"Some of you will curse her": Women's Writing during the Irish-Language Revival

Current postcolonial theory maintains that most emerging nationalist movements inevitably construct a post-revolutionary society that mimics the colonial structure they sought to overthrow. During the decolonization process in Ireland, all indications suggested that Ireland would replicate exactly the same misogynistic, intolerant and bigoted society as had existed under colonial rule. This paper seeks to prove that authors Emily Lawless, Augusta Gregory, Eva Gore-Booth and Edith Somerville presented an alternative cultural vision to that of the cultural nationalist movement. Their writings recognize that Ireland was not comprised of a single monolithic culture, but a conglomeration of its historical experiences. Rather than replicating the binary opposition of native versus imperialist, they understood that a successful transition to an independent nation was one in which all the minority voices, those “Others” of imperial discourse were united in a political structure that embraced and respected the differences inherent in its citizens. It was this recognition of the diversity of Irish culture, of its rich heritage of Catholic and Protestant, Briton and Celt, male and female experiences that constituted the vision of the Ireland in which they wished to live, write and enjoy personal freedom.

In: A History of Irish Women's Literature, 2018

Pre-publication draft Published in: A History of Modern Irish Women's Literature. Eds Heather Ingham and Clíona O Gallchóir. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Estudios Irlandeses, 2018

A Nation not a Parish, 2025

This chapter draws on the experiences of those connected to Irish literary clubs, including the Irish Women Writers' Club (1933-1958) and their engagement with the global literary marketplace during the 1930s. It aims to explore as yet uncharted terrains of women's literary production, introducing new archival material that evidences the means in which individual writers successfully intervened in the international realm. Included in this list is the work of Ena Dargan and Patricia Lynch, and those who captured the attention of publishers in places across the globe where "Irish" identity had wide market appeal. In addition, this chapter offers accounts of the travels of Hanna Sheehy Skeffington and Rosamond Jacob, in Britain, America and the USSR, respectively, and explores the influence of powerful international feminist networks in promoting Irish women writers. Finally, it outlines the reciprocal influences of European ideas on Irish women writers and artists and those involved in creative enterprises suggesting new areas for future research.

ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, 2014

This paper explores the ways in which some of the best and most representative Irish women fiction writers of the twentieth century responded to the exigencies of Catholicism in their selected works. It also attempts to demonstrate how the treatment of Catholicism in Irish women’s fiction changed throughout the century. The body of texts that are examined in the paper span almost seventy years, from the early years of the independent Irish state to the turn-of-the-century Ireland, during which time both Irish society and the Irish Catholic Church underwent fundamental changes. How these authors tackle the relationship between the dominant religion and the shaping of woman’s identity, how they see the role of woman within the confines of Irish Catholicism, and to what extent their novels mirror the period in which they are written are the main issues which lie in the focus of the paper.

The Modern Language Review, 2006

Fortnight Magazine, 2025

Inspired by Sandi Toksvig's lecture, 'Eve's Byte of the Apple', and taking the use of AI as my starting point, I discuss the work (and lives) of dead women writers from the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland. I focus especially on the little-known Belfast publisher, Quota Press, founded and run by Dora Kennedy from 1927 to 1952, to argue that we need to get our past right in order to inform the future. If we don't want to be gaslit by AI, accurate and comprehensive recovery of the past is more important than ever. Illustrated article

In the seventies a significant watershed happened, and the Irish literary world witnessed the development of women’s poetry. Eavan Boland, one of the main figures of this revolution, declared in 1995 in Object Lessons “over a relatively short time … [women] have moved from being the objects of Irish poems to being the authors of them”, allowing them to develop their own imagery and identity. Unfortunately, the powerful male poetic tradition, led by Yeats’ mystified women , fought back to keep the lyrical tradition and its classical imagery. Thus, a few years later, Boland states “There came to be an unspoken perception that the poem written by a woman might not exactly be an Irish poem” highlighting the new problem that contemporary Irish women poets face: the watershed opened the door for a new poetic tradition, but not “necessarily” for the development of the national one. If our identity belongs to the place we live in and to the history we share with people we mix with, to construct ourselves we need to follow them or to reject them or modify and adapt. Which one of these attitudes did the nascent women’s poetry tradition follow? The short answer is rejection and modification.

When I first arrived in America as a young teenager, the concept of hybridity in Irish culture was as alien to me as soda fountains and poodle skirts. After all, in the Ireland where I grew up, we looked like each other, we spoke like each other (although I could easily identify a Cork accent, a Derry accent, or a Dublin accent), we all had the same religion, and we were all pretty much related to each other. In fact, familial relations were somewhat akin to the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, with just about any person you met, you could establish some type of family connection within less than six links! America, on the other hand, was an exciting and heady rush of diversity and mind boggling variety. Immigrants from all regions of the world, with their multiplicity of languages, races, creeds and social customs had converged on this huge nation, and had somehow managed to coalesce into a highly functioning democracy, that (on the surface at least) respected the individual, while upholding a national ideology that unified its society. America was the great melting pot, whereas Ireland was a small, insular nation, selfcontained and untouched by foreign influences. This, of course, was my cultural legacy, a legacy that was handed down to my generation and the generation of my parents, by the venerable leaders of the Celtic Renaissance, who so desperately wanted and needed to create an Irish culture distinct and separate from that of an imperial oppressor. The irony, however, is that the concept of a pure Irish culture, untainted by foreign and subversive influences, is and was as damaging to the soul of the nation, as the lack of an evolutionary capability is to the survival of a species.