John Waddell Foundation myths: the beginnings of Irish archaeology 
Published December 2005, 298pp, 63 illustrations.
ISBN 1869857984
€40.00
Foundation myths is an account of the beginnings and development of the study of Irish archaeology from medieval times to the twentieth century. Topics covered include medieval antiquarianism, the impact of the Enlightenment, eighteenth-century antiquarian activity, the emergence of a professional branch of learning in museum and university, and the growth of the subject in the 1930s and following decades. Political and religious divisions inevitably shaped different perceptions of the past, but the enduring influence of early Irish literature is evident, and ancient origin myths in particular had a noteworthy role to play. Archaeological interpretation was coloured well into the twentieth century by a persistent belief in a series of mythical invaders, in a heroic pre-Christian era peopled by fearless Celtic warriors, and in a golden age of early Christian saints and scholars.
The growth of Irish archaeology has been a slow and erratic process and in no way presents a neat, linear, progressive narrative from myth to enlightenment. As in other fields, the foundations of a scientific discipline were laid in the nineteenth century and dramatic methodological and theoretical progress made in the following century. A critical understanding of the limitations of both the written and the material record and an appreciation of the preconceptions and ambiguities that lie in archaeologists’ own interpretations are even more recent developments.
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Kao, Wei H. The Formation of an Irish Literary Canon in the Mid-Twentieth Century
http://www.ibidem-verlag.de/red/545_EN/
276 pp., Paperback, £ 29,90
ISBN 978-3-89821-545-9
This scholarly study of the formation of the Irish literary canon in the first half of the twentieth century provides fascinating and often surprising insights into the ways in which different educational institutions responded to the political and historical changes taking place as Ireland moved from colonial to postcolonial status. Dr Wei H. Kao discusses not only what was included on school and university curriculum but also writers who were excluded, in particular women writers who appeared to interrogate a male nationalist agenda for the representation of Ireland.
-Emeritus Professor C.L. Innes
The writers discussed include Daniel Corkery, J.G. Farrell, Denis Johnston, Mary Lavin, Iris Murdoch, Kate O’Brien, Frank O’Connor, Liam O’Flaherty, and James Plunkett.
Wei H. Kao received his doctorate from the University of Kent, England, and teaches at National Taiwan University. His articles on Irish dramatists and women novelists have appeared, among others, in Moving World: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, Journal of Beckett Studies, and Celtic Tiger, Paper Tiger: Irish Writing from Wilde to Weird (2007). His comparative study of Irish and world literatures is forthcoming.
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Laura O'Connor, Haunted English: The Celtic Fringe, The British Empire, and De-Anglicization
Johns Hopkins UP
http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/8989.html
"Valuable and original work that participates in some of the most exciting and forward-looking trends in current Irish and literary studies." Marjorie Howes, Boston College, author of Yeats’s Nations: Gender, Class, and Irishness
Haunted English explores the role of language in colonization and decolonization by examining how Anglo-Celtic modernists W. B. Yeats, Hugh MacDiarmid, and Marianne Moore “de-Anglicize” their literary vernaculars. Laura O'Connor demonstrates how the poets’ struggles with and through the colonial tongue are discernible in their signature styles, using aspects of those styles to theorize the dynamics of linguistic imperialism as both a distinct process and an integral part of cultural imperialism.
O'Connor argues that the advance of the English Pale and the accompanying translation of the receding Gaelic culture into a romanticized Celtic Fringe represents multilingual British culture as if it were exclusively English-speaking and yet registers, on a subliminal level, some of the cultural losses entailed by English-only Anglicization. Taking the fin-de-siècle movements of the Gaelic revival and the Irish Literary Renaissance as her point of departure, O'Connor examines the effort to undo cultural cringe through language and literary activism.
Laura O’Connor is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Irvine.
url: http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/8989.html
978-0-8018-8433-7 $49.95 hc
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Eavan Boland’s Evolution As an Irish Woman Poet: An Outsider within an Outsider’s Culture
by Pilar Villar Argáiz
2007. Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN10: 0-7734-5383-0 ISBN13: 978-0-7734-5383-8 Pages: 448
Web page: http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?bookid=7073&pc=9
Description
This study re-evaluates Boland’s work in the dual light of two important ideologies within modern Irish writing: feminism and postcolonialism. Its main objective is to analyze Boland’s evolution as an Irish woman poet in her attempt to overcome marginalization as a postcolonial gendered subject. By bringing together postcolonial and feminist theorizations of identity, this study demonstrates how Boland gradually undermines the (presumably authentic) representations of ‘woman’ and ‘nation’ she has inherited. By describing ‘Irishness’ and ‘womanhood’ in terms of fluidity and hybridity, Boland’s poetry exposes the constructedness of identity itself and allows the speaker to find a place freed from authoritative ideologies. In so doing, Boland manages to present a background where new decolonizing identities can emerge. In other words, it is here where she finds her way out as an outsider within an outsider’s culture.
