Books in the Reimagining Ireland series

«This collection marks the coming of age of Irish Jewish Studies. Beautifully curated by Zuleika Rodgers and Natalie Wynn, it brings together the best of recent scholarship, covering history, politics, literature and everyday life. Taken together these essays show the complexity of both the Irish Jewish experience and responses to them.»(Tony Kushner, James Parkes Professor of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, University of Southampton)«A refreshingly nuanced exploration of perceptions and self-perceptions of Irish Jews. The authors interrogate political, religious, economic, social and cultural discourses from the eighteenth century to contemporary times to unravel less-familiar expressions of antisemitism, alongside occasional philosemitism, and offer critical insights on the many reimaginations of Christian Ireland¿s long-standing migrant Other minority.»(Guy Beiner, Sullivan Chair of Irish Studies, Boston College)Discourse, both scholarly and popular, around the Jews of Ireland has increased in recent years and this volume of essays takes up the challenge of placing it within the framework of Jewish historiography and the study of Jewish history and culture. The focus of the volume is to provide a critical re-evaluation of the study of Irish Jews looking at key areas such as Irish Jewish historiography, communal traditions, antisemitism, nationalism (Jewish and Irish) and representations in popular media. Underlying the contributions is the desire to reassess the ways in which traditional scholarship and representation of Irish Jews have been shaped by uninterrogated narratives and a lack of understanding and sensitivity to the context of Jewish history and the Jewish experience.

«Paul Butler¿s monograph is a wonderful illustration of how a visual reading of McGahern can reveal previously undiscovered aspects of the writer¿s aesthetic approach. ¿The Deep Well of Want¿ of the title is an expression that captures the pain and hurt at the core of the life journey of both writer and photographer. Paul¿s exquisite photos allow us a special entry into ¿McGahern Land¿, whose landscape and people nurtured the writer¿s creative inspiration. This indispensable study will deepen McGahern readers¿ understanding of what lies at the core of his artistic quest.»(Eamon Maher, TU Dublin)This book represents a unique visualisation of the world of Irish writer John McGahern through his words and the imagery of artist Paul Butler. Traumatic events in the lives of both McGahern and Butler shaped their paths, creating a want to write in McGahern and a want to create imagery in Butler. Butler explores the difficult and complex childhood that the two shared, and through a series of beautiful images that he himself has created in McGahern¿s own part of Ireland, he draws parallels between them and, as Eamonn Wall says in his Preface, produces a rich and life-affirming appreciation of literature, art and imagery.

«This dazzling collection of essays draws out the complexity of Ireland¿s connections with British imperialism.¿The volume takes an admirably wide-ranging and generous approach to Irish visual culture, showing how features such as Irish fashion, architecture, and museum display have been affected by empire.¿Those interested in Irish art, in Irish culture, and in the legacies of imperialism more generally will find this book insightful, illuminating, and provocative.»(James Moran, Professor of English, University of Nottingham)¿«Ranging across a broad chronological span, this stimulating collection¿s focus on the role of the British empire within Irish art and visuality is much-needed. This book will be invaluable not just for scholars of Irish culture, but for the study of the crucial significance of the visual in the historical formation of empire more generally.»(Fionna Barber, Reader in Art History, Manchester Metropolitan University)This collection of essays discusses how the British empire resonates in a huge array of visual culture in Ireland from the late eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. The book is about the way empire has pervaded and continues to pervade Irish art and visual culture. The collection of essays expands the analysis of things visual in terms of Ireland and the British empire to include a broad range of cultural matter: art exhibitions, museums and their displays, architecture, photography, illustrated books, fashion, public and private performances and entertainments, as well as paintings, sculpture, prints and book illustration. The essays only touch on some of the issues that need to be discussed in relation to Ireland and the visual culture of imperialism, but it is hoped that this volume will spark others to investigate the topic and thus greatly expand Irish visual historiography.

