Technology in Irish Literature and Culture shows how such significant technologies-typewriters, gramophones, print, radio, television, computers-have influenced Irish literary practices and cultural production, while also examining how technology has been embraced as a theme in Irish writing. Once a largely rural and agrarian society, contemporary Ireland has embraced the communicative, performative and consumption habits of a culture utterly reliant on the digital. This text plumbs the origins of the present moment, examining the longer history of literature's interactions with the technological and exploring how the transformative capacity of modern technology has been mediated throughout a diverse national canon. Comprising essays from some of the major figures of Irish literary and cultural studies, this volume offers a wide-ranging, comprehensive account of how Irish literature and culture have interacted with technology.

The Maamtrasna Murders provides a cultural history of the events and subsequent impact of the renowned Maamtrasna murders from the perspective of language change in late nineteenth-century Ireland. Professor Kelleher takes the Maamtrasna case - one that is notorious for its failure to provide interpretation and translation services for monoglot Irish speakers - and examines broader sociolinguistic issues. Uncovering archival materials not previously consulted, this work illuminates a story that has proven to be much richer, `messier', and a more intricate social narrative than previous commentators have recognized. The Maamtrasna Murders moves Maamtrasna's violation of human rights from a local to a global stage. While the wrongful execution of monolingual Myles Joyce would prove to be the best-known feature of the case, the complex significance of language-use in an isolated region mirrors the dynamics that continue to influence the fates of monolingual and bilingual people today.

How societies use the past is one of their most revealing traits. Using this insight "Ireland's Polemical Past" examines how the inhabitants of nineteenth and twentieth-century Ireland plundered their pasts for polemical reasons. The ten essays explore how revolutionaries, politicians, churchmen, artists, tourists and builders (among others) used the Irish past in creating and justifying their own position in contemporary society. The result is a varied portrait of the problems and tensions in nineteenth and early twentieth-century society that these people tried to solve by resorting to the Irish past for inspiration and justification to make their world work. This is a book that will appeal to those who have an interest in the making of modern Ireland as well as those concerned with writing about the Irish past at any level.

This collection of essays examines core authors and texts. Written by scholars from a range of Irish third-level institutions, these essays provide introductions to less familiar authors and open up critical readings of established texts.

Interest in nineteenth-century studies has never been greater, and contrasts sharply with previous neglect of many aspects of that century's history and culture. These essays by leading scholars assess and interpret developments from 1990 onwards in the field of nineteenth-century Irish studies, and from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. The book covers political, social, religious and women's history and historical geography as well as anthropological and sociological studies of nineteenth-century Ireland. Further chapters cover nineteenth-century music, art history, literature in English, Gaelic culture and language and the Irish diaspora. This will be an invaluable research tool and reference book for many years to come.