights,MarinaCarr(b.1964)
and Martin McDonagh (b.1970), have come to the fore with their outstanding characters in their
playssincethelastdecadeofthe20thcentury.McDonaghinTheBeautyQueenofLeenane(1996)
and Carr in By the Bog of Cats… (1998) focus on the theme of motherhood through problematic
mother-daughter relationships. Maureen’s struggle with her egoistic mother Mag in the first play
and Hester’s waiting for her absent mother Big Josie in the latter influence these characters’
approachtomaternityinthatitresultsinmatrophobia,thefearofturningintotheimageofone’s
mother.Suchastateofminddrawsbothofthecharacterstoviolenceindifferentwayswhichbring
out distinct results at the end of the plays. Considering the great part of motherhood on the Irish
stage,thisfusionofviolenceintotheconceptofmaternityinthe1990scanberegardedasachange,
andthepapersetsouttoanalysehowthischangeispresentedthroughtheideaofmatrophobiain
theplaysofMcDonaghandCarr.
KübraVuralisaresearchassistantattheDepartmentofEnglishLanguageandLiterature,Hacettepe
University.CurrentlyaPhDcandidate,herMAthesiswasentitled“ViolentMothersinMarinaCarr’s
Plays: The Mai, Portia Coughlan and By the Bog of Cats…” Her research interests are Irish drama,
literarytheoriesandcriticismandShakespeare.
4D:MIGRATIONINTHELONGNINETEENTHCENTURY
An Irish Girl in the Contact Zone: “Only an Irish Girl!” and the Perils of New England Values for
Womeninthe19thCentury
SteveWilson(TexasStateUniversity)
PublishedinTheAtlanticMonthlyastheUnitedStatesisabsorbingwavesofIrishimmigrantsfleeing
theGreatFamine,andsinceseeminglyforgottenbyreadersandscholarsalike,“OnlyanIrishGirl!”
serves as an intriguing example of the ways cultures intersect, leading individuals to reshape and
reconsider their perspectives—often in profound, fundamental ways. The 1863 story, published
anonymously,sharesthereactionsoftworespectableNewEnglandwomentothedeathofayoung
Irishservantgirl,Bridget,intheemployofoneofthewomen,thenarrativeconsideringwhetherthe
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women’ssuspicionsaboutthegirl’shonestycontributedtoherfallingfatallyill.Withinthestorywe
sensethegrowingrejectionoftheIrishbyNewEnglandersasimmigrantnumbersskyrocket,butwe
also find that Bridget and her mother challenge the narrator’s concepts of self, gender, social
responsibility and morality. Indeed, her conversations with the servant girl’s mother reveal the
narrator’s own hidden sorrows and emptiness, including having no children of her own. Several
diversities intersect as New England Calvinism, self-reliance and materialism confront Irish
Catholicism, community and economic hardship. At its root, “Only an Irish Girl!” offers a subtle
critique of a number of New England cultural values that have come to define the region. Seen
superficially,itmaybereadasastereotypicalnarrativeonthesufferingsofthepoorIrish,butthe
text is also an attempt to explore notions of the self in society, as well as the ways American
Romanticidealshaveshaped,perhapstowomen’sdetriment,theveryconceptofwoman.
Steve Wilson has published articles on such Irish authors as J.M. Synge and Somerville & Ross, as
wellasonthewritersoftheAmericanBeatGeneration.Heisalsotheauthorofthreevolumesof
poetry,andteachesintheEnglishDepartmentatTexasStateUniversity.
TheIrishfamineimmigrantsinAlbany,NY,1847-1864:IrishPleaseApply
MargaretLaschCarroll(AlbanyCollegeofPharmacyandHealthScience)
Purpose:TodeterminetheexperienceofthefamineimmigrantsinAlbany,andtheroleofpublic,
private, and religious groups such as the Catholic Church with its new Bishop, John McCloskey;
benevolentsocieties;andcitygovernmentinintegratingtheIrishintoAlbanylife.
Albany,NYlikemanyeastcoastcitiesdrewsizablenumbersofthefamineIrishimmigrants.By1860,
40%oftheAlbanypopulationwaseitherIrishbornorthechildrenofIrishborn.Thusthestudyof
the Irish in Albany during the mid-19th century is an important facet of the 19th century Irish
immigrantstoryintheUS.TheIrishCatholicpopulationofAlbanygrewsoquickly,thatPopePiusIX
formedtheDioceseofAlbanyoutoftheNewYorkDiocesein1847andinstalledJohnMcCloskeyas
bishop.ItisespeciallythroughBishopMcCloskey’snewparisheswithschools,benevolentsocieties,
andsocialclubsthattheAlbanyIrishbothassimilatedmorequicklyintoAmericanlifethanweseein
larger cities and conversely retained the ethnic and religious identities they brought from Ireland.
SociologistReginaldByronwritesinhis1995IrishAmericathatAlbanyisoneofmostIrishcitiesin
theUnitedStatesandtheIrishprobablyneversawan“IrishNeedNotApplySign.”
Other factors contributing to what I am arguing was a less traumatic experience for the
famine Irish resettlement in Albany: the city was founded by the Dutch in the 17th century as an
economicoutpost.Religiousandethnictolerationwerepartofthecityfromtheonset;thecityhad
attracted Irish immigrants since the 18th century because of its strategic location for trade and
militarydefenseduringtheAmericancolonialandrevolutionaryperiods;therewasanabundanceof
manuallaborjobsduringtheeconomicboominthe19thcentury,firstwiththeErieCanalintheearly
century and then with the establishment of Albany as a hub of manufacturing and trade. Irish
immigrants of the early 19th century formed an ethnic foundation attracting more Irish arrivals
duringthefamine,swellingthepercentageofIrishtothehighestethnicgroupinthecity.Because
opportunitiesweregreatestduringthepeakyearsofIrishimmigration,theIrishformedthehighest
percentageofimmigrantstothecity.Bytheendofthefamineyears,theIrishinAlbanyhadenough
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politicalcloutasavotingblocktoinfluencecivicelections.Asaresult,bytheearly20thcenturythe
AlbanyIrishfoundtheirwayintoallaspectsandalllevelsofcitylife.
Albany’shistoryhasbeendeeplyimpactedbytheIrishsince1800,andnotimemoresothan
the famine years. Using secondary and primary sources, this paper will discuss the impact and
experienceofthefamineIrishinAlbany,andarguethattheIrishimmigrantexperienceduringthe
mid-19thcenturywasnotastraumaticasitwasfortheIrishinotherAmericancities.
MargaretLaschCarrollisanAssociateProfessorofEnglishandHumanitiesattheAlbanyCollegeof
PharmacyandHealthSciencesinAlbany,NewYork.Shehaspresentedandpublishedonthefiction
ofJohnMcGahernandAliceMcDermott,andonthehistoryoftheIrishinAlbany.
"Old Hibernia far away": Narratives of history and nation in post-Confederation Irish-Canadian
poetry
RaymondJess(ConcordiaUniversity)
Between Canadian Confederation in 1867 and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, many
Irish-Canadian poets were preoccupied with narrating and defining the parameters of nation for
boththeirhomelandandtheirnewadoptedcountry.ForthehistorianIanMcKayCanadiancultural
distinctiveness during this period did not lie in foundational essences, but rather in the economic
imperative of harmonizing older ways of life with the nation’s political liberalism. In the Irish case
manyIrish-CanadiansimaginedanancientIrelandoutsidetime,onethatcouldanchorIrishidentities
during a period of exceptional social and economic change. Such collective historical narratives of
Ireland were however generationally circumscribed; ultimately severing Canada’s Irish identities
fromtherapidlychangingpoliticalcultureofearly20thcenturyIreland.DrawingfromIrish-Canadian
poetryproducedduringacrucialhistoricalperiod(1867-1921),Iwillexplorehowethnicnarratives
createdspatialandtemporalanchorsinaworldexperiencingunprecedentedpopulationmobility.If
thepresentwasamigratoryupheavalinspace,thenitwasimportanttobuildnarrativecontinuityin
time. In analyzing these texts, it will be important to understand how Irish-Canadian poets
constructedimagesoftheirIrishpastasjustificationfortheinevitabilityofsettlinginCanada;and
how the poetic evocation of Ireland’s landscape was used as a fixed and reified space from which
Irish-Canadians could ‘naturalize’ their identities. This research sheds light on how immigrant
narrativesandCanadiannation-buildingwereconstitutiveofeachother.
Raymond Jess is an interdisciplinary PhD candidate at the School of Irish Studies, Concordia
University,Montreal.HisdoctoralstudiesexaminehowanIrish-Canadianintellectualclassnarrated
Irish experiences as a way of dealing with the uncertainties of the Canadian present and the
anticipationofanIrishpoliticalfuture.
48
4E:EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYIRELANDTRANSFORMED
TheEnfreakmentofLemuelGulliver:JonathanSwiftandthesubversivenormatebody
KenMonteith(AmericanUniversityofArmenia)
InJonathanSwift’sGulliver’sTravels,ourheroLemuelGullivercontinuallyfindshimselfregardedas
a freak among newly encountered normate bodies. While much has been written about Gulliver’s
Travels as a political commentary on contemporary eighteenth-century politics, Swift’s use of
disability as part of that commentary needs further examination. Throughout his adventures,
Gulliver’sbodydoesnotchange,yetineachnewsituation,hefindshimselfdisabled,setapartasa
freak,andevenregardedasasideshowexhibit.TotheLilliputians,Gulliverisagrotesquegiantwho
requiresagoodportionofthenation’sGDPtokeepalive.TotheBrogdignag’s,Gulliverbecomesa
sentimentalized sideshow attraction and is treated more like a doll than a man: Gulliver discovers
thathisbodycanbeboughtandsoldasanovelty.Inanotherinstance,Gulliverencountersaraceof
intellectual horses, who dismiss his body as that of an advanced animal, refusing to believe that
GulliverisanythingmorethananevolvedYahoo.
Inwritingatravelnarrative,Swiftrespondsinparttopopulartravelnarrativesthatprovide
vicarious tales of novelty and cultural difference to the British reading public, as well as providing
justificationforcontinuousBritishexpansion.WilliamDampier’sNewVoyageAroundtheWorld,for
example, details the many strange and wonderful sights he and his crew encounter in their own
voyagesintothe‘uncivilized’world.Tofurtherhispoint,DampierreturnstoEnglandwithJeoly,the
PaintedPrince,aSouthSeanativewhoDampierexhibitedinEnglandaslittlemorethanasideshow
freak—Jeoly’stattooedbodymarkshisculturaldifferenceandreinforcesDampier’sclaimofBritish
superiority. By displaying Gulliver’s body as a marked body within foreign contexts, Swift subverts
British conceptions of the normate body, as well as conceptions of British civility. Using Disability
Studies as a lens, the presentation illustrates how Swift employs the language and conventions of
disabilitytofurtherhissatire,exposingsocialnormsasarbitraryconstructs.
ThewholeCourseofthings…entirelychanged:Swift’s“Modernism”
JamesChandler(TheUniversityofChicago)
The war of the ancients and the moderns in the late- seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries
wascertainlyoneofthemostheatedandprolongeddebatesaboutthenatureofculturalchangein
theWest,andsomeofthemostimportantbattlesinthatwartookplaceonIrishsoil.Inparticular,
Swift’s Tale of a Tub remains a locus classicus for the debate about the fate of classicism itself, a
bookinwhichbothancientandmodern,classicismandnovelty,werepowerfullyconceptualizedin
Swift’s distinctive satirical register. Swift provide formulations for this conflict which would last
(thoughnotunchanged)forcenturies.
InthispaperIwantespeciallytoconsideramuch-citedpassageinsectionVII,“ADigression
inPraiseofDigressions,”inwhichSwift’snarratoroffershissearingaccountof,aswemightputit,
“thewaywelearnnow”:
ThewholeCourseofThings,beingthusentirelychangedbetweenUsand
theAntients;andtheModernswiselysensibleofit,weofthisAgehave
discoveredashorter,andmoreprudentMethod,tobecomeScholarsand
49
Wits,withouttheFatigueofReadingorofThinking.Themost
accomplishedWayofusingbooksatpresent,istwofold:Either,first,to
servethemassomeMendoLords,learntheirTitlesexactly,andthenbrag
oftheirAcquaintance.OrSecondly,whichisthechoicer,theprofounder,
andpoliterMethod,togetathoroughInsightintotheIndex,bywhichthe
wholeBookisgovernedandturned,likeFishesbytheTail.For,toenter
thePalaceofLearningatthegreatGate,requiresanExpenceofTimeand
Forms;thereforeMenofmuchhasteandlittleCeremony,arecontentto
getinbytheBack-Door.
Part of my interest in this passage is that, although it is introduced as a comment on a profound
changeintheentirecourseofthings,itisacommentthathasbeencitedeversincetoaddressever
newapparatusesandtechnologiesforthescholarlyshortcut.Citationofthispassageisverymucha
partoftoday’stwitterverse,forexample,wherethechargeofenteringthePalaceofLearningbythe
backdoorreferstothelatestnoveltiesofdatamininganddigitalsearchengines.
Much as this historical irony interests me, I’m more concerned with ironies already
constitutiveofSwift’stextattheturnoftheeighteenthcentury.Iaminterestedinparticularintwo
crucialandrelatedironies.OneisthatSwiftbothacknowledgesanddeniesagreatchangebetween
the ancients and the moderns, and the other is that he both wishes to stand outside the modern
conditionhedescribesandknowsthathecannot.Theseparadoxes,Iargue,contributetoanother:
that Swift is among the most occasion-bound writers of English prose in Irish history, and at the
sametimeoneofthemostenduring.
JamesChandler’sresearchandteachinginterestsincludetheRomanticmovement;thestudyoflyric
poetry;thehistoryofthenovel;relationsbetweenpoliticsandliterature,historyandcriticism;the
ScottishEnlightenment;modernIrishliteratureandculture;thesentimentalmode;cinemastudies;
andthehistoryofhumanitiesdisciplines.
ChangingFaces,WearingMasks:Goldsmithandthepoliticsofduplicity
MichaelO’Sullivan(ChineseUniversityofHongKong)
GeorgeBernardShawremindsusthatanIrishman'sheartishisimagination.Thinkingthepossibility
ofchangeandtransformationiscentraltotheworkoftheimagination.Aspectsoftransformation,
transubstantiationandchangehavebeencentraltropesforIrishwriting.Joycedescribestheartist
as “a priest of the imagination transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of
everliving life” (5.2.16); Stephen Dedalus obsesses over the protean nature of the ineluctable
modality of the visible; Yeats ponders how to escape the rituals of change and transformation
throughtheformofagoldenbirdin“SailingtoByzantium”.However,changealsocallstomindthe
shape-changer and the turncoat. In other words, it makes us question the politics of change. Irish
writers have also explored ways and means for changing identity for political ends; they have
exploredthepotentialofaffectingotheridentitiesincludingtheaffectingofIrishness.Shawgivesus
one reason for such affectation of Irishness in England: “when a thoroughly worthless Irishman
comestoEngland,andfindsthewholeplacefullofromanticdufferslikeyou,whowilllethimloaf
anddrinkandspongeandbragaslongasheflattersyoursenseofmoralsuperioritybyplayingthe
50
foolanddegradinghimselfandhiscountry,hesoonlearnstheanticsthattakeyouin.Hepicksthem
upatthetheatreorthemusichall”.
ThispaperwillthereforegobackfurtherstilltoOliverGoldsmith’sTheCitizenoftheWorld
andtoSwifttoexaminethepoliticsofchangeandaffectationinearlyIrishwritingwritteninEnglish.
Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World has the Irishman hiding behind a Chinese face. It will also
examinehowthiscapacityforaffectationandchangehascontributedtocontemporaryIrishpolitical
discourse.
MichaelO'SullivanisAssociateProfessorintheDepartmentofEnglishattheChineseUniversityof
Hong Kong. He has published 9 books and many articles and chapters on such topics as the Irish
humanities,Joyce,Beckett,Heaney,Yeats,FrankO'Connorandeducationalinequality.Hehasalso
organisedthreeconferencesinIrishStudies.
4F:CHALLENGINGSTEREOTYPES:TRAVELLERS,TRAMPS,PEASANTS
‘TheSkullinConnemara’:theGaelicwestandracialconsciousnessinJoyceandBeckett
AlanGraham(UniversityCollegeDublin)
This paper examines how references to the west of Ireland in the work of Joyce and Beckett
challenge a racial ideology which has been central to cultural and political constructions of Irish
identity. I consider how these two key modernist oeuvres register ethnic and also eugenic
discourses, commonly marginalised in the study of Irish nationalism, which haunt nationalist
conceptionsofthewestasanoriginaryspaceandbywhichthissacralisedregionhasbeeninvested
withkeynationalobjectives.Beckett’sWattandJoyce’sUlyssesarereadintermsofhownotionsof
national‘feebleness’andgeneticrenewalhaveframedanationalistmythologizingofaGaelicwest,
discourseswhichindexbothnatalistanxietieswithintheSouthernProtestantcommunityandfears
concerningthepoliticalandeconomicsustainabilityofanindependentIrishstate.Acentralfocusof
thepaperisthesharedrepresentationofaGaelictemptressfigureentreatingmaleconsciousnessto
the nation narrative. In Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and “The Dead” I trace a
coincidenceofsexualawakeningwiththeintuitingofanimperativetofulfilageneticdutytonation,
a process of Gaelicisation which is harboured sexually. The paper establishes a correspondence
between“TheDead”andBeckett’sFirstLoveinrelationtothepsychicroleofthesongasacallto
fatherhood. I argue that this destiny is aggressively resisted in Beckett’s story, the protagonist
perceivinginpaternityhisappropriationbyanarrativeofnationalcontinuance.Thepaperconcludes
byconsideringtheevocativeallusionstothewestofIrelandinWaitingforGodotandpointstothe
play’sengagementwiththeculturalandpoliticalfetishisationofethnicoriginalityasasourceforthe
dystopiawhichtheplay,andsomuchofBeckett’swork,witnesses.
AlanGrahamisanAdjunctLecturerintheSchoolofEnglish,Drama,andFilmatUniversityCollege
Dublin.Recentpublicationsinclude“‘SomuchGaelictome’:BeckettandtheIrishlanguage”,Journal
ofBeckettStudies(2015)and“Place,nation,andspatialcrisisinBeckett’sfictionanddrama”,Irish
StudiesReview(2016).
51
PatrickKavanagh’s“TheGreatHunger”
MiriamFrancesSweeney(TrinityCollegeDublin)
This paper intends to examine the change in the portrayal of rural peasants in Irish poetry that
occurredduringthepost-revolutionaryyears,inaccordancewiththechangeinpoliticallandscape.
TheLiteraryRevivalofthe1890sonwardspromotedanidealizedimageofthetraditional,ruraland
contentIrishpeasant.W.B.Yeats’poetrylargelyadherestothisimagery,andpaintsruralIrelandas
a timeless place with dancing faeries and stoic, noble peasants. Furthermore, this imagery was
utilized in the Irish struggle for independence, as the noble peasant was promoted as the ideal
citizenoftheimaginedindependentIrishstate.
However, as the realities of the Irish Free State set in, this idealized portrayal appeared
outdated and incongruous to many. As a farmer living in Inniskeen in the 1920s, Patrick Kavanagh
feltasavageindignationovertheRevivalists’falsificationsofIrishrurallife.The‘cultofthepeasant’
enragedhim,especiallyashebelieveditwascreatedbyawealthyandpriviligedurbancommunity,
entirely out of touch with the realities of rural life. In “The Great Hunger” (1942) Kavanagh
deconstructssentimentalisedrurallifeinthetragicfigureofPaddyMaguire.Marriedtothelandand
desperatelyboredinastagnantlandscape,Maguirerepresentsthethousandsofunmarriedfarmers
in Ireland, as revealed in the 1936 census. This new portrayal of the despairing Irish peasant
reflectedthewidespreadfeelingofdisillusionmentwiththenewIrishstate.
This paper will explore Kavanagh’s poetry, in particular, “The Great Hunger” as a seminal
turning point in Irish poetry, when the long-established idealization of rural life was successfully
challenged and undermined. Furthermore this paper will also reflect on how this literary
developmentwascausedbyachangeintheIrishpoliticallandscape,exploringtowhatextentIrish
literatureisshapedbyIrishpolitics.
MiriamFrancesSweeneygraduatedfromTrinityCollegeDublinin2007withaBAinHistory,witha
focus on modern Irish history. She completed an MA in Irish Studies at the National University of
Ireland,Galwayin2015withadissertationexaminingthe1911RoyalVisittoIrelandanditsimpact
oncontemporaryIrishpolitics.
ChildintoAdult,TravellerintoSettled:(No)ChangeinPaveewhackbyPeterBrady
EkaterinaMavlikaeva(UniversityofZaragoza)
ThispaperexaminestherepresentationofIrishTravellerchildhoodandadolescenceinPeterBrady’s
novelPaveewhackpublishedin2001.WritteninTraveller’sCantandfromaTraveller’sperspective,
thenovelissetinasmalltowninCountyOffalyinthe1960s.Thisdecademarkedthebeginningof
urbanisationinIreland,aswellasestablishmentoftheCommissiononItinerancy,theaimofwhich
wastofindasolutionforthe‘Travellerproblem’.However,theprojectofconsequentassimilationof
Travellersintosettledliferemainsambivalent,whichbecomesevidentthroughtheenforcementof
isolatingpracticesparticularlyaffectingtheyoungprotagonist.
The novel challenges reductionist representations that have built what Foucault called a
‘’regimeoftruth’’inIrishsocietysimilartotheonepreviouslyappliedtothesettledIrishpopulation
by their British colonisers. In the novel, this questioning of hegemonic representations is achieved
52
through role reversal, as characters from the settled community take on the traits stereotypically
attributedtoTravellers.
Setinthecontextofbroadersocialchange,Paveewhackremainsoneofthefewexamplesof
fiction written by and about Travellers themselves. In telling the story of violent transition from
childhood into adulthood and from Travelling into settled life, the narrator does not only fulfil his
aim of preserving the story of his people, but also strives to reverse normative and Orientalist
stereotypesappliedtoTravellersevennowadays.Thenovelisoneofseveralworkspublishedinthe
2000sfeaturingTravellersthataddresstherealitiesoftheperiodofeconomicandsocialchangein
Ireland beginning in the 1960s.Paveewhack raises the question of urgency of revising the past, as
well as reinventing identities for the Traveller community in their struggle for the preservation of
theircultureinpresentdays.
Ekaterina Mavlikaeva holds BA and MA degrees in English Philology from Perm State University,
Russia. She is currently working on her PhD at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. Her research
interests involve the representation of Travellers, subalterns and children in contemporary Irish
fiction.
4G:NEWFORMSINCONTEMPORARYNORTHERNIRELAND
‘Middle-classshits’:PoliticalApathy,NorthernIrelandandthePoetryofDerekMahon
GeorgeLegg(King’sCollegeLondon)
Since the 1960s Northern Ireland’s middle-class has both expanded and removed itself from the
North’spoliticalclimate.Inthisrespect,theyprovideatemplateforwhatwemighttermapolitical
apathy,ortouseJacquesRancière’sphrase,apoliticsof‘consensus’.Followingthecapitalistlogicof
theNorthernIrishpeaceprocess,theapatheticconditionsofthispolitical‘consensus’havebecome
soentrenchedthattheyappearalmostimpossibletochange.Indeed,asMarkFisherhassuggested,
oneofthewaysinwhichwemightapprehendthecomplexassemblageofcontemporarycapitalism
is through its proclamation that ‘politics itself has been “disappeared”’. Focusing on the poetry of
DerekMahon,thispaperdefinesthecontoursofthisdisappearance.Mahon’swork,Iargue,charts
theevolutionofamiddle-classapathyasitintersectswiththeonsetoftheTroubles.Insodoing,it
reveals a mode of political disengagement riddled with uncertainty and contradiction. Paying
particularattentiontohowMahon’spoeticforms,syntaxesandvoicesareindebtedtoAuden,Iwill
explorehowMahon’stroubleduseofallegory,metaphorandpoeticmusesrepresentanattemptto
engageabourgeoisaudiencewithasocialistreadingoftheTroubles.ThroughthisIwillre-orientate
conservative readings of Mahon’s work, emphasising, instead, Mahon’s potential for a poetics of
political ‘dissensus’ – a poetics that has, moreover, the capacity to change the apathy which
dominatescontemporary,neoliberal,NorthernIreland.
GeorgeLeggisateachingfellowintheEnglishDepartmentatKing’sCollegeLondon.Hisresearchis
concerned with contemporary British and Irish writing, paying particular attention to the
intersectionbetweencapitalism,conflict,literatureandculture.Heiscurrentlyco-editingaspecial
issueonBiopoliticsforTheIrishReview.
53
QueerMemories:PerformingLGBTQtestimoniesinNorthernIreland
StefanieLehner(Queen’sUniversityBelfast)
InNorthernIreland,decadesofreligiousandpoliticalunrestledtothemarginalizationnotonlyof
rights but also the experiences and voices of those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans
and/orQueer(LGBTQ).Thepeaceprocesshasarguablycreatedspaceinwhichsexualminoritiescan
voice their experiences and articulate counter-memories to those that tend to dominate ethnonationalist commemorations of the conflict. This paper explores two productions of Northern
Ireland’sfirstpubliclyfundedgaytheatrecompany,TheatreofplucK,ledbyartisticdirectorNiallRea:
D.R.A.G (Divided, Radical and Gorgeous) was first performed in 2011 and explores the personal
experiencesofaBelfastdragqueenintheformofpersonaltestimonialmonologue.Theforthcoming
(November 2015) performed archive installation, Tr<uble, by Shannon Yee, assembles true-life
testimonies of the LGBTQ community in Northern Ireland during and after the Troubles. I will
explorehowperformedandperformativememorieshavethepotentialto‘queer’remembranceof
theTroubles.
Stefanie Lehner is Lecturer in Irish Literature at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research interests
areincontemporaryIrishandScottishwritingandpost-conflictliteratureandculture.Interestedin
memory and trauma, the relationship between politics, ethics and aesthetics, her research is
comparativeandinterdisciplinaryandtakesinspirationfromthefieldofpostcolonialstudies.Sheis
author of Subaltern Ethics in Contemporary Scottish and Irish Literature: Tracing Counter-Histories
(PalgraveMacmillan,2011).
MomentsofBeing:IntimacyinNorthernIrishWomen’sShortFiction
CarolineMagennis(UniversityofSalford)
Following Sinead Gleeson’s anthology of Irish women’s short fiction, The Long Gaze Back, in 2015
there was heated debate at public events on the place of Northern Irish women’s fiction in the
literarycanon.WhileseveralNorthernauthors(AnneDevlin,JuneandLucyCaldwell,BernieMcGill)
were included, it is clear that there is much work still to be done on this genre. With the recent
publication of Belfast Noir, McGill’s Sleepwalkers and Lucy Caldwell’s Multitudes, this genre is
providingaplacewhereoldrepresentationalcertaintiesaroundNorthernIrishculturecanbetested.
Inparticular,theyshareapreoccupationwiththeroleofintimatelifeinthe‘new’NorthernIreland.
FollowingthemodelsofLaurenBerlant,MichaelWarnerandSaraAhmed,thispaperwillexamine
thedepictionofintimateconnectioninthesestories.ItwillfollowtheemphasisWoolfmadeinMrs
Dallowayandheressaysonthe‘momentofbeing’andaskwhatactsofradicalpresencecandoto
destabilise monolithic ways of representing literary value in Northern Irish culture. The stories are
fullofmomentsofconnectionsgainedandmissed,whichcanpromisepartialrevelationornoeasy
answer,butaskwhatisitwithinmomentsofintimacythatcanbesothrilling,transgressiveandfull
ofradicalpotential.
Caroline Magennis is a Lecturer at the University of Salford. She sits on the executive council for
BAIS and EFACIS. Forthcoming work includes chapters in the Cambridge History of Irish Women's
54
Writing, the Oxford Handbook of Irish Fiction, the Routledge Handbook of Post-Conflict Literature
andaPalgravecollectiononTheBodyinPaininIrishCulture.
55
WEDNESDAY27JULY
PARALLELWORKSHOPS/SEMINARS
‘PerformingCommemoration:EvaGore-Booth’sTheDeathofFionavar(1916)
MaureenO’Connor,JulieKelleher,MarieKelly,SonjaTiernan
A roundtable discussion of last year’s IRC-funded performance Eva Gore-Booth’s The Death of
Fionavar. The session will feature some dramatic readings from the text and a discussion, by the
directorandothersinvolvedintheproject,ofcommemorating1916throughartisticproductionand
reclamation,aswellastheexperienceofworkingwithstudentsintheperformanceofacentury-old
text.
DrMarieKellylecturesinDramaandTheatreStudiesattheSchoolofMusicandTheatre,University
College Cork. She holds a PhD in Drama Studies (2011) from University College Dublin and was
previously Casting Director at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. She co-edited The Theatre of Tom Mac
Intyre: strays from the ether (2010) and is currently Vice-President of the Irish Society for Theatre
Research.
Julie Kelleher is Artistic Director of the Everyman Theatre, Cork. She holds a BA in Drama and
TheatreStudiesandEnglishandMAinDramaandTheatreStudiesfromUniversityCollegeCork.She
hasworkedinarangeofroleswithnumerousorganisations,companiesandartists,includingKinsale
ArtsWeekandCorkMidsummerFestival.Asanactor,freelancetheatreproducerandsingershehas
performedwithCorcadorca,Meridian,andPlaygroup.
MaureenO’ConnorisalecturerattheSchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCork.Shehaspublished
widelyinIrishStudies,especiallywomen’swriting,andistheauthorofTheFemaleandtheSpecies:
The Animal in Irish Women’s Writing (2010). She has edited and co-edited a number of volumes,
most recently, with Derek Gladwin, a forthcoming special issue of The Canadian Journal of Irish
Studies.
SonjaTiernanisSeniorLecturerinModernHistoryatLiverpoolHopeUniversity.
ForumDiscussion:TrackingandStagingChanges:anopenforumonSyngeOnline
NicholasGreneandJamesLittle(TCD)
Synge Online is a digital humanities project which aims to provide a new model for studying the
developmentofaplaytext.Usingtheconceptualmodelofthetextasatreecultivatedbyaskilled
horticulturalist,theprojectwilluseTEI-based(TextEncodingInitiative)transcriptionsofJ.M.Synge’s
manuscriptsandpromptbookstoconstructdigitalgeneticeditionswhichwillallowuserstotrackthe
growth of his plays. As well as tracking this growth within the ‘avant-texte’ of pre-publication
material,SyngeOnlinewillexaminethewrittenrecordofchangesinperformancewhichconstitute
an ‘après-texte’. The initial pilot for the project is The Well of the Saints (1905), a play with a
particularlyinterestingsetofsources.
TheopportunitySyngeOnlinewillaffordistoprovideacentralconceptofthedevelopment
ofaplaythatcanbetransferredtoanyotherplaywright,aswellasdigitalcontentthatwillbeofuse
56
toscholars,theatrepractitioners,teachersandstudentsofSynge’swork.Thechallengetheproject
facesistofindthebestandmostvisuallyaccessiblemeansofmodellingthegrowthoftheplaytext.
Our encoded transcriptions will offer the possibility for users to track the development of textual
units such as individual words, lines and phrases, to access information regarding Synge’s sources
and to visualise the chronological development of his texts. This open forum invites members of
IASILtotelluswhatdigitaltoolswouldbeofmostusetothemintheseonlineeditionsofSynge’s
textsandtosharetheirexperienceofothersimilardigitalhumanitiesprojects.
NicholasGrenehaspublishedwidelyonSyngeandIrishtheatre.Hisfirstpublicationwasacatalogue
oftheSyngemanuscriptsinTrinityCollegeDublin(1971).Morerecently,hehasproducedacritical
editionofSynge’stravelwriting(2009)andco-editedSyngeandEdwardianIreland(2011)withBrian
Cliff.
JamesLittleisathird-yearPhDstudentintheSchoolofEnglish,TrinityCollegeDublin.In2013he
received an IRC Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship and he is currently writing his
thesisonSamuelBeckettandconfinement.HehasanarticleonJ.M.SyngeforthcomingintheIrish
UniversityReview.
ScreeningofTheRoadtoGodKnowsWhere
(P:MartinMahon.D/ScP:AlanGilsenan.YellowAsylumFilms/ChannelFour.52min.1988)
FollowedbyQ&AsessionwithAlanGilsenan,LancePettitt(SMU,London/UofVienna)andBeatriz
KopschitzBastos(UFSC/CiaLudens),andlaunchofthebilingualeditionofTheRoadtoGodKnows
Where/AestradaparaDeussabeonde(Florianópolis:EdUFSC,2015)–bookandDVD.
TheRoadtoGodKnowsWhere(1988)wasabreakthrough,iconoclasticfilmforAlanGilsenanand
remains a memorable zeitgeist movie of Ireland in a transformational decade. If the 1980s was a
period of social regression, emigration, economic and political crisis, it was also the harbinger of
seismicculturalchangesthatdynamicallyconnectedIrishpeopleathomeandaway.Roadcaptures
thisshock-wavespiritinitschaoticensembleoftestimony,starkvisualimageryandarrestingsound.
The film was infused with the idea that Ireland was on the move, on a journey, literally and
figuratively.
Seminar:Banville’sElements:Materialism–Self-Reflexion–Aesthetics
RalfHaekel&CarolineLusin
Inthepastfourdecades,JohnBanvillehas,likefewothercontemporarynovelists,shapedtheway
wethinkaboutthepossibilitiesoffiction.Theidiosyncrasiesofhisworkmakeitnotoriouslydifficult
to categorize. Banville’s oeuvre constructs a literary universe with key motifs and characters
reappearing throughout the years, an organically growing rather than linearly developing corpus
thatbodiesforthfromhisearliestworks.Nonetheless,mostscholarlyinvestigations(Berensmeyer;
Hand; D’Hoker; Kenny; Smith) choose to investigate Banville’s work chronologically from Long
Lankin, Birchwood, the Science Tetralogy, the Arts Trilogy to the most recent trilogy of Eclipse,
ShroudandAncientLight(TheBlueGuitardoesnotyetfeatureinbook-lengthstudies).Thesehighly
valuable analyses have immensely broadened the scope of Banville studies. In our own approach,
however,wefavourasystematicoverachronologicalapproach,investigatingsingularstructuraland
thematic elements in the novels both of John Banville and Benjamin Black in an encyclopaedic
manner. In this conference section, we invite scholars to join us in a round-table discussion of
Banville’sworks,whichisdesignedtoleaduptoaninternationalBanvilleconferencescheduledfor
57
2017. This round-table discussion aims to address two issues in particular: first, to investigate
recurring ‘elements’ – reappearing characters, details, materials, topics or ‘things’ – that bear
semioticsignificance.Andsecond,sinceBanvilleisoneofthemostsophisticatedandphilosophically
as well as aesthetically informed authors writing today, it is the aim to distil his aesthetic theory
from the novels themselves. Combined with this focus on the novels’ self-reflexivity, the
encyclopaedicapproachtoBanville’s‘elements’promisestoshedlightonthemanydifferentfacets
ofhisworks.Attachedisanalphabeticallyorderedlistofproposedtopicsandelements.Wewould
like to use this opportunity at IASIL to enter into a dialogue with international scholars about
Banville’skeyelementsandtoinvitethemasspeakersattheupcomingconferenceandcontributors
tothesubsequentpublication.
