This collection of essays, written by many of the foremost McGahern scholars, provides solid reasons for why the Leitrim writer has assumed canonical status since his premature death in 2006, an event which sparked something akin to a period of national mourning in Ireland. The reason why so many people felt his loss so keenly is probably due to the fact that McGahern’s attention to detail, his feel for landscape, his understanding of the Irish psyche, his carefully chiselled prose, his lo...

In times of conflict, especially times of war, pressures on freedom of the press, even in societies that value a free press, inevitably increase – and often involve formal government censorship. Support of one’s country or, in the case of internal conflicts, of one side or another – usually, indeed, of the authorities – can be regarded as a duty. Dissent, even criticism, in the press is less tolerated – if tolerated at all. Journalists may become propagandists or mythmakers. The twelve ess...

The conventional view of the British Army’s two Ireland campaigns - first in Southern Ireland [1919-1921] and then, two generations later, in Northern Ireland [1969-2007] – are that the first was an outright defeat and the second, a military stalemate. This book challenges these judgements. Deploying hitherto unused or misunderstood archival materials, it documents how in both campaigns the Army, acting in support of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, respectiv...

A deft, masterful study of the life and work of Jean Sulivan. Maher makes a compelling case for the continuing importance of Sulivan’s writings in challenging times and illuminates crucial and often neglected intersections between faith and fiction. A book to cherish. — Michael Cronin (Trinity College Dublin)Thanks to Eamon Maher’s tireless work, Sulivan’s output is now reaching the wider audience in the Anglo-Saxon world it has always deserved. Sulivan’s depiction of the margins a...

This book traces the steady decline in Irish Catholicism from the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 up to the Cloyne report into clerical sex abuse in that diocese in 2011. The young people awaiting the Pope’s address in Galway were entertained by two of Ireland’s most charismatic clerics, Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary, both of whom were subsequently revealed to have been engaged in romantic liaisons at the time.The decades that followed the Pope’s visit were characteri...

From a Church that once enjoyed devotional loyalty, political influence, and institutional power unrivaled in Europe, the Catholic Church in Ireland now faces collapse. Devastated by a series of reports on clerical sexual abuse, challenged publicly during several political battles, and painfully aware of plunging Mass attendance, the Irish Church today is confronted with the loss of its institutional legitimacy. This study is the first international and interdisciplinary attempt to conside...

To mark the fact that the Reimagining Ireland series will soon have one hundred volumes in print, this book brings together a selection of essays from the first fifty volumes, carefully chosen to give a flavour of the diversity and multidisciplinary nature of the series. Following a chronological order, it begins with an essay by Luke Gibbons tracing the roots of modernity from the middle decades of the nineteenth century and concludes with Michael Cronin’s discussion of time and ...

This collection examines the Irish economic phenomenon of the Celtic Tiger and the financial disaster that came in its wake, from a socio-cultural perspective. It focuses on how these financial developments have been reflected in writing, film and culture in order to offer a more rounded analysis of the effects of this momentous period on people’s lives.Employing a wide range of cultural lenses, the book critiques the cultural, political and aesthetic implications of the progressio...

«Compelling, informative, essential»(Senator George Mitchell)«Durkan was Hume’s closest and most influential intellectual and political collaborator in an epic endeavour that culminated in the GFA. His witness is exhilarating, profoundly insightful and refreshingly witty.»(Michael Lillis, diplomatic advisor to Garret FitzGerald and Irish government negotiator of the Anglo-Irish Agreement)«Once again, Graham Spencer shows his mastery of the interview technique ...

From the Foreword:«This important contribution...to the history of this period shines a light on voices often left in the shadows of history's formal and established narrative, voices that reached across divides, laying down the roots of trust and shared humanity that would make the peace process possible. This work serves as both a reminder and a call. It is a reminder of the vital contributions of those civil society organisations who risked and hoped for peace when it w...

This collection emerged from a conference held in TU Dublin at a time when the theme of «New Beginnings» seemed particularly apposite. In the few years prior to the gathering, COVID-19 had brought the world to almost a complete standstill. The need to recalibrate, to find new and more effective ways of dealing with the climate crisis, domestic and international politics, literary expression, and technology, was clearly felt by everyone. The fourteen essays deal with literary figures such a...

Sounding the Margins is the second of two publications to emerge from the highly successful AFIS conference hosted by the Université de Lille in 2019. Concentrating on the literary manifestations of marginality in Ireland and France, the essays treat of various texts that demonstrate the extent to which marginality is a recurring trope. This may well be because writers tend to situate themselves at a distance from the centre or status quo in their desire to maintain a certain degr...