Table of Contents
Preface by Dr. Eibhear Walshe
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
2 Boland’s Initial Steps as a Woman Poet
3 Boland’s Reaffirmation of Sexual Difference
4 Boland’s Artistic Decolonization
5 Conclusion
Appendix: An Interview with Eavan Boland
Bibliography
Index
Reviews
“In this impressive examination of the poetry of Eavan Boland, Pilar Villar Argáiz provides a study of one of the most influential of Ireland’s contemporary writers ... Although Boland’s writings have attracted a great deal of scholarly attention in Irish studies, this book is important in that Dr. Pilar Villar Argáiz has linked her feminist readings of Boland’s poetry within a context of postcolonial theory and modern Irish writing ... This full-length book on a contemporary Irish woman writer is something of a rarity in Irish studies and most welcome.” – Dr. Eibhear Walshe, Department of English, University College Cork, Ireland
“Dr. Pilar Villar Argáiz’s comprehensive study and insightful analysis affords a unique approach from the joint perspective of feminist and postcolonial studies and provides hitherto unknown views on the poet’s evolution and achievements ... Based on extensive research and written with brilliance and commanding clarity, this study is an essential contribution for anyone interested not only in Eavan Boland’s works but in the controversial status of a female poetic voice in postcolonial Ireland.” – Professor Inés Praga Terente, Departamento Filología Inglesa, Universidad de Burgos, Spain
“This is an imaginative and thought-provoking analysis of Eavan Boland’s poetry. Dr. Pilar Villar Argáiz traces the evolution of Boland’s oeuvre from its initial assimilationist phase to its current liberationist phase. Informed by both feminist and postcolonial theory, Dr. Argáiz’s reading provides a new perspective on Boland’s iconic poems ...” – Dr. Ríóna Ní Fhrighil, Irish Department, St. Patrick’s College, Ireland
About the Author:
Dr. Pilar Villar Argáiz lectures in the Department of English Philology at the University of Granada, Spain, where she obtained a European Doctorate in English Studies (Irish Literature). She has published extensively on the representation of femininity in contemporary Irish women’s poetry, on cinematic representations of Ireland, and on the theoretical background and application of feminism and postcolonialism to the study of Irish literature. She has also co-edited two books on English literature.
USA List Price: $129.95 UK List Price: £ 79.95
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Carmen Szabo, "Clearing the Ground": The Field Day Theatre Company and the Construction of Irish Identities
ISBN: 1-84718-180-5
Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007
Binding: Hardback
Author: Carmen Szabó
Date of Publication: 01 May 2007
UK: £34.99
US: $69.99
'Clearing the Ground'–The Field Day Theatre Company and the Construction of Irish Identities studies the Field Day Theatre Company, with special focus on the plays that they put on stage between 1980 and 1995; it attempts to dissect their policy and observe the way in which this policy influences the discourse of the theatrical productions. Was Field Day simply the 'cultural wing' of Sinn Fein and the IRA, or did they try to give voice to a new critical discourse, challenging the traditional frames of representation? This book focuses on a thorough analysis of the way in which Field Day applied the concepts of postcolonial discourse to their own needs of creating a foundation for the ideological manifesto of the company. This study is a critique of the successes and failures of a theatre company that, in a period of political and cultural crisis, engaged in innovative ways of discussing the sensitive issues of identity, memory and history in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Carmen Szabó completed her PhD in Theatre Studies at University College Dublin in 2006 with a thesis focusing on a critique of issues of postcolonialism and identity in contemporary Irish theatre. Her present research interests concentrate on experimental and community theatre in Northern Ireland and their role in reconciliation and establishing a lasting environment of multiculturality. She has published articles on Irish theatre and was involved in a project funded by the European Council for Culture, translating Irish plays into Romanian. She is currently working on a book entitled 'Artscapes of Meaning' – Performing Identities in Northern Ireland.
For more information please go to the publisher's website.
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Dear Far-voiced Veteran: Essays in Honour of Tom Munnelly, Edited by Anne Clune.
ISBN 978-0-9556037-0-9. 406 + xii pp. €30 (+ p&p where appropriate).
Tom Munnelly is widely recognized as one of the world’s foremost collectors of traditional Irish songs in the English language. In this volume28 of his colleagues and friends, all of them outstanding in their own fields, have come together to produce a volume of essays in Tom’s honour. This volume both does homage to Tom’s personal achievement and shows the vibrancy and importance of ongoing work in the fields of traditional singing; folksong; folklore; ethnomusicology; song and folklore collecting; and traditional Irish music and dance.
Contents:
‘Fishing for Eels’, poem for Tom Munnelly: Ciaran Carson
From Text to Work: Reconceptualizing Folk Songs as Texts: David Atkinson
‘History, Heartbreak and Hope’: Recording the Story Behind the Song: Margaret Bennett
‘Bean an Fhir Rua’ as Performed by a Master of Conamara Traditional Style, Seán MacDonncha of Carna: Seóirse Bodley
Songs in English from the Conamara Gaeltacht: Angela Bourke
Twenty Years Too Late: Collecting in the Kinvara Area: Caoilte Breatnach
The Talking Machine Comes to Ireland: Nicholas Carolan
A Simple Countryman? Walter Pardon of Norfolk: Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie
Meeting Child on the Road: Len Graham
From the Kingdom to the Banner: Tadhg Ó Murchú as a Folklore Collector in Southwest County Clare in 1942: Patricia Lysaght
What Did We Sing Before there were Folksongs: John Moulden
Collecting Sets in the Early days of the Revival: Terry Moylan
A Drogheda List of Melodies: Implications for the Song Tradition of Oriel: Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin
Gluaiseacht na gCarabhat I Sliabh gCua: An Stair agus an Béaloideas: Éamon Ó Bróithe
Connoiseurs of Song: Séamas Ó Catháin
‘Nuair a Bhí an Slánaitheoir ag Siúl ar an Talamh’: Scéalta Minithe Cráifeacha sa Traidisiún Béil: Pádraig Ó Héalaí
Singing the Famine: Joe Heaney, ‘Johnny Seoighe’ and the Poetics of Performance: Lillis Ó Laoire and Sean Williams
‘Traditional Ears’: Perception and Analysis in Irish Traditional Music: Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin
Brown Ale and Black Tea (Traditional singing in North India and Ireland): Stan Scott
Textual Criticism and Ballad Studies: Hugh Shields
‘Borders and Boundaries: Discord in Irish Traditional Song’: Thérèse Smith
Luibheanna Íce Árainn – The Healing Herbs of Aran: Seán Spellissy
A Problem for the Public – Seán Ó Riada and Irish Traditional Music: Barry Taylor
Thar Farraige Anonn – Séamus Mac Aonghusa in Albain, 1946-1947: Ríonach uí Ógáin
Encomium on A Reluctant Academic: Fintan Vallely
Introduction, Bibliography and Notes on Contributors.