5A:IRISHMODERNISMS
ThePoliticsofModernisminIrishCulturalCriticism
GerrySmyth(LiverpoolJohnMooresUniversity)
The continuing centrality of modernism was signalled by two recent (2014) publications: The
CambridgeCompaniontoIrishModernism,editedbyJosephCleary;andaspecialIrisheditionofthe
American journal Modernism / Modernity, edited by Joseph Bristow. As these publications
demonstrate, Irish modernism is generally understood as a unique response to the onset of largescale systemic international modernisation at the end of the nineteenth century. In the literary
sphere,itspeculiarconditionwasdeterminedbyIreland’shistoricalroleasacolonisedcountry,and
itsprincipalagentswerearoll-callofmalewriters(Yeats,Joyce,Beckett,O’Brien,etc.)whosework
could be understood as a response to that condition. At the same time, Irish modernism also
overlapped with, and was directly influenced in numerous ways by, developments in the political
sphere–inparticular,thenationalist/republicanrevolution.
In this paper I want to describe some of the ways in which the changes precipitated by
literary modernism have been and continue to be imagined in a range of critical contexts, and to
considerthewaysinwhichare-orientationofthemeaningandscopeofmodernismmightimpact
upon an understanding of Ireland since the revolutionary period at the outset of the twentieth
century.
Gerry Smyth is Reader in Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University, and has published
widelyonvariousaspectsofIrishculture.HislatestbookisTheJudasKiss:TreasonandBetrayalin
Modern Irish Fiction (2015), and in 2016 he will publish Celtic Tiger Blues: Music and Modern Irish
IdentitywithAshgate/Routledge.HeisthePrincipalInvestigatorwiththeBritishAHRC’sMarginal
IrishModernismsInternationalResearchNetwork.
ConsequencesofJoyce:EimarO’DuffyandwritingIrelandafterUlysses
ConorDowling(NUIMaynooth)
EmerNolanaskswhetherIreland’spost-revolutionaryhistoryindicates‘Joycewaswrongtoimagine
thattheIrishwouldfindtheirownwaytoprocessorimaginemodernity’(108).Thispaperproposes
that the work of Eimar O’Duffy (1893-1935), a largely forgotten writer who was an early Irish
58
champion of Ulysses, offers an instance of a writer attempting to use Ulysses as a model for a
utopianvisionofmodernityforpost-revolutionaryIreland.
ThispaperwillexplorethetransformationinO’Duffy’swriting,fromthenaturalistdepiction
ofIreland,andspecificallytheEasterRising,inhisfirstnovel,TheWastedIsland,tothemodernist
treatmentofIrelandinhisCuanduineTrilogy,arguingthatitwasO’Duffy’swillingnesstoembrace
Ulysses that facilitated this change. Against a prevailing post-revolutionary trend to work with
downbeatrealism,O’Duffy’sTrilogyexploresspacetravel,utopias,andnewworldorders,allinthe
veinoftheexperimentalstyleJoycehaddeployedinUlysses.Asopposedtohisearlytreatmentof
Irelandasa‘wasted’island,thelaterO’Duffyusedstyletoexplorepossibilitiesforchange,andthe
obstructionschangeencountered.
Three key themes of this will be O’Duffy’s modernist treatment of language, his
understanding of history, and his unexpected – when read alongside The Wasted Island – use of
Revival themes. O’Duffy ties these themes into critiques of modernity, particularly of Fordism,
finance, and mass media, and this offers, I suggest, an instance of an internationally-oriented
accountoftheIrishsituation.DrawingonAdorno’sAestheticTheory,whichsuggests‘antagonismsof
reality return in artworks as immanent problems of form’ (7) I argue O’Duffy’s is one of the first
instances of an Irish writer recognising the possibilities Ulysses’ experimentation offered for
aestheticexpressionofIreland’shistory,anditsfuture.
ConorDowlingisafirst-yearPhDcandidateattheNationalUniversityofIreland,Maynooth(NUIM),
workingonIrishModernismandthethemeofdisillusionintheIrishFreeState.Heisarecipientof
theHumeScholarshipandholdsanMAinIrishLiteratureandCulturefromNUIMforwhichhewas
awardedFirstClassHonours.
Brendan Behan and European Modernism: The Adaptation for Stage of Modernist Aesthetics in
BorstalBoy
DeirdreMcMahon(UniversityCollegeDublin)
BrendanBehan’s1950sand60scounter-culturalliteraryengagementfoundoutletsinavant-garde
periodicals, print media, radio, theatre and book form. The evolution of Behan’s revolutionary, to
literary, career, is best captured in his 1958 autobiographical novel, Borstal Boy; including Behan’s
increasingdisillusionmentwiththelimitationsofIrishnationalism.Throughouthiswork,Behanrails
against the prevailing claustrophobic national ideology which opposed modernism. He constantly
challengesthesocialandsexualorthodoxiesofpost-independenceIrishsociety,withitscensorship
andexileofliberalvoices.Inpresentinghisalternativevision,Behan’sinnovationwithlanguageand
form reveals a distinct affinity with European modernist writing; nurtured during his cross-cultural
literary journey, incorporating London, Paris, and New York. Behan expressed frustration with
naturalisticinterpretationsofhiswork,whichoftenignoretheformalcomplexityandambitionofhis
aesthetics. This essay explores how the 1967 posthumous stage adaptation of Borstal Boy
illuminatesBehan’smodernistaesthetics.Theplay’sdeviceofthedividedselfnotonlydramatises
the retrospective, and reconstructed, nature of the book, it transforms the interior voice of the
narratorintoacharacteronstage.Timeiscollapsedandcondensedaspastandfuturetensesmerge
to create a present, with Behan’s future self often taking part in the action; thereby, effectively,
shaping his future. The device enhances Behan’s manipulation of memory, and his satire of the
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‘continuous presence’ of the past, as created by the discourse of cultural nationalism. Narration
from the book is transformed into dialogue and frequently privileges minor characters, reflecting
Behan’s championing of the culturally dispossessed, and his representation of ‘hidden Irelands’.
Unhindered by censorship laws which banned the book until 1970, the theatre production spoke
freely to its audience. This paper explores the play’s treatment, and adaptation, of Behan’s
modernistaesthetics,andhisvisionforatolerantandpluralistsociety.
DeirdreMcMahonisanIrishResearchCouncilGovernmentofIrelandPostgraduateScholar(201519) at the School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin (UCD). Her PhD thesis is
entitledBrendanBehanandEuropeanModernism:ACriticalReassessmentofModernistAesthetics
intheWritingsofBrendanBehan,1942-64.ShealsoholdsaBAinEnglish(2013)andMAinAngloIrishLiteratureandDrama(2014)fromUCD.
ExperimentalFormsandContemporaryIrishWomen’sFiction
PaigeReynolds(CollegeoftheHolyCross)
This paper considers the resurgence of experimental form in contemporary fiction by Irish women
writers. What are we to make of the rash of formally experimental fiction recently published by
EimearMcBride,SaraBaume,Claire-LouiseBennett,andCaitrionaLally,amongothers?Thispaper
examines how - and asks why – these writers step away from realist or naturalist conventions to
depict modern experience. What does the enthusiastic critical response to their novels and short
stories tell us more generally about the state of contemporary literature in Ireland? This paper
attends to the forms and themes these women writers invoke from modernist predecessors such
Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett, as well as identifying less recognized sources of inspiration for their
innovative prose. For instance, how does McBride engage the viable tradition of experimental
women’swritinginIrelandandabroad?Canweconsiderpopularliterature,suchasLouiseO’Neill’s
young adult novel Only Ever Yours (2014), a legitimate contribution to the corpus of experimental
fictiongiventhenovel’sdeploymentofformsinfluencedbynewdigitaltechnologies?
Paige Reynolds is Professor in the Department of English at the College of the Holy Cross,
Worcester, MA. She is author of Modernism, Drama, and the Audience for Irish Spectacle
(Cambridge University Press, 2007), editor of Modernist Afterlives in Irish Literature and Culture
(Anthem, 2016), and has published articles on modernism, drama and performance, material
culture,andwomen’swriting.
5B:SINÉADMORRISSEY
ChangesofPlaceandExperienceinSinéadMorrissey’sPoetry
BrittaOlinder(GöteborgUniversity)
SinéadMorrissey’sfirstcollectionofpoetryisentitledTherewasFireinVancouver(1996),fromthe
startannouncingherselfasatraveller,fromPortadownwhereshewasborn,Belfastwhereshegrew
upandDublinwhereshestudiedatTrinityCollegetomoveontotheworldatlarge.Herpoetryis,in
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fact, often organised around journeys, geographical, historical or spiritual changes. Between Here
andThere(2002)presentsherexperiencesofothercontinents,notablyJapanandNewZealandbut
also the tension between being away and coming back home to Ireland. In The State of Prisons
(2005)shecrossesotherboundarieswhileexploringphysicalaswellaspsychologicalimprisonment.
It is in Through the Square Window (2009) that she speaks about other dimensions of changing,
moving “in our imaginations, to another star” and about “dreaming of otherness”. Parallax (2013,
awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize in January 2014), meaning apparent displacement, has to do with a
changeofpositionresultingindifferentpointsofview,differentperspectives,whichtakeusfarand
wideinhistoryandgeography.Thetopicofchangesofenvironmentandexperience,soabundantly
representedinMorrissey’spoeticwork,isarichsourceforexploration.
Britta Olinder, Göteborg (Gothenburg) University, has written widely on Canadian, Australian,
Indian,andIrishliterature,includingessaysonArithavanHerk,MarianEngel,JaniceKulykKeefer,
Sally Morgan, R.K.Narayan, Anita Desai, John Hewitt, James Joyce, Anne Devlin, and Deirdre
Madden.Sheisco-editorofRe-MappingExile:RealitiesandMetaphorsinIrishLiteratureandHistory
(2006)andPlaceandMemoryintheNewIreland(2009).
SinéadMorrisseypoeticallywarns:‘Itisaddictive:theurgetoutteralanguage’
NaokoToraiwa(MeijiUniversity,Japan)
Since her third volume The State of the Prisons, Sinéad Morrissey often uses other texts, not only
from literature but also from visual works and found materials, both art works and documentary.
Though the effects of Morrissey’s appropriation, reference, or collage are complex such as giving
homage to, or revealing the limitation of, the original writer or material, surely those poems after
otherworksrequiresthereadertorevisetheirownviewsaswellastosharethepoet’sresponses.In
that sense, those works are educational. As at the time that the idea of collage was explicated by
Aragonin1930whentheEuropeanworldwaschanginggreatlybetweenthetwoWorldWars,the
contemporaryworldespeciallyafter9.11needsnewwaysofviewingtheworldandvisualartistsare
nowincreasinglyusingthemethodsofcollage,assemblage,appropriationorinter-mediareferences.
AnselmKieferisaprimeexampleandBenjamindeBurka,afterwhosevisualworksMorrisseywrote
the sequence poem ‘Invitation,’ uses collage. This paper will discuss Morrissey’s appropriation of
visualworksandherfoundpoemsandexamineherartisticambitiontochangeviewpoints.
Naoko Toraiwa has published articles on Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, Sinéad Morrissey and
othercontemporarypoetsandiscompletingaPhDthesisonMedbhMcGuckian.
InandOutofIreland:SinéadMorrissey’sChangingPerspectives
DanielaTheinová(CharlesUniversityPrague)
It is now commonplace to talk about change in Irish poetry around the turn of the millennium,
coincident with social and economic transformation. No longer determined by the opposition
betweenthingsIrishandthingsextraneous,betweenpoetsandstereotypednotionsofnationality,
orbetweenwomenandthecanon,poetryfromIrelandhasbeenmarkedbygrowingpluralismand
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responsiveness to developments elsewhere. The waiving of old dichotomies has occasioned an
intriguing widening of the horizon. The expanding poetic self, however, has been countered by an
underlyingmoveinward.ThispaperlooksintopoemsfromSinéadMorrissey’sfirsttwocollections,
There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996) and Between Here and There (2001), and her latest book,
Parallax (2013), and argues that much of her best verse is informed by such a clash between the
tendencytoembracevariousimpulsesandinfluencesandtheconcomitantwithdrawaldeeperinto
one’s subjectivity. Morrissey writes poetry that is equally rooted in her native Belfast and avidly
cosmopolitan.Hereagernesstoregisterandaccommodateheterogeneityhasbeenfuelledfromthe
verystartbyherextensivetravelsandsojournsabroad.Fromearlyon,however,Morrisseyhasalso
insisted on poetry as a solitary enterprise and claimed that it was as important to stay open to
influencesastoknow‘whatnottolistento’.Theoutwardchangeofclimatecorrespondswiththe
constant change of perspective through which a transposed consciousness is attained. If much of
Morrissey’s early work is based on frequent use of substitution, juxtaposition, ekphrasis, and
transcription, displacement and viewpoint variation become the key method in Parallax in which
different worlds are brought together through the interchange of different genres, media, and
artisticdisciplines.Asitexploresthepossibilitiesofrenewalthroughtranslationandtransposition,
Morrissey’spoetrytestifiestotheoverallchangeinrecentIrishpoetry.
DanielaTheinováteachesIrishliteratureatCharlesUniversity,Prague.HerPhDprojectexploredthe
role of language and marginality in contemporary Irish women’s poetry. She has translated
extensivelyfromEnglishandIrishintoCzech,includingprosebyColmTóibín,PádraicÓConaire,and
poetrybyVonaGroarke,MáirtínÓDireáin,andMedbhMcGuckian.
5C:THEWORLDTURNEDUPSIDE-DOWN:CHANGEANDEARLYMODERNIRELAND
IrishSpensersandthePoeticsofMutability
JaneGrogan(UniversityCollegeDublin)
TherehasbeenamarkedreturntotheTudorpoetEdmundSpenserinIrishpoetryinthelasthalfcentury,ultimatelyrootedinW.B.Yeats’sre-insertionofSpenserintotheIrishtradition.Thismore
recentreturntakesshapenotsomuchinresponsetoSpenser’spoetry(asYeats’sdid)asitdoesin
response to ruins and material traces of the violence of the Tudor colonial regime in the Irish
landscape;thereisnow,arguably,adistinctsub-genreof‘Kilcolman’poems,inwhichcontemporary
IrishpoetsvisittheruinsofSpenser’scastleinnorthcountyCorkforpoeticfortification.Insodoing,
perhaps,theyfollowElizabethBowen,forwhomthe‘FaerieQueenecountry’aroundKilcolmanwas
alandscapeofruinandloss.
Spenser, too, was fascinated by the material traces and cultural figures of ruin, but
(ironically)heexploredamuchricherandmoreenablingpoeticsof“mutability”thanthepoeticsof
ruin and salvage engaged by Irish poets in recent years. Building on ‘Spenser’s Lost Children’
(Spenser Studies 2013: 1-54), my long essay on literary responses to Spenser by Irish writers from
Yeats to Lysaght, this paper considers the place of Spenser in Irish poetry since 2012, and the
mollifyingpoeticsofchangeunderwhichthisreturnhasbeenachieved.AnditpresentsaSpenserian
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challengetothepoeticsofruininnewwritingstoandofSpenserbyIrishpoetssuchasSeanLysaght,
TrevorJoyce,BernardO’Donoghue,MoyaCannonandJohnMcAuliffe.
JaneGroganisSeniorLecturerintheSchoolofEnglish,DramaandFilmatUniversityCollegeDublin.
Sheistheauthoroftwomonographsandseveraljournalarticles,andiscurrentlypresidentofthe
InternationalSpenserSociety.
MutabilityCentral:Munsterinthe1590s
PatriciaPalmer(King’sCollege,London)
TheElizabethanconquestofIrelandbroughtprofoundchanges,transformingalmosteveryaspectof
life, economically, politically, culturally, socially, religiously and linguistically. By the early 17th
century, bardic poets wrote in bewilderment about a country which suddenly seemed
unrecognisable. To monitor those changes, I want to zoom in on a little area in North Cork that
allows us to register those changes close-up. Taking my bearings from Kilcolman Castle and the
estategrantedtoEdmundSpenserinthePlantationofMunster,Ihopetocatchsightofthesociety
not so much in transition as in turmoil. Writers from different cultures, ethnicities and linguistic
traditionslivedinaproximitythatbroughtneitheracquaintancenorunderstanding.Yet,fromtheir
verydifferentperspectives,allwerecaughtupinandrecordedtheravagesofthesecondDesmond
War, the displacements and new arrivals of the consequent Plantation, the further upheavals
broughtbytheNineYearsWar,whichculminatedinthedefeatofKinsale,theFlightoftheEarlsand
a new political dispensation. In this paper, I will attempt to catch something of the literary and
linguisticfermentthatemergedfromtheperiodwhereIrelandchangedutterly.
PatriciaPalmerisaReaderinIrishandRenaissanceLiteratureatKing’sCollegeLondon.Sheholdsa
BAandMAfromUniversityCollegeCorkandD.Phil.fromtheUniversityofOxford.Sheistheauthor
of Language and Conquest in Early Modern Ireland: English Renaissance Literature and Elizabeth
Imperial Expansion(2001) and The Severed Head and the Grafted Tongue: Translating Violence in
EarlyModernIreland(2013),bothfromCambridgeUniversityPress.
‘Turningandinconstant,andmutability,andvariation’:thelawsandordersofwarinseventeenthcenturyIreland
DeanaRankin(RoyalHolloway,UniversityofLondon)
Fluellen’sdescriptionofFortune(HenryV,3,6)mightequallybeappliedtohisotherfavouritetopic:
war. His spirited defence of military discipline, of legitimate procedure in a just and ordered war,
ringscomicallyhollowinaplayhauntedbythesilentspectreofHenryV’swarcrimes.
This paper brings into conversation a number of disparate seventeenth-century texts in order to
exploretheproxemicsofwarinIreland.Itseekstoexaminethedevelopmentofanorderlydiscourse
about the relationship of just war and tyrannicide. Accounts of war in mid-seventeenth century
Ireland are usually dominated by chaos on the ground: unfair routs, refusals of quarter, massacre
andmayhem.Yetthereisalsoaverydifferentversionofwarinpubliccirculation;oneinwhichjust
wartheory–thoughtestedtothelimit–ultimatelyprevails.
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This paper will consider three moments in particular: first the appearance of Conor
O’Mahony’s Disputatio apologetica de iure regni Hiberniae (Lisbon, 1645) which urges legitimate
revolt against an illegitimate monarch; second, the publication in Waterford 1651 of John Cook’s
MonarchynocreatureofGodsmakinginwhichCook–leadprosecutorofCharlesI,ChiefJusticeof
Munster, and convicted regicide in that order –presents a robust defence of the ‘immutable law’
whichjustifiestheexecutionofaKing.Andfinally,anearlierdramaticprefiguringofthepossibilityof
legitimate king-killing: a scene from Burnell’s tragicomedy Landgartha (Dublin, 1641) when the
‘fouleTyrant’,KingFrollo,iskilledonstageinasinglecombatbytheamazonchampionLandgartha.
DeanaRankinisSeniorLecturerinEnglishatRoyalHolloway,UniversityofLondon.Sheisauthorof
Between Spenser and Swift: English Writing in Seventeenth-century Ireland (Cambridge University
Press,2005)andanumberofarticlesonearlymoderndrama,Irishprintandclassicalrepublicanism.
She recently edited Henry Burnell’s Landgartha: A Tragicomedy [Dublin, 1641] (Four Courts, 2014)
andisworkingonastudyoftyrannicideontheearlymodernstage.
Destruction, Lack, Loss and Rhetorical Impossibility: Early Modern Irish Tropes of a Transformed
Polity
SarahMcKibben(Keough-NaughtonInstituteofIrishStudies,NotreDame)
The paper will address the notions of ruins and change drawing on early Munster bardic poetry
(specifically"Mairgrugaranaimsirsi")andwillaimtoconsiderthecirculationofUlsterpoemsabout
ruinandchangeinMunster.
Sarah McKibben is Associate Professor of Irish Language and Literature at the Keough-Naughton
Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame. She received her doctorate from Cornell
University (2003) and the Adele Dalsimer Dissertation Prize (2004) from the American Conference
forIrishStudies(ACIS).SheistheauthorofEndangeredMasculinitiesinIrishPoetry,1540-1780(UCD
Press,2010),whichreceivedHonorableMentionfortheRhodesPrizefromACIS.
5D:IRISHTOURISTSANDTOURISTSINIRELAND
SouvenirsofaSummerinGermanyin1836:AStudyofthefirsttravelbookaboutGermanybyan
Irishwoman
JoachimFischer(UniversityofLimerick)
The forgotten travel account Souvenirs of a Summer in Germany in 1836, published in London in
1837,isquiteanexceptionaltext.Notonlyisthistwo-volumeworkoneofthemostextensiveand
detailed Irish travel account about Germany of the whole nineteenth century, it is also, perhaps
more remarkably, the first by a female writer. Very little is known about the author of the
anonymouslypublishedwork,LimerickwomanMariaFrancesDickson(1809-1885),firstdiscussedin
theLoebers’magnificentlycomprehensiveGuidetoIrishFiction.Ihavebeenabletopiecetogether
her biography which turns out to be remarkably similar to that of her contemporary travel writer
SelinaBunbury,extensivelystudiedinrecentyearsbyHeidiHansson.LikeBunburythedaughterofa
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ChurchofIrelandRector,Dickson’smuchmoredecidedlyevangelicaloutlookimpactsverystrongly
on the travel book. Celebrating Germany as the birthplace of Protestantism throws up a number
complications for Dickson given her Irish background which are negotiated in the text. These are
examined in my paper. Romantic in outlook Souvenirs appeared precisely at the threshold of the
transitionfromRomantictoVictoriantravelwritingandisevidenceoffundamentalchangesinthe
genre. Starting from Dickson’s biographical background the paper will place theSouvenirs into the
context of Irish nineteenth century travel writing generally and into writing about Germany
specifically, exploring the travel accounts contribution to Irish perceptions of the country in the
nineteenthcentury.
JoachimFischerhasaresearchinterestinGerman-Irishcontacts,nationalimagesandstereotypes,
regional literature, Irish/German and German/Irish translation, and teaching interests in cultural
studies, contrastive grammar, Weimar cinema and New German cinema, and the history of the
Germanlanguage.
‘Partlyforachange’:re-readingthetouristsofJoyce’sDubliners
RaphaëlIngelbien,UniversityofLeuven
ThispaperwillofferanewcontextualizationofJoyce’sDublinersbyusingtheresultsofaresearch
projectfocusedonIrishtourismtotheEuropeancontinentinthelong19thcentury.Drawingonthe
newspaper culture with which much of Joyce’s writing was intimately conversant, the project has
chartedtheriseofcompetingdiscoursesaimedatemergingconstituenciesofmiddle-classtourists
inVictorianandEdwardianIreland.Whilethemainaimwastodrawattentiontoaneglectedaspect
of Irish cultural and social history, the project’s results also shed new light on tourist practices
described in Joyce’s Dubliners, and more particularly on the heated and much discussed
conversation between Gabriel Conroy and Miss Ivors about their holiday destinations.
Contextualizing their exchange within contemporary Irish public discourse on travel makes it
possibletoreassessalongtraditionofcriticaldebateonthatfraught,canonicalscene,andtoreveal
hithertounsuspectedironiesintheJoyceantext.
RaphaëlIngelbienisareaderinliterarystudiesattheUniversityofLeuven.Hisresearchfocuseson
the British and European contexts of nineteenth-century Irish writing. He regularly contributes to
Irish studies journals, and his monograph Irish Cultures of Travel. Writing on the Continent, 18291914isforthcomingfromPalgraveMacmillan.
SeanÓFaoláinandPostcolonialTourisminProvincialIreland
MichaelE.Beebe(UniversityofWisconsin-Milwaukee)
Historical narratives of midcentury Irish cultural and economic isolation frequently overstate the
degreetowhichpostcolonialIrelandwasabletocordonoffacceleratingglobalmodernity.AsClair
Willsandothershaveargued,theeraofIrishneutralitywastodesignedtopositionthenationfor
sustained independence and prosperity, but visions of Ireland as the self-sufficient homestead
promoted by the Fianna Fáil government do not adequately account for the transnational
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movement of people, goods and capital that infiltrated Ireland’s localized, provincial places. The
interconnectednessofprovincialIrelandwithpatternsofglobalculturalchangewasformed,inpart,
throughaconcertedefforttopromoteculturaltourismthatappealedtotheincreasinglyprosperous
Irish-American diaspora, European travelers, and, somewhat unexpectedly, Ireland’s own middle
class.
ThispaperexaminesthesubjectiveexperiencesoftouristtravelinprovincialIrelandinthe
writing of Sean Ó Faoláin. Ó Faoláin’s advocacy for a distinct Irish postcolonial identity centered
uponmodernprovincialIrishlife;his1940travelogueAnIrishJourneyprimarilydescribedIreland’s
towns as cultural destinations, rather than the popularly romanticized “primitive” Ireland. Ó
Faoláin’sshortstoriesalsopresentvariedperspectivesontheglobalismandaspiringsophistication
of the middle class: “Vive la France” brings a Cork dilettante into contact with visiting French
tourists, while “Lovers of the Lake” depicts bourgeois Irish urbanites travelling to a Catholic
pilgrimage at Lough Derg. “Egotists” inverts the experience of Irish tourism, placing an itinerant
Irishman in the American west, where he subverts his own nationality amid a diverse global
community.ThesetextsarereadinconcerttoarguethatÓFaoláin’sattunementtotheprevailing
currentsofglobalmodernityledhimtodescribeIrishprovincialismasdeeplyinterwovenwiththat
modernity, yet retaining a postcolonial Irish character that departed significantly from the rural
fetishismoftheRevivalistsortheradicalcosmopolitanismofJoyce.
Michael E. Beebe is a dissertator in English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His
dissertation,“IrishBiopower:Literature,BodiesandtheModernState”isareadingofmodernIrish
literature’scritiqueofbiopoliticaladministrationthroughoutthetwentiethcentury.
“Reportsomethingcheerful”–WalterKaufmann’sIrishTravelBooks
ThomasKorthals(Hamm-LippstadtUniversityofAppliedSciences)
Contrary to common belief, there was also travel literature that was published in the German
DemocraticRepublic.Eventhoughthecontentofthesebookswere“impossibletravels”tothevast
majorityofthepeople,therestillwasanumberofbooksdealingwithNordiccountries,France,and
alsoIreland.
WalterKaufmannwasbornasthesonofaJewishfamilyinHamburg,beforebeingsentto
Britaininthe1930sforsafetyandeventuallyendedupinAustraliainthe1950sasawriter,before
he returned to Europe to settle down, deliberately, in the GDR. He was one of the privileged few
allowedtoroamtheworld.HewenttoIrelandthreetimesinthe1970sandpublishedtwobooks
abouthistravels,“FlammendesIrland–TatenundTräume”and“IrischeReise”.
He writes about the Troubles as well as everyday life, visits Irish Communists as well as
listening to folk bands, marvels at the Irish landscape and still always uses his own country as a
backgroundbeforewhichheassessesandcategorizeswhathesees.Itisthisoscillatingbetweenthe
role of travel writer, tourist and political observer which gives his books a very unusual view on
Ireland,acountrythatwasforhimremotebothinageographicalandinapsychologicalway.
In the paper I will set out to not only give a biographical sketch of Walter Kaufmann, an
authorwhoislittleknownforhistravelwritingaboutIreland.Iwillalsotrytoshowinhowfarthis
biographyaswellashisoriginfromasocialistcountryinfluenceshisviewsandhiswritingabouta
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countrymoreCatholicthanCommunist,untouchedbythedestructionofWorldWarII,yettornin
theTroubles.
Thomas Korthals teaches English at Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences and as a
secondary school teacher in Germany. Since 2000 he has spoken at various conferences of IASIL,
EFACIS and NISN on a range of different topics. His research interests include the relationship
betweenhistoryandliteratureaswellasGermanviewsonIreland.
5F:NEGOTIATINGNORTHERNIRISHIDENTITY
TheIdeologyofUlsterRealism
StephenO’Neill(TrinityCollegeDublin)
This paper investigates the social and political contexts for the post-partition Irish novel, with
particular reference to Roy Foster’s 1989 influential keynote address to the Cultural Traditions
Group Conference in Belfast. ‘Varieties of Irishness’ claimed that after ‘a half-century of cultural
imposition in independent Ireland, the values of the city may have won out’, and that the
contemporaneous re-emergence of urban culture in the south was ‘the beginning of realism’.
Foster’schampioningofthecityofrealism,asopposedtoacountryofmythorfantasy,wasnota
radical break or beginning in interpretations of Irish literature, culture or politics, but reflected a
binaryoppositionofruralandurbanwhichstretchedfardeeperthanahalf-century,andwhichwas
strongly implicated in the trauma of partition. The term realism and its synonyms have frequently
appeared to describe the north and its culture, as if Belfast and by extension ‘Ulster’ were more
authentic or realistic because of their omission from literary depictions of Ireland. This overuse of
the word ‘realism’ as it applies to ‘Ulster’ and its political future(s) can be set alongside Frederic
Jameson’s description, in The Antinomies of Realism, of how a realist novel betrays ‘a vested
interest,anontologicalstake,inthesolidityofsocialreality,ontheresistanceofbourgeoissociety
tohistoryandtochange’.Thispaperdescribeshowthepost-partitionnovelistsShanFBullockandSt
John Ervine collude with the vested interests of a bourgeois unionism, rewriting the history of
Ireland through ‘realist’ novels of country and city. Their novels The Loughsiders (1924) and The
WaywardMan(1927)collaboratewiththeculturaloutputsofthenewnorthernstatetoobscurethe
radical change of partition as something realistically prefigured in culture and society before the
fact.
StephenO’NeillisfundedbytheIrishResearchCouncilandiscurrentlyresearchingthecountryand
thecityintheIrishnovelinthepost-partitionera.
Transmittingchange:BBCNorthernIreland’sroleinre-visioningNorthernIrishidentitypostWWII
PortiaEllis-Woods(Queen’sUniversityBelfast)
GillianMcIntosh,writingonbroadcastinginNorthernIreland,arguesthatduetothepresenceofUS
soldiers,andtheexperienceofwarinNorthernIreland,anincreasedawarenessofnationalidentity
post-WWIIisevident.Whilstrecognisingachangeinthepublic'sperceptiontowardstheiridentity,
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BBCNIprogrammingstruggledtodefineaparticularnationalidentityfortheirproductions.Indeed,
ThomasHajkowskiemphasisedthiswhenwritingaboutBBCNIprogrammingandnationalidentity.
Of particular interest were his observations regarding the ‘Ulsterisation’ of programme titles from
the1930sonwardsandapreferencefortheuseof‘Ulster’.BBCNIchoseavarietyoftermsincluding
‘NorthernIreland’,‘Ulster’and‘Province’,butrarely‘sixcounties’,fortheirprogrammes.Examples
include,WithinOurProvince,ThisisNorthernIreland,UlsterMirrorandTheArtsinUlster.
Changesinthesocialcontextcanbeobservedpost-war,asstatedbyMcIntosh,butvastreorganisationsalsotookplaceattheBBC.Broadcastingpolicy,programmingarrangement,andstaff
employment ushered in a period concentrated on regional output at the BBC. In light of these
changes, the paper investigates the effect this had on productions at the BBC in Northern Ireland
and comments on the particular implications this had on Northern Irish identity. This paper will
extendthediscussionofprogrammingproducedbytheBBCNIpost-WWII,focusingontheauraland
textualanalysisofproductionsbySamHannaBell,BBCNIFeaturesproducerfrom1945until1969.
PortiaEllis-Woodsisathird-yearPhDcandidatespecialisinginradiostudiesattheSchoolofEnglish,
Queen’s University Belfast. Her AHRC funded PhD involves collaboration with BBC NI, undertaking
archivalresearchoftheirCommunityRadioArchive,predominantlyaddressingdramaandfeatures
programmingproducedfrom1924until1956.
Theatrical Poetics of Conflict Transformation in Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster
MarchingTowardstheSomme
MatthieuKolb(UniversitédeRennes2)
Even though Frank McGuinness never meant his play to be received as a blueprint for political
resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the
Sommehasbecomeemblematicofthepoweroftheatretoopenupnewdiscursive,ideologicaland
poeticalspacesfuellingtheforcesofchangeandpoliticalbreakthrough.Theplaywrighthasreceived
widespread praise for his empathic theatrical evocation of the volunteers of the 36th Division of
Ulster and his ability to address the complexities of Ulster Protestantism and Unionism. However,
sinceitwasfirstproducedin1985,criticssuchasMargotGayleBackusorTomHerronhaveargued
thattheplayfundamentallyshowsUlsterProtestantUnionismtobedoomedtofossilizebecauseof
its self-defining bondage to a repressive, sacrificial ideology. The Headlong theatre company’s
programme note for its 2016 revival touring Britain and Ireland ambivalently emphasizes how the
eight characters are « changed, changed utterly » by the experience of war. This paper will show
that the play does not condition such change on any disqualification and dismissal of the Ulster
Protestant and Unionist culture. Indeed, McGuinness’s dramaturgy elicits theatrical and poetic
spaces of conflict transformation by bringing into play a politically inclusive dialectics of demythologizingandre-mythologizing.
Matthieu Kolb completed a PhD thesis, Dramatic and Post-dramatic Spaces in the Theatre of
CelebrationofFrankMcGuinness,in2012.AjuniorlecturerinEnglishattheUniversityofRennes2,
France, he currently teaches drama classes and has published four articles on Frank McGuinness’s
theatre.
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“Watchwords”/”Watchyourwords”:LanguageandIdentityinGlennPatterson’sFiction
MariannaGula(UniversityofDebrecen,Hungary)
Contemporary Northern Irish novelist, journalist, scriptwriter Glenn Patterson brings his article
“Orangeculture”(publishedintheBelfastpoliticalandculturalmagazineFortnightinJuly1998)toa
closebyobservingthat“Arealcultureofpoliticalmaturityexistswherepeople,believingthemselves
to be right, have the courage and confidence to allow others to think they are.” Patterson’s sixth
novelThatWhichWas(2004)canbereadasanelaborationofthisobservationinhisfiction,asthe
physicalcentreofthenarrativepitstheDalaiLama’sdefinitionofjusticeintermsof“allindividuals
lookingafterothers’rights”againstLordRandolphChurchill’shistoricproclamationspurredbythe
firstHomeRuleBillthat“UlsterwillfightandUlsterwillberight!,”awatchwordoftheOrangeOrder
ever since. Furthermore, the word “right” functions as a verbal hinge of the whole narrative,
undergoingnumerousmetamorphoses,facilitatedbythepolysemyoftheword,whichcanberead
as a mode of counteracting the Orange watchword’s intention to ideologically fix the word. In my
paperIwillanalysehowPatterson’sfiction(tennovelstodate)thematisestherelationshipbetween
language and identity (a particularly fraught theme in Northern Irish writing), how it challenges
cultural,politicaldiscourses–especiallyrhetorical,linguisticbuildingblocks,watchwords–thathave
pertainedtogenerateandupholdnarrow,exclusorydefinitionsofidentity.
MariannaGula,UniversityofDebrecen,teachescoursesinIrishculture,literature,andfilm.Shehas
published widely on James Joyce andwas a member of a translator team reworking the canonical
Hungarian translation of Joyce’s Ulysses (2012). Her current research focuses on the politics of
memoryincontemporaryNorthernIrishfilmandfiction.
