Ireland in Proximity: History, Gender and Space

209 Pages·1999·0.84 MB·English

by  David Alderson

Ireland in Proximity
Ireland in Proximity surveys and develops the expanding field of Irish Studies,
reviewing existing debates within the discipline and providing new avenues for
exploration.
Drawing on a variety of disciplinary and theoretical approaches, this
impressive collection of essays makes an innovative contribution to three areas
of current, and often contentious, debate within Irish Studies.
This accessible volume illustrates the diversity of thinking on Irish history,
culture and identity. By invoking theoretical perspectives including
psychoanalysis, cultural theories of space, postcoloniality and theories of gender
and sexual difference, the collection offers fresh perspectives on established
subjects and brings new and under-represented areas of critical concern to the
fore. Chapter subjects include: sexuality and gender identities, the
historiographical issues surrounding the Famine, the Irish diaspora and theories
of space in relation to Ulster and beyond.
David Alderson and Scott Brewster are both Lecturers in English at the
University of Staffordshire. Fiona Becket is Lecturer in English at the University
of Leeds. Virginia Crossman is Lecturer in History at the University of
Staffordshire.

Ireland in Proximity

History, Gender, Space
Edited by Scott Brewster,
Virginia Crossman, Fiona Becket
and David Alderson

London and New York
First published 1999 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
© 1999 Selection and editorial matter: Scott Brewster, Virginia Crossman, Fiona Becket and
David Alderson. Individual chapters: their contributors.
The right of the contributors to be identified as the authors of their respective contributions
has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Irish proximities: history, gender, space/David Alderson…[et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Ireland—Civilization. 2. Ireland—History. I. Alderson,
David, 1968–
DA925.I744 1999
941.5—dc21 99–30780
ISBN 0-415-18958-6 (pbk)
0-415-18957-8 (hbk)
ISBN 0-203-00561-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-20966-4 (Glassbook Format)
Contents

Notes on contributors vii
Foreword xi
SHAUN RICHARDS
Acknowledgements xvi
Introduction 1
THE EDITORS
PART I
History 7
1 Introduction 9
VIRGINIA CROSSMAN
2 Nationalism and revisionism: ambiviolences and dissensus 12
WILLY MALEY
3 ‘The Whole People of Ireland’: patriotism, national
identity and nationalism in eighteenth-century Ireland 28
PATRICK MCNALLY
4 Re-writing the Famine: witnessing in crisis 42
SCOTT BREWSTER AND VIRGINIA CROSSMAN
vi Contents
PART II
Gender 59
5 Introduction 61
DAVID ALDERSON AND FIONA BECKET
6 Wild(e) Ireland 64
ÉIBHEAR WALSHE
7 A theatrical matrilineage?: problems of
the familial in the drama of Teresa Deevy and Marina Carr 80
FIONA BECKET
8 Gender, citizenship and the state in Ireland, 1922–1990 94
CAITRÍONA BEAUMONT
9 Gender, nation, excess: reading Hush-a-Bye Baby 109
RICHARD KIRKLAND
PART III
Space 123
10 Introduction 125
SCOTT BREWSTER
11 M/otherlands: literature, gender, diasporic identity 129
AIDAN ARROWSMITH
12 Citizens of its hiding place: gender and urban space in
Irish women’s poetry 145
ELISABETH MAHONEY
13 Mapping carceral space: territorialisation, resistance
and control in Northern Ireland’s women’s prisons 157
MARY CORCORAN
14 Listening to the silences: defining the language and
the place of a new Ireland 173
DAN BARON COHEN
Index 189
Notes on contributors

