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Irish literature since 1990 I
examines the diversity and energy of
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writing in a period marked by the unparalleled global prominence of Irish i
s
culture. The book is distinctive in bringing together scholars from across
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Europe and the United States, whose work explores Irish literary culture
from a rich variety of critical perspectives. l
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t
e
This collection provides a wide-ranging survey of fiction, poetry and
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drama over the last two decades, considering both well-established
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figures and newer writers who have received relatively little critical
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attention before. It also considers creative work in cinema, visual culture u
and the performing arts. Contributors explore the central developments r
within Irish culture and society that have transformed the writing and e
reading of identity, sexuality, history and gender. The volume examines
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the contexts from which the literature emerges, including the impact of i
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Mary Robinson’s presidency in the Irish Republic; the new buoyancy
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of the Irish diaspora, and growing cultural confidence ‘back home’;
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legislative reform on sexual and moral issues; the uneven effects
generated by the resurgence of the Irish economy (the ‘Celtic Tiger’ 1
myth); Ireland’sincreasingly prominent role in Europe; the declining 9
reputation of established institutions and authorities in the Republic 9
(corruption trials and Church scandals); the Northern Ireland Peace 0
Process, and the changing relationships it has made possible.
In its breadth and critical currency, this book will be of particular
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interest to academics and students working in the fields of literature, R
drama and cultural studies. E
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S
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Scott Brewster is Director of English at the University of Salford E
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Michael Parker is Professor of English Literatureat the University of Central Lancashire
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N
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Irish literature since 1990
Cover image: ‘Collecting Meteorites at Knowth, IRELANTIS’. Collage by Seán Hillen, 1996. P
www.seanhillen.com A
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Design: www.riverdesign.co.uk
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E Diverse voices
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ISBN 978-0-7190-7563-6
9 780719 075636
SCOTT BREWSTER AND MICHAEL PARKER
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
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Irish literature since 1990
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Irish literature since 1990
Diverse voices
Irish literature since 1990
edited by Scott Brewster and Michael Parker
Diverse voices
edited by Scott Brewster and Michael Parker
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively
bMya Pnaclhgersatveer UMnaicvmerisliltayn Press
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively
by Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © Manchester University Press 2009
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press,
copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter
may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of
both author and publisher.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7190 7563 6 hardback
ISBN 978 0 7190 8560 4 paperback
ISBN 978 1 5261 2514 9 open access
First published 2009
This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons
(CC-BY-NC-ND) licence. A copy of the licence can be viewed at
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for
any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does
not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or
appropriate.
Typeset
by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
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Contents
Acknowledgements page vii
Notes on contributors viii
Part I: Contexts
1 ‘Changing history: the Republic and Northern Ireland
since 1990’ Michael Parker 3
2 ‘Flying high? Culture, criticism, theory since 1990’
Scott Brewster 16
Part II: Drama
3 ‘Home places: Irish drama since 1990’ Clare Wallace
and OndPej PílnM 43
4 Women on stage in the 1990s: foregrounding the
body and performance in plays by Gina Moxley,
Emma Donoghue and Marina Carr Mária Kurdi 59
5 The stuff of tragedy? Representations of Irish political
leaders in the ‘Haughey’ plays of Carr, Barry and Breen
Anthony Roche 79
6 New articulations of Irishness and otherness on the
contemporary Irish stage Martine Pelletier 98
Part III: Poetry
7 Scattered and diverse: Irish poetry since 1990 Jerzy
Jarniewicz and John McDonagh 121
8 Architectural metaphors: representations of the house
in the poetry of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Vona Groarke
Lucy Collins 142
9 ‘The places I go back to’: familiarisation and estrangement
in Seamus Heaney’s later poetry Joanna Cowper 160
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vi Contents
10 ‘Neither here nor there’: new generation Northern
Irish poets (Sinéad Morrissey and Nick Laird)
Michael Parker 177
Part IV: Fiction and autobiography
11 ‘Tomorrow we will change our names, invent ourselves
again’: Irish fiction and autobiography since 1990
Liam Harte 201
12 Anne Enright and postnationalism in the contemporary
Irish novel Heidi Hansson 216
13 ‘Sacred spaces’: writing home in recent Irish memoirs
and autobiographies (John McGahern’s Memoir, Hugo
Hamilton’s The Speckled People, Seamus Deane’s Reading
in the Dark and John Walsh’s The Falling Angels)
Stephen Regan 232
14 Secret gardens: unearthing the truth in Patrick O’Keeffe’s
The Hill Road Vivian Valvano Lynch 250
15 ‘What’s it like being Irish?’ The return of the repressed in
Roddy Doyle’s Paula Spencer Jennifer M. Jeffers 258
16 Remembering to forget: Northern Irish fiction after the
Troubles Neal Alexander 272
Part V: After words
17 ‘What do I say when they wheel out their dead?’
The representation of violence in Northern Irish art
Shane Alcobia-Murphy 287
Bibliography 309
Index 327
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our contributors, and Matthew Frost at
Manchester University Press, for their patience, good humour and wise
counsel as this volume was being assembled.
We would also like to acknowledge formally the following publishers
for granting permission to use quotations:
from The Irish for No and Belfast Confetti by Ciaran Carson, by
kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew,
Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, and Wake Forest University Press.
from Other People’s Houses, Flight and Juniper Street by Vona
Groarke, by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press,
Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, and Wake Forest
University Press.
from To a Faultby Nick Laird by permission of the author and Faber
and Faber Ltd. US permission: copyright © 2006 by Nick Laird. Used
by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
from Selected Poemsby Michael Longley, published by Jonathan Cape,
reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd and
Wake Forest University Press.
from There Was Fire in Vancouver, Between Here and There and
The State of the Prisons by kind permission of the author and
Carcanet Press.
from Site of Ambush, The Second Voyage, The Rose Geranium, The
Magdalene Sermon, The Brazen Serpent, The Girl who Married a
Reindeer by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, by kind permission of the
author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath,
Ireland, and Wake Forest University Press.
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Notes on Contributors
Neal Alexander is a Lecturer in English at Trinity College Carmarthen,
University of Wales. He co-edited (with Shane Murphy and Anne
Oakman) The Other Shore: Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish Studies
(2004) and has published essays on literary representations of Belfast,
Northern Irish fiction and poetry, and the autobiographies of W.B. Yeats
and R.S. Thomas. He is currently working on a book-length critical
study of Ciaran Carson.
Scott Brewster is Director of English at the University of Salford. He
co-edited Ireland in Proximity: History, Gender, Space (1999), and has
published widely on Northern Irish poetry, the Gothic, deconstruc-
tion and psychoanalysis. Lyric will appear in the Routledge Critical
Idiom series in 2009. He is currently President of EFACIS (European
Federation of Associations and Centres for Irish Studies).
Lucy Collins is a Lecturer at the University of Cumbria and was a research
associate at Boston College Ireland in 2007–8. She has published widely
on modern Irish poets including Austin Clarke, Thomas Kinsella and
Eileán Ní Chuilleanáin, as well as on American poetry from the 1950s
onwards. She is currently completing a monograph on contemporary
women’s poetry from Ireland.
Joanna Cowper studied English Literature at the University of
Durham, where she developed an interest in twentieth-century Irish
and American poetry. Following her graduation, she embarked upon a
career in marketing in the publishing industry, completing the CIM
Professional Diploma in Marketing before returning to academic study
at Oxford University. She is currently working as Marketing Manager
for two Oxford-based companies, and frequently contributes material
to a range of historical publications.