Copies available by post from The Old Kilfarboy Society, Kildimo, Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare (065 7084698) or online at www.oac.ie. Copies also available to personal callers at the Irish Traditional Music Archive, 73 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
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The Book in Ireland, edited by Jacqueline Genet, Sylvie Mikowski, Fabienne Garcier.
Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006
ISBN 1904303978. Price: £39,99
The Book in Ireland, originally published in France, explores the relations between the Irish public and the printed word in various contexts, from the 16th century to 2003. It contains 21 contributions, in three sections: Publishing, The Transmission and Circulation of Ideas, Periodical Literature.
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The Irish Reader: Essays for John Devitt
The Mater Dei Institute (DCU), in association with the School of English, TCD, is pleased to announce the publication by Otior Press of The Irish Reader: Essays for John Devitt, edited by Michael Hinds, Peter Denman and Margaret Kelleher.
The Irish Reader is a collection of essays paying tribute to the celebrated teacher and scholar John Devitt. Contributors have sought to reflect Devitt's remarkable influence on Irish intellectual and educational life, producing essays that explore the various dimensions of experience and imagination that Devitt himself has explored with such passion and skill. His huge range of interests is reflected here in the considerations of key texts in the Irish canon by scholars of the highest distinction, in addition to essays on cricket, film and visual culture, Shakespeare and the predicament of the classics. The collection is framed by two previously unpublished poems, one by Seamus Heaney and the other by Dennis O'Driscoll. Like all of the contributors to this book, they have been John Devitt's friends, colleagues, students: Irish readers shaped by a great Irish teacher.
CONTENTS:
Foreword by Brendan McDonnell
Seamus Heaney, "A Prologue to Peter Fallon's Translation of The Georgics of Virgil spoken at the launch of the book, 23 September 2004"
Terence Brown, "Beckett and Religion: A Note on Molloy"
Peter Denman, Yeats: Considering the Question
Nicholas Grene, "Cloudscapes: Shakespeare, Yeats, Beckett . Mahon"
Derek Hand, "The Gigli Concert: The Necessity of the Imagination"
Richard Hayes, "'The Commercial Mob Amusement Racket: Eugene O'Neill and Hollywood Cinema"
Michael Hinds "Micromorphoses: the Sack of Ovid"
Richard Kearney "Hamlet's Ghosts and Gods"
Margaret Kelleher "Omnium Gatherum: The Irish Anthologist W.B. Yeats"
Declan Kiberd "Viv Richards' Last Innings"
Ian Leask "Political Antiquarianism: Maclise's Marriage Revisited"
Stephen Matterson "New Configurations: The Framing of Pocahontas"
Christopher Murray "All that Fall and Beckett's Global Village"
Antoinette Quinn "Patrick Kavanagh's Yeats"
Bruce Stewart "'Where Does the Spirit Live?':The Metaphysics of Unbelief in Modern Irish Poetry"
John Devitt & Andy O'Mahony "A Dialogue"
Peter Fallon "The Less Ado"
Dennis O'Driscoll "Diversions"
181 pages, hardcover. 20 euro. Available by mail order from The Mater Dei Institute (+3.50 postage WITHIN EUROPE). Other postage rates available on application. email michael.hinds@materdei.dcu.ie or write to Michael Hinds at Mater Dei Institute, Clonliffe Road, Dublin 3.
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Heidi Hansson, Emily Lawless 1845-1913: Writing the Interspace
http://www.corkuniversitypress.com
ISBN: 9781859184139
Emily Lawless is one of the most important of Ireland's forgotten women writers. From a Protestant ascendancy background, she combined nationalist feelings with unionist sympathies. This important new study argues that her own term, 'interspace', can be used to explain her vision of Ireland and her position as an Anglo-Irish woman writer determined to resist categorisation or stock solutions at a time of polarisation and cultural transition.
This is the first comprehensive study of the writing of Emily Lawless (1845-1913) and includes biographical information, letters and contemporary reception as well as analyses based on present-day theoretical approaches, especially feminist criticism and cultural geography.
The study begins with a presentation of Lawless's family background, her social circle and a description of her literary career, including how her works have been received up until the present. Her early fiction, novels and stories set outside Ireland are then explored and successive chapters deal with her landscape writing and her novels about the west of Ireland, her negotiations with the voice of authority in historical and biographical writing, her historical fiction and her three collections of poetry. The concluding chapter argues that the contradictory aspects of her writing are an effect of her desire to avoid categorisation.
Heidi Hansson is an Associate Professor of English Literature, Umeå University, Sweden, and is author of Romance Revived: Postmodern Romances and the Tradition ( Uppsala, 1998).
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MONOLOGUES (Theatre, Performance, Subjectivity)
ed. Clare Wallace
ISBN 80-7308-122-9 (paperback). 300pp.
http://litteraria.ff.cuni.cz/books/monologues.html
Monologue is to be found across the spectrum of modern and postmodern theatre and drama, from Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to Karen Finley and Spalding Gray. The theatre of monologue revolves around the ambiguities of narrative as a means of knowing and communicating, and is conditioned by dubious authenticity. This collection will bring together original essays on monologue by theatre scholars and practitioners that address the complexities of the form as it appears in contemporary drama and performance.
Contributors to this volume include Mark Berninger, Johannes Birringer, Mateusz Borowski, David Bradby, Rebecca D'Monte, Laurens De Vos, Dee Heddon, Jorge Huerta, Daniela Jobertova, Eamonn Jordon, Ashley Lucas, Catherine McLean-Hopkins, Mark Schreiber, Brian Singleton, Malgorzata Sugiera, Eckart Voigts-Virchow ...