5F:HUNGERANDFAMINEINIRISHFICTION
“Namine.Jacobs.Vobiscuits.Amen.”:EasterRisingandPoliticsofHungerinJamesJoyce’sUlysses
Yi-PengLai(Queen’sUniversityBelfast)
Thefocusofthispaperisonthequestionsofhunger,consumption,nationalism,and,inparticular,
Jacob’s biscuit tin in James Joyce’s Ulysses, and how Leopold Bloom’s response to hunger unleash
theculturalmemoryofIrelandinapivotaltimeofchangeattheturnofthetwentiethcentury.As
Bloomstrollsalongthestreetsthinkingoffood,hereflects:“Hungrymanisanangryman.Working
toothandjaw”.Howdohungerandconsumption,suchasProfessorMacHugh’s“biscuitful”hunger
in“Aeolus”andtheirritatingsceneofstarvingmensavagelygorgingfoodin“Lestrygonians,”raise
thequestionofnationalismsoastodemarcateanimaginedcommunityintermsoftheirrespective
expressionsof,aswellasreactionsto,hunger?HowdoesBloom’sreflectionalludetothecolonial
Ireland,which,asTerryEagletonpointsoutinHeathcliffandtheGreatHunger(1995),isconsidered
as a growling monster by England? (Hence the mongrel Garryowen in “Cyclops” and the Irish
bestiary writings.) And how does Jacob’s biscuit tin thrown at Bloom (and followed by Garryowen
chasing)echothesignificantroleofJacob’sDublinfactoryonBishopStreetasoneoftheinsurgents’
major fortresses during the 1916 Easter Rising? Derived whence, how do we contemplate hunger,
therefore, not merely in a physical sense, but also as an ideological response to the history that
haunts? This paper aims to bring the image of the biscuit (tin) into discussions on history and
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starvation, whence to delve into the interwoven questions of hunger, bestiality, consumption and
nationalisminUlysses.
Yi-PengLairecentlyreceivedherPhDfromQueen’sUniversityBelfast.HerPhDthesis,entitled
“EcoUlysses:Nature,Nation,Consumption,”examinesJamesJoyce’swritingofNatureinUlysses.
Herarticle“TheTreeWeddingandthe(Eco)PoliticsofIrishForestryin‘Cyclops’:History,Language
andtheViconianPoliticsoftheForest”appearedinthecollectionEcoJoyce:TheEnvironmental
ImaginationsofJamesJoyce(2014).
PotatoesMarkedbyaSpade:MemoryoftheFamineinAPortraitoftheArtistasaYoungMan
ToshikiTatara(YasudaWomen’sUniversity)
Although numerous attempts have been made to examine how the Great Irish Famine, which
decisively “changed” Irish culture and society, is represented in James Joyce’s works, his
autobiographicalBildungsromanAPortraitoftheArtistasaYoungMan(1916)hasbeensurprisingly
neglected.TheonlytwoexceptionsarepioneeringessaysbyJuneDwyerandDavidPearce.
Itshouldbenoted,however,thatbothJoyceandhisfictionalcounterpartStephenDedalus
mentioned the Famine outside the narrative of Portrait. In a public lecture delivered in Trieste in
1907,whenhestartedtoreworkStephenHerointoPortrait,Joyceclearlystatedthat“Irelandispoor
[…]becausetheneglectoftheEnglishgovernmentintheyearsofthefamineallowedthebestofthe
population to die from hunger.” In Ulysses, the partial sequel to Portrait which is set in 1904,
Stephenvividlyrecallsthedisastersofthe“Famine,plagueandslaughters.”Itisquitedifficult,then,
toassumethatJoyceignoredtheFaminebeforewritingUlysses.
ThispaperaimstodemonstratethatPortraitisinfactapost-Faminefictionwhichembraces
the memory of the Famine as its political unconscious. First, by reconsidering why potatoes are
always described as somehow “bruised” in Portrait, this paper argue that the potatoes both
summarizeStephen’sattitudestowardtheIrishpeasantsandembodythehauntingmemoryofthe
Famine.Second, this paper focuses on Stephen’sjourney toCork.The city was,infact,one of the
areas hardest hit by the Famine. In the novel, Stephen’s father disposes of his property in Cork to
payoffadebt.Stephen’sjourneywillthereforebereadasanallegorical,reversedre-enactmentof
Famineevictions.Insodoing,thispapershowshowPortraitindicatesasignificantshiftor“change”
inthetraditionofIrishFaminefiction.
ToshikiTatara,MA(UniversityCollegeDublin),PhD(HiroshimaUniversity),isAssociateProfessorof
EnglishatYasudaWomen’sUniversity,Japan.Hiscurrentresearchproject,“GreaterIrelandbeyond
theSea:PoliticsinTransatlanticFamineFiction”issupportedbyaGrant-in-AidforYoungScientists
fromtheJapanSocietyforthePromotionofScience.
TheFamine,Schizophrenia,andO’Neill’sTyrones
MaureenS.G.Hawkins(UniversityofLethbridge)
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who believed that destructive parent-child interactions could induce
schizophrenia, observed that the Irish have the world's highest rates of hospitalisation for it and
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membersoftheIrishdiasporaaremoreoftentreatedforitthanotherethnicgroups,apatternhas
alsoobservedinthedescendantsofHolocaustsurvivors.
Some believe the physical and psychological trauma of the Holocaust induced epigenetic
change, leading to an increase in inherited mental illness. Recently, some Irish historians have
theorized that the Famine had the same effect on the Irish, and epigenetic theory suggests that
familialinteractioncantriggertheactivationofsuchmentalillnessinsubsequentgenerations.
R.D.Laingarguedthat“significantothers”(usuallyparents)canconfirmor“disconfirm”(i.e.,
deny the validity of) one’s “experience,” i.e., the way one perceives and comprehends the world,
including oneself, and that “disconfirmation” can lead to schizophrenia. In Eugene O’Neill’s Long
Day’s Journey into Night, it is likely that James’ and Mary’s parents were Famine immigrants, and
Laing’s theories could have been written as a case-study of Tyrone familial interaction. Mary, in
particular–thoughsheisnotalone–isconstantly“disconfirming”the“experiences”ofherfamily.For
example, when James urges her to go for a ride in the car, which, he says, she used to enjoy, she
replies that the second-hand car “humiliates” her, though she wasn’t “offended” by it because he
gaveitoutoflove,nottohumiliateher;however,sheinsists,he“couldn’treallybelieveitwoulddo
[her]anygood.”Perhapsasaresultofthiskindof“disconfirmational”familialinteraction,Jamiehas
akindof“split”personalitywhichcomesoutwhenheisdrunk,castinghimselfasEdmund’sdearest
friend and, simultaneously, his direst enemy, while Edmund desires to erase any individuated
identitybybeingabsorbedintonature.
‘Mybrokenkingdomallwaschangedandyetwasasitalwayswas’:therepresentationofFamine
inliteratureinachangingIreland
MelissaFegan(UniversityofChester)
TheFaminehasbeenidentifiedbyOonaFrawleyasa‘memorycrux’,acatastrophiceventwhichas
the initiator of major cultural change is endlessly returned to, and which raises ‘intensely
problematic’questionsabouttherelationshiptothepast.Thispaperwillexaminethewaysinwhich
theFaminefunctionsasa‘memorycrux’inliteraturefromthelate-nineteenthcenturyonwards,a
primalcatastrophethememoryofwhichisrevivedatothermomentsofcrisisandchange.Historical
fiction set during the Famine emerges in response to the Land War, the campaign for women’s
rights,theEasterRising,theWarofIndependence,theCivilWar,thefoundationoftheRepublic,the
Troubles,theriseandfalloftheCelticTiger,ornewwavesofimmigrationandemigration.Newways
of thinking about the Famine also provoke a return, as in the literary responses inspired by
Woodham-Smith’sTheGreatHunger,EdwardsandWilliams’sTheGreatFamine,andtheexplosion
ofnewscholarshipthatcoincidedwiththe150thanniversaryinthe1990s.ForEmilyLawlessin1888,
theFaminewas‘ablackstream,allbutentirelyblottingoutandeffacingthepast’;forWilliamBarry
in1901,itmeantthat‘[t]hepast[…]hadnofuture’.Thenewfuturebornfromthewreckageofthe
Famine is endlessly changing yet uncannily familiar: ‘The past comes back transformed only to
startle us with its steadfastness’, muses the protagonist of Banville’s Birchwood (1973), ‘It is our
fracturedvisionwhichhastransformedit’.ThememoryoftheFamine,refractedthroughliterature,
transformsnotonlyourvisionofthepast,butofthepresentandfuturealso.
Melissa Fegan is a Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Chester. Her
publicationsincludeLiteratureandtheIrishFamine1845-1919(OUP,2002),andbookchaptersand
journalarticlesonrepresentationsoftheFamineinliteraturefromthe1840stothepresentday.
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5G:LOCALTHEATRE
TowardsanIconicLocalism:RedKettleTheatreCompanyanditsWaterfordContext
ElizabethHoward(WaterfordInstituteofTechnology)
RedKettlewasaregionalIrishtheatrecompanythatoperatedinWaterfordfrom1985-2014,andit
isthesubjectofacurrentdoctoralresearchprojectentitled‘performingtheregion’.Thecompany’s
firstproductionTheGodsAreAngryMissKerr,byJimNolanofferedanimageofWaterfordidentity
throughcharacterisationandsetting,creatingacatalystforRedKettletoinfiltratetheculturalfabric
ofthelocalityandconnectwithitsaudiencethroughsenseofplace,recognitionandhumour.The
Gods Are Angry Miss Kerr was written by a Waterford person about Waterford, it portrayed
charactersfromWaterfordwhospokewithWaterfordaccents,andwasproducedinWaterfordby
Waterford people. Indeed, it would be fair to say that the actions of Red Kettle surrounding the
production of the play propelled both the company and the play towards an ‘iconic localism’,
markingthebeginningofRedKettle’splaceinthecommunityasaculturalentityrepresentingthe
Waterford region through its work. In subsequent years, Red Kettle capitalised on its Waterford
contextandreliedheavilyonthelocalitytoformitsidentityasitroseinprominenceandthenfaded
outoverthecourseofitstrajectory.Thispapernotonlyexploresthelayersofmeaninggeneratedby
the 1985 production of The Gods Are Angry when it resonated deeply with the nuances of the
locality, but also examines the effects of both on and off stage theatre practice that has a direct
relationship with the place in which it occurs. Additionally, this paper questions the effect that a
growingnationalreputationforexcellencecanhaveonacompany’scommitmenttothelocal,and
underwhatconditionsaregionalcompanycanprovidethelocalitywithasufficienttheatretraining
groundandinfrastructure.
ElizabethHowardisatheatremakerandteachesonthetheatrestudiesprogrammeatWaterford
Institute of Technology (WIT). She holds a BA in Drama and Counselling from the University of
Chester and MA in Performance Making at Goldsmiths College, London. Entitled Performing the
Region, her PhD research uses the Red Kettle archive as a primary source and examines regional
theatreinrelationtoculturalpolicy.
NewCenturyTheatreCompanies:TowardanIrishPostdramatic
CormacO'Brien(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Inthetwenty-first-century,particularlysincethelong-recession,Irishtheatreisradicallychangingin
termsofdramaticstructure.NewIrishtheatremakersarecreatingcollaborativeworksthatnotonly
eschewanyover-relianceonstorytelling,butalsomakestrangethefamiliarstructuresofnarrative
realism. While it is tempting to lump radical dramaturgical strategies under the easy label of
‘postdramatictheatre’,recentproductionsbycompaniessuchasDeadCentre,THISISPOPBABY,and
BrokenTalkers,donotreadilymatchthetheatricalparadigmsoutlinedbyHans-ThiesLehmanninhis
field-definingbookPostdramaticTheatre(1999).
Lehmann’s theories of postdramatic theatre are controversial, largely by virtue of his
disavowal of dramatic narrative. Postdramatic discourses create a binary of ‘before vs. after’
wherebytheatrethatisnotpostdramaticisunderstoodaspasséandfailstoaddresscontemporary
72
politics. Highlighting this binary, Liz Tomlin makes the crucial point that certain theatrical cultures,
her example being Black-produced theatre in Britain, do not have traditions of experimental
performance such as the postdramatic demands, thus the binary of ‘before vs. after’ elides and
furthersilencesalreadymarginalizedtheatremakersandthecommunitiestheyrepresent.Tomlin’s
concernscertainlyholdweightintermsofIrishtheatre,whichdrawsfrommillennia-oldtraditionsof
storytelling. Indeed, Irish theatre frequently mobilizes narrative storytelling for subversive political
aims.
Calling for cultural and geopolitical contextualisations of postdramatic theatre, this paper
interrogates how Ireland’s new theatre makers embrace elements of the postdramatic while still
remaining cognisant of Irish traditions of narrative storytelling. In this sense we can understand
these new dramaturgical strategies as not only questioning the culture and politics of today’s
Ireland,butalsoaschallengingtheentrenchedtraditionofnarrativerealismandtherebypresenting
anIrishversionofpostdramatictheatre.
Cormac O'Brien is Lecturer in Anglo-Irish Drama in the School of English, Drama and Film at
University College Dublin. He specialises in modern and contemporary Irish drama with a
comparative focus on British and American theatre, investigating primarily the relations between
governanceandcitizenship,andgender,sexuality,andnationalidentities.
‘FromNorthtoSouth:EchoingInnovationsinLocalTheatreCompanies.’
AnneEtienne(UCC)andLisaFitzpatrick(UniversityofUlster)
This paper considers two examples of regional theatre companies, Tinderbox in Belfast and
Corcadorca in Cork. It will investigate how the companies developed new writing and community
creation,andwillreflectontheirwiderculturalinfluence.
Founded at the end of the 1980s, Tinderbox is one of Northern Ireland's most significant
companies. The company's aesthetic explorations have included site-specific work like Convictions,
and touring comedies and dramas that explore various the gradual emergence of a post-conflict
society-suchasFamilyPlot,LallytheScut,PlanetBelfast,TrueNorth,andTheSignoftheWhale,
amongstothers.
Tinderbox has been a significant influence in the development of the culture of Northern
Irelandpost-Ceasefire,producingworkthroughthefinalyearsoftheTroubles,throughtheperiods
ofnegotiations,andintothiscentury.Withitsresidentdramaturgeitiscentraltothedevelopment
ofnewNorthernIrishwriting,regularlyproducingworkthatdirectlyaddressesissuesrelevanttothe
lifeofthelocalcommunity,theregion,andbeyond.Thisisparticularlyevidentintheirnurturingofa
generationofplaywrightswhohavecomeofagesincetheendoftheconflict.
Corcadorca was founded in 1991. Since then, the company have focused on off-site
performancesandthedevelopmentofnewwriting(EndaWalshofcourse,butalsoRayScannelland
Ailís Ní Ríain), a double mission that found its joint expression early through their work with Enda
Walsh. Unlike Tinderbox, Corcadorca does not tour – the exception remained Disco Pigs. Their
interest in civic theatre has been articulated by their concern for their theatre-going community,
theirlocalimportpossiblyobscuringtheirwiderinfluence.
2016 marks the 25th anniversary of Corcadorca. It is the occasion for a redefinition of the
company’s focus, towards site-specificity. Interestingly it will also witness a circular motion to the
company’sbeginningsinthelastinstalmentofanoff-sitetrilogyofWalshplayswhichtheystartedin
2014withHowTheseDesperateMenTalkandcontinuedlastyearwithGentrification.
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Thispaperconsiderstheworkofthesecompanies,whodonotnormallyperforminDublin,
to explore how that work has impacted on the theatrical landscape locally, nationally, or
internationally.
LisaFitzpatrickisSeniorLecturerinDramaatUniversityofUlster,andafoundingmemberofthe
IrishSocietyforTheatreResearch.Herresearchfocusesonviolenceinperformance,women's
writing,feminisminIreland,andtheperformanceofrapeonstage.Shehaspublishedin
PerformanceResearch,CTR,ModernDrama,L’AnnuaireThéâtralandhaseditedcollectionson
PerformingViolenceandPerformingFeminismsinContemporaryIrelandwithCarysfortPress.
AnneEtienneisalecturerinModernDramaattheSchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCork.Her
researchintwentieth-centuryBritishdramaandtheatrehingesonaninterdisciplinaryapproachand
reflectsonpoliticalandculturalcontexts.Shehaspublishedextensivelyontheissueoftheatre
censorshipinEngland.SheiscurrentlypursuingherresearchinterestonArnoldWesker(1932-2016)
andeditingavolumeonIrishtheatresincethe1990s.
ECOCRITICISMANDECOFEMINISMINIRISHSTUDIES
LucyCollins,RebeccaGraham,MaureenO’Connor
This information session/workshop will introduce interested scholars, and especially postgrads, to
ecocriticical and ecofeminist approaches to Irish Studies, approaches which situate creative and
academicpraxiswithinnuancedunderstandingsofinterconnectedenvironments,material,political,
and cultural. Lecturers Lucy Collins and Maureen O’Connor will talk about their own work, as will
IRC-fundedPhDstudentRebeccaGraham.DrCollinsisontheboardoftheAssociationfortheStudy
ofLiteratureandEnvironment,andwillalsoaddresstheprofessionalnetworksinthisfieldofstudy
thatmakepossibleproductiveinternationalconnectionsacrossinstitutions.
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THURSDAY28JULY
6A:REPRESENTINGWOMAN
PassionateLove-LetterstoaDeadGirl:ElizabethSiddallinOscarWilde
EmilyOrlando(FairfieldUniversity)
“Strange,thatmyfirstpassionatelove-letter
Shouldhavebeenaddressedtoadeadgirl.”
--Dorian,inWilde,ThePictureofDorianGray
While the Dublin-born Oscar Wilde’s attraction to Pre-Raphaelite art has been well documented,
unduly acknowledged is his career-long fascination with the Victorian muse, model, and artist
ElizabethSiddall(1829-1862).ThispaperwilldemonstratethatWilde’sdeepandabidinginterestin
Siddallreverberatesacrosshisonlynovel,ThePictureofDorianGray(1891),toanextentthathas
not been considered. I will specifically argue that the suicide of Dorian Gray’s lover Sibyl Vane,
whosebriefappearanceamountstoapowerfulheterosexualdistractioninanovelmoreinvestedin
homoerotic desire, was inspired by Elizabeth Siddall’s untimely overdose. When Lord Henry, the
worldly dandy orchestrating Dorian Gray’s corruption, flippantly describes Sibyl Vane’s death as
“quitebeautiful,”claimingheis“glad”tobe“livinginacenturywheresuchwondershappen,”heis
embracing a cultural preference for fetishizing the expired female body. The very name “Sibyl”
echoesSiddall,whoisbestknownasthemodelforJohnEverettMillais’sOpheliaandDanteGabriel
Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix. As David Latham has noted, Siddall “is depicted too often as the model
describedinChristinaRossetti’ssonnet‘InanArtist’sStudio,’thepassivevictimofavampiricartist
whomanipulatesherimageinordertorealizehisowndreams”(Latham141).
Indeed, Siddall’s contributions to Victorian art and culture, and, I would add, her underexamined influence upon Irish literature, are much larger and more complicated. To begin with, I
wanttosuggestthatSiddall,longdeadbythe1890s,mayhavebeencodedasCelticacrossturn-ofthe-centuryIrishliteratureinwaysnothithertounderstood.AlthoughSiddallwasnotbornofIrish
parents,sheserved“asamodelfor‘afairCeltwithredhair’”forthePre-RaphaelitepainterWilliam
Holman Hunt, perhaps owing to the fact that she was copper-haired, ivory-skinned, Welsh, and
working-class.Assuch,Siddall—whohasnottodatebeenreadinaCelticcontext—mightserveasa
signifieroftheyoung,pale,passive,helplessIrishmaidenoftheflowingtressesromanticizedacross
popularcultureasasymboloftheIrishnation.Indeed,itisplausiblethatoneofthereasonsWilde
wasattractedtoSiddallisherresemblancetotheaislingfigurederivingfromtheeighteenth-century
Gaelic tradition and popular in turn-of-the-century Irish culture—what C. L. Innes has called “the
young maiden besieged” that came to be aligned with Ireland itself (Innes 16). As Jacqueline
Belanger has noted, “[t]he result of [such nationalist and colonial] representations is the
constructionofwomaninIrishdiscourseasaspiritualized,sufferingandultimatelydisempowered
figure” (Belanger 244). While the Pre-Raphaelite image of the bereft, reclining, swooning, and
waning Elizabeth Siddall was, by the end of the nineteenth century, wildly popular amongst late
Victorianwriters,itmaywellbeitsunder-examinedIrishinflectionthatdrewWildeallthemoreto
thispassivefemalefigure.
In the proposed twenty-minute presentation, I will examine closely the nods to Elizabeth
SiddallinThePictureofDorianGrayandIwillseektodeterminewhetherWildewasengagingthis
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figure in order to critique the Victorian habit of enshrining, and thus silencing, women in art, or
whetherhewasresortingtothistropeintheeraoftheNewWomanasakindofbacklashagainst
thosewomenwhowereseekingattheturnintothe20thcenturytherighttovote,toownproperty,
topursuehighereducation,todivorce,andtoacquireavocationmorefulfillingthanmarriageand
motherhood. The paper, part of a larger project positioning Elizabeth Siddall in an Irish literary
context, will consider the ways in which Siddall’s meaning changed across decades and across
English and Irish culture. The paper ultimately will propose that the Pre-Raphaelite musings in
Wilde—whose relation to feminism and, for that matter, his native Ireland, has always been
complicated—effectively, if not intentionally, silence the figure of the fin-de-siècle Irish New
Woman.
EmilyJ.OrlandoisAssociateProfessorofEnglishandCo-DirectorofWomen,GenderandSexuality
Studies at Fairfield University. She is the author of Edith Wharton and the Visual Arts and has
publishedessaysonliteratureandvisualculture,mostrecentlyinTwentieth-CenturyLiterature.She
is president of the Edith Wharton Society and co-editor of Edith Wharton and Cosmopolitanism
(UniversityPressofFlorida,2016).
MaryDevenportO’Neill’sBluebeard
LauraMerniePomeroy(UniversityCollegeCork)
In July 1933 the Abbey Theatre produced Mary Devenport O’Neill’s (1879-1967) verse-play
Bluebeard as a ballet-poem. This Bluebeard production was widely advertised, choreographed by
DameNinettedeValois,andstagedwithaballetbyArthurDuffaswellasplaysbyW.B.Yeatsand
Lady Gregory. This unique event conveyed Devenport’s narrative through a sequence of dance
movements,creating“embodiedpoetry”whichtookintoconsiderationthecadenceandrhythmof
thelyrics.Inherverse-play,Bluebeardparalysesfourofhiswiveswithadrug,placestheminglass
cases,concealstheminalockedroomandcontemplateswhoshouldbeallowedtolookatthem.His
active wife, Ilina, releases the wives from their incarceration and they emerge to face a dying
Bluebeard overturning his objectification of them as masculine constructions of the female body.
Devenport’sBluebeardwasfirstpublishedinPrometheusandOtherPoems(1929)andwasproduced
forstageatleastthreetimesduringthe‘30sand40’saswellasbeingbroadcastonRadioÉireann.
After introducing Devenport, this paper will discuss how she uses myth to suggest the
possibility of subversive female empowerment within masculinist literary systems. I will examine
BluebeardsourcesandanaloguesinordertosituateDevenport’snarrativeversion,usingJackZipes’s
theories about the subversive potential of folk tales. I will then examine Devenport’s distinctive
tropeswhichpresentedsignificantfeministarguments.Inherworktheidealisedfemalebodyinart
disregardsnaturalprocessesandlivewomen,overlookingcorporealitytoattainperfection.Elizabeth
Bronfen’s assertions about how the dead female body in art functions as imagery to define
masculine identity and Griselda Pollock’s postulations about the sexual politics of the subject
position in the modernist gaze are used to build my interpretation of Devenport’s Bluebeard
narrativeversion.
DrLauraPomeroyreceivedherPhDfromtheSchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCorkin2016.She
wasanIrishResearchCouncilscholarfrom2012-2015.Herdoctoralthesis“MaryDevenportO’Neill:
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Writing the Free State” explores Devenport O’Neill’s (1879-1967) writing in its contemporary
aestheticcontextsandconsidersitsroleinthecultureoftheFreeStateinthe1930sand1940s.
“The water closes over Pauline like a black skin”: Rewriting Sea Women in Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s
Fiction
RebeccaGraham(UniversityCollegeCork)
Mythical and folkloric sea women such as sirens, selkies and mermaids are frequently interwoven
into Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s contemporary stories to highlight connections between representations of
women,pastandpresent,inbothoralandwrittencultures,andtoreimaginethoserepresentations
withapostmodern,feministsensibility.NíDhuibhneisbothafolkloristandafeminist,whohassaid
that “Feminist theory changed my world view … I took an interest in rewriting or re-inventing
women's history, a history which had been largely unwritten” (73). Ní Dhuibhne’s sea women are
liminal creatures, shape-shifters, transgressive females, who blur the lines between human and
animal, myth and reality, challenging traditional and stereotypical representations of women. My
titlequotecomesfromTheDancersDancing,anovelofdevelopmentsetin1972inanIrish-speaking
area of Donegal. The adolescent protagonist Orla watches as Pauline, who is older, as well as
sexually and emotionally more mature than Orla, dives into a deep, dark pool of water. Pauline is
ambiguouslyrenderedasbothabeautifulandliberatedselkie,butalsoasadangerouslyseductive
siren.Asadoubly-reimaginedseawoman,Paulinesymbolisesthedifficultiesthatwomenin1970s
Irelandencounteredwhentryingtonegotiatethelimitedandlimitingrolesprescribedtothem,and
Orlawatches,afraidandunabletonavigatethismurkyterrain.
Elke D’hoker argues that Ní Dhuibhne reimagines and rewrites folktales to “reflect and
interpret the social values and attitudes of a postmodern society” (137). Part of Ní Dhuibhne’s
projectasawriteristoforegroundandreinvigoratefolkloreasanimportantfacetofIrishcultural
heritage and identity. She draws together oral and written storytelling traditions, making
connections between past and present, reimagining and recreating women’s roles and identities.
ThispaperdiscussesthenumerousreferencestoseawomeninÉilísNíDhuibhne’sfictiontoreveal
someofthewaysthatshedeftlywriteswomenbackintoIrishhistoryandsociety.
Rebecca Graham is a PhD candidate at the School of English, University College Cork. Her thesis
analysesÉilísNíDhuibhne’swritingusingtheoriesofecocriticismandécriturefeminine.Herresearch
interests include Irish studies, feminism, and folklore. She is postgraduate representative for IASIL
andherresearchisfundedbytheIrishResearchCouncil.
6B:PLACEANDHISTORYINNORTHERNIRISHPOETRY
ForHistoryreadPoetry:PaulMuldoonandImarrhagingIreland
WitPietrzak(UniversityofLodz)
Muldoon’spoetryhaslongbeensuffusedwithreferencestonarrativesofhistoricalevents,someof
them deliberately fictional, some actual, some national, most personal, all unfolding into an
unteleologicalstorywhoseoriginisconspicuouslyblurredandendingunfathomable.Thistechnique
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ofintertwiningnarrativesbyasuperimpositionofstringsofimagesoneontopofanothermaybe
referredtowhatMuldoonhastermedimarrhaging:a“tendencytowards[…]amalgam,thetendency
foroneeventorcharactertoblurandbleedintoanother.”Inthepresentation,IfocusonMuldoon’s
recent (post 2000) poetry, theoretical and critical texts as well as on his numerous poetical
antecedents, both from Ireland and abroad, with a view to exploring the process of imarrhaging,
whereby a textual space is set up that incorporates multiple histories which are then viewed as
happening simultaneously. This allows Muldoon to suggest that history is a not even a work-inprogressbutanimagisticmasswhichapoet(inthiscase)isfreetomouldsoastoaccommodateinit
hisorherownstoryaswellasthatofhiscountry.Inthislight,thehistoryofIreland,asitisdepicted
inMuldoon’swork,becomesanarrativeofendlesschangeabilitywherepainandlove,honourand
betrayalandinevitably,lifeanddeath,interweavebutnever“asthechroniclessay.”
Wit Pietrzak, Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, University of Łódź, Poland,
specialises in modernist and neo-modernist poetry and has published several books of criticism,
most recently “Levity of Design.” Man and Modernity in the Poetry of J. H. Prynne and Careful,
Poetry.EssaysonEnglish-LanguagePoets(publishedinPolish).
‘TheStableElement’:SeamusHeaney’sResponsetoChangeinNorth
LeilaCrawford(UniversityofOtago)
Inhisessay‘TheSenseofPlace,’SeamusHeaneyassertsthatwemustlooktotheland—the‘stable
element’—forcontinuity.Forsomeoneacquaintedwithnaturalprocesses,thismayseemlikeanodd
or troubling statement: surely the land, nature, is one of the least stable elements? Yet, much of
Heaney’s poetry establishes environment—place—as untouchable, or unchangeable. The land acts
as a catalyst not for change but for counter-change, allowing Heaney connect his modern Ireland
withitsorigins.
This paper looks at how Heaney’s collection North (1975) employs bogs—both as a
metaphoric preserving agent and in their own, wet actuality—asawayofexploringthecontinuity
affordedbytheland.Poemssuchas‘North’and‘FuneralRites’connecttheviolenceoftheTroubles
with pre-historical violence: in ‘North,’ the Viking past becomes concurrent with the present,
accessiblewhenlookingatthesharedlandscape;andin‘Kinship,’thespeakermustdigdowninto
thepeatymossofthebogtofindsharedorigins.
Heaney’slanguagealsotranscendstimeandsocietalchanges.Poemssuchas‘BoneDreams,’
which Bernard O’Donoghue has described as ‘a love poem to the English language,’ look toward a
shared language to connect with the past. Words, excavated from their Saxon, Gaelic, Norse,
Norman,orElizabethanroots,becomeobjectsinakindof‘kenning,’asHeaneypushesbackthrough
them to something akin to the origin of language—the ‘scop’s/twang, the iron/flash of the
consonants/cleavingtheline.’
In 1972, after the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry, Heaney moved his family down to
Wicklow;stillhewasaffectedbytheviolenceravagingNorthernIreland.Thispaperwilldemonstrate
how the land provided Heaney a repository, an antidote to the massive political and societal
upheavalsthattookplaceintheyearsleadinguptoNorth.
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LeilaCrawfordgraduatedwithadegreeinEnglishwithhonoursfromWilliamsCollegeandholdsan
MPhilinModernandContemporaryLiteraturefromCambridgeUniversity.ShehasjustbegunaPhD
attheUnversityofOtagowheresheisworkingwithPeterKuchonSeamusHeaney.
6C:HOWBRIANFRIELCHANGEDIRISHTHEATRE:ATRIBUTEROUNDTABLE
For half a century, from the success at the 1964 Dublin Theatre Festival of his ground-breaking
Philadelphia, Here I Come! to the global success of Dancing at Lughnasa in 1990, through the
creation of Field Day in 1980 with the now classic Translations coming close on the heels of his
experimental masterpiece Faith Healer, Brian Friel shaped and changed Irish theatre. Ireland's
greatestplaywrightpassedawayinOctober2015andtheparticipantsofthisroundtablewilldiscuss
andexplorethesignificanceofFriel'soeuvre,thenandnow.
ProfessorNicholasGrenewillfocusonFaithHealerandthemonologueformthatitinitiated,
looking at the influence Friel’s play has had on writers like Connor McPherson, Mark O’Rowe and
EndaWalsh.EmiliePinewilladdressthecentralroleofmemoryinFriel'swork,anddiscusshowFriel
wrotememoryasacorecomponentofidentity,connotingcontinuity,distinctivenessandlegitimacy.
Characters in his work struggle to articulate their memories and to convey their meaning to an
audience.Consistently,personalmemoriesarecontradictedbyanother,orqueried,sothatdespite
theconnectionbetweenidentityandmemory,memoryisrevealedasbothcompetitiveandfragile.
TheritualsofremembranceinFriel'splaysarethusaresponsetothisfragilityandtheserituals,in
their appeal to other characters and to the audience, illustrate the necessity of being witnessed.
MartinePelletierwilldiscusshowTranslationsandthesettingupoftheFieldDaytheatreCompany
by Brian Friel and Stephen Rea in 1980 changed the theatre scene in Ireland, north and south, as
wellasre-settingtheculturalandpoliticalagenda.
EmiliePinelecturesinModernDramaatUniversityCollegeDublin.Sheisthefoundingdirectorof
the Irish Memory Studies Network and incoming editor of the Irish University Review. She is the
author of The Politics of Irish Memory: Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture
(Palgrave) and has recently been awarded a major Irish Research Council grant for the 2-year
IndustrialMemoriesproject,digitallyre-readingtheRyanReport.
Martine Pelletier lectures in English and Irish studies at the University of Tours, France. She has
publishedwidelyonBrianFriel,FieldDay,andcontemporaryIrishandNorthernIrishtheatre.Sheis
co-editor of Ireland: Authority and Crisis, Vol. 70 (2015) in the “Reimagining Ireland” series from
PeterLangandaspecialissueofEtudesIrlandaisesentitled“LaCrise?Quellecrise?/Crisis?What
Crisis?”(Winter2015).
NicholasGreneisEmeritusProfessorofEnglishLiteratureatTrinityCollegeDublin,wherehetaught
for36years.HisbooksincludeThePoliticsofIrishDrama(CambridgeUniversityPress,1999),Yeats's
Poetic Codes (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Home on the Stage (Cambridge University Press,
2014).Hischildhoodmemoir,NothingQuiteLikeIt,waspublishedbySomervillePressin2011.
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6D:ARCHIPELAGICIRELAND:LITERATURE,COASTS,ISLANDS
Thelasttwodecadeshavewitnessedanupsurgeintheideaoftheseasandoceansassubjectsof
literaryandculturalstudy.The‘bluehumanities’isamovementtowardsanhistoricalunderstanding
ofwateranditseffectsonhumanculture.Thecoastitselfintensifiesaparticularaspectoftheblue
humanities: literally marginal, it is the region of exchange between land and sea, domestic and
international space, where relationships and tensions between geography and culture are felt
intensely and played out dynamically. If the historical development of the Atlantic fundamentally
redefined Europe’s sense of itself through what Eric Slauter calls ‘dizzying shifts that come from
viewingfamiliarphenomenafromdifferentangles,differentgeographies,anddifferentdisciplinary
perspectives’, coasts also present similar opportunities as points of cultural exchange.This panel
willintroducearangeofcontemporaryandhistoricaltextstodiscussideasofchangeandmigration
throughimagesofarchipelago,coastsandislands.
Beatlebone:KevinBarry,thewestcoastandcontemporaryliterature
NicholasAllen(UniversityofGeorgiaAthens,GA)
Nicholas Allen is Director of the Willson Center and Franklin Professor of English at University of
Georgia Athens. His books includeBroken Landscapes: Selected letters on Ernie O'Malley (2011)
andModernism, Ireland and Civil War(Cambridge University Press, 2009). He has also published
essays inThe History of the Irish Book in the Twentieth Century (2011) andSynge and Edwardian
Ireland(2011).
MeetingsattheEdge:VonaGroarke'sSeascapes
KacieHittel(UniversityofGeorgiaAthens,GA)
Kacie Hittel holdsan MPhil in Anglo-Irish Literature from Trinity College Dublin and specialises in
twentieth-andtwenty-firstcenturyBritishandIrishliterature.
RecoveringIslands:OceanandArchipelagoinTotheLighthouse
NelsPearson(FairfieldUniversity)
Nels Pearson is Associate Professor of English at Fairfield University and is the author of Irish
Cosmopolitanism: Location and Dislocation in James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Samuel Beckett
(UniversityofFloridaPress,2015).Researchinterestsincludemodernisminitshistoricalandpolitical
contexts, especially Irish and British modernism as they relate to imperialism, nationalism and
nationalidentity,anddebatessurroundingtheconceptofcosmopolitanism.
