Sounding the Margins is the second of two publications to emerge from the highly successful AFIS conference hosted by the Universite 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 degree of artistic objectivity. But it is also the case that literary practitioners tend to identify more easily with others living on the margins, either through choice or circumstances. The collection is a mixture of comparative studies and essays on individual authors but, in all cases, marginality is presented as a liberating experience once it is freely chosen and embraced.

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 consider the scope of the problem, analyze issues that are crucial to the Irish context, and identify signs of both resilience and renewal. In addition to an overview of the current status and future directions of Irish Catholicism, The Catholic Church in Ireland Today examines specific issues such as growing secularism, the changing image of Irish bishops, generational divides, Catholic migrants to Ireland, the abuse crisis and responses in Ireland and the United States, Irish missionaries, the political role of Irish priests, the 2012 Dublin Eucharistic Congress, and contemplative strands in Irish identity. This book identifies the key issues that students of Irish society and others interested in Catholic culture must examine in order to understand the changing roles of religion in the contemporary world.

This landmark collection marks the publication of the 100th book in the Reimagining Ireland series. It attempts to provide a "forward look" (as opposed to what Frank O'Connor once referred to as the " backward look") at what Irish Studies might look like in the third millennium. With a Foreword by Declan Kiberd, it also contains essays by several other leading Irish Studies experts on (among other areas) literature and critical theory, sport, the Irish language, food and beverage studies, cinema, women's writing, Brexit, religion, Northern Ireland, the legacy of the Great Famine, Ireland in the French imagination, archival research, musicology, and Irish Studies in North America. The book is a tribute to Irish Studies' foundational commitment to revealing and renewing Irishness within and beyond the national space.

This book looks at various effects, symptoms and consequences of the period in Irish culture known as the Celtic Tiger. It will trace the critical pathway from boom to bust - and up to the current beginnings of a similar, smaller boom - through events, personalities and products. The short entries offer a sense of the lived experience of this seismic period in contemporary Irish society. While clearly not all aspects of the period could realistically be covered, the book does contain essential information about the central actors, events, themes, and economic trends, which are discussed in a readable and accessible manner. Each entry is linked to the overall Celtic Tiger phenomenon and its immediate aftermath. The book also provides a comprehensive account of what happened in this period and will be a factual resource for anyone anxious to discover information on the areas most commonly connected to it. All entries are written by experts in the area. The contributors include broadcasters, economists, cultural theorists, sociologists, literary critics, journalists, politicians and writers, each of whom brings particular insights to some aspect of the Celtic Tiger.

This collection of essays explores the concept of patrimoine, a French word used to denote cultural heritage, traditional customs and practices - the Gaelic equivalent is duchas - and the extent to which it impacts on France and Ireland. Borrowing from disciplines as varied as sociology, cultural theory, literature, marketing, theology, history, musicology and business, the contributors to the volume unearth interesting manifestations of how patrimoine resonates across cultural divides and bestows uniqueness and specificity on countries and societies, sometimes in a subliminal manner. Issues covered include debt as heritage, Guinness as a cultural icon of "Irishness", faith-based tourism, the Huguenot heritage in Ireland, Irish musical inheritances since Independence, Skellig Michael and the commodification of Irish culture. With a Foreword by His Excellency M. Stephane Crouzat, French Ambassador to Ireland, this collection breaks new ground in assessing the close links between France and Ireland, links that will become all the more important in light of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

This volume of essays, which originated in the inaugural Dublin Gastronomy Symposium held in the Dublin Institute of Technology in June 2012, offers fascinating insights into the significant role played by gastronomy in Irish literature and culture. The book opens with an exploration of food in literature, covering figures as varied as Maria Edgeworth, James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, John McGahern and Sebastian Barry. Other chapters examine culinary practices among the Dublin working classes in the 1950s, offering a stark contrast to the haute cuisine served in the iconic Jammet's Restaurant; new trends among Ireland's 'foodie' generation; and the economic and tourism possibilities created by the development of a gastronomic nationalism. The volume concludes by looking at the sacramental aspects of the production and consumption of Guinness and examining the place where it is most often consumed: the Irish pub.