Clare Wallace is a lecturer at Charles University and at the University of New York, Prague. She has published on Joyce, Marina Carr, Patrick McCabe and contemporary Irish and British drama. She is the managing editor of HJS (Hypermedia Joyce Studies) and an advisory editor of Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge.
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 Fiona Brennan, "George Fitzmaurice 'Wild in His Own Way': Biography of an Abbey Playwright"
Revised edition,
Foreword by Fintan O'Toole
Published March 2007, Carysfort Press, Dublin.
www.carysfortpress.com
"In his best work, the dramatic energy, multi-coloured language, and soaring imagination of George Fitzmaurice makes J.M. Synge look as if he was nailed to the ground. Fiona Brennan has done an immense service to Irish theatre by gifting us this thorough and sympathetic biography of the great Kerry magician.Her introduction to his considerable output, and exhumation of long-buried autobiographical details, allow us a much greater appreciation and understanding of Fitzmaurice, the one remaining under-celebrated genius of twentieth century Irish Drama." Conall Morrison, Associate Artist, Abbey Theatre.
Contents
Foreword by Fintan O'Toole
1. Life in Bedford, Co. Kerry, where Fitzmaurice was born
2. The Move from Bedford, to Duagh, Co. Kerry, after his father's death
3. The Short Stories
4. Fitzmaurice's Introduction to Theatre
5. His Life in Dublin: The Early Years
6. The Country Dressmaker - his first Abbey success
7. The Pie Dish
8. Two Dramatic Fantasies: The Magic Glasses and The Dandy Dolls
9. George Fitzmaurice's Drama: An Interpretation
10. 1913: Rejection of The Dandy Dolls
11. The Return from France (after serving in the Great War)
12. The 1920s
13. The Post-War Plays
14. the 1930s
15. The Fitzmaurice Family in Kilcara Beg (Duagh, Co. Kerry)
16. The 1940s
17. The Dublin Plays ( One Evening Gleam and The Coming of Ewn Andzale)
18. The 1950s
19. His Death and the Following Years
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Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama by Ondrej Pilny
ISBN 80-7308-126-1 (paperback). 200pp.
Price: € 12.00 (not including postage)
http://litteraria.ff.cuni.cz/books/irony.html
Collective identity has been a dominant theme throughout the history of modern Irish drama, from the time of the Irish Literary Theatre up till the cultural changes that have resulted from the economic boom of the late 1990s. This book focuses on playwrights from W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge to Sean OCasey, Denis Johnston, Brian Friel, Stewart Parker and Martin McDonagh and discusses the variegated ironic interactions of their work with the discourse of Irishness, highlighting the difficulties entailed in essentialist definitions of identity, be they called nationalist, post-colonial or otherwise. At the same time, the book points out the sheer amount of theatrical and thematic innovation the ironic relationship with identity has brought about over the decades.
Ondrej Pilny is Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at Charles University, Prague. He is editor of Global Ireland: Irish Literatures in the New Millennium (with Clare Wallace), Time Refigured: Myths, Foundation Texts and Imagined Communities (with Martin Prochazka), and an annotated volume of J.M. Synges works in Czech translation. His translations include Flann OBriens The Third Policeman, and plays by Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh and J.M. Synge.
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Women in Irish Drama - A Century of Authorship and Representation
Edited by Melissa Sihra
ISBN: 0230006477
http://www.palgrave.com/newsearch/Catalogue.aspx?is=0230006477
This volume of essays explores the fascinating and immensely rich legacy of Irish women playwrights throughout the twentieth century and opens up essential dialogue on the politics of authorship, representation and the 'canon' of Irish theatre. 'Women in Irish Drama' opens a space for previously forgotten or silenced voices and marks an exciting new beginning for the way in which Irish theatre is considered in the twenty-first century. The book features essays from leading practitioners and academics, including Marina Carr, Olwen Fouere, and many others.
Contents
- Foreword; M.Carr
- Preface; J.Reinelt
- Introduction: Figures at the Window; M.Sihra
- Interchapter I; C.Leeney
- Woman as Fantasy Object in Lady Gregory's Historical Tragedies; P.Murphy
- Writing Women for a Modern Ireland: Geraldine Cummins and Susanne Day; V.O'Donoghue Greene
- The Spaces Outside: Images of Women in Plays by Eva Gore-Booth and Dorothy Macardle; C.Leeney
- Taking Their Own Road: The Female Protagonist in Three Irish Plays by Women': L.Fitzpatrick
- Interchapter II; M.Sihra
- From Matron to Matrix: Gender and (Dis)embodiment in Beckett's Theatre; A.McMullan
- Beyond the Pale: Neglected Northern Irish Women Playwrights, Alice Milligan, Helen Wadell and Patricia O'Connor; M.Phelan
- Meta-physicality: Women Characters in the Plays of Frank McGuinness; E.Jordan
- Dead Women Walking: The Female Body as a Site for War in Stewart Parker's Northern Star; R.O'Riordan
- Interchapter III; M.Sihra
- Women in Rooms: Landscapes of the Missing in Anne Devlin's Ourselves Alone; E.Cerquoni
- Liminal Spaces in Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's Dún na mBan Trí Thine (The Fort of the Fairy Women is on Fire); A.Roche
- Sick, Dying, Dead, Dispersed: The Evanescence of Patriarchy in Contemporary Irish Women's Theatre; B.Singleton
- Marina Carr's Landscapes of Play and Possibility; M.Sihra
- Afterword: The Act and the Word; O.Fouéré
- Appendix: List of Irish Women Playwrights and their Key Works
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 Chris Arthur Essay Collections
Chris Arthur's collections Irish Nocturnes (1999), Irish Willow (2002) and Irish Haiku (2005) – now available to order online, direct from their publisher. The website gives details about the books, sample essays, and review extracts. Their site can be found here:- www.thedaviesgrouppublishers.com
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Eóin Flannery, Versions Of Ireland: Empire, Modernity And Resistance In Irish Culture
ISBN: 1-84718-050-7
UK: £34.99/US: $69.99
Versions of Ireland brings a refined postcolonial theoretical optic to bear on many of the most urgent questions within contemporary Irish cultural studies. Drawing on, and extending, the most advanced critical work within the discipline, the book offers a subtle critical genealogy of the development of Ireland's diverse postcolonial projects. Furthermore, it reflects on the relevance and the effectiveness of postcolonial and subaltern historiographical methodologies in an Irish context, interrogating the ethical and political problematics of such discursive importation. Flannery's work highlights the operative dynamics of imperial modernity, together with its representational agents, in Ireland, and also divines moments of explicit and implicit resistance to modernity's rationalising and accumulative urges.