David Alderson is Lecturer in English at Staffordshire University. He is author
of Mansex Fine: Religion, Manliness and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century British
Culture (Manchester University Press, 1998). His other publications include
‘Momentary Pleasures: Wilde and English Virtue’, in Sex, Nation and Dissent,
ed. Éibhear Walshe (Cork University Press, 1997) and ‘An Anatomy of the
British Polity: Alton Locke and Christian Manliness’, in Victorian Identities,
ed. Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys (Macmillan, 1996).
Aidan Arrowsmith is Lecturer in English at Staffordshire University. His
publications include ‘Debating Diasporic Identity’, in Irish Studies Review
7:2, a special edition on Ireland and postcolonialism, ed. C.Graham and
W.Maley (forthcoming 1999), ‘Inside/Out’, in Dislocations: Comparing
Postcolonial Literatures, ed. A.Bery and P.Murray (Macmillan, forthcoming
1999); ‘Plastic Paddy: Second Generation Irish-English Writing’, in Irish Studies
Review (forthcoming 1999).
Dan Baron Cohen is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Community Education at
the University of Glamorgan. He was involved as a co-ordinator and
scriptwriter with Derry Frontline: Culture and Education (1988–94).
Caitríona Beaumont is Lecturer in History at South Bank University. She is a
graduate of the National University of Ireland and of Warwick University.
Her dissertation explored the role of non-feminist women’s groups in the
campaign for women’s rights. She has recently published a number of essays
and articles on Irish women’s history, and is currently working on the history
of women’s organisations in Ireland and Britain during the period 1920–69.
Fiona Becket is Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds. She is author of
D.H.Lawrence: The Thinker as Poet (Macmillan, 1997), and has published articles
in Etudes Lawrenciennes and the D.H.Lawrence Review. She is also contributing
to the Cambridge Companion to D.H.Lawrence, and is currently completing a
volume on D.H.Lawrence in a new series from Routledge. She has research
interests in Irish Modernism, particularly Joyce and Beckett.
viii Notes on contributors
Scott Brewster is Lecturer in English at Staffordshire University. He is co-
editor of Inhuman Reflections: Thinking the Limits of the Human (Manchester
University Press, forthcoming 1999) and author of Crossing Borders: Northern
Irish Poetry (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). He has also published articles
on Bram Stoker, Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Derek Mahon
and Seamus Heaney.
Mary Corcoran is a Lecturer in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies,
Liverpool John Moores University. She recently co-convened an
interdisciplinary conference on social and cultural surveillance. Her PhD
thesis traces the connections between the body, gender, power and the state
in Northern Ireland’s political prisons.
Virginia Crossman is Lecturer in History at Staffordshire University. Her
publications include Politics, Law and Order in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Gill
and Macmillan, 1996) and Local Government in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
(Institute of Irish Studies, 1994). She has also published a number of articles
on other aspects of nineteenth-century Irish history. She was a Junior Research
Fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast, 1989–
1991 and a Research Assistant to the Opposition Spokesperson for Northern
Ireland from 1982 to 1985.
Richard Kirkland is Lecturer in English at Keele University, Staffordshire. He
is the author of Literature and Culture in Northern Ireland since 1965: Moments
of Danger (Longman, 1996), co-editor with Colin Graham of Ireland and
Cultural Theory: The Mechanics of Authenticity (Macmillan, 1999), and he has
published widely on Northern Irish writing and culture. Before coming to
Keele he held the post of teaching fellow in the School of English, Queen’s
University, Belfast.
Patrick McNally is Senior Lecturer in History at University College Worcester
and author of Parties, Patriots and Undertakers: Parliamentary Politics in Early
Hanoverian Ireland (Four Courts Press, 1997).
Elisabeth Mahoney is an arts journalist and critic. After five years as Lecturer
in English at the University of Aberdeen (working on feminist theory,
contemporary women’s writing and photography) she left to write, think
and travel. Previous publications include articles on Angela Carter, feminism
and postmodernism, and the city in recent American film.
Willy Maley is Reader in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, and
author of A Spenser Chronology (Macmillan, 1994), Salvaging Spenser:
Colonialism, Culture and Identity (Macmillan, 1997), and co-editor, with
Brendan Bradshaw and Andrew Hadfield, of Representing Ireland: Literature
and the Origins of Conflict, 1534–1660 (Cambridge University Press, 1993),
Notes on contributors ix
with Bart Moore-Gilbert and Gareth Stanton, of Postcolonial Criticism
(Longman, 1997), and with Andrew Hadfield, of A View of the Present State of
Ireland: From the First Published Edition (Blackwell, 1997).
Shaun Richards is Head of Literature at Staffordshire University. He has
published extensively in Irish Studies, particularly on twentieth-century Irish
drama, and is co-author (with David Cairns) of Writing Ireland: Nationalism,
Colonialism and Culture (Manchester University Press, 1988). He is currently
working on a monograph entitled The Dramas of Modern Ireland: An Infinite
Rehearsal (Macmillan, forthcoming). He was one of the founder members of
the British Association for Irish Studies (and its first Treasurer) and
contributed to the development of an MA in Irish Studies in collaboration
with the University of Keele.
Éibhear Walshe is Lecturer in English at University College Cork. His
publications include an edited collection of essays, Sex, Nation and Dissent
(Cork University Press, 1997).