Overview

This collection of essays focuses on issues of gender and sexuality in Irish history, biography, language, literature and drama. While the contributors employ a variety of methodological and critical perspectives, they share the conviction that the gendering of Ireland - not only of the nation, but of actual Irish men and women - is a construction of culture and ideology and not simply one of nature. The essays address such topics as: the recent divorce referendum; homoerotic desire in the Irish literary renaissance, and in recent drama and film; Irish women's history; intersections of gender with nationalism and feminism; contemporary Irish poetry; the significance of gender in emigration from Ireland to the United States; and the political importance of the work of Irish religious women in the first half of the century. The book's concern with gender and sexuality makes possible a series of interweaving narratives that create an understanding of what it means to be Irish. Contributors include: Guinn Batten, Angela Bourke, Carol Coulter, Elizabeth Cullingford, Mary Daly, Adrian Frazier, Dillon Johnston, Margaret MacCurtain, Lucy McDiarmid, Maureen Murphy, Antoinette Quinn, Catherine Shannon and Margaret Ward.

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9781558491311

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Reviews

In this timely and provocative collection, critical debates about desire and its discontents have at last caught up with the rapidly changing experience of gender and sexuality in modern Ireland. Both historically grounded and theoretically sophisticated, the essays draw on a wide range of disciplines and intellectual positions which challenge traditional and revisionist stereotypes alike. The originality of the work not only breaks new ground in Irish studies, but also makes a major contribution to the expanding literature on gender, place, and nation in recent post-colonial studies.--Luke Gibbons, Author of Transformations in Irish Culture

Author Information

Anthony Bradley is professor of English at the University of Vermont. Maryann Gialanella Valiulis is director of the Centre for Women's Studies at Trinity College in Dublin.

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