When one considers issues that are crucial to the evolution of French and Irish culture and behaviour, it is doubtful if there is anything more pertinent than globalisation and secularisation. Clearly, the experience of these concepts in both countries varies greatly: for example, while the French demonstrate a certain 'mefiance' - even 'mepris' - towards the globalistion project, which they associate with Hollywood, Microsoft, McDonalds and very little that is positive, the Irish, particularly during the Celtic Tiger years, were enthused by the possibilities it offered in terms of material gain and liberation from the excessive control of the Roman Catholic Church. In relation to the latter, many commentators argue that globalisation brought a more secular mindset to Ireland in recent decades, whereas in France the term 'laicite' is strongly identified with the Republican ideology that dates back to the French Revolution. Clearly, therefore, the theme is a revealing one. Cet ouvrage, qui contient des articles rediges en anglais et en francais, est compose des Actes du 4e Colloque franco-irlandais qui a eu lieu a l'universite Rennes 2 en mai 2008 sous l'egide du NCFIS.

Catholicism has played a central role in Irish society for centuries. It is sometimes perceived in a negative light, being associated with repression, antiquated morality and a warped view of sexuality. However, there are also the positive aspects that Catholicism brought to bear on Irish culture, such as the beauty of its rituals, education and health care, or concern for the poor and the underprivileged. Whatever their experience of Catholicism, writers of a certain generation could not escape its impact on their lives, an impact which is pervasive in the literature they produced. This study, containing twelve chapters written by a range of distinguished literary experts and emerging scholars, explores in a systematic manner the cross-fertilisation between Catholicism and Irish/Irish-American literature written in English. The figures addressed in the book include James Joyce, Maud Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Kate O'Brien, Edwin O'Connor, Brian Moore, John McGahern, Seamus Heaney, Paul Durcan, Vincent Carroll and Brian Friel. This book will serve to underline the complex relationship between creative writers and the once all-powerful religious Establishment.

C'est la qualite transculturelle, atemporelle et transgenerique des textes de Colum McCann qui interesse cet ouvrage. L'auteur n'ancre completement son oeuvre dans aucune tradition, aucun courant ou mode defini, et propose des textes recalcitrants a toute tentative de classification. En invitant regulierement le symbole dans un univers vraisemblable, McCann ebranle parfois le realisme de ses textes. De plus, en logeant dans son oeuvre celles et ceux qui ne trouvent pas leur place au centre du tourbillon de l'ere qui est la notre, il prend le contrepied du discours historiographique dominant. Ainsi, la notion de rupture apparait comme une cle de lecture, et son etude permet de comprendre qu'au plan metatextuel, elle inclut plus aisement les lecteurs au sein meme des textes, lesquels representent des espaces d'accueil, de veritables forces centripetes qui les ramenent au coeur de l'experience litteraire. Cet ouvrage ne s'interesse donc pas seulement a la creation et a la constitution des textes, mais egalement a leur reception. Ils pourraient etre percus comme autant de synapses assurant la transmission de l'experience, qui constituent des outils permettant aux lecteurs de repenser leur etre-au-monde, notamment a travers l'experience de l'empathie.

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 progression from prosperity to austerity and the impact this has had on the psyche of Irish culture. An eclectic mix of theoretical approaches enables treatment of religion, literature, popular culture, photography, gastronomy, music, gender, immigration and film, as contributors assess how the Celtic Tiger was represented, or misrepresented, in these particular spheres of experience. In addition, the chapters also probe the effects on all of the aforementioned cultural forms, and interrogate how the lives of people have been transformed in ways that go beyond the already well-documented areas of economics and finance. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and students interested in contemporary Ireland and recent Irish history, as well as the general reader anxious to understand the effects of this particular period on the real lives of people as expressed through culture. It features contributions by internationally acknowledged experts in their fields and offers a comprehensive overview of the cultural consequences of the Celtic Tiger and its aftermath. -- .

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 characterised by the increasing secularisation of Irish society. Boasting an impressive array of contributors from various backgrounds and expertise, the essays in the book attempt to trace the exact reasons for the progressive dismantling of the cultural legacy of Catholicism and the consequences this has had on Irish society. -- .

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 love of social and religious rituals, all contributed to his remarkable evocation of what it was like to live in Ireland at a specific time in its evolution - that is to say, from the time of independence up to the beginning of the new millennium. This is a multidisciplinary collection which situates McGahern in his literary context and explains the ingredients that make him such a revered writer, one who had his finger firmly on the pulse of the nation. Violence, love and desire, ecology, memory, friendship, photography, rage, sin, are examined with a view to assessing how they are pertinent to McGahern's work and the extent to which they contribute to his literary legacy. Declan Kiberd speaks from personal experience of the young writer who taught in Belgrove National School and was fascinated with cricket, whereas Donal Ryan describes how reading McGahern almost caused him to abandon his literary vocation because of his belief that he could never write like this master of prose. There is something in this book for both the specialist and non-specialist alike and it is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in McGahern the man and writer. Derek Hand is Head of the School of English at Dublin City University and Eamon Maher is a Lecturer in Technological University Dublin