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6E:LEFANU’SLEGACIES:SPACE,PLACE,HISTORY
JosephSheridanLeFanucontributedwidelytotheformsofVictorianpopularliteraturerangingfrom
historicalfiction,sensationalism,mysterynovels,andghoststories.Bestknownforthelocked-room
mysteryUncleSilasandthevampirenovella“Carmilla,”hisworkisoftencelebratedasepitomizing
the canonical Anglo-Irish gothic tradition, historically conceptualized in psychoanalytic terms as a
manifestation of the repressed anxieties and ancestral guilt of a declining landowning Anglo-Irish
class. Keeping with the conference theme of “change,” this panel aims to highlight how thematic
links, shared but modulating aesthetic practices, and historical, social and cultural crossovers
connects Le Fanu's writing to that of his successors, moving beyond the traditional narratives of
Anglo-Irish gothic writing. The papers on this panel will chart the change across generations of
writersandartistsworkinginothermediaastheyrespondthesocialandpoliticalcontextsoftheir
time.
TheInfluenceofLeFanu’sGothicDomesticityon20thCenturyLiterature
MarkCorcoran-Kelly(NUIGalway)
ThispaperwillchartthegothictreatmentofthehomeandmarriageinthediverseworksofLeFanu
and Elizabeth Bowen. This analysis will not focus on the similarities between authors, but will
attempt to address the impulsion or desire to build on, contrast with, or blend
plot/description/setting with the work of another author. Literary inheritance appears consciously
and unconsciously in authors’ works, but the attempt here is to address the different forms of
influence attached to the gothic with which Le Fanu’s works appears in Bowen’s depiction of the
domestic.
DrMarkCorcoran-KellycurrentlyworkswiththeIrishCenter,theYouthAcademy,andasanadjunct
lecturerattheEnglishDepartmentatNUIGalway.
Boundary Crossings: A Reading of Wayward Spaces in Sheridan Le Fanu's “Carmilla” and James
Joyce's“TheDead”
KatieMishler(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Thisanalysisontheshort-storiesofLeFanu's“Carmilla”andJamesJoyce's“TheDead”willexplore
howeachstoryprominentlyfeaturesthewaywardspacesofthenineteenth-centuryurbanGothic,
asthecityspawnsspacesbothwithinitselfandtherural,regionallocalesbywhichitishaunted.The
EasternEuropeanvillageStyriain“Carmilla,”asiteofdisplacementasanexpressionofAnglo-Irish
cultural identity, mirrors the relationship between rural, Western Galway, associated with an
“authentic” native Irishness, and the cosmopolitan city of Dublin in “The Dead.” This analysis will
culminate in an examination of how displacement and identity are reflected within imaginative,
ghostlybordercrossings.
KatieMishlerisanIrishResearchCouncilPostgraduateScholarandPhDcandidateintheSchoolof
English,Drama,andFilmatUniversityCollegeDublin(UCD)workingunderthesupervisionofProf.
MargaretKelleher.SheisalsoaresearchassociateintheUCDHumanitiesInstitute.
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Carmilla:AVictorianVampireinaDigitalAge
JarlathKilleen(TrinityCollegeDublin)
Thispaperwilllookatthechangesandadaptationsof“Carmilla”inlinewiththeconferencetheme
looking at changes across media, and examining how these changes affect Le Fanu's cultural
afterlife.
Dr Jarlath Killeen is Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning, and
AcademicLiaisonOfficerfortheSchoolofEnglishatTrinityCollegeDublin.Todate,hehaswritten
five monographs, including his most recent work: The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction: History,
Texts,Theories(EdinburghUniversityPress,2013).
6F:IRISHLITERARYHISTORYANDITSDISCONTENTS
“The Reductive Logic of Domination”: Narratives and Counter-Narratives in Irish Poetry Studies
andAnthologies.
KennethKeating(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Examples of the critical desire to construct a singular, all-encompassing macro-narrative of Irish
poetryareeasilylocatedintheargumentssurroundingIrishpoetryanthologiesandcanon-centred
criticism. These debates focus on what work may compose the canon of Irish literature or poetry,
howtoexorcise‘foreign’standardsinordertoestablishwhatconstitutesatruly‘native’literature,
whether there is a distinction to be made between work that is from Northern Ireland and that
produced in the Republic, the exclusion of marginalised voices from the canon, such as those of
women,andhowtoeliminatepatriarchalstandardstobemorenaturallyinclusiveofthispreviously
marginalisedwork.
Thispaperwillofferabriefsurveyanddetailedexamplestocontendthatsuchdebateshave
always already accepted the requirement for and the presence of an identifiable canon of Irish
poetry.Theargumentssharealogicwhich,inacceptingsuchaprinciple,merelydebatethecontent
of such a canon. The history of Irish poetry criticism and the associated production of anthologies
willbeshowntobeahistoryoftheidentificationofvariousmicro-elementsandtheirelevationto
the centre of a macro-narrative that is constantly in flux and never agreed upon. Canon-centred
anthologies and surrounding critical debates fail to identify the constant flux and always already
attempt to pin down the poetry and its poets in order to construct a definitive singular macronarrative of Irish poetry. These texts work within reductive understandings of ‘Irish poetry’ in
attemptstoshiftthecentreandrealignthecanon,butconsistentlyfailtochallengethecanon’svery
existenceandimplicitlysupporttheconstructionofahierarchicalunderstandingofpoetryinIreland.
Kenneth Keating is a postdoctoral researcher at University College Dublin, working under Prof.
MargaretKelleherontheDigitalPlatformforContemporaryIrishWriting.Hecompletedhisdoctoral
researchonJacquesDerridaandcontemporaryIrishpoetryin2014andhaspublishedarticlesand
reviewsonanumberofIrishpoets.HeistheeditorofSmithereensPress.
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AdvocatingChange?:GenderedSpaceinTheGreatBookofIreland
JamesLawlor-UniversityCollegeCork
TheGreatBookofIrelandisasinglevellumilluminatedmanuscriptwithoriginalworkof121artists,
143poets,9composersandonecalligrapher.Itwasproducedbetween1989-1991,itaims‘tobea
permanentrecordofculturallifeinIrelandinthetwentiethcentury’anditiscurrentlyheldatthe
BooleLibraryUniversityCollegeCork.
Focusing on the visual and textual elements of individual folios, this paper explores the ways in
whichtheGreatBookofIrelanddocumentsthechangeingenderpoliticsinIrishsocietyattheend
of the twentieth century. In both the initial stages and its outcome, the ideologies grounding the
Great Book Of Ireland are largely informed by gender discourses and critical debates. Drawing on
these political, social and historical contexts, this paper argues that the editors of Great Book of
Ireland were radical in terms of negotiating the existing masculine canon mediating between the
canon,counter-canon,andnon-canonwithaviewtowardsamorepluralistrepresentationofIreland
andIrishness.
JamesLawlorisagraduatefromtheUniversityofLimerick(BA,2009)andQueen’sUniversityBelfast
(MA, 2010). In 2012, he edited the anthology I Live in Michael Hartnett. He is currently a PhD
candidate at the School of English, University College Cork, researching the Great Book of Ireland
underthesupervisionofProf.ClaireConnollyandProf.AlexDavis.Healsoworksfortheliterarynotfor-profitNarrative4.
6G:IRISHLETTERSANDARCHIVES
TheEdithŒnoneSomervilleArchives
NicolePepinsterGreene(XavierUniversityofLouisiana)
The Edith Œnone Somerville Archives are located at the Somerville home, Drishane,
Castletownshend, 52 miles from University College Cork the site of IASIL 2016 Conference. Edith
Somerville and her collaborator Martin Ross, authors of the The Real Charlotte (1894) and three
volumesofTheIrishR.M.stories(1898-1915),makefrequentreferencestoCorkintheirfirstnovel
AnIrishCousin(1889,1903).Infact,theirIrish-CanadianprotagonistsailsintoQueenstown,CoCork,
onherreturntoherfather’snativeland.SomervilleandherfamilyhadlivedinsouthwestCorksince
the17thCentury.Ibelievethereforethatitwouldbeappropriatefortheconferencetorecognize
thesearchivesandItherefore,IproposetodiscusssomeaspectoftheArchives’holdingsrelevantto
theConference’sthemeofchange.
Inhiscatalogueandevaluativeessay,OttoRauchbauer(1994,1995),givesabriefoverview
oftheArchives’holdingswhicharemoreextensivethantheSomervilleandRossarchivesatTrinity
CollegeDublin,Queen’sUniversityBelfast,ortheNewYorkPublicLibrary.Inthispaper,Iwillfocus
onEdithSomerville’sletterstohereldestbrotherCameron,heirtoDrishane,whospentmostofhis
lifeoverseasintheserviceofEmpire.Inhisabsence,EdithwaslefttomanagetheDrishaneestate;
thus this correspondence provides a local history of the changes taking place in southwest Cork
between during the land wars and after the implementation of the land acts. For the purposes of
thispaper,IwillfocusspecificallyonEdith’sdiscussionoflandownership,thechangingrelationship
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betweenlandlordandtenant,andlocalandnationalpoliticsfrom1879-1922,pointingoutnotonly
theeffectsofthelandactsbutalsoEdith’sever-changingalliancesinresponsestotheseevents.
Dr Nicole Pepinster Greene is Professor of English at Xavier University of Louisiana and executive
editorofXavierReviewPress.Herpublicationsinclude:“AComparisonofthe1889andtheRevised
1903EditionofSomervilleandRoss’sFirstNovel:AnIrishCousin”(IrishStudiesReview,2014)and
“An Enthusiast: Edith Œ. Somerville’s Novel of the Irish War of Independence, Its Reception and
Composition”(NewHiberniaReview,2012).
ThePoliticsofLetters:FrankO’Connor’sEpistolaryWritings
HilaryLennon(UniversityCollegeCork)
In‘TheLostArtofLetterWriting’(2014),EavanBolandlocatestheletterasaroutetomemory,to
belonging–‘thepenbecoming/Astafftowalkfieldswithastheyvanished/Underfootintomemory’.
InVirginiaWoolf’sownconceptionofletter-writingin‘TheHumaneArt’(1940),sheconsideredthe
roleoflettersasananchortoone’stribeandtoone’sownself;abridgebetweenpastandfuture
identities,atoncestableandself-renewing.Theletterdrewfromthewriter‘somethingsuperficial
yet profound, something changing yet entire ... [f]rom that sprang his immortality. For a self that
goesonchangingisaselfthatgoesonliving.’
Yet, fragmentation, alongside interconnection, is endemic to the form of the letter. That it is a
correspondence produces a blurring of boundaries. The Irish literary letter does not quite have a
place,ahome,buttheseepistolarymosaicsareembeddedwithinnetworks,andspeaktoeachother
– collections of letters corresponding in any particular period of history and creating fluid
intertextual sequences. Taking these ideas of the letter into consideration, this paper will critically
analysetheideaof‘change’inFrankO’Connor’sepistles,focusinginparticularonhisuseoftheform
incontestinganddevelopinghispoliticalself.Thepaperwillexaminethepartthathislettersplayed
incirculatingnotionsofpastandfutureidentities,surveytheletter-networksthatadvancedwithhis
epistolarydispatches,andassesstheoverallroleoftheletterinO’Connor’swritings.
Dr Hilary Lennon received her PhD from the School of English, Trinity College Dublin, and is the
HarrietO’DonovanSheehyResearchFellowattheSchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCork.Sheis
theeditorofFrankO’Connor:CriticalEssays(FourCourts,2007),andisalsothecreatorandeditorof
the official O’Connor website, frankoconnor.ucc.ie. Her Selected Letters of Frank O’Connor is
forthcomingfromCorkUniversityPress.
“FarFromAid,SheWasinHerFamilyHome”:ElizabethBowen’sNewShortStories
HeatherLevy(WesternConnecticutStateUniversity)
Thispaperintroducesfivepreviouslyunpublishedfragmentsandtwonearlycompletestoriesfrom
TheElizabethBowenCollectionatTheHarryRansomResearchCenterattheUniversityofTexasat
Austin. “Amy Ticer,” “A Thing of the Past,” “Still the Moon,” “Untitled Short Story About Ellen
Nevin,”“TheBeginningofthisDay,”“OnlyYoungOnce”and“NowtheDayisOver”demonstratea
sustained level of female apprehension that borders on narrative cruelty. Female characters seem
84
destined to fall off cliffs, endure chronic molestation by stepfathers, brothers, country gentlemen
and their lesbian employers. They suffer psychological damage from exposure to the anxieties of
theirmothersandtheresentmentsoftheirsiblings.Theyarediscouragedbyoverlycriticalloversor
demeaningguestsandbulliedbyschoolmatesandstepfather’ssisters.Theseaccountsofmayhem
are inherently violent and public and private spaces are contaminated by human degradation and
sexualcruelty.However,thereisalsoacelebrationofthenewasthesesevennarrativeschampion
thecompetingdisruptionsofhumanandmechanicalnoiseincludinghandheldhairdryerspatented
by Godefroy in 1888, Edward Beard Budding’s invention of the lawnmower in 1830, telephone
boxes, automobiles, harps and alarm clocks. These seven new stories are quixotic celebrations of
moral transgression, crime without punishment, suicide without mourners yet they are also a
jubilant catalogue of how innovations including vita glass, gas ovens, razors, neon light are
harnessed to exploit while art, urban planning and transit are co-opted as violent accomplices.
Elizabeth Bowen’s essays “Calico Windows,” (1944) “Mental Annuity” (1955) “Mirrors are Magic”
(1967)willalsobefeatured.
DrHeatherLevyistheDirectorofGraduateStudiesatWesternConnecticutStateUniversitywhere
she teaches Anglo-Irish Literature. She is the author of The Servants of Desire in Virginia Woolf’s
ShorterFiction(2010)andhaspublishedinModernFictionStudiesandTheVirginiaWoolfBulletin.
She has just finished writing a monograph Making Each Other’s Hearts Beat Violently: Mayhem,
MurderandSuicideinElizabethBowen’sShorterFiction.
6H:ARCHIVESANDALTERNATIVEIRELANDS:MARGINALISEDVOICESANDCHANGEINIRISH
THEATREANDSOCIETY
ThearchiveofmodernIrishtheatreisentwinedwiththearchiveofmodernIrishstateandsociety.
Immense social changes in the form of socio-economic, demographics and political fluctuations
throughout the twentieth century account for a radically changing Irish people as well as Irish
drama. These papers draw on the multiple archives housed at NUI Galway to explore the voices
oftenobscuredorerasedbyandduringthesechanges.
“What She Needs is Humiliation”: Gender and Power Dynamics in the Abbey Theatre Minute
Books
TriciaO’Beirne(NUIGalway)
The Abbey Theatre Minute Books from 1904 up to the time of Yeats’s death in 1939 are now
available in digital format for researchers. This period parallels the nascent years of the Irish state
andmanyofthekeyhistoricalandsociologicaleventsarerepresentedinthebooks,noneperhaps
moresothantheculturalandpoliticalchangeswhichdiminishedtherolesofwomeninsocietyand
consequentlytheparticipationofwomenplaywrightsinthenationaltheatreproject.The1930swas
dominatedbytheboardofdirectors,membershipofwhichincludedFrankO’Connor,ErnestBlythe
andF.R.Higgins.MyreadingoftheMinutebooksseekstoprovokequestionsandcomparisonsasto
whathaschangedsincethosetimesandwhathasnot.
85
TriciaO’BeirneisaPhDcandidateinhersecondyearofanAbbeyTheatreDigitalArchiveResearch
Fellowship at the School of Drama and Theatre, NUI Galway. The focus of her research is Irish
Theatre in the 1980s, looking at political, social and feminist theatre and the rise of collaborative
community-basedtheatre.
"WeGottaGetOutofThisPlace":YouthMovement,MigrationandSocietyin1960sIrishTheatre
BarryHoulihan(NUIGalway)
ThomasKilroy’splay‘TheDeathandResurrectionofMr.Roche’isknownforitsrepresentationofa
gaycentralmalecharacter.Yetthearchivesofthisplayrevealtwoothercompletealternateplays,
bothwithoutagaycharacterbutwhichpresentinsteadtheexperiencesofyoungwomenandmen
movingfromtraditionruralIrelandto'modernising'Dublin.Likewise,thearchivesof‘Philadelphia,
HereIcome’byBrianFrielinitsoriginal1964productionrevealanalternateendingfortheplayas
wellasFriel'sconceptsforexpressingyouthdisengagementwithmodernIrelandandtheinfluence
of American popular culture on Irish society. This paper will offer a reassessment of our
understandingoftwomajorplaysbyunderstandingthesocialsignificanceoftheirarchivalhistory.
BarryHoulihanisaPhDcandidateattheSchoolofEnglish,NUIGalway,focusingonasociological
historyofIrishTheatreandpoliticsinModernisingIreland,1955-1980.Heisalsoanarchivistatthe
James Hardiman Library, NUI Galway and specialises in theatre and political archives, in particular
theDruidTheatrearchiveandAbbeyTheatreDigitalArchive.
WerewolvesandtheWestIndies:TheInterculturalPlaysofDruidTheatre
JustineNakase(NUIGalway)
ThispaperwillexploretheinterculturalcollaborationsofDruidTheatreintheearly1990s.In1992,
DruidproducedatranslationofthePolishplayWerewolvesbyTereseLubkiewiczset‘onaspiritual
borderbetweenPolandandIreland.’Thiswasquicklyfollowedbyaco-productionofPlayboyofthe
WestIndiesbyMustaphaMaturain1994.Inthisway,DruidwasattheforefrontofIrishintercultural
theatrejustasIreland’sdemographicsbegantoshiftwiththeonsetoftheCelticTiger.Yetin1996,
with their co-production of Martin McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane, Druid’s brand began to
focusonmoretraditionalIrishwork.Thispaperwillexaminetheseearly‘90’splaystoseeifandhow
theseforaysintointerculturalismimpactedthecompany’stheatricalidentity.
JustineNakaseisaPhDcandidateatNUIGalway.Herthesislooksatsecond-generationintercultural
theatre and performance as well as race and identity in contemporary Ireland. She is a playwright
andanIrishResearchCouncilscholar.
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7A:FEMALEPERSPECTIVESONWARANDTRAUMA
TheFeminisationofWarinContemporaryIrishFemaleNarrativesofRevolution
MarisolMoralesLadrón(UniversityofAlcalá)
War and revolution, as all the other male duties, kept women not only relegated to the domestic
spherebutbasicallyuninformedaboutwhatwasregardedasthemoreseriousconcerns,including
what,whomorwhichtheywerefightingfor.However,ifthemenwereinvolvedinthewareffort,
the struggle belonged to the women. As a result, women have remained outside mainstream
historical accounts and, therefore, their stories have been kept silenced and hidden from official
records.Withtheaimofrestatingsuchimbalance,andinanattempttobringbackforgottenfigures
from the past, many female writers, including Emma Donoghue, Evelyn Conlon, Anne Enright or
AnneHaverty,haveengagedinthegenderedrewritingofhistoricalnovels.Suchisthecaseoftwo
recentnarratives,MaryMorrissy’sTheRisingofBellaCasey(2013)andLiaMills’sFallen(2014).In
the two cases, the authors delve into the struggle protestants had to face at a time of nationalist
upheaval, even though they mainly focus on the domestic sphere as a space occupied by women,
whilemenwereinvolvedinmoredecisiveevents.Bearingtheseaspectsinmind,thepresentpaper
aimsatdemonstratinghowthesewomenplayedamore“revolutionary”rolethantheonehistory
hasattributedtothem.
Marisol Morales Ladrón is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary English and Irish Literature at the
UniversityofAlcalá,Madrid.HermainareaofresearchisIrishliteratureandshecurrentlychairsthe
SpanishAssociationforIrishStudies(AEDEI).Shehaspublishedpeer-reviewedarticlesonavarietyof
English and Irish authors in Papers on Joyce, Irish University Review, Revista Canaria de Estudios
Ingleses,EstudiosdeFilologíaModerna,EstudiosirlandesesandOdisea.
CulturalmemoryandtraumaofwarandrevolutioninLiaMills’Fallen
CamilaFrancoBatista(UniversityofSaoPaulo)
Thispaperwillconsidertheintertwiningofculturalmemoryandtraumaintherepresentationofthe
GreatWarandtheEasterRisinginFallen(2014),byLiaMills.The2016“Dublin:OneCity,OneBook”
novel,itportraysDublinanditscitizensintheearlytwentiethcentury.Thestoryistoldbyayoung
womancalledKatieCrilly,whosetwinbrotherLiamispreparingtojointheBritishforcesintheFirst
WorldWar.Katie’snarrativemovesaroundthecityofDublin,itsmonumentsandtheimpressionsof
thosearoundher.Thenoveldepictshowtheviolenceofwarandrevolutionimpactsindividualsand
thecollectivity,andMills’portraitoftheearlytwentiethcenturydrawsongrief,traumaandguilt.As
Nuala Johnson (1999) states, memory is both individual and collective, never fixed or immutable.
Memory is also a means of transgressing dominant discourses about the past. Drawing on Nuala
Johnson’s, Jay Winter’s and other theorists’ works on cultural memory and the
representation/commemoration of conflicts, this paper will explore how cultural memory impacts
Lia Mills’ representation of the past, and how it challenges dominant narratives of the Great War
andtheEasterRising.
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CamilaFrancoBatistaisaLecturerofEnglishattheFederalUniversityofParana,Brazil.Sheisalsoa
PhDStudentofIrishLiteratureattheUniversityofSaoPaulo,andherresearchfocusesontheIrish
historicalnovel.SheisaffiliatedtotheBrazilianAssociationofIrishStudies(ABEI).
SuckingattheNippleofHistory:Re/presentingIreland'sPrimalScene
EmmaRadley(UniversityCollegeDublin)
FocusingonrepresentationsofEaster1916–the‘birth’ofthemodernIrishnation-inRoddyDoyle’s
AStarCalledHenryandLiaMills’Fallen,thispaperconsidersthewaysinwhicheachnovelconsiders
this moment as a point of both a crisis oftheindividualandofkinshipitself.Bothnovelsradically
rearticulatetheprimalplayersofIrishculturalideology–intheopeningpagesofDoyle'snovel,the
Mother Ireland myth crumbles with Melody Nash on the doorstep of a Dublin tenement, to be
replacedwithacastofm/othersthatrangefromthevampirictotheseductive,fromtheBansheeto
theMorrígan;LiaMillscreatesamaternalcollectivethatengendersasiteinwhichKatieCrillycan
approach ethical and feminist subjectivity. Marjorie Howes commenting on the continuity of the
nation in Irish culture, notes that this continuity depends “not on sustaining or passing on some
foundingessenceorenergy,butonarepeatedcrisisoffoundationsthatdemandseachgeneration
beginanewamidisolationandadversity”.InbothDoyle’sandMills’novels,thiscrisisoffoundations
thatblowstheprotagonists–likethenation–into'amilliontinypieces’operatesnotintheservice
ofstasisandcontinuity,butratherinthedirectionofchangeandfuturity,allowingforamomentof
dynamicpotentialthatinterruptstheconventionalnarrativeofindividualandnationinIrishculture.
In these texts, this paper will argue, the past is replayed, with difference, and a different, more
ethical,futurityisarticulated.
DrEmmaRadleylecturesintheSchoolofEnglish,DramaandFilmatUniversityCollegeDublin.Her
research is in the area of film, psychoanalysis, and cultural theory, with particular interest in Irish
cinemaandculturalstudies.ShehaspublishedarticlesonIrishfilm,filmtheory,andpsychoanalytic
cultural theory, is the co-editor of Viewpoints: Theoretical Perspectives on Irish Visual Texts (Cork
UniversityPress,2013).
7B:DEREKMAHONANDINFLUENCE
GoingGreen:DerekMahon’sEco-Poetry
IreneDeAngelis(UniversityofTorino)
From Night Crossing, which was published in 1968, to the 2010 An Autumn Wind, Mahon has
become increasingly concerned with the many forms of ecological danger that threaten to change
our environment. His urban poetry is characterized by a deep nostalgia for a return to nature,
permeatedbythesenseoftheendingofanage,historicalaswellasecological.In‘TheApotheosisof
Tins’ (1975) the narrating voice is already garbage, multiplying monstrously as mass consumerism
advances.HereMahonclearlyseemstoanticipateMichaelThompson’sideaoftransientgoodsinhis
1979 Rubbish Theory, but there are infinite other nuances in his eco-poetry, which ranges from
Metamorphosisintheageoftechnologyin‘OvidinTomis’(‘Panisdead’),totheconcernaboutcity
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garbage and the rejected in the world: the New York homeless (‘Alien Nation’) or the ‘poet of
poverty’PierPaoloPasolini,whose‘Intherefuseoftheworldanewworldisborn’Mahonchoseas
theepigraphtohis‘RomanScript’(1999).
The deep ecologist, ‘slow idealist’ Mahon is well aware of the theories of Rachel Carson,
whose 1962 apocalyptic Silent Spring is mentioned in the 2005 Harbour Lights as a ‘Durable
hardback’,aswellasthoseoftheself-regulatingEarthsystem‘Gaia’developedbyJamesLovelock.
Through an analysis of the poetic and thematic crescendo from Harbour Lights to Life on Earth
(2008)andAnAutumnWind(2010),Ihavetakenintoconsiderationthesequences‘HomagetoGaia’
and‘Dirigibles’,wherethepoetadvocatesareturnto‘refrozenice,/reflourishingrainforests,/the
oceansbackinplace’.Aswillbeargued,itispoetrywhichechoesLovelock’smostrecentstudyThe
Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can (2010), because as Richard Nixon
said,‘Itisliterallynowornever’.
IreneDeAngelisisatenuredlecturerinEnglishLiteratureattheUniversityofTorino,Italy.Sheis
theauthorofTheJapaneseEffectinContemporaryIrishPoetry(PalgraveMacmillan,2012)andcoeditorofOurSharedJapan:AnAnthologyofContemporaryIrishPoetry(DedalusPress,2007).
DerekMahonandContemporaryFrenchPoetry.
FlorenceImpens(UniversityofManchester)
Derek Mahon’s work as a translator has long been recognized as an essential component of his
creative practice. Over the years, the poet has in turn adapted novels for the television, written
dramatic adaptations of foreign plays in English, and published poetic versions from a very wide
rangeofsources.
AmongthemanylanguagesandliteraturesfromwhichMahonhasworked,Frenchmightbe
the most represented, simply perhaps because he studied the subject as a Modern Languages
student at Trinity College, Dublin and in Paris in the 1960s. Mahon has adapted plays by Molière,
Racine, and Edmond Rostand, as well as the work of many nineteenth- and twentieth-century
Frenchpoets,includingGérarddeNerval,CharlesBaudelaire,ArthurRimbaud,PaulValéry,StJohn
Perse,andPhilippeJacottet.Whilethoseversionshavereceivedsomecriticalattention,fewscholars
andcriticshaveontheotherhandcommentedonhisrecentworkfromtheFrench,andinparticular
onhisversionsofcontemporaryFrenchandFrancophonepoetry,manyofwhichweregatheredin
2013inEcho’sGrove.
This paper therefore proposes to focus on the latter, and will discuss Mahon’s recent
versionsfromwritersasdiverseasDenisRigal,MichelHouellebecq,AnnetteM’Baye,Jean-Baptiste
Tati-Loutard,IvonneBolumbu,andMoniqueMbeka.Itwilldiscusstranslationmethods,andalso,in
keepingwiththeconferencethemeof‘Change’,analysetheconfluencebetweentheworkofthose
poets and Mahon’s recent poetry, showing how those versions may have either reinforced the
coherenceofMahon’slaterwork,orontheotherhand,mayhaveprovidedwaysthroughwhichhe
hasstretchedhisownpoeticvoiceandexperimentedwithnewpoeticpersonae.
FlorenceImpensjoinedtheJohnRylandsResearchInstitute,UniversityofManchester,asaResearch
Associate in 2015 and is a specialist of contemporary British and Irish poetry, with particular
89
interests in classical reception and translation studies. She previously worked at the University of
NotreDameandatTrinityCollegeDublin,wheresheobtainedherPhDinEnglishin2013.
AfterMahon:AnxiousFormalisminIrishPoetry
AilbheDarcy
The poetry of Derek Mahon profoundly influenced a generation of emerging Irish poets in the
1990’s,amongthemVonaGroarke,ConorO’Callaghan,CaitrionaO’Reilly,DavidWheatleyandJustin
Quinn. Mahon’s poetry is self-aware and explicit in its melancholia, reviving Walter Benjamin’s
imageoftherecedingangelofhistoryasaprophetofdoom.Forthepoetscomingafter,hisexample
united artful formalism with an almost irresistible sense of belatedness as the millennium
approached.
Thispaperfocusesontheplaying-outofMahon’sinfluenceinthepoetryofJustinQuinnas,fromthe
1990’s on, history proceeds to deal a series of shocks to Irish society. Embracing globalization,
secularism, migration and the digital age, Quinn pushes against Mahon’s pessimism about the
changingworldinhispoetry.InQuinn’shands,thepostmodern,globalizedagecanbeglorious.In
Fuselage (2002), we ascend into the very sky in an airplane, look down on the whole world using
GoogleMaps,orclimbtoavantagepointovertouristhordesinaspectacularLondon:allexamples
ofanextraordinaryaccesstothesublimeavailabletotheordinaryindividualtoday.
Iarguethatmelancholiare-emerges,however,intheanxiousformalismofQuinn’spoems.
Hisgradualmovetowardstheuseoffullrhymeinthelastdecadeisamovetowardsthebackwards
look, a pining for custom and ceremony. Quinn’s poems repeatedly turn back on themselves
interrogatively, at times questioning the possibility of lyric at all in an Ireland so changed by the
forcesandtechnologiesoflateglobalcapitalism.
AilbheDarcyisapoetandco-editsMoloch,anonlinemagazineofnewartandwriting.Selectionsof
herworkareincludedintheBloodaxeanthologiesIdentityParadeandVoiceRecognition,andinher
pamphletAFictionalDress(tall-lighthouse,2009).ImaginaryMenagerie(Bloodaxe,2011)isherfirst
book-lengthcollection.
7C:BRIANFRIELREAPPRAISED
VisualizingandInhabitingIrishColonialLandscapesinBrianFriel’sTheHomePlace
Chen-weiHan(NationalTaiwanUniversity)
Performed at the Gate Theatre, Dublin on February the first 2005, The Home Place is another
attempt by Brian Friel to explore the colonial history of Ireland. Although concerned with colonial
experiences of Ireland, Friel did not directly deal with the Protestant Anglo-Irish Ascendancy in
IrelanduntilTheHomePlace,writteninthelatestageofhiscareer.Thisplay,setin1878,theeveof
theLandWarsandthepoliticalcataclysminIreland,portraysthetensionsbetweentheAnglo-Irish,
theEnglishandthelocalIrishinandaroundthebighouseoftheGores.Thispaperseekstoexplore
theambivalent,changingrelationshipsbetweentheEnglishcolonizersandIrishcoloniallandscapes
made up of the big house, the demesne, the Gaelic ruins, the remote islands, and so forth.
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Landscape does not just refer to the material forms of a given territory and people’s activities
involved in shaping its morphology; it is also about particular ways of seeing and the relevant
meanings attributed to that territory. The Englishman Richard’s imperialist way of seeing Irish
landscapes is revealed in his pseudo-scientific research and theory as well as his experiences from
hisvisitstothelocalruins,theAranIslandsandotherpartsofIreland.Ontheotherhand,theAngloIrishChristopheralsopossessesasimilarwayofseeinglandscapes,yetasalandlordspendingmost
of his time living in Irish colonial landscapes, he experiences these landscapes more in his daily
experiencesofdwelling.However,fearingthegrimprospectofbeingevictedfromhishomebyhis
son and the local tenants, Christopher, also as a diasporic subject, develops ambivalent feelings
towardthehomeoforigininKentandthehomeofsettlementinhisbighouse.
Chen-wei Han completed an MA thesis entitled The Spatial Politics of Home: Gender, NationBuilding,andDiasporainBrianFriel’sPlays,publishedonToniMorrison’sJazzinWenshanReviewof
Literature and Culture (Taiwan), and is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Foreign
LanguagesandLiteraturesattheNationalTaiwanUniversity.
‘We’ve come to this crossroads’: communities, cultures, and post-cultures in Steiner’s In
Bluebeard’sCastleandFriel’sTranslations
ZosiaKuczynska(TrinityCollegeDublin)
TheinfluenceofGeorgeSteiner’sInBluebeard’sCastle(1971)onBrianFriel’sTranslations(1980)is
routinely overshadowed by the critical attention given to the influence of Steiner’s After Babel
(1975)onthesameplay.Inthispaper,IshowcaseFriel’sengagementwithInBluebeard’sCastleand
thewayinwhichhecombinesSteiner’sobservationsona‘classic’culture,a‘primitive’society,anda
‘post-culture’tosuggestthattwoparadoxicalaxiomatictruthsunderpinandundermineanyattempt
at communality in times of social upheaval: that the transcendence-values (that is to say sense of
enduranceandofthefuture)ofaculturalidentityarerootedinlanguage,andthatthecountersof
languagearepronetolexicalfossilisation.
IexaminethewayinwhichFrielincorporatestwoofthecentralconflictsofInBluebeard’s
CastleintoTranslations.Thefirstoftheseconflictsisbetweenthemacroleveloftheclassiccultures
of Western civilisation and the micro level of community; the second is between the ‘dur désir de
durer’ of cultures whose transcendence values are rooted in language and the ‘readiness not to
endure’ofSteiner’s‘post-culture’.UltimatelyIsuggestthattheconflictsatworkinTranslationsare
less a conflict between nations than between contrasting definitions of culture itself at a time of
collective identity crisis and imminent change. Thus Translations emerges as a play caught at a
crossroadsbetweencultures:betweenculturesofprogressandculturesofstasis;betweencultures
ofexpectationandculturesofmemory;and,aboveall,betweenculturesofthepre-eminenceofthe
publicwordthattranscendshumanmortalityandculturesofthepre-eminenceoftheprivateimage
whichmustberenewedinordertocombatthemortalityoflanguage.
ZosiaKuczyńskahasrecentlysubmittedherPhDthesis,‘TimeandSpaceinthePlaysofBrianFriel’,
atTrinityCollegeDublin(TCD),whereshewassupervisedbyNicholasGreneandChrisMorash.Her
article on post-catastrophic space-time in the plays of Robert Graves and Louis MacNeice was
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recentlypublishedinGravesiana.ShecurrentlyteachesIrishWritingatundergraduatelevelTCDand
IrishPoetryatpostgraduatelevelatQueen’sUniversityBelfast.
TheDeadinBrianFriel’sWork
AdrianaCarvalhoCapuchinho(UniversidadeFederalDoTocantins)
This paper will briefly discuss six of Brian Friel’s plays which represent dead characters acting on
stage as regular people. I intend to observe Brian Friel’s portrayal of the deceased on stage not
merelyasexperimentationbutasameansofmakingsenseofthedifficultiesinsocialandcultural
transitions in Ireland. Sometimes the characters’ condition as deceased is hardly noticed until the
end of the play, such as Joe and Mag in Winners (1972) and Frank in Molly Sweeney (1994).
However,thecharacter’ssituationasdeceasedisslowlyacknowledgedalongtheplayinFaithHealer
(1979)andinLivingQuarters(1977),bothhavingaFrankasdeceased.Eventually,inFreedomofthe
City (1973) and in Performances (2003), the audience is aware from the very beginning that the
threeprotesters,aswellasthecomposerLèosJanácekarewalkingdeadthoughtheylookfulloflife.
The dead in Friel’s plays will be regarded here as liminal characters promoting disturbance to life
orderasproposedbyVictorTurnerinDramas,Fields,andMetaphors(1974).Weshallfocusmostly
on the difficulties towards change in Ireland represented by the dead and by the rites of passage
involvingthem.Deathisoneofthemostcomplexeventsinindividualaswellasinsociallives,thus
involving more than the interruption of life and the burial of the corpse. To illustrate this, I recall
ArnoldVanGennepwhoinTheRitesofPassage(1960)describeddeathasamajorriteofpassage
whoseimpactincreasesaccordingtothesocialroleofthedeadperson.Hestateddeathimpliesa
ritualtothosewhodie.