Neil Jordan is immediately associated with the successful films he has directed (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire, Michael Collins...). And yet, he is also a man of letters. His literary work, composed of eight novels and a collection of short stories, is rich, dense and complex. It shows an interest in Irish history and politics, but also in the supernatural and the irrational. It creates a universe where time and space can abolish themselves, the material and the spiritual merge, the visible and invisible interpenetrate. Jordan¿s fiction also transgresses the borders in more than one way. Both realistic and fantastic, it establishes numerous connections with psychoanalysis, Christian religion, mythology or cultural tradition, and revisits them in an original way. The present study approaches Neil Jordan¿s literary work in all its diversity. It focuses primarily on the novelist, but also on the short story writer and the screenwriter, as his film making cannot be ignored. This book, devoted to the writer, aims to do justice to a major figure in contemporary Irish cultural life, whose artistic creation remains largely unexplored.

«The Irish missionary momentum in the 19th century attests to the vitality of a Christian community whose richness and great diversity this book illustrates, with particular emphasis placed on the considerable effort made in the field of education, a privileged way for human promotion and the proclamation of the Gospel.»(Bernard Ardura, President, Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences)«This book is a wonderful read: well researched, fascinating, clear, insightful and learned. It is an exceptional testimony of the achievements of the Irish Religious Diaspora. It is fundamental reading during a period in which our country has become a destination country, hosting so many from all parts of the globe. Although a small country on the periphery of Europe, Ireland was capable of projecting its values and culture globally through its diaspora. The Irish religious diaspora, as illustrated so deftly in this book, is a notable example of this throughout the ages. This book informs us and reminds us so well of the extraordinary efforts and tireless endeavours of the Hiberno-Roman missionaries in exporting Irish Catholic values globally over past centuries. The book is a pleasure to read.»(Patricia O¿Brien, Ambassador of Ireland in Rome)Sourcing the circulation, settlement and influence of the Irish religious groups in continental Europe, the Americas, Australia and South Africa, the volume starts in Lisbon in the sixteenth century. How did Lisbon become the hub of Irish trade and the seat of the Irish Catholic Church in exile after the Reformation? Where did it move on from there in modern and contemporary times? At a time when Irish missionaries have largely returned home to a country that has often been described as «post-Catholic», this collection brings together historians and literary critics who trace the trajectories, destinies, acculturation and shifting senses of identity of Irish Catholic clerics and missionaries across the globe from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Studies of postwar Europe, Latin America and South Africa show the modern expression of the Irish Catholic missionary movement, as well as some of the same spiritual and ethical preoccupations that are captured in the literary works of some of the most famous French, Irish and Irish-American authors.

Evelyn Conlon is one of Ireland¿s most important writers. She has published four collections of short stories, My Head is Opening (1987), Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour (1993), Telling: New and Selected Short Stories (2000) and Moving about the Place (2021) and four novels, Stars in the Daytime (1989), A Glassful of Letters (1998) Skin of Dreams (2003) and Not the Same Sky (2013). She has also edited Later On: The Monaghan Bombing Memorial Anthology (2004).Telling Truths: Evelyn Conlon and the Task of Writing is the first book to provide a critical assessment of her work. Drawing on a variety of perspectives such as feminism, ethics, famine studies, mobility studies, translation studies, short fiction, narratology and historiographic metafiction, the essays gathered in this volume reveal that Conlon¿s writing, characterised by sharp observation, insistently questions the predetermined course of female existence, explores alternative forms of freedom and ultimately reflects her commitment to seek and tell truths. The intersectional approach of the book is part of a current endeavour in Irish Studies to keep interrogating well established topics, to examine the elusiveness of others and to explore new boundaries through renewed epistemological and ethical positions.

«An important contribution to understanding our culinary journey in Ireland from a time when food was regarded merely as sustenance. As a nation, we have grown in confidence. Up to relatively recently in Ireland, we had a serious inferiority complex and not just about our food and food culture. Brian documents through various prisms the growing pride in our tradition, the quality of our produce and the growing skills of our chefs. At last, we appreciate what we have here in Ireland and serve our Irish food proudly.»(Darina Allen, Ballymaloe Cookery School)Through concepts such as place and story, this work considers the cultural importance of the foods we eat and the drinks we imbibe in Irish society. While providing us with the necessary sustenance to survive, they also have something to say in terms of how we relate to each other and the world around us. The book examines the products we associate with gastronomy in Ireland and the uniquely Irish places in which they are consumed. Places considered include the Irish pub, the traditional Irish butcher shop and the Irish whiskey distillery. Both products and places are explored through the lens of terroir, experience and the impact of Third Place and Fourth Space paradigms. Though much of what is discussed here is anchored in the past, the book also examines how that past has impacted on more contemporary phenomena such as Irish café culture and social gastronomy. While the work is primarily focused on Ireland, it draws insights from lessons learned in countries like France that possess a widely renowned gastronomic legacy. In addition to the obvious food connections, the chapters in this work are all linked by a common thread of personal engagement that stems from a lifetime spent working in and around the food and drink sector.

