Tom Herron

The presence of Irish writers is almost invisible in literary studies of London. The Irish Writing London redresses the critical deficit. A range of experts on particular Irish writers reflect on the diverse experiences and impact this immigrant group has had on the city. Such sustained attention to a location and concern of Irish writing, long passed over, opens up new terrain to not only reveal but create a history of Irish-London writing. Alongside discussions of MacNeice, Boland and McGahern, the autobiography of Brendan Behan and identity of Irish-language writers in London is considered. Written by an internal array of scholars, these new essays on key figures challenge the deep-seated stereotype of what constitutes the proper domain of Irish writing, producing a study that is both culturally and critically alert and a dynamic contribution to literary criticism of the city.

Post-War to the Present

Irish Writing London: Volume 2

John Lynch

After Bloody Sunday investigates the ways in which the events in Derry on January 30, 1972, have found representation in photography, film, theatre, poetry, television documentary, art installations, murals, music, commemorative events, legal discourse, eyewitness testimony, and pressure-group campaigns. Thirty-six years after the killing and wounding of twenty-six civil rights protestors in Derry, the new independent tribunal chaired by Lord Mark Saville of Newdigate is close to publishing its findings. The Report of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry promises to be the most comprehensive act of truth-recovery yet attempted in relation to the many atrocities that scarred the North of Ireland during the three decades of political conflict. Mark Saville has the formidable, and perhaps impossible, task of establishing the definitive truth of Bloody Sunday. His attempt comes in the wake of many other earlier versions of the events of 30th January 1972 that have also claimed to present the truth of what happened that day. After Bloody Sunday examines the portrayals of the events of January 30th, 1972, and its devastating repercussions in photography, film, theatre, poetry, television documentary, art installations, murals, commemorative events, and legal discourse. The authors consider their veracity, their mechanisms of authenticity, and their assumptions that a particular medium--be it film, or language, or visual art--can somehow articulate the truth of Bloody Sunday. In the course of six thematically-organized chapters, the authors analyze productions ranging from high-profile popular forms of entertainment--such as Paul Greengrass's feature film Bloody Sunday and Jimmy McGovern's made-for-television film, Sunday--through to lesser-known treatments in poetry (Thomas Kinsella's Butcher's Dozen), drama (Frank McGuinness's Carthaginians and Brian Friel's The Freedom of the City), and visual art (The Bogside Artists and Willie Doherty). They place special emphasis on the commemoration events held each year in Derry in which the families of the victims have--over many years--remembered their dead and injured, while at the same time building a highly-effective campaign that resulted, finally, in a new Inquiry. Drawing on their expertise in the fields of literature, cultural theory, media studies and visual art, the authors have produced a thoroughly interdisciplinary approach towards the many representations that claim, with varying degrees of confidence, to tell the story of what really happened on the streets of the Bogside on the afternoon of January 30, 1972.

Ethics, Representation, Justice

After Bloody Sunday

The presence of Irish writers is almost invisible in literary studies of London. The Irish Writing London redresses the critical deficit. A range of experts on particular Irish writers reflect on the diverse experiences and impact this immigrant group has had on the city. Such sustained attention to a location and concern of Irish writing, long passed over, opens up new terrain to not only reveal but create a history of Irish-London writing. Alongside discussions of Wilde, Shaw, Joyce and Yeats, the writing of the political nationalist Katharine Tynan and work of Irish-Language writer Ó Conaire is considered. Written by an international array of scholars, these new essays on key figures challenge the deep-seated stereotype of what constitutes the proper domain of Irish writing, producing a study that is both culturally and critically alert and a dynamic contribution to literary criticism of the city.

Revival to the Second World War

Irish Writing London: Volume 1

The first study to consider how Irish writers have regarded, reported and represented London in their fiction, drama and poetry.

Tom Herron

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