The book is pioneering in the facility and ease with which it navigates the interdisciplinary terrain of Irish studies. Flannery provides enabling and challenging new readings of the poetry of the bi-lingual poet, Michael Hartnett; the politically imaginative vistas of the republican mural tradition in the North of Ireland; the gothic anxieties inherent in the fiction of Eugene McCabe and the semi-fictional writing of Seamus Deane, and the differential codes of visual surveillance apparent in Irish tourist posters and late nineteenth century photography in Ireland. Versions of Ireland does not dwell on the exclusively theoretical, but offers rich critical analyses of a range of Irish cultural artefacts in terms of Ireland's protracted colonial history and contested postcolonial condition.
"Versions of Ireland brims with ideas and imagination, striving to push Irish studies to its limits and beyond, and the book has a critical integrity and coherence of its own. Its individual chapters are strongly researched and reverberate beyond their immediate context into wider meta-critical debates, and it is here that the real strength of the work is found. Eóin Flannery is one of the most promising critics currently working in Irish studies and Versions of Ireland reveals his talents to their full."
Dr. Colin Graham
"Versions of Ireland is an exciting and innovative addition to the body of Irish and international postcolonial criticism. Flannery is an engaging and persuasive critic whose writings are both theoretically informed and politically engaged. The range of his work is exhilarating from Northern Irish murals to the poetry of Michael Hartnett to the configuration of Ireland as a tourist destination and throughout his analyses there is a keen respect for his primary materials alongside a robust and invigorating re-assessment of their meanings and importance.
A signal virtue of Flannery's writing is to remind his readers that Empire has by no means disappeared or been made redundant by new political arrangements. On the contrary, the force of Versions of Ireland comes from the extreme topicality of his insights into the way in which power, coercion and oppression operate and are justified. What is more, Flannery demonstrates how strategies of resistance are elaborated and how these bring with them emancipatory potential.
Versions of Ireland is an important and timely book and deserves the widest possible readership in Ireland and beyond."
Professor Michael Cronin, Dublin City University, author of Translating Ireland
Eóin Flannery teaches in the Department of Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Limerick in Ireland. He is the author of several articles on Irish poetry, contemporary Irish fiction, postcolonial studies and visual culture. He has three other books forthcoming, including: Fanon's One Big Idea: Ireland and Postcolonial Studies; Ireland in Focus: Film, Photography and Popular Culture and Enemies of Empire: New Perspectives on Imperialism, Literature and History.
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Eóin Flannery & Angus Mitchell, Enemies of Empire
ISBN: 978-1-84682-002-1
Price: €65/£55/$75 hbk
http://www.four-courts-press.ie/cgi/bookshow.cgi?file=neme.xml
Enemies of empire addresses a conspicuous gap in the current literature on colonial and postcolonial literary, theoretical and historical studies and introduces new perspectives on the qualitative nature of empire. Themes examined include Irish literature, African history, Cold War politics, circuits of knowledge, religious history, Indian hunger-strikes, early 20th-century humanitarianism, globalization and subaltern studies.
Contributors: Linda Connolly (UCC), Michael Griffin (U. Limerick), Eugene O'Brien (Mary I.), Louise Fuller (NUIM), Joseph Lennon (Manhattan College, New York), Michael Kilburn (Endicott College, Beverly, MA), Talinn Grigor (MIT), Dan O'Connell (Hobart & William Smith Colleges), Stephen Donovan (Columbia U.), Tiro Sebina (U. Botswana), Eóin Flannery (U. Limerick), Angus Mitchell (U. Limerick).
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The Ulster Renaissance - Poetry in Belfast 1962-1972
Heather Clark
ISBN-10: 0-19-928731-7/ISBN-13: 978-0-19-928731-4
http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199287314
This is the first full-length study of the extraordinary period of intense poetic activity in Belfast known as the Ulster Renaissance - a time when young Northern Irish poets such as Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, James Simmons, and Paul Muldoon began crafting their art, and tuning their voices through each other. Drawing extensively upon new archival material, as well as personal interviews and correspondence, The Ulster Renaissance argues that these poets' friendships and rivalries were crucial to their autonomous artistic development. The book also sheds new light on the idea of a collaborative Belfast coterie - often treated derisively by critics - and shows that the poets frequently engaged in efforts to promote a cohesive 'Northern' literary community, distinct from that which existed in London and Dublin. It suggests that it was this cohesion - at turns inclusive and confining - which ultimately challenged the Belfast poets to find their individual voices.
