Bringing John McGahern’s 1965 masterpiece back into print in the United States after years of inaccessibility, this new sixtieth-anniversary critical edition includes an introduction aimed at first-time readers, explanatory footnotes, McGahern’s own glossary, and four scholarly essays aimed at guiding
In the first book-length study of Paula Meehan, one of Ireland’s leading contemporary poets emerges as an original voice whose perspectives on gender, class, and ecology are transforming the Irish literary landscape and beyond. Drawing on her own lived experience
The classical Bildungsroman charted an idealized path of human development—the harmonization of individual desires with societal norms in the formation of a well-rounded, liberal subject. But what happens when this Enlightenment blueprint for self-cultivation runs up against the particularities of
This book tells the story of Sligo’s presence in the work of W.B. Yeats and his family through images of their work and commentary that opens new ways of understanding Yeats’s poetry. It incorporates paintings and drawings by John Butler
Irish Materialisms: The Nonhuman and the Making of Colonial Ireland, 1690-1830, is the first book to apply recent trends in new materialist criticism to Ireland. Each of the chapters engages a focused case study of an everyday object in colonial Ireland
Holy wells with miraculous healing qualities and resident supernatural beings are the focus of ritual and lore around the globe. Ireland’s holy wells include springs, lakes, and ponds with patron saints, specialized cures, and localized customs related to the site’s
Modernism in Irish Women’s Contemporary Writing examines the tangled relationship between contemporary Irish women writers and literary modernism. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, Irish women’s fiction has drawn widespread critical acclaim and commercial success, with a surprising
Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle’s centenary adaption of J. M. Synge’s classic The Playboy of the Western World had a sold-out run when it was produced at Dublin’s Abbey Theater in 2007 and was brought back by popular demand in
A historical exploration of the Irish image in popular culture It only took a century or so to segue from phrases like “No Irish Need Apply” to “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” in American popular culture. Indeed, the transformation of the
The Brian Friel Papers at the National Library of Ireland are a record of a life’s work in progress. They represent a way of working and of making art over a period spanning more than fifty years. This book is