Adriana Carvalho Capuchinho is a graduate of Social Sciences and English Language from the
University of São Paulo, Brazil. She has an MA in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Linguistic and
LiteraryStudiesinEnglishLanguage,bothfromUniversityofSãoPaulo.Sheiscurrentlyaprofessor
attheNationalUniversityofTocantinsresearchinginIrishDramaandinNTCIinTeachingPractices.
7D:VISUALANDVERBALCURRENCIES
ATalkingShillingandtheChangingIrishNation
ColleenTaylor(BostonCollege)
WhatdoesamysticaltalkingcoinhavetodowithIrishnationalism?Averygreatdeal,asthispaper
argues.ShortlyaftertheActofUnionin1801—aperiodofmomentousculturalandpoliticalchange
in Ireland—a story called “The Adventures of a Bad Shilling in the Kingdom of Ireland” (1805)
appearedinelevenpartsinDublin’smonthlymagazine,Ireland’sMirror.Untilnow,thisostensibly
absurdstoryhasbeenvirtuallyunstudied,butIargueforitsnationalsignificanceinrelationtogenre
andallegory.“TheAdventures”combinestwounlikelyliteraryforms:theEnglishit-narrativeandthe
Irishaisling.Thestorybelongstothepopulareighteenth-centurygenreoftheit-narrative(agenre
recently recovered by the work of Mark Blackwell), in which a circulating object narrates its
autobiography. According to generic convention, this eponymous bad shilling relates his tale of
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tragic debasement: once a glorious piece of Milesian jewelry, “he” has since suffered kidnapping,
melting,anddebasementintoafakeBritishcoin.Perhapsmoreimportantly,“TheAdventuresofa
BadShilling”alsoqualifiesasamodern-dayEnglish-languageaisling.Kidnappedfromhis“rightful”
Irish owners and cruelly tarnished by his captors, the coin represents a spéirbhean. Through its
hybridity as it-narrative and aisling, this story’s modified allegorical form actively encodes a new
nationalimaginationthatisbothGaelicandAnglicized,folkloricandmodern,fantasticandmaterial.
Furthermore, the coin’s tale ironically literalizes the anti-Unionist take on British governance in
IrelandbyshowingthatwhatwasoncepreciousandIrishisnowdebasedandBritish.
Using the work of Mark Blackwell, Joep Leerssen, Bonnie Blackwell, and Aileen Douglas, I
emphasizethecorrelationbetweencoinandwomaninthisnewdualgenreofit-aisling.AsBonnie
Blackwellhasargued,thecirculationofwomeninthesexualmarketplaceparallelsthecirculationof
items in a capitalist market. Likewise, in “The Adventures,” the spéirbhean/shilling is given literal
monetary value, underscoring the object-status of women in imperial nationalism and the anxiety
aroundculturaldevaluationinIreland.Theshillinghighlightsthechangingrelationshipbetweenthe
idea of woman and nineteenth-century society’s preoccupation with things. In turn, this little
shillingconveysthesignificanceoftheobject’svalue—beitwomanorcoin—forIreland’stransition
intoanew,post-Unionnationalism.
ColleenTaylorisaPhDcandidateinEnglishandIrishStudiesatBostonCollege,whereshestudies
eighteenth-centuryIrishliterature.SheholdsanMAinIrishwritingfromTrinityCollegeDublinanda
BAfromFordhamUniversity.Herprimaryresearchinterestsarethenationaltale,recoveryworkin
Irishwomen’swriting,andnewmaterialistfeministtheory.OutsideofBostonCollege,shewritesa
musiccolumnfortheIrishEchonewspaperinNewYork.
ChangingIreland’simageandsubvertingBritishauthorityinnationalistcaricatures
ClaireDubois(UniversitéLille3)
In a definition of humour in the 1780 French Encyclopédie, Diderot claimed that the comic effect
restedonanoftenunconsciouscomparisonbetweenwhatweexpectedtoseeandwhatwastobe
seen. Caricature is based on this process of transgression and anomaly. It is a satirical and critical
image with multiple layers of meaning aimed at a particular public and inscribed in the social and
political sphere. It thus becomes a way of self-expression, a tool of public intervention and social
opposition,andevenanopponentpoliticalstrategy.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze a series of satirical chromolithographs published
between1880and1910inIrishnationalistnewspaperssuchastheWeeklyFreeman,theNation,or
UnitedIrelandtheaimofwhichwastochallengethederogatoryrepresentationofIrelandinBritish
satiricalnewspapersandactasorganssupportingParnellduringthecampaignforHomeRule.Irish
nationalist chromolithographs often appropriated and altered models from Punch or other British
comic weeklies, thus undermining the British perception of Ireland. I wish to show that this visual
strategycontributedtotheshapingofanIrishidentitythroughthesubversionofBritishauthority,
thusconstructinganationalistcommunityaroundadebasedimageofBritainandBritishpoliticians.
TheIrishsatiricalpressplayedacriticalroleinshapingIrishpublicopinionandmobilizingthepeople
forthenationalistcauseinthecontextoftheHomeRulecrisis.
93
ClaireDuboislecturesinIrishStudiesatLille3University.SincedefendingherPhDin2006shehas
been working mostly on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the history of ideas, the press,
travel narratives and visual representations of Ireland. She also co-edited The Foreignness of
Foreigners:CulturalrepresentationsoftheOtherinBritain(2015).
‘Silentambassadorsofnationaltaste’–W.B.Yeats’sSculpturalcoinsandtheFreeStateCoinage
JackQuin(UniversityofYork)
Coins are low relief sculptures. The competing designs for the new coinage of the Irish Free State
weremadebyrenownedsculptorsandmedallistsincludingIvanMeštrović,PublioMorbiducci,and
Carl Milles. And leading sculptors, painters and art curators joined the committee to solicit and
select designs for the first Irish coins produced since 1822. As chairman of the Irish coinage
committee,W.B.Yeatsspearheadedthesearchforappropriatesculptorstodesignthenewcoinage.
However, the extent to which Yeats shirked collective decision-making, often unsuccessfully – to
pursue his own ambitions and ideas for what the coinage might be, has not received sustained
criticalattention.
ThispaperwillisolatethesingularcontributionsbutalsothefrustrationsthatYeatsfacedin
his role as chairman. His lobbying for ancient Sicilian coins to be used as models for prospective
sculptors, his choice of the Swedish sculptor Carl Milles, and his ambition for a coinage that could
syncretise various mythologies, are deserving of further examination. Yeats first encountered
Milles’smonumentalstatuesin1923whenhevisitedStockholmtoreceivetheNobelPrize.Hislater
writingsandcourtingofthesculptorfortheFreeStatecommission1926-1928,suggestanalignment
ofinterestsaroundtheutilityofnationalmythanditsrepresentationinsculpture,coinandverse.
UltimatelythispaperwillsituateYeats’spoeticengagementwithcoinsfrom‘BrownPenny’
(1910)to‘Parnell’sFuneral’(1935)withinacomplexnegotiationofthecoinasavisualartsmedium
of portraiture in ekphrastic episodes, as a durable talisman that records and transmits ancient
myths,andasastructuralmetaphorforthepoemitself.
7E:CHANGELINGS:FOLKLOREINCONTEMPORARYIRISHFICTION
ChangingPatternsandPatternsofChangeintheFictionofÉilísNíDhuibhne
GiovannaTallone
Different forms and different levels of change in an extended sense underlie Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s
fictionandareembeddedinthevariouswaysshapeshiftingisdealtwithinhernovelsandstories.As
thetitleofastoryfromher1991collectionEatingWomenisnotRecommended“TheShapeshifters”
highlights,NíDhuibhnerepeatedlyfocusesontheindividualexperienceoftransitionandchangeand
the changing nature of femininity - adolescence in The Dancers Dancing, pregnancy in the stories
“The moon shines clear, the horseman’s here” and “Holiday in the land of Murdered dreams”, or
anorexiain“ThePeacocks”and“BikesIhaveLost”.
Her academic interest in folklore involves the variegated shapes of stories in different
context at different times, which marks Ní Dhuibhne’s narrative technique in her postmodern
rewritings of traditional stories. Thus textual change in the juxtaposition of intertextuality and
94
folklore comes to the fore in the short story “Midwife to the Fairies” and in the whole structural
organizationofher1999collectionTheInlandIce.
Patterns of change can also be identified as social changes in less renowned stories like
“Emma Jane” and “Right of Passage”, which shed light on the personal experience of Ireland’s
gradualchangeanddevelopmentintoamulticulturalcountry.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the variety of patterns of change in Éilís Ní
Dhuibhne’slongandshortfictionandthewaychangingpatterns atatextuallevelintertwinewith
changesinIrishsocietyatlarge.
GiovannaTallonegraduatedinModernLanguagesatUniversitàCattolica,MilanandholdsaPhDin
EnglishStudiesfromtheUniversityofFlorence.ShehaspublishedessaysonÉilísNíDhuibhne,Mary
Lavin,ClareBoylan,LadyGregoryandBrianFriel.HerresearchinterestsincludeIrishwomenwriters,
contemporaryIrishdrama,andtheremakesofOldIrishlegends.
FolkloricChangeinColmToibin’sBrooklyn
MaryHelenThuente(NorthCarolinaStateUniversity)
ThispaperwillexploreEilisLacey’schangeofidentityfromIrishtoIrish-AmericaninColmToibin’s
Brooklyn(2009)as“folkloricchange,”aprocesscombiningthestabilityandvariationinherentinfolk
tradition: the preservation of Eilis’ core Irish personality and the addition of new “American”
attributes.ToibinchartsthischangebyjuxtaposingAmericaandIrelandincomparativeportraitsof
houses, stores, churches, beaches, suitors, music and dance to illustrate Eilis’ liminal situation and
coming-of-age in early 1950’s Brooklyn where she navigates both a mini-Irish and a modern
American culture. Her transitional Brooklyn “family” is composed of two Wexford immigrants,
FatherFloodwholooksoutforherand“MaKehoe”atwhoseboardinghouseresidentsareatoncea
microcosm of Irish counties and of New York life. Eilis’ visit to her cold, controlling mother in
Enniscorthy after two years in Brooklyn illuminates her change from an Irish daughter to the
AmericanwifeofTony,anItalian-AmericanwhomshehadsecretlymarriedbeforeleavingBrooklyn.
Eilisremainsherself,buthernewIrish-AmericanselfisnolongerathomeinEnniscorthywhereshe
feelslikeherdeceasedsister’sghost.EilisleavesEnniscorthyandwillsoonleaveBrooklynforLong
IslandwheresheandTonywilldesignandbuildtheirownhomewhereshehopestoworkpart-time
as an accountant for Tony’s family’s construction business. Eilis’ new Irish-American life will
combine personal and professional roles, a balance impossible to her former Irish self and life in
Enniscorthy.EilisLaceythusembodiesAnneEnright’sobservationthat“Itisimpossibletoinhabita
formerself.”
Mary Thuente has research interests in Irish literature and culture. Her recent research and
publications focus on twentieth-century Irish drama, the iconography of harps and women in Irish
literature and culture, and Lady Morgan, Sydney Owenson's writings. She is past president of the
AmericanConferenceforIrishStudies(ACIS).
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"Ouridentityisourinstability":ChangelingidentityinHugoHamilton'sDisguise
AudreyRobitaillié(Queen'sUniversityBelfast)
ThisstudywillanalysethemotifofthechangelinginanovelbythecontemporaryIrishwriterHugo
Hamilton, Disguise, published in 2008. The protagonist, Gregor Liedmann, believes that he was
adoptedattheendofWorldWarIItoreplaceatwo-year-oldboywhodiedinabombing.Gregoris
convinced that he is “a changeling, an impostor living a surrogate life inside the persona of a
deceasedGerman.”Thenovelexploresthemesofliminality,identity,othernessandbelongingina
context of great economic, political and social change for Germany. Hamilton portrays a man in
searchofhisownhistoryandidentity.Thenotionofchange,bothinthesenseofexchangeandof
transformation,isattheheartofthenovel.
ThispaperofferstoanalysehowHamiltonnegotiatesthetopicofdividedidentityusingthe
tropeofthechangeling,afolkfigurewhichisprominentinIrishandGermanfolklore.Hetransforms
and adapts the motif, reterritorialising it in his own Irish-German novel, to reuse Deleuze and
Guattari's concept. The changeling figure, paradoxically mentioned only once in the narrative and
yet omnipresent in the book, has been de-contextualised, only to be reterritorialised in the
contemporary literature of Hugo Hamilton, to address the search for identity undergone by the
protagonist,aswellastoreflecttheauthor'sownquestionings.
Audrey Robitaillié recently graduated with a PhD in Irish Studies, jointly awarded by Queen's
University Belfast (QUB) and the Université de Caen Basse-Normandie. She specialises in Irish
mythology and folklore in literature and her thesis investigated the figure of the changeling in
folkloreandliterature,ofIrelandandoftheIrishdiaspora.SheiscurrentlyaTeachingAssistantat
QUB.
7F:CHANGINGTHEVIEW:AESTHETICRESPONSESTOTHEVISUALARTS
This panel explores Anglo-Irish literary responses to the visual arts in context and the aesthetic
implications of Classical and Renaissance art on the work of Edward Dowden (1843-1913), W.B.
Yeats(1865-1939),andElizabethBowen(1899-1973),respectively.
A“delicatetyranny”:Authority,Nationality,andGenderinEdwardDowden’sEkphrasticPoetry
CharlesI.Armstrong(UniversityofAgder)
As part of his 1876 volume of Poems, Edward Dowden included a suite of five poems about art.
Collectively titled “In the Galleries,” these feature three responses to sculptural works of art from
classicalantiquity–theApolloBelvedere,theVenusdeMilo,andastatueof“AntinousCrownedas
Bacchus”–inadditiontopiecesonLeonardoDaVinci’s“MonaLisa”andRogiervanderWeyden’s
“St. Luke Painting the Virgin.” In his later critical Transcripts and Studies, Dowden would describe
themaladiedusiècleoftheVictorianeraasastateofindecisivepowerlessness,where“thereisno
dominantfaith,noruleoflife,nocompellingardour.”Thesepoemsturntoartasdidacticguidesin
a time of troubled transition. Despite an appearance of idealized serenity, Dowden’s poetic
dialogues with what he interprets as character-building exemplars cannot escape the more
contentious ground of “cloudy realms of thought.” In addition to observing how Dowden here
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negotiates the traditional, paragonal relationship between words and images, this paper will
approachthesepoemsasearlyIrishexamplesofekphrasis,contextualizingthemnotonlywithinthe
frameworkofDowden’sAnglo-Irishidentity,butalsohisearlyexposuretotheneo-classicalimpulse
oftheCanovacastsinCork.Genderissuesalsoloomlargeinthesepoems,aspartofDowden’stacit
debate with Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House” and the changing norms of Victorian
masculinity.
CharlesI.ArmstrongisaprofessorofBritishliteratureattheUniversityofAgder,Norway.Heisthe
author of three monographs, includingReframing Yeats: Genre, Allusion and History(Bloomsbury,
2013). He has also co-edited three essay collections, most recentlyThe Crossings of Art in
Ireland(PeterLang,2014).
ARenaissanceandnotaRevival:W.B.YeatsandConnoisseurship
TomWalker(TrinityCollegeDublin)
Certain artworks and writings associated with the Italian Renaissance, such as Titian’s portraits or
Castiglione’sBook of the Courtier, became important touchstones for W.B. Yeats during the 1900s
and1910s.SeveralcriticshavenotedthesereferencepointswithinYeats’sworkandthought.Yet
beyond the impact of the canonical figures of Ruskin and Pater, many of the specific cultural
networksandbroaderdiscoursesthroughwhichYeatscametoconceiveofhisnotionsoftheItalian
Renaissancehavestilltobedeeplyexplored.Moreover,yettobeunderstoodarethewaysinwhich
Yeats’s project of cultural revival (Irish or otherwise) started to turn towards Italian artistic and
historic parallels. Through unearthing Yeats’s exposure to the emerging figure of the connoisseur
and its attendant ideologies – by drawing on archival research in relation to associates such as
ArthurSymons,LadyGregory,HughLane,WilliamRothensteinandCharlesRicketts,aswellasthe
broader gallery and print culture of the time – this paper will illuminate further Yeats’s textual
deploymentoftheItalianRenaissance.Morespecifically,itwillseektodrawouttheaestheticand
socio-political implications of the poet’s (in some regards paradoxical) investment in visions of
integrated accomplishment and specialist expertise within Ireland’s revivalist (and ultimately
revolutionary)culturalsphereoftheperiod.
Tom Walker is the Ussher Assistant Professor of Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin. His book
Louis MacNeice and the Irish Poetry of his Time was published by Oxford University Press in 2015.
HeisnowundertakingresearchintoW.B.Yeatsandartwriting.
Making“wordsdotheworkoflineandcolour”:ElizabethBowen’sVerbalPainting
MichaelWaldron(UniversityCollegeCork)
ElizabethBowenbeganwritinginthemidstofartisticcrisis.Havingwithdrawnfromabrieftermat
artschoolwhilestillateenager,shewouldlaterreflectthathersubsequentearlyfictions“hadthe
characterofalasthope.”Indeed,quotingfromRobertBrowning’s PippaPassesintheepigraphto
Lois Farquar’s drawing books in The Last September (1929), Bowen tellingly gestures towards her
ownexperience:“Iamapainterwhocannotpaint...”Whileherdrawingpowersremainedstunted,
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theinfluenceofthislostartwastolingerasBowenwouldnotonlygoontodescribeherselfasa
“visualwriter”butwouldalsocharacterisethebestofherwritingas“verbalpainting.”Considering
thisprocess,sheasserts“thatoftenwhenIwriteIamtryingtomakewordsdotheworkoflineand
colour” and thus acknowledges her debt to the building blocks of Italian Renaissance art: disegno
(line) and colorito (colour). By conceptualising and framing her work in this manner, I argue that
Bowen lays claim to her own modernist aesthetic which adapts traditional visual techniques to
literary form. In assessing selected examples of her writing which display such practice, this paper
seeks to reveal how Bowen’s verbal painting establishes a distinctive and compellingly modernist
visuality.
DrMichaelWaldronisResearchAssistantonDeepMaps:WestCorkCoastalCulturesattheSchool
of English, University College Cork (UCC). He received his PhD from UCC in 2016 with the thesis
Elizabeth Bowen and the Art of Visuality, for which he was awarded an Irish Research Council
postgraduatescholarship.Hisresearchfocusesontheintersectionbetweenliteratureandvisualart
andhehaspublishedonnineteenth-centuryIrishart.
7G:REWRITINGHISTORYINCONTEMPORARYIRISHWRITING
LandscapesofMemory:TheRepresentationoftheConnectionbetweenRememberingProcesses
andLandscapesinColmToibin’sTheHeatherBlazing(1992)andAnneEnright’sTheGreenRoad
(2015)
KübraÖzermis(FreieUniversitätBerlin)
InmypaperIwillanalysehowtherelationshipbetweenmemoryandlandscapeisdealtwithinIrish
fiction and how their representations enable a negotiation of national narrative and personal
identity. In order to do this, I will focus on Colm Toibin’s The Heather Blazing (1992) and Anne
Enright’s The Green Road (2015). While The Heather Blazing explores the past of the Irish judge
Eamon Redmond in order to give a sense back to his disintegrating life in the present, The Green
Road deals with the life of the Madigan siblings who are forced to confront their past and at the
sametimetheirmotherwhohasalwaysstruggledtoexpressherfeelingsforherchildren.
Despite the 23 years that lie between the publications of each novel they both center their
narrativesaroundmemoryandfrequentlydepicttheircharactersinmomentsofremembering.Both
novelsdonotonlyreconstructindividualmemoryorthememoryofaparticularfamilybutabstract
thesemicrosmicmemoriestoawiderculturalornationalmemory.Consideringthisthelandscapes
of Wexford and Clare become essential as they trigger the remembering processes of characters.
Especially,inthecaseofTheHeatherBlazingthelandscapeitselfisembeddedwithinthecontextof
culturalornationalmemoryastheprotagonistremembershishometownwherethe1798rebellion
took place. It is striking that the novels were published more than two decades apart from each
other and yet deal with the matter of landscape and memory with a wider national narrative as a
backdrop in a similar way. Thus, constructing imagined landscapes that refer to actual landscapes
and their link to national narratives can be identified as a continuity within Irish literature.
Therefore,Iwillalsohighlightthatmarkinglandscapesandconnectingthemtomemoryisnotonlya
phenomenainIrishfictionbutalsooccursingeneralcommemorationcultureinIrelandsuchasin
thecaseoftheEasterRisingorTheFamine.
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Kübra Özermis, a PhD candidate at Freie Universität Berlin, works in the fields of English and Irish
Literary and Cultural Studies and is completing a thesis entitled “The Power of the Narrative: The
Representation of Bloody Sunday’s (1972) Victims’ Narrative in Cultural Expressions from the
Counter-Discourse.”
“NothingSheCouldDoWouldMakeItChange”:WhatLadyGregoryDoesinColmTóibín’sStories
TeresaCasal(UniversityofLisbon)
Lady Gregory features recurrently in Colm Tóibín’s writing, from the biographical essay Lady
Gregory’sToothbrush(2002),totwoshortstories,“Silence”,inTheEmptyFamily(2010),and“The
JourneytoGalway”,inAllOverIreland:NewIrishShortStories,editedbyDeirdreMadden(2015).If
the essay captures the “mixture of ambiguity and arrogance” (Tóibín 2002, 58) of Lady Gregory’s
(and Yeats’s) position in the changing Ireland that is currently being commemorated, the stories
addresstwocriticalmomentsinherlife:“Silence”focusesonhersecretaffairwiththepoetWilfrid
ScawenBlunt,while“TheJourneytoGalway”rendersthemomentwhenshereceivesthenewsof
herson’sdeathintheFirstWorldWarandtravelstoGalwaycarryingthetelegramaddressedtoher
daughter-in-law. Both are memory stories insofar as they present us with Lady Gregory’s
retrospective look in the face of loss, aware that though “nothing she could do would make it
change”(Tóibín2015,238),timeandmemorywouldneverthelesschangethe“brutalsinglefact”of
herson’sdeathinto“story,”andthuserodeit,for“placingitintime(…)wouldcometosoftenwhat
hadhappened,easeit,edgeitaway”(Tóibín2015,237).
ByengagingwithTóibín’sdepictionofLadyGregory’sworkofmourning,Iwillconsiderthe
questionsraisedbothbyhersenseoftheclashbetween“brutalfact”and“story,”andbyTóibín’s
useoffacts(herbiography)andfiction(toaccesstheprivacyofhermind)aspartofhisongoingand
multifaceted exploration of the experience of grief: how does story change experience? Does
Tóibín’s fiction provide insight into Lady Gregory’s life? Conversely, does the story of her grief
provideinsightintoourown?
Teresa Casal is Assistant Professor in English at the University of Lisbon and a researcher in Irish
Studies and Health Humanities at the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES). Her
current research interests include contemporary Irish fiction and non-fiction and the uses of
narrative as a form of knowledge. She has co-edited, with Peter Bray, Beyond Diagnosis: Relating
PersontoPatient,PatienttoPerson(2014).
IntheNameofLove:HistoryandStoryinSebastianBarry’sTheSecretScripture
Yu-chenLin(NationalSunYat-senUniversity)
Fintan O’Toole suggests that the marginalized people in Irish history have always been the central
concerns in Sebastian Barry’s works, and these characters seem to possess “an amazing grace.”
Roseanne Clear, the female protagonist in Barry’s novel The Secret Scripture, is no exception. A
centenarianPresbyterianwomanconfinedinanasylumsincethe1950sforherallegedmurderofan
illegitimate newborn child, Roseanne has been regarded as a shame to Sligo for her family
backgroundandsexualtransgression.Her“testimony”ofherself,however,revealsaresilient,even
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happywomancandidabouthertrialsexceptforherfather’sdisgraceasaformerpolicealongwith
his violent death. With her unconditional love for life she readily forgives Dr. Grene, senior
psychiatristoftheasylumaswellasthechildshehaspresumablymurdered,forthewrongdoingof
hisprofessionincomplicitywithCatholicIreland.HermiraculousloveisframedbyBarry’snarrative
politics,whichnegotiatesoutofhertestimonyandDr.Grene’smedicaldiscourseanalternativeIrish
historyinthenameofloveattheexpenseofplausibility.
Yu-chen Lin is Professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Sun Yat-sen University,
Taiwan.HerresearchinterestsaremodernIrishliteratureandIrishAmericanfiction.
7H:WALTERMACKENANDCHANGE
Walter Macken was a best-selling novelist and acclaimed playwright in his time, internationally
popularwithyoungandadultaudiences,butsofarhehasbeenlargelyignoredbyacademics.This
panelwillevaluateMacken’smanifoldimpulsestotwentieth-centuryIrishliteratureandcultureand
hisversatilityasastorytellerwhofrequentlychangedperspectives,genres,mediaandwhoworked
both in/with the English and the Irish language. Other relevant aspects of Macken's work in the
contextoftheconferencetopic“Change”areforexample:Hisrepresentationsofhistoricalchange
acrosstimesandperiods,theadaptationsofhisplaysandnovelsasfilms,histargetingofdifferent
audiences(IrishandAmerican,youngandadult,readersandtheatreaudiences),aswellaschanging
scholarlyperspectivesonMacken.
GenerationalChangeinSelectedPlaysbyWalterMacken
EvaKerski(UniversityofWuppertal)
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s the notion of family in Ireland can be characterised as
conservative.Post-conflictIrishsocietywasorganisedaroundthedoctrineoftheseparatespheres
which differentiates between private female and public male activities. This becomes particularly
evidentintheConstitutionof1937,whichimplementedthismodelasoneofthecornerstonesofthe
Irish state. This family and gender ideology was largely unquestioned when Walter Macken
celebrated his greatest success on the Irish stage with his realistic contemporary plays, such as
Mungo’s Mansion (1946), Vacant Possession (1948), Home is the Hero (1953), and Twilight of a
Warrior (1956). (With the Wuppertal Macken archive at hand, I plan to also include some of
Macken’sunpublishedplaysinmyanalysis.)
Themainaimofmypaperistoinvestigatethecomplexrelationshipbetweengenerational
change and family change in Macken’s anglophone dramatic work and to demonstrate how it
represents the Irish family on the verge of a fundamental change towards a modern diversity of
familymodels.ManyofMacken’splaysrevolvearoundfatherfigureswhodonotfulfillthegender
rolesexpectedofthem.Iwillfocusonhowsonsanddaughtersreact,whentheirfathersfailtoactas
breadwinnersandresponsibleheadsoftheirfamilies.Macken’splaysdepictseveralpossiblewaysin
which the younger generation plans a future that will bring familial peace and happiness. The
majority of sons and daughters will be shown to construct their future by reestablishing a
conservativeidealofthefamilywhichrestsontheseparatespheresideology.Manyofthesonsand
daughtersinMacken’splays,however,havedifficultiestoliveuptothisidealandshowatendency
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towardsthebehaviourtheyhaveobservedintheirparents.Theproblemsofputtingthedoctrineof
the gendered spheres into practice is thus carefully negotiated. Furthermore, Macken’s plays also
featureanumberofyoungcharacterswhoindicatealternativestothedominantconservativeideal.
StoriesofaChangelessRuralIreland:WalterMacken’sShortFiction
ElkeD’hoker(KatholiekeUniversiteitLeuven)
AlthoughWalterMacken’sshortstoriesarenowallbutforgotten,theywereverysuccessfulonboth
sidesoftheAtlanticwhentheyfirstappeared.Storiesaboutthefishingandfarmingcommunitieson
the Galway coast were published in numerous magazines, newspapers and anthologies both in
IrelandandtheU.S.ThesewerecollectedinthecollectionsGodMadeSunday(1951)andTheGreen
Hills (1962). Macken’s stories in these collections tell of the day-to-day life in the village
communities and of the amusing, tragic or revelatory incidents that puncture the commonplace.
UnlikeO’Connor’s‘lonelyvoice’stories,hisstoriesarerootedintheruralcommunitieswhichremain
remarkably untouched by the progress of modernity elsewhere. In my paper, I propose to analyse
Macken’sstagingofthecommunity,intermsof(a)narrativevoice,(b)communalchorusandnorms,
and(c)therelationbetweenprotagonistandthecommunity.Inthesecondpartofmypaper,Iwill
contrastMacken’sruralstorieswiththestoriesposthumouslygatheredinCityoftheTribes(1997),
whichareallsetin1940sGalway.ThesedarkerstoriesbearwitnesstoIreland’sviolentstruggleand
arecloserintonetoO’Connor’sstoriesofdisillusionment,lonelinessandalienation.Thedifference
in theme corresponds in a difference in narrative style and voice, which makes for an interesting
comparison with the majority of Macken’s stories about communal values in a changeless rural
Ireland.
Elke D’hoker is senior lecturer at the University of Leuven, Belgium and research director for the
humanities of the Leuven Centre for Irish Studies. She is the author of Visions of Alterity:
Representation in the Works of John Banville (Rodopi, 2004), editor of Mary Lavin (Irish Academic
Press, 2013), and co-editor of Irish Women Writers (Peter Lang, 2011). Her new monograph, Irish
WomenWritersandtheModernShortStory,isforthcomingfromPalgrave.
Changing(Conceptsof)HistoryinMacken'sHistoricalTrilogy
KatharinaRennhak(UniversityofWuppertal)
In my analysis of Walter Macken’s bestselling historical trilogy – which consists of three historical
novels that are set during three different critical moments of Irish history: the Cromwellian
Conquest,theGreatFamineandduringthetimefrombeforetheEasterRisingtotheCivilWar–I
will demonstrate how the author depicts historical change through quite drastic variations of the
recurringcharacterconstellationthatinvariablyorganizeshishistoricalplots(andisdeemedtypical
for the genre by George Lukacs): the relationship between a fictional Irish “little man” on the one
hand and a historical figure who drives the political action on the other. The structural analysis of
Macken’snovelswilldemonstratenotonlyhowtheauthordepictsandevaluateshistoricalchange,
but also how he imagines historical worlds that are characterized by historically specific, i.e.
changing,conceptsofhistory:WhilethecharactersofSeektheFairLandregardhistoryassomething
transcendent,thenineteenth-centuryworldofTheSilentPeopleisdefinedbytheprotagonists’faith
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in historical progress. The Irishmen involved in the War of Independence and the Civil War in The
ScorchingWind,incontrast,regardhistoryascontingent.Macken’sphilosophyofthecommonman
andhisidealofanIrishcommunity,Iwillsuggest,mustbeevaluatedagainstthebackgroundofthe
author’s conceptualisation of history and the constructions of masculinity which structure his
historicalnarratives.
KatharinaRennhakstudiedEnglishandGermanattheLudwig-Maximilians-UniversitätMunichand
(asanERASMUSstudent)atNUIMaynooth.From1997to2009,shetaughtEnglishLiteratureatthe
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität where she also received her PhD (2001) and completed her
Habilitation (2007). She was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the English Department, University of
Texas at Austin (2004). Since 2009, she is professor for English Literature at the University of
Wuppertal.
8A:TWENTIETH-ANDTWENTY-FIRST-CENTURYIRISHWOMEN’SFICTION
The Memory Play Reconfigured: Dramatizing the Change of Emotions in Deirdre Kinahan’s
Spinning
MáriaKurdi(UniversityofPécs,Hungary)
Kinahan’s Spinning (2014) is a memory play, a new representative of the dramatic genre that has
beenpresentinIrishtheatreformanyyears.Intheplayawomanandamanmeetinthepresent
whobothsufferfromthetraumaofhavinglostadaughterandwhoseownpersonalidentitybecame
shattered by that experience. It is through a series of scenes enacted from the past that the two
people get nearer to understanding the deeper reasons which led to what happened four years
before. The specific feature of the play is that it foregrounds changes in the emotional states and
reactionsofthecharacters.InthispaperIanalyzethedramatizationoftheprocessduringwhichthe
protagonists,SusanandConor,fromhatredandguiltyfeelingsmovetowardsomekindofmutually
felt empathy and the realization that they have gathered strength to go on. I will also look at the
waysinwhichthememoryscenesprovideaglimpseoftherecentchangesintheIrishmarriageand
family conditions that contextualize the personal emotions. In my discussion I will make use of
insightspresentedbytheoriesofaffecttoexplorethedramaticportrayalofthechanginglandscape
offeelings.
“Allhavethisfalling-sickness”:FourStoriesfromMaryCostello’sCollectionTheChinaFactory
VivianValvanoLynch(St.John’sUniversity)
This paper will continue the work that began with my presentation at ACIS 2016, Notre Dame.
ComplementingmyanalysesdrawnfromMaryCostello’snovelAcademyStreetandshortstory“You
FillUpMySenses,”Iwillexaminethestories“TheChinaFactory,”“ThePatioMan,”“AndWhoWill
PayCharon?”and“TheSewingRoom.”Again,myemphasiswillbeoncharacterswhoepitomizethe
headnotefromRainerMariaRilkethatCostellousestointroduceherstorycollection:
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Andnightbynight,downintosolitude,
Theheavyearthfallsfarfromeverystar.
Weareallfalling.Thishand’sfallingtoo-
Allhavethisfalling-sicknessnonewithstands.
I will concentrate on development of how each of my chosen characters undergoes momentous
changeinhis/herlife.Eachrespectiveexperienceisunique,Costellobeingawriterwhodoesnot
replay scenarios. However, a commonality exists among all the characters: the change that so
affects them, whether it be self-generated or a result of something done to them, yields a life of
loneliness and loss, in short, Rilke’s fall into solitude. Moreover, I will accentuate Costello’s
evocativeprowessinvivifyingherthemebytellingthefourstorieswithdifferingmodesofnarration.
The narrator of “The China Factory” is a woman, but a male character whom she describes holds
equalimportance.“ThePatioMan,”deliveredbyathird-personnarratorwhoconcentratesonthe
consciousnessofthemaleprotagonist,providesmeaningfulrevelationsaboutthesecondaryfemale
character.In“AndWhoWillPayCharon?”amalefirst-personnarratordelineateshisowndescent
into a solitary life but allows us to learn exactly what we need to know about a secondary female
character. Finally, in “The Sewing Room,” a third-person narrator limits omniscience to a female
protagonist; her days and years may sound familiar to readers accustomed to tales of unmarried
Irishwomenofacertainage–untiladisquietingrevelationchangesthemood.Thechoiceofpoint
of view in each piece of fiction is perfect, and Costello succeeds in conveying stories of great
poignancyandmagnitude.
Vivian Valvano Lynch is Professor Emerita, St. John’s University. She is the author of Portraits of
Artists:WarriorsintheNovelsofWilliamKennedyandnumerousarticlesandessaysonJamesJoyce
andIrishandIrish-Americanfictionanddrama.Sheisaco-editorofTheIrishLiterarySupplement,
forwhichshefrequentlyreviews,andrecentlypublishedanessayonthefictionofClaireKeeganin
NewHiberniaReview.
ATwenty-FirstCenturyIrishJaneAusten:MeetDenyseDevlin
SherylCornett(NorthCarolinaStateUniversity)
Denyse Devlin, is author of the three novels which the U.S. publishing industry terms Women’s
Fiction. One of the most hopeful changes in the writing world from the last century is the current
acceptanceofwomen’sfiction—atopsellingsub-genreinanyliterarymarket—whichoffersreaders
stories now considered “literary-commercial” and not just “romance.” This paper will focus on
Denyse Devlin’s The Catalpa Tree as a work representing this change in the general international
world of women’s literature and in particular to the traditional yet innovative rendering of Irish
sensibilities,landscape,andhumanvaluesthatDevlinintegratesinhercharacter-drivennarratives.