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Twentieth-Century Fiction by Irish Women - Nation and Gender
Ashgate, 2007
Heather Ingman
ISBN: 0 7546 3538 4
Website
During much of the twentieth century, Irish women's position was on the boundaries of national life. Using Julia Kristeva's theories of nationhood, often particularly relevant to Ireland, this study demonstrates that their marginalization was to women's, and indeed the nation's, advantage as Irish women writers used their voice to subvert received pieties both about women and about the Irish nation. Kristevan theories of the other, the foreigner, the semiotic, the mother, and the sacred are explored in authors as diverse as Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O'Brien, BACK TO TOP Edna O'Brien, Mary Dorcey, Jennifer Johnston, and Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, as well as authors from Northern Ireland like Deirdre Madden, Polly Devlin, and Mary Morrissy. These writers, whose voices have frequently been sidelined or misunderstood because they write against the grain of their country's cultural heritage, finally receive their due in this important contribution to Irish and gender studies.
Contents
Irish women in the 20th century; Reaching out to the other in the nation; Dialog from the margins; Reclaiming the mother in the mother-daughter story; Translating between cultures: a Kristevan reading of the theme of the foreigner; The feminine and the sacred; Northern Ireland; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
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Gearrscéalta Ár Linne Edited by Brian Ó Conchubhair 
ISBN 978 1 905560 11 0
392 pages / leathanach
€15.00 Pb / clúdach bog
http://www.cic.ie
Gearrscéalta ár Linne is a collection of the best short stories in Irish published over the last thirty years. This anthology of twenty-five stories introduces the reader to the modern short story in Irish, showcasing the work of some of the finest writers in that genre. This collection is intended to give readers a comprehensive overview of the short story in Irish over the last thirty years and to inspire them to go back to the original collections from which these stories have been drawn.
Na húdair / The authors:
Pádraic Breathnach, Biddy Jenkinson, Séamas Mac Annaidh, Seán Mac Mathúna, Siobhán Ní Shúilleabháin, Pádraig Ó Cíobháin, Dara Ó Conaola, Micheál Ó Conghaile, Daithí Ó Muirí, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, Pádraig Ó Siadhail, Gabriel Rosenstock, Dáithí Sproule agus Alan Titley.
Rogha de na gearrscéalta is fearr i nGaeilge a foilsíodh le tríocha bliain anuas atá sa chnuasach seo. Cúig ghearrscéal is fiche atá sa chnuasach in iomlán a thabharfaidh blaiseadh don léitheoir den saibhreas atá le fáil sa ghearrscéal comhaimseartha Gaeilge agus a thugann ardán do chuid de na gearrscéalaithe is fearr atá ag saothrú sa ghort sin. Is é cuspóir an leabhair cur amach ar an ngearrscéal comhaimseartha Gaeilge a thabhairt do léitheoirí agus iad a spreagadh chun filleadh ar na bunchnuasaigh.
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 Mary O'Donnell: The Place of Miracles; New & Selected Poems
IASIL Member Mary O'Donnell has recently published her new and selected poems with New Island Books.
- Paperback: 150 pages
- Publisher: New Island Books (2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1905494068/ ISBN-13: 978-1905494064
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Ireland Beyond Boundaries: Mapping Irish Studies in the Twenty-first century
Edited by Liam Harte and Yvonne Whelan
ISBN: 0745321852 Paperback
View Publisher Website
Ireland Beyond Boundaries provides an authoritative, up-to-date account of the development of Irish Studies over the past two decades. The fourteen contributors examine some of the key debates that have underpinned recent scholarship and analyse critical concerns that have shaped the subject's remarkable growth.
The book is divided into two parts. Part One traces the institutional fortunes of Irish Studies in Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia and Britain. Part Two features in-depth critical accounts of specific trends and themes within Irish historiography, literary criticism, religion, migration, music, cultural geography, sport and media culture. Throughout the collection there is a recurring engagement with the role of interdisciplinary approaches within Irish Studies and its impact on teaching and research. Combining synoptic overviews with informed analyses, Ireland Beyond Boundaries is an essential text for all those working in the field.
CONTENTS
Introduction: where Irish Studies is bound =- Liam Harte
Part I: Irish Studies in Practice
1 Changing transatlantic contexts and contours: Irish Studies in the United States -= Christina Hunt Mahony
2 Re-configuring Irish Studies in Canada: writing back to the centre - Michael Kenneally
3 10,000 miles away: Irish Studies Down Under = Elizabeth Malcolm
4 'Our revels now are ended': Irish Studies in Britain - origins and aftermath = Shaun Richards
5 Teaching Irish Studies in Ireland: after the end = Michael Brown
Part II: Irish Studies in Critical Perspective
6 The intellectual and the state: Irish criticism since 1980 = Conor McCarthy
7 Forty shades of grey?: Irish historiography and the challenges of multidisciplinarity = Mary E. Daly
8 The religious field in contemporary Ireland: identity, being religious and symbolic domination = Tom Inglis
9 'A decent girl well worth helping': women, migration and unwanted pregnancy = Louise Ryan
10 Beating the bounds: mapping an Irish mediascape = Lance Pettitt
11 Placing geography in Irish Studies: symbolic landscapes of spectacle and memory = Yvonne Whelan and Liam Harte
12 Listening to the future: music and Irish Studies = Gerry Smyth
13 Beyond sectarianism: sport and Irish culture = Mike Cronin
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Irene Gilsenan Nordin (ed.) The Body and Desire in Contemporary Irish Poetry. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006. ix, 254 pages.