In the eighteenth century, Ireland¿s elite could choose from a wide range of wines, but their favourite was claret ¿ the red wine of Bordeaux. Whereas Britain¿s wine drinkers turned to port in this period, and Americäs elite filled their glasses with Madeira, in Ireland, claret flowed in the social world of the privileged classes. This book looks back to earliest times to trace the story of how and why a French wine became what Jonathan Swift fondly called «Irish wine». Exploring the social life of claret in Georgian Ireland through a range of period sources reveals the social meanings attached to this wine and expands our knowledge of Ireland¿s fascinating food history.

In spite of recession, austerity and pandemics, Ireland has demonstrated an extraordinary degree of resilience, becoming one of the most successful economies in Europe and developing into a society remarkably at ease with itself. This book argues that the seeds of this achievement were sown between the mid-1950s and 1960s, when a Second Irish Revival took place which was comparable to the earlier Celtic Revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.At the heart of this revival were three men: T. K. Whitaker, the youthful Secretary of the Department of Finance, Seán Ó Riada, musician and composer, and Thomas Kinsella, poet, translator and academic. Ó Riada and Kinsella were close friends in Dublin¿s emerging artistic world of the 1950s but Kinsella was also Whitaker¿s private secretary in the Department of Finance.The three men, although very different in background and personality, shared a deep knowledge and love of Irish culture, heritage, history and language, but they were also determined to study and absorb the best of what the world could offer in their respective fields of endeavour and it is argued that this combination was a critical factor in their contribution to Irish society.The book will review the arguments of the sceptics who disagreed with Ireland¿s embrace of globalisation and will conclude with a speculative account of how the Mandarin, the Musician and the Mage might like to see Ireland develop in the 2020s.

Brings together academic and independent scholars from various disciplines and nationalities to take a critical look at the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, from the collaboration between Dublin and London to the new political configurations in Northern Ireland, as well as interfaith, cultural, social and economic developments.

Voices from the Margins explores how women writers of Troubles short fiction have rewritten the " official story " of the conflict and the peace process by placing thematic emphasis on gender and the everyday and by foregrounding the personal histories behind the public History of the Troubles.

The Salley Gardens presents reflections from seventy-three heterosexual young women on growing up, forming sexual relationships and some becoming mothers in the last years of the 'Celtic Tiger'.

Irish Lesbian Writing Across Time is an attestation of a historical presence of lesbians in Irish literature, as it analyses the progression of Irish lesbian narrative over the past two centuries, whilst verifying key characteristics of time periods that correspond with the model of development.

The Picture Postcard, a new window into Edwardian Ireland uses the material culture of the picture postcard as a lens through which to examine life on the island of Ireland during the Edwardian period (1902-10).

This is the untold story of Counteract, the trade union sponsored anti-sectarian unit tackling violent sectarianism in the workplace in the Northern Ireland conflict.

This multi-disciplinary volume owes much to the ongoing debate within Northern Ireland, as an integral part of the conflict transformation process, on how to build a shared and better future for all citizens out of a divided and traumatic past.

This landmark collection marks the publication of the 100th book in the Reimagining Ireland series. It attempts to provide a 'forward look' at what Irish Studies might look like in the third millennium.

Proposes that a new literary genre emerged from the crucible of the Great Famine, that is, the Irish Famine travelogue. Judd invites us to consider Famine-era travel narratives as comprising a unique subgenre within the larger discursive field of travel literature.

Providing unique and new perspectives that have been evolved mostly from papers read at an international conference held in Kyoto, Japan, this collection attempts to reassess and explore the values of Irish literature in a global context.

This volume embraces the critical turn of new materialism in order to address how creative and social practices allow for the definition of alternative subject positions and to examine how power relations operate at an embodied, relatable level: it proposes to think global but act local.