Devlin’snovelsareofpsychologicalandhistorical-culturalrelevancetotwenty-firstcenturyreaders.
Hernovels,asexemplifiedinCatalpaTree,arepeopledwithpost-modernorphans,widow(er)s,and
existentialdriftersinsearchofloveandsecurity,thoughinamannerlightyearsapartfromthoseof
Austen’scharacters.WhydoIclaimDenyseDevlinasa“Twenty-FirstCenturyJaneAusten”?Because
I believe, as with Austen’s posthumous credit for keen observation of human nature’s need for
relationship and vocation, and her astute insights into changing social norms, Devlin creates
compelling stories and characters who bring those same realities and values—and the hard-won
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struggleforthem—aliveinenduringnarrativesthatstraddleliteraryandcommercialreadershipand
shedlightoncontemporaryIreland.Assuch,Devlin’snovelsdeserveawide-generalreadershipplus
thetimeandattentionofcriticsandacademics.Moreover,asJaneAusten’slifeandworkshowus,a
writerofwomen’sfictioncangoontobeconsideredacornerstoneoftheliterarycanon.Ibelieve
thiscouldbethecasewithDevlin’sworkasalastingcontributiontoIreland’sliteraryriches.Lucky
forcontemporarywritersandreaders,Ms.Devlinisaliveandwellandwillingtobeinterviewedas
partoftheinvestigation(ofJaneAusten’sinfluenceonher)forthisessay’sclaims.
Sheryl Cornett teaches at North Carolina State University, where she is the 2014-2017 University
Honors Program Creative Scholar in Residence. Her recent poems, stories, criticism, and creative
non-fictionhaveappearedinjournals,magazines,andinsuchanthologiesasInaFineFrenzy:Poets
RespondtoShakespeare.SheistheauthoroftheforthcomingnovellaMourningintoDancingandan
essayinTheGlobalJaneAusten(PalgraveMacmillian,2013).
8B:GEOGRAPHICAL,TEXTUALANDIMAGINEDSPACESINIRISHPOETRYANDDRAMA
TheArchaeologyofLove:RichardMurphy’sGreece
BenjaminKeatinge(SouthEastEuropeanUniversity,Macedonia)
In1955,LiamMiller’sDolmenPresspublishedRichardMurphy’sfirstcollectionTheArchaeologyof
Love. The volume is an important landmark in Murphy’s development prior to his breakthrough
volumeof1963,SailingtoanIsland,issuedbyFaberandFaber.
The poems inspired by Murphy’s stays on the Greek island of Crete, including ‘The
ArchaeologyofLove’,testifytoMurphy’semotionalawakeningfollowinghismeetingwithhisfuture
wifePatriciaAvisinParisinOctober1954.AsMurphywritesinhisautobiography,TheKick(2002):
‘High up at Phaestos, the ancient palace nearest to Zeus and his thunder in the sky, I wrote her a
poemcalled“TheArchaeologyofLove”anobscureexpressionofgratitudeforherunearthingand
restoration of my heart.’ The poem presents this new-found love as redemptive and as a kind of
reconciliationagainst‘Yearsofgrievance’,thediscoveryofa‘lostfoundation’.
The biographical context of Murphy’s Greek poems originates in Murphy’s residence in
Chania,Cretein1953-54,aperiodofintenselonelinessinapastoralsetting,butalsoaprolegomena
to life-changing romantic fulfilment. Greece becomes a site of frustration, awakening and
reconciliationforMurphy.AsTheKickalsoreveals,Murphycamefacetofacewiththerealitiesof
postCivilWarlifeinGreece,alandofviolenceandvendettas.Murphy’sGreeceisoftenidealized,
partlyaproductoftheimagination,buthiscorrespondencefromChania,heldattheUniversityof
TulsaSpecialCollections,alsonotestheharshaftershocksinCreteofpoverty,wartimeoccupation
andcivilwar.
This paper will explore the notion of archaeology as a vehicle for reconciliation with the
warringselfinMurphy’sworkandstimulustowardsnewbeginnings.Murphy’sbriefencounterwith
post-warGreececanbeseenasapoeticstaging-postwhichwillbearfruitinlater,morecelebrated
volumes.
BenjaminKeatingeisDeanoftheFacultyofLanguages,CulturesandCommunicationatSouthEast
European University, Macedonia. He is co-editor of France and Ireland in the Public Imagination
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(PeterLang,2014)andOtherEdens:TheLifeandWorkofBrianCoffey(IrishAcademicPress,2010).
He is currently editing Making Integral: Critical Essays on Richard Murphy (Cork University Press,
forthcoming2017).
Aristophanes’BirdsfromPaulMuldoon’sPerspective
AlessandraRigonato(UniversityofSãoPaulo)
The Birds (1999) by Paul Muldoon, a translation of the eponymous Greek play by Aristophanes,
tacklestwointerestingsubjects:thepossibilityoftransposingaclassicworkintothecontemporary
context and the creative aspect of the writing process. The aim of this paper is to focus on the
analysisofthedeviationsproposedbyMuldooninrelationtotheGreektext,Moreover,thiswork
also attempts to understand what effects may result from these author’s writing choices. I argue
that, by reworking the Greek play, Paul Muldoon establishes some parallels with the context of
Athens (414 BC) and Belfast in the 1990’s, and this enables the play to become a new literary
oeuvre. Therefore, my hypothesis is that Paul Muldoon’ interpretation of Aristophanes’ is noticed
throughhiswritingstrategies,suchasadditions,suppressionsandmodificationsoftheGreekplay.
The theoretical background is based on works by Linda Hutcheon (2006) and Julie Sanders (2006).
Hutcheonfavourstheintertextualityphenomenon,bystudyingthepresenceofanearliertextina
newtext.Sandersalsodealswiththerelationshipbetweenthetexts,butwithregardtoconceptsof
appropriationandtransformationoftheoriginalwork.
AlessandraRigonatoisamemberofABEI,theBrazilianAssociationofIrishStudies,andholdsanMA
in English literatures from the University of São Paulo. She is currently a PhD candidate on Irish
theatreatthesameuniversity.
Revolutions and Distortions: Manifestations of Change in Brian Friel’s Making History and
MahmoudDiab’sGatetoConquest
AmalAlyMazhar(CairoUniversity)
According to cosmic law, everything is in a constant state of flux, i.e. change, or as ancient Greek
philosopherHeraclitusexpressesitverysuccinctly“Thereisnothingpermanentexceptchange”.
However, the need for man-made change in the form of revolutions becomes extremely
urgent and pressing in crucial historical moments when despair rises to the pitch. The proposed
presentationwillattempttoexaminewarsandrevolutionsasdrasticandviolentmanifestationsof
change in Brian Friel’s Making History and Egyptian dramatist Mahmoud Diab’s Gate to Conquest.
These revolutions are carried out by historical figures; Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone who
attemptedtohaveanalliancewithSpaininordertodriveawaytheEnglishforcesoutofUlster.Ina
similar manner, Gate to Conquest projects revolutionary actions in two historically and
geographicallydistantperiodsandplaces.Thecallfordemocraticchangeunderliesthelinkbetween
both.
Frielinsightfullydescribestheplayas“dramaticfiction”whileacriticdescribesitas“alife
[O’Neill’s]translatedintomyth”,adefinitionwhichcanaptlyapplytobothplays.Thisisduetothe
presence of a historian in both plays who twists and changes facts of history .Archbishop of
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Lombard, the Primate of all Ireland who writes the “official” version of O’Neill life which O’Neill
himselfrefuses,sinceitchangesfactsofhistory.Inalikemanner,recordedhistoryrepresentedby
the bombastic work of the authorized historian of the historical figure Salah el Din [Salaadin] is
rejectedasittamperswithrealhistory.ImaginativeHistory,oralternativehistory,thatwhichcould
have never happened, but is imagined as an alternative narrative to what actually happened in
realitywillbeoneoftheconcernsofthepresentation.
The proposed presentation will attempt to explore the doubly-charged implications in the
word“change”—thatofchangingunwantedconditionsandthestatusquo.Ontheotherhand,the
word“change”connotes“tamperingwith”,“twisting”,distorting”…,etc.willbealsoexamined.
8C:THEEARLYABBEY
When a Stranger Calls: Hospitality as a Call for Socio-Economic Transformation in Yeats’ The
CountessCathleen,CathleenNiHoulihanandTheLandofHeart’sDesire
LaraBakerWhelan(BerryCollege)
Yeats’playsare,ofcourse,interestedintheissueofIrishidentityanditsconnectionstofolkloreand
ancientmythology.Theyarealso,perhapslessobviously,interestedintheissueofhospitality.The
association of hospitality with Irishness has its roots in two pre-1166 sources: Brehon law and the
pre-Christianmythcycles,andsothethemeofhospitalityservedYeats’purposewell,asitwasboth
aneasilyrecognizablecharacteristicthatwastheoreticallydistinctlyIrish(asopposedtoBritish)and
something that linked the present to the distant, Celtic past. In fact, all but one of the 10 plays
writtenbetween1892and1910haveathresholdintheiropeningscene,anditisnotlongbeforea
guestorstrangerenters.
Intheseplays,thereistensionsurroundingtheroleoftheStrangerandtheHostthatreveals
thatYeatsisintenselyconcernedwiththenatureoftheactofhospitality.Inmanycases,theritualof
hospitality is transformed into an act of material exchange which, in the world of these plays, is
associatedwithcapitalistmaterialism;whenthishappens,dangeranddestructionfollow.Focusing
onthreeofhisearliestplays,thispaperwillmakethecasethatwhatYeatsappearstobearguingis
thatitwouldbebetterforIrelandtorejectthistaintedformofhospitalityandinsteadembracea
systemthatisbasedonarefusaltocalculatethevalueofwhattheHostofferstheStranger,orwhat
theStrangergivesinreturn.Byextension,YeatsseemstobeencouraginghisIrishaudiencetoreject
Britain’s cultural imperialism, represented by capitalist ways of thinking about goods and services,
whilerecognizingthatsucharejectionwillseemfoolishandcontrarytocommonsensetomostof
hisaudience.
DrLaraWhelanisanAssociateProfessorofEnglishandthedirectoroftheHonorsProgramatBerry
College, Georgia. She has published on representations of the suburbs and their relation to class
conflictinsensationfictionoftheVictorianperiod.Hercurrentresearchexamineshowtherhetoric
of Irish hospitality is used in a variety of nationalist contexts in nineteenth- and early-twentiethcenturyIrishwriting.
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LandlordsandTenantsintheWorkofBernardShaw
DavidClare(MooreInstitute,NUIGalway)
The troubled relations between landlords and tenants during Bernard Shaw’s formative years in
Ireland strongly influenced his socio-political perspective as an adult. In particular, his horror over
theappallingpovertythathewitnessedinDublinasachild(thecity’sslumswerewidelyregardedas
theworstinEurope)ledhimtoeventuallyconcludethatpovertyis“thegreatestofourevilsandthe
worst of our crimes.” And, during his years working in an estate office in Dublin as a teenager, he
witnessedtheunjustwayinwhichruraltenantfarmersandtheurbanworking-classesweretreated
bytheirexploitativelandlords.Addedtotheseexperiences,bothsidesofShaw’sfamilyweretiedto
the Protestant Ascendancy, possessing land throughout Leinster and Munster. Although Shaw
himselfwasraisedin“shabbygenteelpoverty,”hewastaughttotakeprideinhisfamily’sexalted
socialconnections.Hegraduallycametorealise,however,thathisreveredrelationswerecomplicit
in the unjust land distribution prevalent in Ireland prior to the Land War. Shaw’s embracing of
socialismasayoungmanandtheangerthatheharbouredthroughouthislifeovertheexploitation
of the poor by the upper-classes should always be read in light of these formative experiences –
especiallysincetheunjustrelationsbetweenlandlordsandtenantsthatShawwitnessedinIreland
not only cast a shadow over his politics but also his drama. As this paper demonstrates, he deals
withIrishlandlord-tenantrelationsdirectlyinhisthreeplayssetinIreland:JohnBull’sOtherIsland
(1904), O’Flaherty, V.C. (1917), and Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman (1921). What’s more, his
exposure to Dublin slums as a child informs Widowers’ Houses (1892), and his numerous visits to
Irish(andnotsimplyEnglish)BigHousesisaclearinfluenceonHeartbreakHouse(1919).
DavidClareisanIRCPostdoctoralResearchFellowbasedatNUIGalway.Hisbook,BernardShaw’s
IrishOutlook(2016),waspublishedbyPalgraveMacmillan,andhisarticleshaveappearedintheIrish
StudiesReview,theNewHiberniaReview,theIrishUniversityReview,andStudies:AnIrishQuarterly.
FromAbbeyPlaywrighttoChildren’sAuthor:PadraicColum’sSecondShepherdsPlay
JamesP.Sullivan
The paper contextualizes a recently discovered manuscript by Padraic Colum, his adaptation of a
medieval mystery play, which he composed during the early years of the Abbey Theater. The text
contains just over 300 lines and runs about 2500 words in play-format. It was initially performed
during Christmastide1911, and saw occasional repeat performances over the next few seasons.
Briefly,thepaperexploresColum’smotivationfortherendering,viz.,whoaskedhimtodoit,how
hecametobeselected,andwhythisspecificworkwaschosen.Itconcludeswiththeprobabilitythat
Colum’sadaptationmarksaturningpointinhisliterarycareer;withinfiveyearshewastoemergein
America as a recognized–and prolific--author of children’s literature. His change from Abbey
playwrighttochildren’sauthorverylikelybeganwiththisadaptation.
JamesP.SullivanteachesattheUniversityCenter,Michigan,andservesonthefacultyofSaginaw
ValleyStateUniversity.HispublicationsincludethetranscriptionofPadraicColum’s“JamesJoyceas
a Young Man” (James Joyce Quarterly, 2008) and “Avant Texts and Polyglot Joyce: Expanding the
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PolyphonicChorus”(JoyceStudiesinItaly,2007).Heiscurrentlyexploringthevicissitudesofverbal
representationofIrishnessinpopularvenuesfromthesixteenthtothenineteenthcentury.
8D:IRISHLITERARYHISTORYANDHISTORIOGRAPHY
IrishGothicGoesAbroad:CulturalMigration,Materiality,andtheMinervaPress
ChristinaMorin(UniversityofLimerick)
In Regina Maria Roche’s 1825 novel, The Castle Chapel. A Romantic Tale, the Irish hero, Eugene
O’Neil,travelstoDublintomakehisliterarynameonlytoberemindedofthedevastationoftheIrish
print industry since the Act of Union (1800): ‘it's not by an Irish press you must hope to be
introduced to the world’. O’Neil thereafter travels to London, echoing a journey undertaken by
Rocheherselfandbymanyofhercontemporaries,whofoundthemselvesallbutcompelledtorelocate – physically and/or metaphorically – in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Union (1801) and the
applicationofEnglishcopyrightlawstoIreland.
ThispaperexploresthemovementsinandofIrish-authoredpublications,includingthoseof
Roche,producedbytheleadingpublisherofearly-nineteenthcenturyIrishgothic,London’sMinerva
Press. Understanding that a twinned analysis ‘of the movements and fixations of texts with the
movementsandfixations withintexts’allowsustomaptextualinterpretationsofandinteractions
with the material and geographical environments in which they are produced and circulated, this
paperinvestigatesthewaysinwhichprocessesofproductionandcirculationalteredandexpanded
the geographical as well as ideological reaches of Irish gothic literary production, c. 1800-1830. It
alsoaddressesthemannerinwhichthemobilityinandoftheseworkscontributedtoanevolving
senseofIrishculturalnationalismoftendependent,asJuliaM.Wrightcontends,onthemobilityof
Irishmenandwomen,butmorefrequentlyassociatedwiththenationaltaleandalliedgenresthan
withthegothic.
Christina Morin is Lecturer of English literature at the University of Limerick. She is the author of
Charles Robert Maturin and the Haunting of Irish Romantic Fiction (2011) and co-editor, with Niall
Gillespie,ofIrishGothics:Genres,Forms,Modes,andTraditions,1760-1890(2014).Hermonograph,
TheGothicNovelinIreland,1760-1830,willbepublishedwithManchesterUniversityPressin2017.
MariaEdgeworth’sLandscapesofImprovement
AnnaPilz(UniversityCollegeCork)
ForthisanalysisofanIrishenvironmentalmemory,IbringintodialogueMariaEdgeworth’snovels
Castle Rackrent (1800) and The Absenteee (1812) with natural histories, agricultural surveys and
treatise as well as travel writings of the Romantic era. In particular, I investigate how arboreal
landscapes serve as a nexus for colonial debates about improvement, inheritance, dispossession,
andownership.
Between 1791 and 1841, the acreage of woodland in Ireland increased from 143,000 to
closeto500,000,withincreasedareasoftreeplantationsoccurringmainlyincloseproximitytoBig
Houses. This suggestive period of environmental progress in pre-Famine Ireland, however, is
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complicatedwhenweconsiderMariaEdgeworth’sfictionswhich,asithasbeenrecentlyarguedby
Katey Castellano, ‘acknowledge her own’s class’s culpability in social discord and environmental
decline’(2013,p.93).ThispaperanalysesEdgeworth’sliteraryrepresentationsofwoods,treesand
plantingactivitiesinthecontextofestateimprovement.Indoingso,itsituatesherfirmlywithinthe
lateeighteenth-centurydiscourseofapicturesqueaestheticviaamateurcirclesthatincludedLady
LouisaConollyandLadyMorganwhilealsodrawingonthehistoricalevidenceofimprovementsin
Edgeworthstownandonthefamilyestate.Ultimately,Iarguethatsheattimespurposefullydeparts
from artfully contrived landscape descriptions to open up our understanding of its hidden
environmental politics. In doing so, she offers us an Irish Romantic ecology that reveals the
historically fraught colonial and environmental tensions embedded in the discourse of de- and
afforestationinIreland.
Anna Pilz is an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of
English, University College Cork. She has worked on Irish theatre history and Lady Gregory’s plays.
Most recently, she has co-edited a collection of essays on Irish Women’s Writing, 1878-1922:
AdvancingtheCauseofLiberty(ManchesterUniversityPress,2016).Sheiscurrentlyworkingonher
firstmonographonTrees,InheritanceandEstatesinIrishWriting.
JaneWilde’s“Ruins,”MilitaryPower,andIrishHistoriography
JuliaM.Wright(DalhousieUniversity)
MuchimportantworkhasappearedsincethestartoftheWaronTerroronthechangingnotionof
war in the nineteenth century. Mary Favret’s War at a Distance: Romanticism and the Making of
Modern Wartime, for instance, considers the changes to thinking about war necessitated by its
happening somewhere else—sense of time, sense of place, and sense of self. In eighteenth- and
nineteenth-centuryIreland,however,militaryactionwasmarkedlynearandever-present.Barelya
decadeaftertheTreatyofLimerick,ThomasParnell’sTheHorseandtheOlive(1702),forinstance,
laysoutthealternativesclearly:ononeside,militarismandmaterialgreed;ontheother,wisdom,
the arts, agricultural plenty, and contentment. Joep Leerssen has traced this opposition through
eighteenth-centuryIrishhistoriography,arguingthatitisusedtoproduceacounter-imperialworld
history in which the arts and civility are valued over the technical advances and wealth of military
powers;moreover,thatcounter-imperialworldhistoryiscontinuous.
Thiscontext,Ishallsuggest,iscrucialtoJaneWilde’s“Ruins,”publishedinher1864Poems,
which pointedly situates Irish history in this counter-imperial trajectory. As scholars such as Ina
Ferris, Sean Ryder, and Kevin Whelan have noted, the Irish tradition of ruin discourse typically
understandsthearchitecturalruinasevidenceofcolonialviolenceratherthanastheremainderof
imperialgreatness(asinthecollectionandstudyofimperialruinsinBritishhistoriography).But,for
Wilde, such ruins are meaningless—the destruction of counter-imperial civilizations is registered
insteadin“mightyruinsofthemind,”andcanmoreeasilybereversedthroughtheforceofwilland
intellect.AftertracingJaneWilde’sargumentinthiscontext,Iwillconcludewithabriefdiscussionof
OscarWilde’s“AveImperatrix”asafurtherextensionofideasin“Ruins.”
JuliaM.WrightisProfessorofEnglishatDalhousieUniversity.HerpublicationsincludeRepresenting
theNationalLandscapeinIrishRomanticism(SyracuseUP,2014)andIreland,IndiaandNationalism
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inNineteenth-CenturyLiterature(CambridgeUP,2007).ShealsoeditedIrishLiterature,1750-1900:
AnAnthology(2008),CompaniontoIrishLiterature(2vols;2010),andtwoofLadyMorgan'snovels.
8E:TRANSLATIONSBETWEENARTFORMSINTHEATREANDFILM
‘NothingChanged?’Beckett,IntermedialityandContemporaryIrishSonicArt
DervalTubridy(GoldsmithsUniversityofLondon)
TakingalinefromSamuelBeckett’sshortprosepiece‘Sounds’asitsstartingpoint––‘makenothing
tolistenfornosuchthingasasound’––andcounterpointingitwithaphrasefromTheUnnamable––
‘Nothing changed?––the paper explores subjugated and subsumed sounds in Beckett’s prose and
performanceandthewaysinwhichintermedialtranslationandtranspositionscreatenewworkthat
can radically inform our experience of Beckett’s prose and theatre. It examines the ways in which
BecketthasinfluencedcontemporarysoundartistssuchasDannyMcCarthy––whohaswrittenthat
‘Becketthadagreatunderstandingofsoundandaprofoundknowledgeofthepracticeoflistening’–
–byfocusingonMcCarthy’scuratedcd100TrackCDFortheBeckettCentenary,ArtTrail,Shandon,
Cork,calledBenditlikeBeckett,andJohnD’Arcy’ssoundinstallationBeckettBasement.Thepaper
explorestherelationshipbetweenBeckett’sworkandavant-gardeIrishcontemporarysoundartin
pieces such as Seán Taylor’s From Krapp’s Last Tape, Mick O’Shea’s What Time, Siobhán Tatten’s
BrilliantFailuresandMcCarthy’sAGongwithMrBeckett,exploringthewaysinwhichtheseartists
(asBeckettwouldphraseit)‘makenothingtolistenfor’andarticulateapracticeinwhichthereis
‘nosuchthingassound’.
DervalTubridyisDeanoftheGraduateSchool,AssociatePro-WardenforResearchandEnterprise,
andSeniorLecturerinLiteratureandVisualCultureatGoldsmiths,UniversityofLondon.Sheisthe
authorofThomasKinsella:ThePeppercanisterPoems(2001)andeditorofaspecialeditionofIrish
Studies Review (16/3, 2008). She has received funding from the Fulbright Commission, the British
Academy,andtheAHRC.
TranslatingtheatreandfilmadaptedfromYeats’swritings:whatchangeswhen“hisownwords”
aresaidinanotherlanguage?
MariaRitaViana(UniversidadeFederaldeSantaCatarina)
Inanewsletterpromotingthe57thYeatsInternationalSummerSchool,theorganisersspeculatethat
thecentenaryoftheEasterRisingwillmakeit“almostimpossibletopickupanewspaperwithout
reading Yeats’s line, ‘All changed, changed utterly/A terrible beauty is born,’” while also calling
attentiontotheideathat“[h]iswordshavereverberatedthroughacenturyofhistoricchange.”
It will not be the first time that his words are used in headlines or as catchphrases in the
press;asseveralauthorsincludingthecurrentDirectoroftheYISShavepointedout,theyhaveoften
been “modified in the guts of the living.” For this paper, I am particularly interested in the
modificationsthathappeninprocessesofinterartadaptationandlinguisticandculturaltranslation
of these adaptations. More specifically, this is a practice-based reflection on the translation into
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Portuguese of two different creative works that are themselves adaptations, thought broadly, of
wordsYeatshaswrittenacrossarangeofgenresandcommunicativesituations.
ThefirstisAideenHoward’s2013playDownoffhisStilts:YeatsandtheAbbeyinhisOwn
Words, in which the poet’s correspondence as well as poems, excerpts from plays and the Nobel
Prize speech are used to tell the story of the Abbey, produced last year by the Brazilian theatre
companyCiaLudensasadramaticreadinginthecityofSãoPaulo;thesecondisAlanGilsenan’sW.
B.Yeats:AVision,alsofrom2013,anunconventionalcinematicbiographythatjuxtaposesimageand
voicefromascreenplaythatdrawsfromevenmorevariedwrittensourcestobecomprisedentirely
ofYeats’sownwords.
MariaRitaVianaisalecturerattheUniversidadeFederaldeSantaCatarina(UFSC)inBrazil,where
sheworksonlifewritingandtheintersectionsoffictionalandnonfictionalIrishliterature.Sheisa
professional translator and conducts research in the Department of Foreign Languages and
LiteraturesatUFSC.
ColinMurphy’sDocumentaryTheatre:FromtheBankGuaranteetotheEasterRising
BeatrizKopschitzBastos(TheFederalUniversityofSantaCatarina)
Colin Murphy has made a name as one of the leading documentary playwrights in Ireland,
responding to social and economic changes in the country’s recent history, and also to a decade
well-suppliedwithcentenaries–inparticular,thoseofWWIandtheEasterRising.Fourofhisplays
inthedocumentarygenrehavebeenproducedorreadpubliclyinthelastfouryears:Guaranteed!
(2013),Bailedout!(2015),JackDuggan’sWar(2015)andInsidetheGPO(2016).Afifthplay,about
thesame-sexmarriagereferendumof2015,ADayinMay(2016),isbeingwrittenatthemoment.
This paper provides a survey of Colin Murphy’s plays, shedding light in particular on
Guarantee!, and Inside the GPO. It looks at the documentary features of the plays, and how they
conform to or move away from definitions of documentary theatre such as the one proposed by
PatricePavis:“theatrethatuses,foritstext,onlydocumentsandauthenticsources,‘selected’and
‘assembled’inaccordancewiththeplaywright’ssocialandpoliticalthesis”.Italsoexploreshowthe
‘selection’ and ‘assembly’ of documents and sources in Murphy’s plays reconstruct history,
intervene in contemporary society, examine lives both public and private, and mobilize different
theatricaltechniquessuitedtotheirspecificsubjectsandobjectives.
Beatriz Kopschitz Bastos is a member of the Post Graduate Programme in English at The Federal
UniversityofSantaCatarina(UFSC),Brazil.Herpublicationsasco-editorandorganizerinclude:Ilha
doDesterro–ContemporaryIrishTheatre(2010),ColeçãoBrianFriel(2013)andthebilingualseries
Ireland into Film: Screenplays and Critical Contexts (2011-present). She is also dramaturge and
producerwithCiaLudenstheatrecompany,andanexecutivememberofIASIL.
8F:NATION,GENRE,GENDER
This workshop outlines the work to date of the ‘Nation, Genre and Gender: A Comparative Social
Network Analysis of Irish and English Fiction, 1800-1922’ project funded by the Irish Research
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Council. The ultimate objective of the project is to use social network analysis to map the social
imaginaryofthenovelsintheprojectcorpusandcomparegender,genreandthenationalityofthe
author (or setting) in shaping social networks in fiction. The research combines quantitative,
computational approaches with critical and interpretative tools. This combination offers new
perspectives on well-known texts, but also a realistic and judicious form of intense textual
engagement with a radically extended canon of fiction, with its diversity of voices, genres and
perspectives.
This workshop will comprise an introduction to the scope and methodology of the project
and brief presentations on the case studies and research and teaching resources featured in the
website, which will be launched during the 2016 IASIL conference. The first part of the workshop
willfocusonthequestionofhowbesttointegrateliteraryscholarshipanddataanalyticsapproaches
to literary texts, the challenges and opportunities offered by collaboration between computer
scienceandliterarycriticisminthisfieldandadiscussionoffuturedirectionsfortheproject.Itwill
demonstrate the benefits of an inclusive approach to nodes within the novels' social networks
(including unnamed characters and collectives, for example), the use of search functionality to
situate the social imaginary of the novels within key social and political developments in the
Victorianperiodandtoindicatehowsocialnetworkanalysiscaninformanalysisofbothgenderand
ethnicityinfiction
The second part of the workshop will comprise an informal demonstration for IASIL
membersonusingtheproject'swebsiteandresourcesforteachingandresearch.
Gerardine Meaney is Professor of Cultural Theory, Director of the Humanities Institute, University
College Dublin, and PI of Nation, Gender, Genre. Recent publications include Reading the Irish
Woman:CulturalEncounterandExchange,1714-1960,withBernadetteWhelanandMaryO'Dowd
(2013), Gender, Ireland and Cultural Change (2010), and an iPad app of James Joyce's short story
“TheDead”(2014).
Researchteam
Dr Derek Greene (UCD School of Computer Science and INSIGHT), Dr Karen Wade (postdoctoral
research fellow, UCD Humanities Institute), Dr Jenny Rothwell and Dr Maria Mulvany (UCD
Humanities Institute), Siobhan Grayson (PhD student, UCD School of Computer Science and
INSIGHTs)
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8G:DERMOTHEALY
ThispanelseekstobothinvestigatediverseaspectsoftheworkofthelateDermotHealy–across
therangeofhiswork–whilstsimultaneously,implicitly,registeringacaseforthemajorsignificance
oftheworkofoneofIreland’smostimportantliteraryvoices.Hiswork,asawhole,thispanelwill
demonstrate,wascomplex,insightfulanduniqueamonghispeerswhilehisworkinfiction,drama,
poetry, autobiography, and literary editing, as well as an all-round literary enabler, represents a
breadthofcontributionandachievementthatis,itself,extraordinary.
Healyand‘TheFranzenOrthodoxy’
JackFennell(UniversityofLimerick)
Inarecentessayonthe‘muckrakingnovel,’LeeKonstantinou(UniversityofMaryland)outlineswhat
he sees as the constituent elements of ‘the Franzen Orthodoxy,’ which militates against explicitly
political novels while prioritising a very partial understanding of ‘realism’: to advance a political
standpointormessageisgauche,andattemptstoartisticallyaddressthepositionofindividualsin
relationtolargerpower-structuresarepartisan.
The Franzen Orthodoxy is not an isolated cultural phenomenon, nor is it limited strictly to
theAnglo-Americanliterarysphere(defining‘Anglo-American’inaprecise,narrowway).Thereisa
broader cultural trend linking ‘pure’ artistic expression, and realism, with equivocation. The
purported literary representation of the ‘real,’ meanwhile, is limited to the supposedly apolitical
bourgeoismusingsofthe‘Hampsteadnovel’(asthelateIainM.Banksputit).
In the recent re-issues of Dermot Healy’s Collected Short Fiction and Fighting With Shadows, the
editorsNeilMurphyandKeithHopperconsidertheoriginalreviewsofhisworkandpositthatthe
fundamentalmistakemadebythoseearlyreviewerswasassumingthatHealywasarealist;Hopper
andMurphyconsideritself-evidentthathewasnot,inlightofhisidiosyncratictreatmentoftime,
tone and narrative voice. In this paper, I will make the argument that Healy was in fact a realist
author–justnotthekindofrealistthateschewsthesubjectiveandthepolitical.
Dr Jack Fennell teaches at the University of Limerick. He is the author of Irish Science Fiction
(LiverpoolUniversityPress,2014)andacontributingtranslatortoTheShortFictionofFlannO’Brien
(DalkeyArchivePress,2013).
DermotHealy’sAGoat’sSong:TheFormsofFiction
NeilMurphy(NationalTechnologicalUniversity,Singapore)
Timothy O’Grady claims that Dermot Healy’s second novel A Goat’s Song (1994) is Ireland’s “most
ambitiousnovelsinceBeckett’sTrilogy,”(26)whilePatMcCabeconsidersHealy’sfiction,ingeneral,
tobe“trulyrevolutionarywork,andhighliteraryart,”(ctd.inO’Grady26),pointingtotheunique
formal achievement that the novel represents. The majority of critics who have written about A
Goat’sSonghavelargelyrespondedtothesocialandpoliticalimplicationsofanovelpartiallysetin
Northern Ireland that features troubled relationships between its Northern Irish characters and
Southern Irish Catholic population, but the lives of the characters are also imprinted with a
persistentanxietyattheirinabilitytofullygraspthelivedtextureoftheirlives,irrespectiveoftheir
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religiousorpoliticalallegiances.Theovertimaginativereconfigurationofthelivesofthecharacters
isevidentinallofHealy’snovelsprimarilybecausethetechnicalexperimentissounique,asisthe
persistentacknowledgementofhowrealityisdeeplyinterwovenwithwhatwecallfiction,farmore
frequently and resolutely than is usually acknowledged in more static, fictive storyworlds. The
hybridnatureoftherealandtheimaginaryisemphaticallyregisteredinAGoat’sSong,inwhichthe
centralcharacter,JackFerris,whosecapacityto‘imagine’hisworldasaknowable,coherent,shape
isdeeplycompromised.Muchofthenovelisconstructedasaquasi-analepticnarrativebutalsoas
an embedded, framing narrative, within Jack’s primary telling. This paper will demonstrate how
Healy’snoveladdressestheartisticproblemoffindingwaystospeakofthecomplexityofexistence
by avoiding linear or monological narrative systems, and instead constructs a complex narrative
systemthatplacesitamongthemajorfictionalachievementsincontemporaryIrishwriting.
NeilMurphyisAssociateProfessorofcontemporaryliteratureatNTU,Singapore.Heistheauthorof
IrishFictionandPostmodernDoubt(2004),editorofAidanHiggins:TheFragilityofForm(2010),and
co-editorofTheShortFictionofFlannO’Brien(2013).Heiscurrentlyco-editingfourbooksrelatedto
theworkofDermotHealy,whilealsocompletingabookonJohnBanville.
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FRIDAY29JULY
9A:1916SEENOTHERWISE
1916:RememberingtheRenaissance
NicholasCollins(UniversityofWarwick)
1916 was due to be a momentous year in Ireland prior to Easter’s revolution. 1916 was the
tercentenary of William Shakespeare’s death, with the Dublin Shakespeare Society planning to
celebrate the English bard and British symbol. The Rising irrupted into these celebrations,
irrevocablyalteringhowthespringof1916hassincebeenremembered.
Itisnotuncontroversialtothinkthatliteratureunderwroteandadvancedtheemergenceof
themodernIrishnation-state,evenpriorto1916.AswenowrememberPearse,withhis‘MiseEire’,
andW.B.Yeats,withhisPearsein‘Easter1916’,wereconstituteandrevivememoriesoftheRising.
Our reminiscences reenergise modern Ireland, reminding all its citizens, in Ireland and out, of the
nation’sviolent,terribleyetbeautifulbirth.Torememberistore-statethenation.
ButPearseandYeatswerethemselvesconstitutedbytheirownmemories:ofShakespeare.
TheiractionsandwritingweredrivenbyreminiscencesoftheRenaissancemanwhosetextssurvived
andsurpassedallhistoricalfiguresandpoliticalconfigurations.And,inrememberingShakespeare’s
Renaissance,theyinadvertentlyrememberedanartcentraltotheatricalpracticeandtothetheatre
itself:theartofmemory,fromGiordanoBruno,akeyinfluenceonYeats’AVision,toRobertFludd,
whosememorywasstructuredliketheGlobetheatre.
This paper sketches the connections between Renaissance memory, the modern Irish
nation-stateanditsliterature,andhowwerememberthemtoday.
Nicholas Collins is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of English and Comparative
Literature, University of Warwick where he completed his PhD in 2015 on the politico-literary
connectionsbetweenearlymodernEnglandandmodernIreland.Heisco-editingShakespeareand
theContemporaryIrishWriter,andpreparingamonographon1916Irelandandmemory,ofwhich
thispaperformspart.