ISBN: Paperback: 0716533693; Hardback - 071653368 5
The essays in this collection deal with contemporary Irish poetry and the question of the desiring body as a cultural and historical product, a biological entity and a psycho-sexual construction, and not least as an existential being. Drawing upon the literary theories of, among others, the French post-structuralists, the psychoanalytic theories of Lacan and Kristeva, the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and Levinas, and feminist philosophers, such as Donna Haraway and Susan Bordo, the contributors explore how contemporary Irish poets, both male and female, give expression to what might be termed a reassessment of material experience. With their various approaches they address the different ways in which the body can be seen as an agent of empowerment and change in the work of Eavan Boland, Ciaran Carson, Mary Dorcey, Seamus Heaney, Rita Ann Higgins, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, Paula Meehan, John Montague, Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION: Re-Mapping the Landscape: The Body as Agent of Political, Social and Spiritual Empowerment in Contemporary Irish Poetry, Irene Gilsenan Nordin
PART I THE BODY POLITIC: TERRITORIAL RECONFIGURATION AND DESIRE
1. Abject State: Waste and the Exile of the Body in Northern Irish Poetry, Scott Brewster
2. History’s Impasse: Journey, Haunt and Trace in the Poetry of Medbh McGuckian
Eluned Summers-Bremner
3. Thomas Kinsella’s ‘Local Knowledge’, Robert Brazeau
4. The Body as Ethical Synecdoche in the Writing of Seamus Heaney, Eugene O’Brien
PART II THE FEMALE BODY: WOMEN’S SEXUAL, MATERNAL, AGEING BODIES AND DESIRE
5. ‘Words We Can Grow Old and Die In’: Earth Mother and Ageing Mother in Eavan Boland’s Poetry, Veronica House
6. ‘My Being Cries Out to Be Incarnate’: The Virgin Mary and Female Sexuality in Contemporary Irish Women’s Poetry, Michaela Schrage-Fruh
7. ‘A Song for Every Child I Might Have Had’: Infertility and Maternal Loss in Contemporary Irish Poetry, Colleen A. Hynes
PART III THE EXISTENTIAL BODY: THE SELF AND DESIRE FOR THE OTHER
8. ‘Like a Wished-For Body’: Dialogues of Desire in the Poetry of Medbh McGuckian
Elin Holmsten
9. ‘Enough / is Enough’: Suffering and Desire in the Poetry of Thomas Kinsella, Lucy Collins
10. Medbh McGuckian and the Poetics of Mourning, Helen Blakeman
11. Touch and Go: Seamus Heaney and the Transcendence of the Aesthetic
Charles I. Armstrong
12. ‘Betwixt and Between’: The Body as Liminal Threshold in the Poetry of Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin, Irene Gilsenan Nordin
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John Wilson Foster, The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel
(ISBN-13: 9780521679961 | ISBN-10: 0521679966)
The Irish novel has had a distinguished history. It spans such diverse authors as James Joyce, George Moore, Maria Edgeworth, Bram Stoker, Flann O'Brien, Samuel Beckett, Lady Morgan, John Banville, and others. Yet it has until now received less critical attention than Irish poetry and drama. This volume covers three hundred years of Irish achievement in fiction, with essays on key genres, themes, and authors. It provides critiques of individual works, accounts of important novelists, and histories of sub-genres and allied narrative forms, establishing significant social and political contexts for dozens of novels. The varied perspectives and emphases by more than a dozen critics and literary historians ensure that the Irish novel receives due tribute for its colour, variety and linguistic verve. Each chapter features recommended further reading. This is the perfect overview for students of the Irish novel from the romances of the seventeenth century to the present day.
Contents
Introduction John Wilson Foster;
1. The novel before 1800 Aileen Douglas;
2. The national tale and allied genres, 1770s-1840 Miranda Burgess;
3. The novel of the big house Vera Kreilkamp;
4. The Gothic novel Siobhan Kilfeather;
5. Catholics and fiction during the Union (1801-1922) James H. Murphy;
6. Irish modernisms, 1880-1930 Adrian Frazier;
7. James Joyce Bruce Stewart;
8. Region, realism, and reaction, 1922-1972 Norman Vance;
9. The novel in Irish Alan Titley;
10. Women novelists, 1930s-1960s Ann Owens Weekes;
11. Two post-modern novelists: Samuel Beckett and Flann O'Brien Terence Brown;
12. Life writing in the twentieth century Elizabeth Grubgeld;
13. The novel and the Northern Troubles Elmer Kennedy-Andrews;
14. Contemporary Irish fiction Eve Patten.
Full details on http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521679966
Download an excerpt from http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521679966&ss=exc
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Anthony Roche, ed, The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel
Organiser of the 2007 IASIL conference, Prof. Anthony Roche, has recently published his Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel.
Contents
1. Introduction Anthony Roche;
2. The early plays Thomas Kilroy;
3. Surviving the sixties: three plays by Brian Friel 1968-1971 Frank McGuinness;
4. Friel and the Northern Ireland 'Troubles' play Stephen Watt;
5. Family affairs: Friel's plays of the late seventies Anthony Roche;
6. Five ways of looking at Faith Healer Nicholas Grene;
7. Translations, the Field Day debate and the re-imagining of Irish identity Martine Pelletier;
8. Dancing at Lughnasa and the unfinished revolution Helen Lojek;
9. The late plays George O'Brien;
10. Friel's Irish Russia Richard Pine;
11. Friel and performance history Patrick Burke;
12. Friel's dramaturgy: the visual dimension Richard Allen Cave;
13. Performativity, unruly bodies and gender in Brian Friel's drama Anna McMullan;
14. Brian Friel as postcolonial playwright Csilla Bertha;
Select bibliography; Index.
Download an excerpt from http://assets.cambridge.org/052185/3990/excerpt/0521853990_excerpt.pdf
Full publication details on http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521666864
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Making Theatre in Northern Ireland Through and Beyond the Troubles,
Dr Tom Maguire
University of Exeter Press.