This book examines German media representations of Ireland from 1946 to 2010, from the post-war period to the years of the so-called Celtic Tiger and Ireland's subsequent economic downturn. It charts both the patterns and the inconsistencies in depictions of Ireland in the weekly publications Der Spiegel and Die Zeit, as well as in German cinema.Cultural stereotypes may be employed in the furthering of a problematic cultural essentialism; however, they may also be used to play with readers' or viewers' expectations. They may be juxtaposed with newer cultural generalizations, or re-moulded to fit a transformed cultural reality. The representations of Ireland examined in this book are revealed as inherently ideological, consistently locating Ireland outside of an evolving European societal normalcy. While this is often presented as something highly positive, the book argues that it implicitly places Germany at the centre of Europe and may be viewed as a type of excluding Europeanism.

The organization of several thousand Irish American men into a military outfit, which then attempted to invade Canada from within the United States, is a significant historical event that remains largely unexplored from an Irish and Irish American perspective. This study offers a fuller exploration of the details behind the Fenian invasion, asking why Irish immigrants were motivated to shape American international policy and examining the ways in which the Fenians defined identity as a transnational phenomenon. By taking a fresh look at the Irish foray, the author reveals new aspects to Irish immigrant negotiations of belonging - a prototypical transnationalism, accompanied by a broad-ranging anti-imperialism. This book places the Irish American Fenians in their proper context, demonstrating their central importance within American, Irish and Irish American history. Its publication coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Fenian invasion of Canada.

This book analyses poetry and prose written by combatant and non-combatant Irish writers during the First World War, focusing on key works influenced by Irish, English and European literary traditions. It highlights the complex positions adopted by writers in relation to the international conflict and to Irish debates about nationhood, which resist reduction to the simple binaries of Unionist/pro-war and Nationalist/anti-war. The book goes on to discuss the literature of the decades following the war, looking at how the conflict was remembered in the two parts of the now divided island, both by individuals and collectively, and investigating the dynamic interrelationship between personal recollection and public memory. In conclusion, the author discusses contemporary literature about the war, which often examines family memory as well as collective memory, and explores its role in the narrative of nationhood, both north and south of the border.

The 1798 Rebellion, a watershed event in Irish history, has been a source of both inspiration and controversy over the last two centuries and continues to provoke debate up to the present day. The ongoing discussion about the meaning of the Rebellion has not been limited to history books, but has also found vivid expression in Irish fiction and theatre. The product of extensive research, this study provides a comprehensive survey of historical novels and plays published on the topic throughout the twentieth century, comparing them with relevant historiography. It draws attention to a number of outstanding but often neglected literary works, bringing together materials written in both English and Irish. Employing important theoretical concepts such as Derrida's 'spectre' and Hayden White's tropological view of history, the book probes the relationship between historiography and fiction to shed light on their interplay in the Irish context, including the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland. This investigation illuminates a number of broader questions, including the most pressing of all: in what way should we deal with the 'spectres' of the past and their complex legacies?

Irish women flourished in the publishing world at the turn of the twentieth century, and a number of the most popular and prolific of these authors chose to live and work in Britain. As expatriates, these women occupied a complex cultural space between Ireland and Britain from which they were able to observe the rapidly altering political landscape in their homeland and, in particular, the debates that concerned them as women. This book examines the lives and literature of six Irish novelists - Emily Lawless, L. T. Meade, George Egerton, Katherine Cecil Thurston, M. E. Francis and Katharine Tynan - who lived and worked in Britain between the years 1890 and 1916, between them producing nearly 500 published works. Drawing on a range of their novels, this study explores their participation in the prevailing debates of the era: the Irish Question and the Woman Question. This book was the winner of the 2013 Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in Irish Studies.

This book offers a comprehensive study of the role of dance in a wide range of contemporary Irish plays and argues that dance can be perceived as exemplifying the re-embracement of bodily expression by the local culture. The author approaches this issue from a cultural materialist perspective, demonstrating that dance in twentieth-century Ireland was particularly prone to ideological appropriation and that, consequently, its use in contemporary drama often serves to communicate critical and revisionist approaches to the social, economic and political concerns addressed in these plays. The book makes a valuable contribution to current debates about the nature of Irish theatre, investigating recent changes to its traditional, text-based character. These are examined within two important contexts: firstly, transformations in the perception of the human body in Irish culture and, secondly, changes in the attitude of the Irish towards their past and their cultural heritage.