TransatlanticUsablePasts:TheEasterRisingandAmericanModernism
LukeGibbons(NUIMaynooth)
The interconnections between the Easter Rising and Irish-America are well known but the wider
impact the 1916 rebellion on debates in American modernism has been neglected.In this paper I
tracehowoneofthekeyintersectionsbetweenAmericanpragmatismandhistory,theconceptof‘a
usablepast,’emergesindiscussionsoftheimportanceoftheEasterRisingandtheIrishRevivalfor
themodernistturninAmericanletters.
LukeGibbonsisProfessorofIrishLiteraryandCulturalStudiesattheNationalUniversityofIreland,
Maynooth,andformerlyKeoughFamilyProfessorofIrishStudies,UniversityofNotreDame.Heis
theauthorofJoyce’sGhosts:Ireland,Modernism,andMemory(UniversityofChicagoPress,2015).
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ReadingBackwards
AnaM.Jimenez-Moreno(UniversityofNotreDame)
Scholarship around The Plumed Serpent continues to be fraught with disputes over of D. H.
Lawrence’s politics (sexual and otherwise). The textual addenda cataloguing the manuscript,
typescript, and printed versions of the novel provides us with insight into the ways in which
Lawrence’smysticalsolutionstotheproblemsofmodernityweretiedtothepoliticalrevolutionsin
both Mexico and Ireland. The differences across the versions of the novel productively destabilize
previouscriticismthatoverlooksironicpossibilities.Whilesomeofusarestillthrilledtobeableto
accessthearchivesattheHarryRansomCenter,forexample,therealityoflimitedfundssometimes
makes this possibility slight. The Cambridge University Press editions help scholars reconstruct an
even-handedversionoftextuallycorruptworks.KateLeslieisperhapsoneofthemostvividheroines
in Lawrence’s oeuvre. Her submission, or lack thereof, to the gendered edicts of the new
Quetzalcoatl cult has spurred much controversy. In the first English edition of the novel, which is
included in the “Textual Apparatus,” Kate vacillates between being gratified by her late husband’s
“blood-faithfulness” and despising his abjectness. Kate’s harshness towards her Irish revolutionary
husband, James Joaquin Leslie, is cloaked in the text proper. This resistance against ravishing or
being ravished by one’s partner is absorbed into Ramón Carrasco, the leader of the Quetzalcoatl
revolution,andhisfirstwife.Lawrenceallegorizestheiniquitiesinacolonialsituation(i.e.IrelandBritain)intothepossiblyexploitativenatureofmarriage.Politicalliberation,then,mustcomehand
inhandwithemancipationfromoppressiveandinternalizedformsofthinking.BringingLawrence’s
nuancedgendered,racial,andpoliticalmapsintotheconversationenablesastrongerpostcolonial
readingofThePlumedSerpent.
AnaM.Jimenez-MorenoisaJosephL.GaiaDistinguishedFellowattheUniversityofNotreDame,
where she studies twentieth-century British and Irish literature, with a particular interest in the
intersection between post-colonial studies, gender theory, and phenomenology. Her current work
beginsintheinterwarperiodwithBritishmodernists'narrativesoftravel,specificallytoMexico.
9B:PAULMULDOONANDTHEPERFORMANCEOFMEMORY
MuldoonandTheGameoftheName
HughHaughton(UniversityofYork)
In ‘Kissing and Telling’ Muldoon writes ‘I could name names. I could be indiscreet’, while in ‘The
MoreaManHas’wearetold‘Gallogly,Gallogly,OGallogly/juggles/hisnamelikeanorange.’Inmy
paper I will argue that names and naming are integral to Muldoon’s poetics, and address the
onomasticjugglingthatiscentraltohisformalidentityasapoetandhisconstructionsofpersonal
and cultural identity. Names are subjected to Freudian slippage, error, etymological revelation,
duplication and multiplication across his oeuvre, always caught up in a shape-shifting onomastic
comedy of remembering and dismembering. I don’t take this to be a reflex of the post-modern
‘instability’ of the subject so much as a sign of grounded playfulness, a protest against and
celebrationofthenominaldimensionoflanguage.Settinghisattitudetowardspoetryandnamingin
relationtoKavanagh,JoyceandHeaney,IwillarguethatMuldoonmobilizesandpluralizesnamesto
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investigate the poetics and politics of nomenclature in Ireland and elsewhere in what is an
essentiallytransnationalculture.
HughHaughtonisProfessorofModernLiteratureattheUniversityofYork.HeistheauthorofThe
PoetryofDerekMahon(OxfordUniversityPress,2007),theeditorofTheChattoBookofNonsense
Poetry(1988),SecondWorldWarPoems(2005),andFreud,TheUncanny(2005)amongothertexts,
aswellasauthorofnumerousessaysontwentieth-centuryBritishandIrishpoetry.
Muldoon,MemoryandRhyme’sRelation
AlexAlonso(UniversityofYork)
Anoverwhelmingsenseofdéjàvu.
—‘AttheSignoftheBlackHorse,September1999’
Ninety rhymes circle through the wild expanse of ‘Yarrow’, Muldoon’s transportive ‘nautilus | of
memory jammed next to memory’ in the 1994 volume The Annals of Chile, and the same rhymes
return in ‘Incantata’, a masterful elegy for the poet’s ex-lover Mary Powers. Long pseudoautobiographical poems from his subsequent volumes Hay, Moy Sand and Gravel, Horse Latitudes
and Maggot develop this pattern, each riffing on the same sequence of rhymes which now spans
five collections and nearly twenty years. What led Muldoon to this extraordinary elaboration of
rhyme? What brings the poet to cross, time and again, these gaping fieldsof rhyme and memory,
andwhatisbeingbroughtback?
ThispaperusesMuldoon’sninety-rhymereprisetoexaminethewayshislongpoemsrevisit,
and are visited by, their textual pasts. In an interview with Neil Corcoran in 2000, Muldoon
acknowledged that while the rhymes ‘bleed over from one poem into the next, or from one book
intothenext,the[…]ideaspresentthemselvestomethroughphrases,words,thatoccurredearlier’.
If a shared word or phrase can trigger the synapses of memory, then Muldoon’s rhymes offer a
portal through which these mnemonic returns might occur. Borders separating these poems are
madeporous,admittingvestigesofwordsandimagesfrompoemtopoem.Theresult,asIwillshow,
isadynamicrichnessofrhymeasself-reference,inwhichtheechoesofpastpoemstremorinand
out of earshot. This paper also addresses ways in which poetic memory is explored through
Muldoon’s continuous, if mutant, form: how the rhyming mind of the long poem emerges in the
natureofapalimpsest,throughalayeringofwhatGillianBeercallsrhyme’s‘echoes,deformations,
[and]recurrences’.
AlexAlonsoisathird-yeardoctoralcandidateattheUniversityofYork,whoseresearchfocuseson
Paul Muldoon's poetry in America. He edits the poetry magazine Eborakon, and helped edit the
forthcomingcollectionofessaysEdwardLearandthePlayofPoetry(OxfordUniversityPress,2016).
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‘the“chemicallife”’:PaulMuldoon’sMaterialistMemory
StephenGrace(UniversityofYork)
This paper will consider the changing construction of memory in the poetry of Paul Muldoon. If
Seamus Heaney, Muldoon’s friend and mentor, found memory in a ‘landscape [that] was a
sacramental, instinct with signs, implying a system of reality beyond the visible realities’
(Preoccupations:SelectedProse1968-1978132),Muldoonrelocatesmemorytothethinner,butalso
more diffuse, site of the body. I intend to argue that the Muldoonian body and its memories can
best be described through the intermediary category of the ‘chemical’, in which binary categories
suchasthehumanandthenatural,thepastandthepresent,arerenderedporous.This‘“chemical
life”’, as ‘Sillyhow Stride’ calls it, is figured prominently in drug-taking of a variety of types, from
Quoof’s hallucinogenic ‘psilocybin’ to the medicinal ‘vast herbarium’ of ‘Incantata’ and the
recreational‘pile[s]oftoot’and‘line[s]ofcoke’inHorseLatitudes,inwhichmemoriesarerootedin
thebodywithoutbeingentirelydeterminedbyitsprocesses.Bydrawingonrecentdevelopmentsin
eco-criticism, and in particular the claim made in 2010’s New Materialisms that ‘if everything is
material inasmuch as it is composed of physiochemical processes, nothing is reducible to such
processes...materiality is always something more than “mere” matter: an excess, force, vitality,
relationality, or difference that renders matter active, self-creative, productive, unpredictable’
(CooleandFrost,NewMaterialisms:Ontology,AgencyandPolitics9),Iwillexaminehowinstances
of drug-taking offer an insight into the Muldoonian memory as straddling the boundary between
‘physiochemicalprocesses’and‘anexcess’thatis‘active,self-creative,productive,unpredictable’.
Stephen Grace is PhD candidate in the Department of English and Related Literature at the
University of York. His main research interests are in modern and contemporary poetry and his
thesisexploresthesonnetinlate-twentiethandearlytwenty-firstcenturyBritainandIreland.
9C:CHANGINGTHEMEDIUM,CONNECTINGTHEMESSAGE:BREACARCHIVESANDDIGITAL
CONVERGENCE
“Digital convergence” has been defined as a series of innovations that are bringing about an
increasingly interconnected world of recorded knowledge, documents, data, and information”
(Dalbello205,2015).FocusingonthreeaspectsoftheBreacprojectthedigitaljournal,thearchive,
and data analytics this panel demonstrates how the potentialities of digital technologies can be
employedtocreateaninclusive,connected,andopen“informationecology”(ibid)forIrishStudiesin
the21stcentury.
1)CreatingtheMessage
Breacbeganin2013asanopenaccessdigitaljournalofIrishStudies.In2014,thejournalexpanded
toincludeBreacReviews,apagededicatedtopublishingreviewsofrecentworksinIrishStudies.As
a born-digital journal, conservation and sustainability are of paramount importance; due to its
incorporeal nature, perhaps more so than its print based predecessor, the digital journal
necessitatesthearchive.Atthesametime,thedigitalenvironmentalsoallowsforopportunitiesthat
movebeyondthecapabilitiesofprint.Inthispaper,thepresentersdiscusshowtheconvergenceof
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an Irish Studies digital journal with Breac Reviews and Breac Archives , connects scholarship and
scholarsinwaysthatenablesresearchoftodaybeinconversationwiththatofthepast.
2)ConservingtheMessage
In this paper, Aedín Clements and Sonia Howell will officially launch Breac Archives ; a project
developedandmaintainedbyaninterdisciplinaryteamoflibrarians,developers,andresearchersin
the University of Notre Dame. The archive was designed not only to store and preserve the borndigitalcontentofBreacbuttoserveasahubfordiscourseinthefieldofIrishStudies.Aspartofthis
wider aim, the presenters will announce the exciting collaboration between Breac and the IASIL
Bibliography Committee. They will preview the new open access and fully searchable database
beforemovingtodiscussthetechnicalandtheoreticalunderpinningsoftheproject.Inconcluding,
thepresenterswillarguethatbyconnectingtheprintandpost-printeras,thearchivehastheability
to foster a new information ecology for Irish Studies founded on convergence, community, and
collaboration.
3)ConnectingtheMessage
The final paper will use emerging DH methods drawn from Natural Language Processing, Machine
Learning, and Data Mining to demonstrate the research and communication potential of Breac
KeywordsandAnalytics.UsingJSTORforResearchaswellasBreacArchives,thispaperwillmapand
describehistorictrendsinIrishStudies.BuildingfrompreviousworkbyAndrewGoldstoneandTed
Underwood, this study describes the topics and trends of Irish Studies. We use supervised
classification methods based on Breac Keywords to categorize and segment the last 100 years of
Irish Studies. What was the dominant methodology of the 1990s? When and how did Seamus
Heaney and Eavan Boland become objects of Irish Studies? In addition to mapping historic trends,
this paper concludes by describing a classification keywords system implemented in the Breac
ecosystemwhichuseshistoricaldatatoconnectcurrentscholarship.
Aedín Ní Bhróithe Clements is the Irish Studies librarian in the Hesburgh Libraries, University of
Notre Dame. She has an MA in English from Western Michigan University. She is an Irish speaker,
andhasadegreeinIrishandfolklorefromUniversityCollegeDublin,whichisalsowhereshestudied
librarianship.SheisCo-SeniorEditoroftheBreacArchives.
JohnDillon(PhDUniversityofNotreDame)istheLearningAnalyticsandTextMiningPostdoctoral
FellowattheUniversityofNotreDame.HeworkswiththeKanebCenterforTeachingandLearning
andistheAssistantDirectoroftheWritingCenter.Lastsummer,hewasaUSAIDResearchFellowat
IBMResearch,India.HeisthecofounderandDirectorofBreac.
Sonia Howell (PhD Maynooth University) is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of Digital Initiatives in
the University of Notre Dame’s Office of Digital Learning. She is Co-Senior Editor of the Breac
ArchivesandamemberoftheinternationaladvisoryboardfortheDigitalPlatformfortheStudyof
ContemporaryIrishWritingproject.
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9D:IRELANDINTHEINTERNATIONALPRESS
"Christhasrisen!"into"Irelandhasrisen!"Alternations:“TheInsurrectioninDublin”andacross
theSouthAtlantic
LauraP.Z.Izarra(UniversityofSãoPaulo)
Day by day, during nearly two weeks that followed Holy Week, the Irish writer James Stephens
wroteinacriticaltoneabouttherumoursandtensionofthe1916RisinginDublin’sstreets.Forhim
itwasthefirstdayofIrishfreedomandthepreparationforwhatwascominginthenearfuture.The
aim of this paper is to show how Stephens’s journalistic daily registration intersects beliefs in
freedom, idealism and justice already present in his previous work, and how news of the Rising
reached the South Atlantic shores through local and Irish community’s newspapers. Based on Igor
PrimoratzandAleksandarPavković'sconceptofpatriotism,acomparativeanalysisofthediscourse
used in these narratives, in which words such as 'insurrection', 'rebellion', 'revolution', 'rioting',
'rising' appear, will reveal the different positions taken by James Stephens in his account and
journalistsinSouthAmerica.
Peaceorwar?HowtheBraziliannewspapersseetheNorthernIrelandPeaceProcess
MariaClaraLima
InApril2013,NorthernIrelandcelebratedthe15thanniversaryofthePeaceTreatythatputanend
in the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in the country. The symbolic date caught the
Brazilian media’s attention, and the theme was widely used as a source for countless articles in
multiplenewssources.BasedonErvingGoffman’sFramingTheory,thispaperaimstoreflectonthe
relation between the Brazilian media and the Northern-Irish peace process. To that end, we will
analyzethenewsframingofthewebsitesofnewspapers“OGlobo”and“OperaMundi”toanswer
the peace process’s central question: did the Belfast Agreement work? This analysis considered
textualelements,imagesandjornalisticsources,anditwasbasedontheContentAnalysisresearch
method.
MariaClaraLimaisagraduateofJournalismfromSãoPauloStateUniversity(UNESP)andinEnglish
from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), with a degree in Politics and
InternationalRelationsbyFESPSP.SheisalsoamemberoftheBrazilianAssociationofIrishStudies
(ABEI)andaresearcheratMultidisciplinaryGroupofInternationalRelations(Nemri).
Contested Commemorations: Nationalism and the Irish Easter Rising 1916 as portrayed in the
ChineseMayFourthmagazine‘NewYouth’
SimoneO’MalleySutton(UniversityCollegeCork)
This paper is the result of my recent research trip in March 2016 to Oxford’s China Centre library
thatwasfinancedbyatravelbursaryfromCACSSSofUniversityCollegeCork,Ireland.
The theme of this paper is based upon ‘Nation and Nationalism’ and examines the effect
thattheIrishEasterRisingof1916hadupontheChineseintellectualsoftheMayFourtheraasthey
soughttoestablishamodernChinesenationalidentitythroughliterature.Thispaperfocusesonthe
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articleentitled
国 人‘AierlanAiguoShiren’or‘IrishPatrioticPoets’writtenbyLiuBanNong
forthe1October1916editionoftheinfluentialChinese“NewYouth”magazinefoundinVolume2
onpages141-8.
ThispaperfirstlyexamineshowIrishnationalismandthesearchforamodernIrishidentity
throughliteratureandthepoetryofPearse,MacDonaghandPlunkettinspiredtheChineseintheir
search for a modern Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century. Secondly, this paper will
comparethegravesideorationbyPearseforO’DonovanRossawiththeeulogybyDengXiaoPing
forZhouEnlaiwhichledtotheApril5thincidentin1976inChina.Thirdly,thispaperwillconclude
withanexaminationoftheramificationsthisentailsforcontestedcommemorativeprojectsbothin
Irelandfor2016andinChinafor2019,asdifferentgroupingsclaimtobethetrueinheritorsofthe
nationalismoftheIrishEasterRisingandtherevolutionaryMayFourthera.
SimoneO’MalleySuttoncurrentlylecturesfortheSchoolofAsianStudies,UniversityCollegeCork
onthePost-MaoReformEra,ContinuousRevolution,andGender,EthnicityandClass.Shelivedfor
sixyearsinBeijing,lecturedonJamesJoyceatRenminUniversity,andspeaksbothChineseandIrish.
ShewasrecentlyawardedtheIrishMurphyExchangeScholarshiptoattendtheUniversityofNotre
Dameforthesecondyearofherdoctoralresearch.
9E:TRANSLATINGIRELAND
An Impact of Translation: Styles and Rhythms of Traditional Oral Performances in Hirai Teiichi’s
TranslationofBramStoker’sDracula
MasayaShimokusu(DoshishaUniversity,Kyoto)
Translationplaysagreatroleintheacceptanceofliteraryworksinforeigncountries;insomecases,
a literary work’s translation even creates its new image among foreign readers, which its original
doesnothave.TeiichiHirai(1902-1976)wasafamoustranslatorofliterature,mainlyofhorrorand
thesupernatural,andactivelyintroducedWesternsupernaturalandfantasticliteraturetoJapanese
readers after World War II. When he translated Bram Stoker’s Dracula first in Japan—its first
abridgedtranslationpublishedin1956;itsenlargedbutstillabridgedversionin1963;anditsfinal,
complete one in 1971—he decided to translate it as a first-class entertainment full of thrills and
suspense. As a result, Jonathan Harker, an “enfeebled hero” as annotated by Nina Auerbach and
DavidJ.Skal,turnsintoabraveheroswishingadaggerlikeasamuraiwarrior.Inordertoenhance
thrillingatmosphere,HiraiadaptsvariousJapaneseoralperformancetechniquesinhistranslationof
Dracula. His work experiences were critical factors in mastering such narrative techniques. After
theGreatKantoEarthquake(1923),hecopiedmanykabukidramascriptstorestorethosedestroyed
by the fire breaking out due to the quake. The scenarios he reproduced include an awful ghostly
playwhichherecalledinhislaterwriting.AfterWorldWarII,heshortlytaughtEnglishinatownin
the country, and directed student dramas as club activities there. Furthermore, it is said that he
sometimesperformedrakugo,traditionalJapanesecomicstorytelling,inclass.Nowadays,thereare
several translations of Dracula in Japan; among them, however, Hirai’s translation of it is still
regarded as a number-one translation of the vampiric masterpiece with its breathtaking style and
eloquent,rhythmicflowofwords.
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DrMasayaShimokusisaProfessorofEnglish,DoshishaUniversity,Kyoto,Japan.Hewastheformer
secretaryofIASILJapanandformereditorofitsjournal,theJournalofIrishStudies.
BernardShaw´sPygmaliontranslatedintoBrasilianPortuguese
VálmiHatje-Faggion(UniversityofWarwick)
This paper will describe two translations into Brasilian Portuguese of Bernard Shaw´s Pygmalion, a
play still in evidence all over the world after 100 years. The first translation was done by Miroel
SilveiraandwaspublishedunderthetitlePigmaliãobyDeltainRiodeJaneiro,in1964;thesecond
translationwasdonebyMillôrFernandesandwaspublishedunderthetitlePigmaleãobyL&PM,in
PortoAlegre,in2005.Thestudywillshowhowtheplaywasproducedbytwoauthor-translatorsin
two renderings describing how linguistic and cultural aspects were translated for the Brazilian
audience in a span period of about forty years. The theoretical framework to describe literary
translationsbyJoséLambertandHendrikVanGorp(1985)willbeusedasastartingpoint.Inorder
toapproachissuesrelatedtothetranslationforthetheatre/stagethisstudyincludesauthorssuch
as Susan Bassnett (1980, 1985, 1991, 1998), Peter Newmark (1988), Patrice Pavis (2008), and
Barbara Heliodora (2007). A comparative reading of the two translations and their corresponding
English text helps to show both the characteristics and norms of the translation process of each
translator and the differences in the translators´ strategies and options in a time period of more
thanfourdecadeswhichseparatesthetwotranslationspublishedinBrasil.DataindicatethatMiroel
Silveiratendstoadaptanddomesticatelocalelementsofthesourcetext,whichcouldbeduetothe
translationforthestage.MillôrFernandestranscribesproperandgeographicnamesintoPortuguese
toshowthattheactionwassetinEnglandandnotinBrasil.Fernandesalsoadaptsthenarrativeby
addingdatawhichisnotpartofShaw´splay.
VálmiHatje-FaggionisseniorlecturerofTranslationStudiesatUniversidadedeBrasília-UnB,Brasil
with a PhD candidate in Translation Studies from the University of Warwick. Her main research
interestsareintranslationhistoryandanalysisofliterarytranslationintoandfromPortuguese.Her
publicationsincludemanyarticlesinjournalsandTraduçãoeCultura(RiodeJaneiro:7Letras,2011).
TheCarnivaloftheDead:TranslatingMáirtínÓCadhain’sCrénaCilleintoCzech
RadvanMarkus(CharlesUniversityPrague)
MáirtínÓCadhain’sCrénaCille(1949)isrightlyregardedasthemasterpieceoftwentieth-century
Irish-languagefiction,andhasrecentlycreatedconsiderableattentionthankstothepublicationof
itsfirstEnglishtranslationbyAlanTitleyandtheannouncementofthepublicationofyetanotherby
LiamMacConIomaireandTimRobinson.Thispaperwilldiscusssomeofthechoicesandchallenges
thatliebeforeitsCzechtranslator.OnecrucialdecisionwastorendermostofthebookinCommon
Czech,ratherthanStandardCzechoramorespecificdialect.Apartfromotherreasons,thechoiceis
influencedbythehistoryofpreviousIrish-Czechliterarycontacts,namelyBreandánÓhEithir’sIrishlanguage radio version of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk, broadcast in 1986. In the radio
play,cursesandidiomsfromCrénaCilleareusedtorendertheinformallanguageofHašek’sbook,
which was one of the first important novels to be written in Common Czech. Deep-reaching
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similarities between Cré na Cille and The Good Soldier Švejk (as well as Ó hEithir’s novels) may be
moreoverdiscoveredduetotheirconnectiontotheworksofFrançoisRabelais,suggestedbyvarious
critics, as well as their being good illustrations of the use of the carnivalesque, as discussed by
Mikhail Bakhtin. Equally relevant to the translation is Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, which
involves the multi-layered interaction of numerous languages, registers and personal styles within
thenovel.ÓCadhain’stextisespeciallyrichinthisrespectandtotransferthisstylisticexuberanceto
a different language poses a challenge. These considerations, which may contribute also to the
general interpretation of the novel, provide the basic theoretical framework for the translation.
Apartfromthat,thepaperwilldiscussalsosomemorespecificchoicesmade,oftenincomparison
withtheavailableEnglishversions.
Radvan Markus teaches the Irish language and lectures on Irish literature at Charles University,
Prague. He has published on literary reflections of the 1798 Irish Rebellion as well as on Irishlanguageproseofthetwentiethcentury.HeisatranslatorfromIrishtoCzech.
9F:JAMESJOYCE’SAPORTRAIT
AuditoryMemoryinAPortraitoftheArtistasaYoungMan
KaoriHirashige(UniversityCollegeDublin)
Joyce’s texts are characterised by their numerous allusions to musical works including Irish folk
music.Withhisexplicitdisdaintowardtherevivalmovement,Joyce’suseoffolkmusicinparticular
is always, to an extent, a parody of the romantic exploitation of folk tradition in contemporary
revivalistliterature.However,hispersonalloveofsuchmusicisostensiblyatoddswiththisgesture
and has been the source of confusion in the understanding of Joyce’s use of music in his works.
AlthoughAPortraitoftheArtistasaYoungMan(1916)isoftenconsideredtobelessmusicalthan
hisotherthreemajorworks,aclosereadingwillrevealthatcrucialmomentsinthedevelopmentof
StephenDedalus’smindareevokedbyaparticularsound,eitherphysical,oral,ormusical.Aftera
briefconsiderationofrecentstudiesonmusicandmemorywhichsuggestthelinkbetweenmusical
and semantic cognition, this paper will examine the ways in which music of the past recurs in
Stephen’smindandpointoutthat,forJoyce,(vocal)musicplaysacrucialroleintheformationofa
subjectivity. For this inextricability of music and personal memory, I will also argue that Joyce
remained extremely ambivalent as to the role of music in the nationalist movement and saw it as
bothstrengtheningandobscuringthediscoursesonnationalidentity.
Kaori Hirashige is a PhD candidate at University College Dublin, working under the supervision of
Prof. Anne Fogarty and Dr P.J. Mathews, with an interest in the representation of music in the
broader context of the cultural revival, especially in the works of James Joyce, Lady Gregory, and
SeanO’Casey.
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Stephen’sFeverDreamandtheNightmareofHistory
KevinO’Connor(PhillipsAcademy)
October11,1891,thedayParnell’sbodyarrivedfromEnglandtoagrievingcrowdinDunLaoghaire
(thenKingstown),marksadramaticmomentofchangeinIrishpoliticsandculture.Onthesceneto
greet Maude Gonne, Yeats was an inadvertent witness to the event, later claiming that the
aftermathofParnell’sdeathinspiredhisownculturalmissionthatwouldanswertheneedinIreland
for“someunpoliticalformofnationalfeeling.”(Memoirs)
A close-reading of Joyce’s fictional dramatization of the event as part of Stephen’s “fever
dream” in the Clongowes infirmary in Part One of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man can be
valuable for several reasons: the scene re-inscribes this national event as part of Stephen’s
psychologicalformation;itshedslightonthemeaningofStephen’saphorisminUlysses,“Historyis
a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”; and it may also help establish the ground of the
novelist’sagonwithYeats.
Joyce invites the reader to interpret Stephen’s dream both as Freud’s royal road to the
character’sunconsciousandalsoaspartofafictionalnarrativeautobiography.Thecrisesunderlying
the“feverdream”resonatethroughthefollowingChristmasdinnersceneandtherestofthenovel.
Focusing on Joyce’s fictional reworking and presentation of this epochal moment of change could
informadiscussionofchangeinIrishStudiesacenturylater.
Kevin O’Connor teaches English at Phillips Academy in Andover Massachusetts, and has published
essays and poetry in The Notre Dame Review, The Common, The Recorder, Harvard Review Online
andotherjournals.
‘Corpus Stylistics’: a machine-readable re-reading of Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a young
Man
ChiaraSciarrino(UniversityofPalermo)
Corpus linguistic analyses reveal meanings and structural features of data that can be detected
intuitively.Thishasbeendemonstratedwithregardtonon-fictiondataandmostrecentlytofiction
texts,too.Corpusstylisticanalysesrevealliterarymeaningsofthedatathatareleftundetectedby
the intuitive analyses of literary criticism. The analysis of keywords and most frequent phrases of
Joyce’sAPortraitoftheArtistasayoungManconfirmsthisclaimbyuncoveringmeaningsthatare
not discussed in literary critical secondary sources. Literary critics have thoroughly interpreted the
book for decades. This seemingly exhaustive research makes the text particularly attractive for a
corpus stylistics analysis as it allows for comparison of findings from the two methods of analysis.
Thisinturnallowsforanevaluationoftheeffectivenessofcorpusstylisticanalyses:doesusingthese
new analytic techniques provide new insights into the text’s literary meanings? The analyses
presented will not only replicate findings by literary critics, but also, and more importantly, reveal
literarymeaningsofAPortraitthathavenotbeenpreviouslydiscussed.
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9G:DEFERRINGANDREJECTINGCHANGEINTWENTIETH-CENTURYIRISHFICTION
ElizabethBowen:DeferringChange
JohnGreaney(UniversityCollegeDublin)
There is, one could say, a rejection of the idea of change in the writing which follows Irish
independence,particularlyinElizabethBowen'swork.Post-independenceIrelandcomesafterthose
eventsthatarerecognisedashavingchangedthecountry;thatistosay,thoseeventsthatwillexist
assubjecttopoliticalandculturalremembrance.Therefore,wemightsuggest,theperiodofpostindependence,becauseitdoesnotyetknowitself,hasacertainanti-monumentalityinherenttoit,
perhaps a resistance to representation. It thus dramatizes the deferred reality of ‘Ireland’ – not
changed,notunchanged–whichhaswonaWarofIndependencebutisstillnotfullyindependent,
which is still partitioned. The whole of an accomplished Ireland, then, becomes a false memory
which can only exist in the future. The temporality of change in post-independent Ireland, as a
result,isnotconsistentwithchronologicaltimebut,rather,ecstatic.
ElizabethBowen’s‘Irish’literature–TheLastSeptemberandAWorldofLove–acknowledge
a changing Ireland, culturally and politically, but negate the events which ‘official’ Ireland sees as
havingchangedIreland.WorldWaroneisthemajoreventforremembranceinbothnovels.TheWar
ofIndependence,thoughdeeplysetinthefabricofTheLastSeptember,ismetwithambivalenceby
the central characters of that novel. The Anglo-Irish ‘big house’ is again the central site of focus
when Bowen returns to writing Ireland in 1954. Thus, the idea of a changed Ireland after
independenceisgnomicinBowen.
Thispaper,assuch,willoutlinethesimultaneoustendencytowardstheacknowledgement
anddeferralofachangingIrelandinBowen’swritingandwilldiscussthetemporalitieswhichaffect
anunderstandingofchangeinherliterature.
John Greaney is a third-year PhD candidate at University College Dublin supervised by Prof. John
Brannigan.HisresearchdealswithreadingprocessesofmemoryintheoeuvresofSamuelBeckett,
ElizabethBowen,JohnMcGahern,FlannO’Brien,andKateO’Brien.HeisanIrishResearchCouncil
supportedscholar.
StillStuck?TheJoyceanParalysisinEdnaO’Brien’sSaintsandSinners
JenniferA.Slivka(VirginiaWesleyanCollege)
ManyscholarsandreviewershaveclaimedthatthefictionalworksofJamesJoyceandEdnaO’Brien
arenot“political,”butinthispaper,Iwillarguetheopposite—forJoyceandO’Brien,thepersonalis
political. Both of their short story collections—Dubliners and Saints and Sinners, respectively—
expose the plight of the disenfranchised, and suggest that continuities in Irish culture—gender
inequality,economicdisparities,andself-sabotage—arenothingtobecelebrated.
In several interviews, Edna O’Brien has declared that James Joyce has had a major influence upon
herandherwriting.Indeed,thefirstbooksheeverboughtwasIntroducingJamesJoycebyT.S.Eliot
(Harty 2006), and many years later, she wrote her own biography of Joyce. The two writers’ lives
share some obvious similarities as well—both come from humble backgrounds, suffocating
childhoods,exiledadulthood,andrathercontroversialpersonallivesandliterarycareers(bothhad
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theirworksbanned,asignofliterarysuccessforanyIrishwriter).DespitethefactthatJoycewasa
“Dubliner,” and O’Brien a “country girl,” their short stories share a striking central theme, that of
paralysis,offrustratedstasis.ThoughDubliners(1914)andSaintsandSinners(2011)werepublished
97yearsapart,O’Brien’sfictionseemstosuggestthatnotmuchhaschangedfortheIrishpeoplein
termsofescaping,andthusbettering,theircurrentlives.
JenniferSlivkaisanAssistantProfessorofEnglishatVirginiaWesleyanCollegewheresheteaches
contemporary British, Irish, and Postcolonial literature. Her current research examines how
contemporaryIrishwomenwritersdefine“home.”She investigatesthewaysinwhichthe“home”
informs, or in many cases, de-forms the identity of women and other marginal populations within
Ireland.
“Nothingbuttheyearschange”:ModernityandChangeinJohnMcGahern’sAmongstWomen
Yen-chiWu(UniversityCollegeCork)
Thispaper,drawingfrompostcolonialcritiquesofmodernity,examinestheissuesof(un)changein
John McGahern’s Amongst Women. This novel of a family saga in the mid-twentieth-century rural
Ireland has earned McGahern much critical acclaim. Some critics, however, are dissatisfied with
McGahern’spersistentfocusonruralIreland.Forthem,McGahernisanold-fashionedliteraryfigure
indifferenttoIreland’seconomicmodernisation.AmongstWomen,publishedin1990,seemsmore
invested in the aftermath of de Valera’s traditional Ireland rather than the modern Ireland that is
emerging. What underlies this criticism, however, is an easy assumption of a fundamental change
between traditional and modern Ireland. As postcolonial criticism points out, the seeming epochal
change from colonialism to post-colonial nationalism is characterised as much by change as
structuralcontinuity.Thelocalelitestendtoduplicatethecolonialsocialstructuretomaintaintheir
status rather than enforcing a substantial change. Ireland’s paradigm shift from conservative
nationalism to modernizing project in the mid-twentieth century is likewise marked by structural
continuity.Povertyandsocialinequalitycontinuetostrikethelessfortunateintheruralarea.AsJoe
Clearyargues,thesignificanceofpostcolonialinterventioninIrishstudiesistorethinktheextentsto
whichIrishcultureisdislocatedandincorporatedintothemoderncapitalistworld.Itisinthisregard
that this paper proposes to read Amongst Women as an engaged criticism of modernity and the
myth of progress. The stubborn patriarch Michael Moran in the novel, disillusioned with the postrevolutionnationalists,retreatstobuildaruralhomesteadGreatMeadowwhere“nothingbutthe
years change.” As a gesture of staunch “unchange,” Moran’s rural republic defies and unsettles
modernity’sillusionofchange.
Yen-ChiWuisPhDcandidateattheSchoolofEnglish,UniversityCollegeCork.Hisresearchprojectis
fundedbytheIrishResearchCouncilGovernmentofIrelandPostgraduateScholarship.Hisresearch
interests include Irish Studies, Post-colonial Studies, Twentieth-Century American Literature, and
TaiwanStudies.
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10A:IDENTITYATHOMEANDABROADINIRISHWOMEN’SWRITING
ElizabethCullinanand1960sIreland
PatriciaCoughlan(UniversityCollegeCork)
This paper concerns distinguished, but critically neglected, 1960s-‘80s American fiction writer
Elizabeth Cullinan (b. 1933), author of two novels – one, House of Gold (1970), a classic of IrishAmericanliterature–andtwocollectionsofshortstories(1971,1977).Shepublishedregularlyfrom
1960 to 1981 in The New Yorker, where – a Bronx-born and convent-educated outsider – she was
initially employed as a typist. In 1961-3 Cullinan lived in Dublin: several stories, and her second
novel, A Change of Scene (1982), draw on material from this Irish experience. Her writing, which
richlymeritsmorevisibilityandexploration,connectsIrishandIrish-Americanculturalcontextsand
traditionsofwriting,whilealsopinpointingtheirdivergence.ThispaperfocusesonherDublin-based
fictions.Partlypromptedbyculture-shockatmajordisparitiesbetweenthetwomilieus,theseoffer
keen critical perceptions of the conduct of Irish social, particularly male-female, relations at a key
moment, the early’60s, just before urbanization, secularization and economic prosperity became
transformativeforces.