The book examines the relationships between theatre and the political and social context of Northern Ireland since 1969. It explores in detail key theatrical performances which deal directly with this context. The works examined are used as exemplars of wider approaches to theatre-making about Northern Ireland and internationally. The book includes the following chapters:
1. Introduction: Staging Northern Ireland
2. Direct Engagement
3. Authentic History
4. Failed Origins
5. Utopian Myths
6. Gendered Troubles
7. Let the People Speak: Community and Theatre
8. Theatre after The Ceasefires
9. The Art and Politics of Staging the Troubles
The paperback edition is available at £12.99/US$24.95
ISBN 10 digit 0 85989 739 7
ISBN 13 digit 978 0 85989 739 6
The hardback edition is available at £45.00/US$79.95
ISBN 10 digit 0 85989 738 9
ISBN 13 digit 978 0 85989 738 9
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Mac Mathúna, S. and Fomin, M., eds., 2006. Parallels between Celtic and Slavic: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium of Societas Celto-Slavica held at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, 19-21 June 2005.
The publication contains 19 papers presented at the first international meeting of the Societas Celto-Slavica, held at the University of Ulster in June 2005. The papers cover a range of subjects relating to the links between Celtic and Slavic traditions, cultures and languages, including the work of Slavic Celtic scholars; literary and mythological aspects of Celto-Slavic; etymological, onomastic and lexical topics; comparative linguistic studies of Celtic and Slavic languages; and a bibliography of the works of the late Professor Viktor Pavlovich Kalygin.
[6], xiii, 332p. ISBN 10 0337088365; hdbk; £35.00
Purchase from http://www.tsoshop.co.uk/bookstore.asp?Action=Book&ProductId=0337088365
Or write to: Maxim Fomin, Research Institute for Irish and Celtic Studies, University of Ulster at Coleraine, BT52 1SA, Northern Ireland, UK e-mail: m.fomin@ulster.ac.uk
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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin, Language from Below: The Irish Language, Ideology and Power in 20th Century Ireland
Peter Lang.
http://gaelart.net/lfbpage.html
This book critically investigates the relationship between the Irish language and politics
through a survey of individuals and movements associated with the language. This approach takes into account competing socialist and nationalist perspectives on language and society to demonstrate the different motivations for and class interest in Irish. The increasing power of the global market has the negative effect of reducing the well-being and autonomy of national populations. The study examines the decline of the Irish language as part of a global
neo-liberal system that homogenises markets by reducing national and linguistic boundaries. It is
argued that the struggle for rights is transformational and that the struggle for language rights by individuals and communities is an essential part of this transformation.
"An audacious and insightful study of a controversial topic, this book brings to the debate
about the fate and future of the Irish language a shrewd blend of realism and analytic rigour. It shows how the question of Irish has always been bound up with the conflict of social classes within the island. An intrepid and deeply thoughtful work."
Professor Declan Kiberd, School of English, University College Dublin.
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Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies
We would like to draw your attention to a new publication, The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, an interdisciplinary, free electronic journal which will be launched on Halloween 2006. http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/
The journal's editorial board includes Prof Sir Christopher Frayling, Prof Mark Jancovich, Dr David Glover and Dr Darryl Jones. As the only journal of this kind in Ireland, the editors will be paying particular attention to Irish texts and themes in their first issue (and succeeding editions) but will by no means be confined to local subjects. Literature, film, television, video games, and comic books from all over the world will also be discussed. The editors aim to combine academic credibility and critical excellence with genuine enthusiasm for the subjects we will be featuring in the journal. Contributors to the first issue include noted genre critic and author Kim Newman, who will be discussing Irish-themed horror films (including dubious gems such as 'The Leprechaun' and 'Dementia 13'), Darryl Jones (TCD), author of Horror: A Thematic History, David J. Skal, author of The Monster Show, and Hollywood Gothic, who will be contributing a book review, and folklorist Patricia Lysaght (UCD) who will be writing on the history of Halloween. Frequent Sight and Sound contributor John Exshaw will also be contributing an article on the director Jesse Franco, while Jarlath Killeen (TCD) wil be wrting on the Irish Gothic. We will also be reviewing a wide range of Gothic and horror themed texts in our New Media, Film, Television and Literature review sections.
The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies: http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/
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Klaus Peter Jochum (ed.) The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Europe. London & New York
Continuum, 2006. xxxvi + 359 pp. ISBN 0-8264-5963-3.
Published in the series The Reception of British and Irish Authors in Europe.
IASIL is happy to announce the following new book edited by one of our members, Klaus Peter Jochum, and containing essays by a number of IASIL colleagues. Congratulations to Klaus et al
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Europe
Edited by Klaus Peter Jochum
Timeline: European Reception of W. B. Yeats, Klaus Peter Jochum
Introduction: The Yeatsian Reception of Europe and the European Reception of Yeats, Klaus Peter Jochum
1 Yeats in the Dutch-language Low Countries, Theo D'haen
2 The Reception of W. B. Yeats in France. Carle Bonafous-Murat
3 Yeats in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Klaus Peter Jochum
4 Lands of Desire: Yeats in Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country, 1920-1935, Jacqueline A. Hurtley
5 The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Italy, Fiorenzo Fantaccini
6 The Reception of Yeats's Works in Poland (1898-2004), Jolanta Dudek
7 The Reception of the Work of W. B. Yeats in Russia and Countries of the Former USSR, Roger Keys
8 'The Hungarian of the West': Yeats's Reception in Hungary, Csilla Bertha
9 The Reception of Yeats in Croatia, Ljiljana Ina Gjurgjan
10 The Reception of Yeats in Romania, Rodica Albu
11 Yeats's Early Irish Reception, 1882-1917, Eamonn Cantwell and Klaus Peter Jochum
12 The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Ireland, 1918-50, Nicholas Allen and Eamonn Cantwell
13 The Reception of W. B. Yeats in Ireland after 1950, Jonathan Allison
14 Epilogue: Yeats from Iceland to Turkey, Klaus Peter Jochum
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