Patricia Coughlan is Professor Emerita at the School of English, University College Cork. She is the
authorof“BogQueens...:RepresentationsofFemininityinthePoetryofSeamusHeaneyandJohn
Montague” (Gender in Irish Writing, 1991), editor of Spenser and Ireland: An Interdisciplinary
Perspective(CorkUniversityPress,1990),andco-editorofModernismandIreland:thePoetryofthe
1930s(CorkUniversityPress,1995)andIrishLiterature:FeministPerspectives(2008).
TheGathering:TheRepresentationofIreland’sFamilyStructureinThreeGenerations
RejanedeSouzaFerreira(FederalUniversityofTocantins)
ThispaperwilldiscusshowIrishfamilystructurechangesduringthetwentiethcentury,accordingto
theanalysisofthreedifferentgenerationsofthesamefamilyportrayedinAnneEnright’snovelThe
Gathering.Thestoryofthatnovelistoldfromafemalepointofview.Veronicaisthenarratorwho
createshergrandmother’sstoryandtellshermotherstoryandherownfromherpointofview.This
way, Veronica tells how her grandmother worked to make a living, how her mother was always
pregnantandsupportedbyVeronica’sfather,andhowlongsheherselfneededtoworktohelpher
husbandraisetheirtwochildren.IagreewithElizabethBadinter’sideasinL’amourenPlus(1980),
thatwomenarenotfreeenoughtoruletheirrolesasmothersandwivesinsociety.So,Iintendto
showhowthosewomen’schoicesandnecessitiesabouttheirfamiliesreflectIreland’ssocio-political
situationinthenovel.TheanalysiswillalsobeenlightenedbythephilosophicalideasbyDiarmaid
Ferriter in Occasions of Sin: Sex & Society in Modern Ireland (2012) and Luce Irigaray’s The Bodily
EncounterwiththeMother(1991)amongothers.
RejanedeSouzaFerreiraisProfessoratFederalUniversityofTocantins,Brazil,wheresheteaches
Literature in English Language. She holds a PhD in Language and Literature, and has also been a
DoctoralResearchFellowattheSchoolofEnglish,DramaandFilm,UniversityCollegeDublin.
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10B:YEATSINANINTERNATIONALCONTEXT
YeatsinQuebec:TranslatingtheArtist
AileenRuane(UniversitéLaval)
Culturalsimilaritiesandasharedhistorythroughimmigrationhaveproducedasizeablemarketfor
thetranslationandperformanceofmainlycontemporaryIrishtheatreinQuebec.However,in2009,
writer/director/actor Christian Lapointe undertook the translation of three of W.B. Yeats’s lesser
known plays: Calvary (1920), The Resurrection (1931), and Purgatory (1939). While not a trilogy,
Lapointe chose to stage the three plays as such because of their dramatic impact and symbolism.
Furthermore, by rewriting the plays to include Yeats’s poetry, Lapointe’s translation confers on
Yeats’s highly symbolic, modernist drama, a postmodern feeling that brings contemporary,
international relevancy to his body of work. In Lapointe’s hands, both through translation and
adaptation,thesethreeplaysformathematictrilogyandserveapropheticfunctionforthetimein
which we live, elevating them to an intensely critical, engaged theatre. Indeed, the very act of
reorganizing and dismantling three plays that were never intended to be staged together changes
theverynatureofYeats’spoetry,aptlyreflectedinLapointe’stitlingofhisadaptationasLimbes;the
title produces the more figurative sense of limbo as opposed to the more theologically situated
purgatory.Lapointe’stextpresentstheaudiencewithaquandary:giventhefactthatLapointelabels
histextasatranslationandadaptation,aswellasare-writeofYeats’soriginalplaysandpoetry,how
are we to intuit the changes that occurs when the latter is delocalized and re-centered in a new
context? This paper will examine both the text of Lapointe’s translation as well as its staging to
highlightYeats’scontinuedinfluenceaspoetandplaywright,aswellasthechangingeffectonthe
audiencewhensuchhighlysymbolicworksaresodramaticallyaltered.Theresultofsuchchangesis
not an appropriation or arbitrary modernization of Yeats, but rather identification with and
recognitionofthesamedisillusionmentpresentintheoriginalworks.
YeatsandYonejiroNoguchi:MutualInfluencesbetweenIrelandandJapan
ShotaroYamauchi(GakushuinUniversity)
NoguchiYonejiroisknownasoneoftheJapanesepoetswhointroducedYeatsintoJapaneseliterary
circles, in the article he publishedin the 1904 literary journalEibun Shinshi(The NewJournal of
English Literature). At the same time, Noguchi wrote poems in English and in 1896 contributed an
Englishpoem,"TheMidnightWinds”,toTheChapBook,anAmericanmagazinetowhichYeatsalso
contributed.AlthoughNoguchiwasconsciousofYeatstoagreatdegree,Yeatswasalsoconsciousof
Noguchi.Yeatswasamemberof“Ayamekai",aninternationalpoets'clubNoguchihadestablished
in1906.
InNoguchi's1916article,"AJapanesePoetonW.B.Yeats",Noguchiwritesaboutameeting
with Yeats. Noguchi mentions the situation of Japanese literature at that time and themutuality
betweenJapaneseandwesternliterature,andsuggeststhatJapanesepeoplecanfindthe“passion
andimagination”ofJapaneseliteraturein‘some’westernliterature.By‘some’Noguchiwaschiefly
referringtoYeats,andtheCelticTwilight.Thepurposeofthispaperistoshowthesharedcultural
interestsbetweenYeatsandNoguchi.Bothpoetswereinsympathywitheachother'sapproachto
art:Yeatsemphasised“Irishness”inhiswork,justasNoguchi,withthespecificexampleofYeatsin
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mind, emphasized his "Japaneseness" in his English poems. In addition, I will discuss Noguchi's
observationsaboutthesimilaritiesbetweenYeatsandNoh.Noguchiwasoneoftheearliesttosee
the symbolism of Japanese Noh in Yeats’s theatre. His extraordinary foresight revealed parallels
betweenwesternsymbolistdramaandNohmanyyearsbeforethiswouldbecomeacommonplace
in critical discussions of Yeats.The relationship between Yeats and Noguchi shows how they
stimulatedeachother’screativeactivityandculturalinterests.Inthispaper,Iwillarguethat,justas
Yeats found Irish literature in Japanese literature, especially Noh, Noguchi too found Japanese
literatureinIrishliterature.
ShotaroYamauchiisaPhDcandidateatGakushuinUniversity,Tokyo,witharesearchinterestisthe
receptionofW.B.YeatsinJapan.
ChangingCultures:AComparativeAnalysisofJuanRamónJiménezandRiveroTaravillo’sSpanish
Translationsof‘AnIrishAirmanForeseesHisDeath’
NuriadeCos(TrinityCollegeDublin)
SpanishNobelLaureateJuanRamónJiménez(1881-1958)consideredW.B.Yeatsthebestlivingpoet
writingintheEnglishlanguage.Becauseofthisadmiration,JiménezandhiswifeZenobiaCamprubí
(1887-1956) translated some of Yeats’s poems with one aim in mind, publishing a translated
anthology so that the Spanish reading public could enjoy Ireland’s national poet as well. Little did
theyknowatthetimethatYeats’sliteraryagent,andYeatshimself,wouldimpedethedevelopment
ofJiménez’sproject.However,somemanuscriptsofthosetranslationshavesurvived,togetherwith
thepublicationofEljirasolylaespada(1920),atranslationofJ.M.Synge’s RiderstotheSeaand
Yeats’s The Countess Cathleen. However, until now, only one translation has appeared of Yeats’s
complete poems in Spanish, carried out by Antonio Rivero Taravillo and published in 2010. The
objective of this paper is to trace the reception of ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ into the
Spanishlanguage.Todoso,thetranslationsbyJiménezandRiveroTaravillowillbecomparedwith
the original poem to devise which changes and adaptations have been made to the original text,
eitherbecausethewilloraestheticvPawaluesofthetranslatorprevailedoverthoseoftheoriginal
poem,becausetherehasbeenamisinterpretation,orbecausethetranslatorfelttheneedtoadapt
thelinesforrhythmicorculturalreasons.Then,themannerinwhichthetextassuchischangedand
performs in a foreign language will be appreciated, and conclusions will be drawn to see if the
translated version can be understood as a free-standing poem, or the reader needs to have read
Yeats’soriginaltograspitfully.
Nuria de Cos is a PhD candidate at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She is working on a comparative
studyofthethemeofdeathinthepoetryofW.B.YeatsandJuanRamónJiménez.Shestudiedan
MPhilinIrishWriting(TCD),andaBAinEnglishStudiesatComplutenseUniversityofMadrid.
10C:MARTINMCDONAGH’SHANGMEN
MartinMcDonagh’sEpistemologicalInstability:TheNooseofHangmen
JoanFitzPatrickDean(UniversityofMissouri-KansasCity)
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MartinMcDonagh’smostrecentplayHangmen,adeparturefromhisearlierworksnotonlyinthe
timebutalsotheplaceofitssetting(Britaininthe1960s),looksatinstitutionalaswellascriminal
violence.AlthoughrepresentativesofthelaworlegalsystemappearinASkullinConnemaraand,
muchmorecentrally,inThePillowman,thoseinHangmenunderscoreitsattentiontoquestionsof
civicandpersonalmorality.
McDonagh’s plays and films typically rely on power structures that are grounded in
knowledge—often, the knowledge of secrets. What characters know, how they know it, and how
certaintheirknowledgeshapesifnotdeterminestheactionsofhischaracters.His,likemost,drama
drawsitsenergyfrommethodicallyrevealingandrefiningknowledge;his,likeall,dramaticironyis
predicated on the disparity between imperfect understanding and what is finally disclosed as the
truth. Hangmen again demonstrates McDonagh’s formidable gifts in plotting a dramatic piece
through a meticulously incremental approach to truth, but his central concerns, including capital
punishment and matters of life and death, raise issues that demand “absolute” conviction and an
endtoepistemologicalinstability.
JoanFitzPatrickDeanisCuratorsProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityofMissouri,KansasCity.She
istheauthorofRiotandGreatAnger:StageCensorshipinTwentieth-CenturyIrelandandAllDressed
Up: Modern Irish Historical Pageantry (Syracuse University Press, 2014), and co-editor of Beyond
Realism:ExperimentalandUnconventionalIrishDramasincetheRevival(2015).
“DidyoulikehowImadethatturn,Officer?”:MartinMcDonagh’sHangmen
OndrejPilny(CharlesUniversityPrague)
This paper intends to examine the changes and the continuities involved in Martin McDonagh’s
latest play, Hangmen (2015), in the context of his dramatic oeuvre. As Hangmen is the first of
McDonagh’s plays that features protagonists based on actual people, the famous hangmen Albert
Pierrepoint, Harry Allen and Stephen Wade, the first part of the paper will focus on how reality is
transformedintheplay,anaspectthatwillbecontrastedwithMcDonagh’s“Irish”plays.Thesecond
partofthepaperwilldiscusstheprecariouswayinwhichMcDonaghweldstogetherthegrotesque
entertainment typical of his earlier work and a serious engagement with the issue of capital
punishment.
OndřejPilnýisAssociateProfessorofEnglishandDirectoroftheCentreforIrishStudiesatCharles
University,Prague.HeistheauthorofIronyandIdentityinModernIrishDrama(2006)andeditorof
six collections of essays and five journal issues, most recently Irish Theatre and Central Europe
(Litteraria Pragensia 25.50, 2015). His translations include plays by J.M. Synge, Brian Friel, Martin
McDonaghandEndaWalsh.
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“Thereʼsropesandthereʼsropes”:KnowingtheRopesinMartinMcDonaghʼsHangmen
JoséLanters(UniversityofWisconsin-Milwaukee)
In much of his oeuvre, especially plays like The Pillowman and A Behanding in Spokane, and the
moviesInBrugesandSevenPsychopaths,MartinMcDonaghhasbeenpreoccupiedwithquestionsof
goodandevil,crime,sin,guilt,punishment,andredemption.Inadditiontoacentralmoralquestion,
theseworkshavewhatHansinSevenPsychopathscalls“layers”:theseincludeaplotinvolvingmany
ironic twists and turns – a string of moves and countermoves that often culminates in an ironic
moment of ambiguity – as well as a strong metafictional component. These narrative and
metafictionallayersareinextricablyintertwinedandcrucialtothecentralmoralquestioninsofaras
the postmodern “moral vision” contained in these works amounts to an expression of contingent
truth (a “story”) embedded in textual play rather than one based in the idea of an external,
universal, absolute Truth. Morality as a matter of privileging one “plot line” over another then
amounts to a question of “writerly choice”. McDonaghʼs Hangmen, which premiered at Londonʼs
Royal Court Theatre in September 2015, concerns itself with the moral question of capital
punishmentandissetin1965,onthedaywhenhangingisabolishedinBritain;buttheghostsofthe
(rightfullyorwrongfully)executedstillhauntthepubinOldhamnowrunbyHarryWade,aformer
hangmanlesswell-knownthan(andhenceresentfulof)thefamousAlbertPierrepoint.InthispaperI
readHangmenasahighlyaccomplished,seamlesslyconstructedinstallmentinMcDonaghʼsongoing
artisticinvestigationofmoralquestions.Iteaseoutthevariousropesofthemoral-textualfabricthat
makes up the play: the philosophical argument; the historical, real-world material; the fictional
component;andthemetafictionaldevicethatweavesthemalltogether.
JoséLantersisProfessorofEnglishandCo-DirectoroftheCenterforCelticStudiesattheUniversity
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author of The “Tinkers” in Irish Literature (2008) and
UnauthorizedVersions:IrishMenippeanSatire,1919–1952(2000),andco-editorofBeyondRealism:
Experimental and Unconventional Irish Drama since the Revival (2015). She is vice-chair for North
AmericaontheIASILexecutivecommitteeandpastpresidentoftheAmericanConferenceforIrish
Studies(ACIS).
10D:PLAYINGWITHNARRATIVETECHNIQUES
“Insideonedoesn’tchange”:ComicContrastsinMollyKeane’sDevotedLadies(1934)
BryanRadley(UniversityofYork)
AccordingtoPollyDevin’sintroductiontothe1984ViragoreprintofMollyKeane’sDevotedLadies,a
fiftiethanniversaryeditionofthetext’spseudonymouspublication,thenovelis“aremarkableand
vividsocialhistory[…]ofavanishedworld”.Importantly,however,thenarrativealsorepresentsan
artisticdeparturefromthefirstfiveM.J.Farrellhuntin’-shootin’-fishin’romances.DevotedLadiesis
different, with a Waughian focus on metropolitan privilege, literary parties, and subversive sexual
identities. It depicts a fast, theatrical set encountering an Anglo-Irish Big House world for the first
time as the narrative moves between London and the fictional County Westcommon in 1933. It
bringsastrainofstereotypicallybrittleEnglishsatireintodialoguewithoneoftheoldestcomicplots
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oftheIrishnovel,datingbacktoEdgeworthandOwenson,namelythedeflatedgenericexpectations
ofEnglishvisitorstoIreland.
These two modes are explicitly opposed early on. Much of the action is focalised though
Sylvester Browne, a talentless but “very popular” Anglo-Irish playwright. In Ireland, Browne is
portrayedaslookingwith“adefensiverapture”at“themosttypicalEdwardianroom”hehasever
seen.This“dearandvaluable”libraryinKilque,thehomeofhiscousinsHesterandViolaBrowne,
has remained unchanged for at least fourteen years, i.e. since their mother’s death in 1919. The
juxtaposition of an Anglo-Irish literary space frozen in an earlier time with fashionable,
contemporaryArtDecoLondonflatsfullof‘vilebodies’isjustoneofthecontraststhatthiswitty,
self-reflexivenoveldependsupon.Withconsummateironicdetachment,Keanecounterpoints“the
quenched and musty atmosphere” of Kilque’s “rural scenes” with the artifice and artificiality of
Sylvester’sinterwarLondonlife.Thesolidityofa“rosewoodwritingdesk”inanimperturbableroom
“withoutcharacterandwithoutbeautyofanysort”issetagainstSylvester’scrêpe-de-chinesheets
and Jane Barker’s “shallow pink shell” bath – and, by extension, the rapid social, and especially
sexual,changestakingplaceacrosstheIrishSea.Thispaperwillexplorethecomiccollisionofthese
twoworlds,ofstasisandtransience,inthenovel.
BryanRadleyisalecturerinModernLiteratureattheUniversityofYork.Hisresearchandteaching
interestsincludetheoriesofcomedyandtwentieth-andtwenty-first-centuryBritishandIrishfiction.
HeiscurrentlyfinishingabookonJohnBanville.
“Just,justoutofthetrue:”ElizabethBowen’sGhosts
ElizabethGrove-White(UniversityofVictoria)
Ghosts have grown up. Far behind lie their clanking and moaning days… they abjure the overfantasticandgrotesque,operatinginsteadthroughaseriesofhappeningswhosehorrorliesintheir
beingjust,justoutofthetrue…
(BowenandAsquith)
The UNCANNY means – I think? – the unknowable – something beyond the bounds of rational
knowledge–
Inthis,IincludetheGHOSTSTORY–withitscontentoffear…
(BowenandHepburn)
Paul Muldoon has described Elizabeth Bowen’s literary terrain as shrouded in a “feth fiada,” the
mythicalfairymistbetweenbeingandnon-being,“betweenthisworldandsomeotherwonderous
realm (Muldoon)” and even sympathetic readers like Neil Corcoran (Corcoran) and Maud Ellmann
(Ellmann) are reduced to terms like “oddness,” “strangeness,” and “hallucinatory” to describe
Bowen’suncannyterrain.SinceEllman’sgroundbreakingstudy,severalscholarshavesuggestedthat
Bowen’s distinctive rendering of objects/things is part of a complex, distinctive mosaic of
subjectivity.Mostrecently,LaciMattison(2015),acknowledgesanemergingcriticalconsensusthat
Bowen’sobjectsare“moreattunedtomemoryandhistorythantheirownersare.”
This paper will demonstrate how things/objects in Bowen’s ghost stories possess an existence
“beyondtheboundsofrationalknowledge,”destabilizingfamiliardistinctionsbetweenhumanand
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non-human,beingandnon-being,toproducethehorrorandfearsheclaimsascharacteristicsofthe
modernghoststory.ThispaperproposesareadingofElizabethBowen’sWorldWarIIghoststories
throughthelensof“thingtheory,”arguingthatBowen’streatmentofthings/objectsiscentraltoher
distinctive feth fiada, particularly in her rendering of that liminal space in her ghost stories where
thingsintersectwithhumanandsocialelements.
Elizabeth Grove-White is an Associate Professor in the University of Victoria's English
Department. Her recent work, including an online scholarly edition of Robert Graves's diaries,
focusesontextualgenres,particularlytheoreticalandpracticalapplicationsofgenericconventions
and patterns (such as tropes and paratexts) relevant for XML coding schemas for Text Encoding
Initiative(TEI)scholarlyeditionsandfordistantreadingscholarship.
OrderingSpaceandPolicingSubjects:WilliamTrevor’sFictionandtheSmallRuralTown
ConstanzadelRío(UniversityofZaragoza,Spain)
Following the idea that different economico-political systems are inextricably related to different
socio-cultural spaces, I will start this presentation by making reference to an old Irish small
settlementcalled“theclachan”,apre-modernnucleatedvillagelinkedtotherundalesystemofland
exploitation and ownership associated to what James Connolly called “Gaelic communism”, where
the land was common property and work and leisure, together with the private and the public
spheres,sharedspace.TheGreatFaminedidawaywithmostsuchsettlementsthatstillremained,
mainlyintheWestofIreland,togivewaytotheIrishsmallruraltownasmainspatialrepresentative
of the new modern capitalist ethos. Taking my cue from the theories on space and spatiality by
Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, Henri Lefebvre, Edward Soja, Yi-Fu Tuan and Gerry Smyth,
amongothers,IwillattempttoanalysethearrangementandproductionofspaceinTrevor’snovel
Love and Summer (2009). My intention is to explore the power relations, social and economic
networks, and everyday practices that the small town, as represented in this novel, encourages.
Attentionwillbepaidtohowalltheseelementsimpingeuponthelivesofthefictionalcharacters
inhabiting or visiting the town, as well as to the extent that these characters assume or rather
appropriatedifferentspacesforpurposesotherthantheestablishedones.
Constanza del Río-Álvaro is Senior Lecturer in British and Irish Literature at the University of
Zaragoza. Her research centres on contemporary Irish fiction, narrative and critical theory and
popular narrative genres. She has also published on writers Flann O’Brien, Seamus Deane, Eoin
McNamee,WilliamTrevor,JenniferJohnston,KateO’Riordan,PatrickMcCabeandSebastianBarry.
Sheisco-editorofMemory,ImaginationandDesireinContemporaryAnglo-AmericanLiteratureand
Film(2004).
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10E:POLITICSOFVIOLENCEANDWARINPOETRYANDDRAMA
PositivePerspectiveintheAmbiguityinYeats’sWartimePoems
RyujiIshikawa(UniversityoftheRyukyus)
ThispaperexaminesambiguoustropesinYeats’swartimepoemsintermsofAVision.Asepitomized
in “The Second Coming,” Yeats’s historical perspective toward the future is prevailingly negative.
Thisisbecausehislateryearsaredominatedbysuccessiveviolencethatforeshadowedacenturyof
warfare. Along with the First World War, the domestic armed conflicts of the Easter Uprising, the
BlackandTansWar,andtheIrishCivilWarmightwellprovidesufficientjustificationforanegative
outlook on the world. Accordingly, his wartime poems like “Easter, 1916,” “The Second Coming,”
“NineteenHundredandNineteen,”and“MeditationinTimeofCivilWar”arefilledwithgloomand
antipatheticfigures.
However, as many critics like Elizabeth Cullingford and Rob Dogette argue, there is a
paradoxicaljuxtapositionofnegativismandoptimisminYeats’sfigures.Itisevidentthatambiguous
juxtaposition of antithetical themes produces poetical diversity of connotations. The ambiguity of
laterpoems,includingoneswithwarthemes,issupposedtobeessentiallyrelatedtotheprincipal
symbol of Yeats’s philosophy. In A Vision, Yeats introduces two intersecting cones as the principal
symbol of his esoteric symbolism, and the most complicated and interesting characteristic of the
symbol is the kinetic tension of the two gyrating cones. The tension of the two gyres most
prominently works when they are exchanging their dominance. This is a moment of change.
Therefore, the ambiguous figures in Yeats’s wartime poems are indispensably associated with his
principalsymbol.Theapparentdisorderbroughtaboutbywarcontainstheopportunityforpositive
changes. This paper thus examines the association between Yeats’s ambiguous figures and his
principalsymbol.
Ryuji Ishikawa is Professor of English Literature at the University of the Ryukyus, Japan, and is
currentlyworkingonaresearchprojecttitled“ThePoeticsoftheWind:LyreandGyre”fromwhich
thispaperistaken.
PoliticalPoetry1916and1960s:W.B.YeatsandThomasKinsella
MartiD.Lee(GeorgiaSouthernUniversity)
Themostwell-knownpoeticexpressionoftheEaster1916risingisthepoemofthesamenameby
W. B. Yeats. The poet was conflicted between artistic expression and political commentary, the
necessityforactionandthepricepaidbytherebelsthemselves.Hisconflictisexhibitedinpartby
the dichotomy between the urban and the rural in the poem itself. In 1972, Thomas Kinsella
published“Butcher’sDozen”inresponsetotheBloodySundayeventsinDerry.Inmostofhiswork,
Kinsellaclaimstohavenoovertpoliticalorsocialagendaandtohave“workedhardtostayfreeofall
such accidental matters” (personal correspondence) and has resisted joining any political
organizations,buthe,likeYeats,feltitnecessarytoexpresshisanger,fear,andsorrowpoetically.
ThereisalongtraditioninIrelandofpoeticrevolution,butIbelievethesespecificpoems—fifty-six
years apart—commemorate these two violently seminal events in comparable ways that invite
furtherexplorationoftheroleofthepoetinpolitics.
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ThispresentationwillexamineYeats’sandKinsella’spoemsandsituatetheminthetradition
of artistic remembrance and political commentary. I believe this fruitful comparison provides an
interesting connection between the centenary of Easter 1916 and the focus on new forms in
NorthernIrelandalsohighlightingtheconferencethemeof“change”byexaminingthesimilaritiesin
theme,thedifferencesinform,andtheambiguityofpurpose.
Marti D. Lee is a lectureratGeorgiaSouthernUniversity andaPhD candidate at the Universityof
SouthCarolina with a dissertation on representations of Cú Chulainn. Sheeditedacollection,Irish
Studies:GeographiesandGenders,withEdMaddenin2008,andherchapteronStandishO’Grady
appearsinCraftingInfinity:ReworkingElementsofIrishCulture(2012).
10F:JAMESJOYCE’SDUBLINERSANDFINNEGANSWAKE
FinnegansWakeandToraíochtDhiarmadaagusGhráinne,agfiannaíochtsalóagusagfeadaílsan
oíche
DiarmuidCurraoin(IndependentScholar)
In Finnegans Wake James Joyce skilfully weaves the different strands of his nation into one great
chaotictapestryofblackknotsandlooseends,afabricofsplicedsentencesandtangledstorylines
capable of displaying both the colour and the pattern of a history made myth and of a mythology
madetrue.
All elements of the Irish storytelling tradition are there but it is the ever-spinning Fenian
Cyclewhichactsasthewarp-threadaroundwhichtheweftofotheryarnsarewoven,withToraíocht
Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, in particular, providing the mystery required to produce some of the
mostemotionallycomplexbraidsoftheentirework.
This paper will scrutinise a number of the most dramatic allusions made by Joyce to the
ToraíochtinFinnegansWake.Itwill,however,primarilydealwithstylisticsimilaritieswhichappear
toexistbetweenthetwostoriesandexaminethepossibilitythatthecentralityofwordplay,somuch
associatedwiththelatterwork,is,infact,afeaturewhichiscommontobothofthem.
Finnegans Wake is the book of the night. Whether its author was aware of it or not, a
tradition,evenupuntilrecenttimes,existedwhichheldthattheFiannaasabody,butDiarmuidand
Gráinneinparticular,shouldnotbespokenofbyday,thatonlythedarknesswouldprotectthem.It
wouldsurelypleaseJamesJoycetoknowthattheyounglovershidefromtheirpursuersstillanddo
sointhetangledundergrowthofhisfinalmasterpiece.
DiarmuidCurraoinisanindependentscholarandteachesatSandfordParkSchool,Dublin.Hehas
deliverednumerouslecturesonJamesJoyce,includingMythandMetaphysicsintheWorksofJames
JoyceattheUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley(2012).HeistheauthorofIKnowThatIHaveBroken
EveryHeart:TheSignificanceoftheIrishLanguageinFinnegansWakeandinOtherWorksofJames
Joyce(2014).
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JamesJoyce,theCatofBeaugencyandtheLordMayorofDublin
BruceStewart
On10August1936,whilevisitingthetownofBeaugencyinNorth-EastFrance,JamesJoycesenta
celebratedlettertohisgrandsonStephen(“Stevie”),thenalittlelessthanfour,inwhichhenarrated
a local piece of folklore in amusing terms which gave us the text for “The Cat and the Devil” and
severalothereditionsofthesametranslatedintonumerousforeignlanguages.In2014,aversionin
BrazilianPortugueseappearedfromthepressoftheFederalUniversityofRiodoNorteas“OGato
deBeaugency”andthispaperbeganasanafterwordtothatpublication.Inwritingit,Icameupon
somefactsthesignificanceofwhichhasonlysincebecomeclear–assistedbyavisittoBeaugency
since its publication. Joyce’s story is substantially based on the contemporary tourist information
associatedwiththetownwhichhaslittlechangedovertheyears.
Theemphasisinthatliteraturerestsonthechestnut-growingprowessofregion,withspecial
mention made of the legend of the cat of Beaugency. Joyce’s rendering of the folklore classic –
associatedwithmanybridges-incorporatesabilingualpunregardingthenatureofthetownspeople
whoareknownasBalgentiansbyreasonoftheusualFrenchpracticeofRoman-stylenomenclature.
IntheversionwhichhetellsStephen,JoycepermitstheDeviltospeakFrench–orsomethinglikeit–
whenhesays:‘Vousn’êtespasdebellegensdutout!Vousn’êtesquedeschats.’Now,Joyceknew
very well that the grammar in those sentences is awry and that a Frenchman would say ‘bonnes
gens’ in that locution but he permits the devil –usually depicted in the likeness of James Joyce
himself—to be a poor speaker of French in order to access a pun which would not otherwise be
available. (Belle, in any case, means beautiful not good.) To this he adds the excuse – perfectly
cogenttoallreadersofFinnegansWake–thatthe‘Devil’snativelanguageisBellsybabble’.
All of this ushers in the question of bilingualism and the Joyce family abroad - a matter of some
complexityandpathosespeciallyinrelationtoLucia.Atthesametime,thesoleIrishelementother
than some Hiberno-English phrases is the person of one Alfred Byrne, here represented as the
MayorofBeaugencywhosleepswithhiskneesinhismouthwhileclutchinghismayoralchaintightly
tohischest.NowAlfredByrne(1882-1955)wasthetrice-timesLordMayorofDublinandaworkingclass politician who successful negotiated the treacherous space between British Rule and Irish
IndependenceinalongandeminentcareerasaLordMayorandTDbyturns.In1937hewithdrew
hisPresidentialcandidacyinfavourofDouglasHyde.
What did Joyce know of him? At no point in their lives did their paths cross, but in 1935
Joycewrote,‘IseethelittleLordMayorofDublinAlfieByrneisgoingtoN.Y.forthe17th[i.e.,St.
Patrick’s Day]’, and later on: ‘Every day I open the Irish Times I seem him and his golden chain in
somephotographorother.’ItispossiblethathewitnessedinthesameyearaPatheNewsfilmof
AlfieByrneexplainingthehistoryofthe‘chainofSS’[esses]whichitwashisprivilegetowear–it
wasmadeforDanO’Connell–and,ifso,hecanhardlyhavemissedtheblackcatwhoflitsacrossthe
screen behind the garden chair in the Mansion House where that office-holder was sitting. The
paper will be illustrated with images of Beaugency and with a brief showing of the Pathé film in
question.
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10G:IRISHLITERATUREINAGLOBALCONTEXT
ChangingScales:IrishStudiesandthePlanet
CóilínParsons,GeorgetownUniversity
This paper will attempt an overview of recent trends in Irish studies towards a ‘global’ frame of
reference(forexample,Lonergan,Fagan,Maher(ed.),andothers).Muchofthisworkfocusesonthe
‘globalisation’ofIrishcultureinbothsenseoftheworld—itstransitsaroundtheglobe,andglobal
influencesontheculture—occasionedbyflowsofcapitalandmigrants.
Thisorientationtowardsglobalisationprivilegesneocolonialandneoliberalconceptsofthe
globe, tying this new internationalisation of Irish literary studies to ‘worlding,’ inSpivak’s sense of
theword.Inthepaper,Iwanttothinkabouthowwe,aspractitionersofIrishstudies,mightbetter
negotiatethetroubledwatersofglobalandworldscalesbypayingattentiontoemergentdiscourse
of the planet, not as ecocritical site but as a scale that exists ‘in the species of alterity’ (Spivak),
comprehendingtheglobe,butalwaysopposedtoitsworkofrationalisationanddifferentiation.The
paper will close with a reading ofUlysses that might help us to understand what such a planetary
scaleofreadingmightlooklikeinIrishliterature.
Thepaperisinspiredbybutalsoinfrictionwiththeserecent,welcomemovestochangethe
scale of Irish studies (which IASIL has been so instrumental in), and asks Irish scholars to think
criticallyabouthowweapproachthescalesofcomparisonweengageinwhenwethinkaboutthe
world.
Cóilín Parsons is Assistant Professor of English at Georgetown University, where he teaches Irish
literature, modernism, and postcolonial studies. He is the author of The Ordnance Survey and
Modern Irish Literature (Oxford University Press, 2016), and co-editor of Relocations: Reading
CultureinSouthAfrica(UniversityofCapeTownPress,2015).
GeorgeBernardShawandJamesJoyceinShanghai
FengJianming(ShanghaiUniversityofInternationalBusinessandEconomics)
GeorgeBernardShawandJamesJoycehavecontributedgreatlytotheliteraryrelationshipbetween
Shanghai and Ireland. The Influences of Shaw’s visit to Shanghai and Joyce Study in Shanghai are
important aspects of the cultural bond between Shanghai and Ireland, and they have reflected
necessaryconnectionbetweenliteratureandsocialmission.Inthetimesofupheavalinlastcentury,
ShawvisitedShanghaiforexchanges—invariousdirections—withChineseculturalcelebrities.During
peacetime,theacademicactivitiesofJoycestudyinShanghaihavebroadenedtrust,understanding
and cooperation between east and west. The traditional friendship between Shanghai and Ireland
has weathered the test of time. Shanghaiese and Irish citizens are carrying forward friendship,
joininghandsfordevelopment,andcreatingabetterfutureforSino-Irishrelations.
Dr Feng Jianming is the director of the Irish Studies Centre, professor of English Language and
Literature, and supervisor of MA candidates at the School of Languages, Shanghai University of
International Business and Economics. His main research interests include Irish Literature, British
Literature,theBibleasLiterature,andLiteraryTranslation.
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YeatsianPoeticsofScale
YoungminKim(DonggukUniversity)
Both modern and contemporary poets have provided the verbal representation of the visual
representation in a way of what Yeats calls "stylistic arrangements" for a vision to embellish their
creative thoughts. Their own creative “grid” is a network of lines that cross each other to form a
seriesofsquaresorrectangles,representingthebird's-eye-viewoftheforestoftwentieth-century
poeticworld,andthepoetorganizesthecontentofthegridsothatthereaderinturncanseeitby
imposingstructureandcohesiontothelayoutofthepoematlarge.Byappearance,thegridseems
toworkasanorderingdeviceforclosure.However,whenonelookscloselyintothegridforwriting,
one will discover that it represents the transformative moving openness which has been initiated
andaccompaniedbytheanti-closurethroughoutthewritingprocessofpoetry.Yeats’sgeometrical
symbolsofthedoubleconeorvortexbelongtosuchagridasYeatselaboratesinhisAVision(7071): "Line and plane are combined in a gyre which must expand or contract according to whether
mindgrowsinobjectivityorsubjectivity."
If one turns to the other side of or goes deeper into this open grid, however, one can
encounter more dynamic and moving image of the mind. The transnational understanding of the
world has transformed the visual representation into the topology of the mind when they
interrogated the tension between the conscious outside and the unconscious inside. When this
opennessofgridinmodernpoetryissituatedinthewidercontextofworldliterature,thestorygoes
inadifferentdirection.Anewpoeticsof“scale,”acartographicstructuralconceptwhichhasbeen
employedasthecentralforegroundandbackgroundinthefieldofcomparativeandworldliterature,
alongwith“distantreading,”willprovideus,thereaders,withatopologicalsuturingbetween"the
outerskinoftheinterior"and"theinnerskinoftheexterior"ofthepoeticmindinthewidercontext
ofworldliterature,asuturinginwhichthehistoricalinteractswiththevisualinbothupscalingand
downscaling dynamic and systematic way. In Yeats’ poem, "Nineteen Hundred Nineteen," one can
findanexemplaropenscale.
YoungminKimteachesattheDepartmentofEnglish,DonggukUniversity,Seoul,Korea.Hehasbeen
VisitingProfessoratCornellUniversity,VisitingScholarattheUniversityofVirginiaatCharlottesville,
andPresidentoftheYeatsSocietyofKorea.HeisEditor-in-ChiefoftheJournalofEnglishLanguage
andLiterature.Hisresearchinterestsincludetransnationalism,culturaltranslation,worldpoetriesin
English,comparativeandworldliterature,andinterdisciplinaryborder-crossinghumanities.
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