Digital Commons Network^™

Rewrite The Past And Remember The Future: How Expatriates Built An Independent Ireland, Morgan Grabowski

English Honors Papers

This paper seeks to answer the question “How did Ireland create a unique identity after gaining independence from England?” In order to answer that question, I analyzed five different Irish authors who wrote in a timeframe spanning the first half of the twentieth century. These authors are W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett. These authors, at one point or another, wrote texts which are considered Irish, while living abroad. Because of this, this paper focuses on their status as expatriates, and how that influenced their contributions to the Irish Literary Revival, which is the literary …

Bloody Sunday: Death & Press, Joseph Gaffney

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is a historical paper on Bloody Sunday, a day of violence in Dublin during the Irish War for Independence on November 21, 1920, analyzing primary and secondary sources centered on the subject to answer specific historiographical research questions. The primary objective of this research project is to understand the immediate social and political ramifications of Bloody Sunday in Ireland and England as reflected in the spread of information via the written press. The goal of the written analysis will be to answer a series of historical research questions. How were both the IRA’s killings and the subsequent reprisal …

He Had Two Women To Die For, Ireland And The Missus”: Mothers As Abject And Sons As Scapegoats In Edna O’Brien’S House Of Splendid Isolation And In The Forest, Emily Nix

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This thesis examines the protagonists in Edna O’Brien’s In the Forest and House of Splendid Isolation and applies Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Rene Girard’s theory of the scapegoat. In doing so, I attempt to give a richer understanding of O’Brien’s masculine and feminine characters and how their constructed identities are based on their cultural circumstances and positions in their societies. I use Kristeva’s theory of abjection to analyze the single women in these novels, Eily and Josie, who become metaphorical single mothers by the invasions of young men into their homes. Then, I apply Girard’s theory of the …

Broken Mirrors: Iterations Of The Other In The Post-Colonial Novel, Kelly Bowers

Master of Arts in Humanities | Master's Theses 1936 - 2022

This thesis explores the post-colonial notion of the Other as an iteration of the broader cultural tendency to make meaning via binary opposition. The study of Wide Sargasso Sea, Infidels, and At Swim Two Boys reveals the connective thread of empire and subjugation that transcends time and place. Furthermore, I examine the various attempts of characters to resist this reality by creating an alternate space within the dominant culture. My interest lies in exploring the ways in which various markers of identity form the “self,” and consequently how characters attempt to gain agency and fully realize identity despite marginalization and …

The Táin, Luke Hart-Moynihan

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

The Táin (Myth / Epic Fantasy, Feature) - In mythic iron-age Ireland, an exiled king allies with a proud queen to steal a magic bull and retake his former kingdom, but his semi-divine foster-son stands in their way. Based on the Irish Epic Táin Bó Cúailnge.

Fledging, Eliza M. Watson

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Fledging is a fictionalized exploration on the complexities of female agency, identity, and relationships in the face of migration. Told through a series of connected short stories inspired by magical realism, memory, and Irish mythology, Fledging seeks to acknowledge the pain and beauty of grief, love, loss, and motherhood.

The Poetry Of History: Irish National Imagination Through Mythology And Materiality, Ryan Fay

English Honors Theses

The thesis culminates in the twentieth century and yet it begins with the Ulster Cycle, a period of Irish mythological history that occurred around the first century common era. Indeed, since the time frame was before the arrival of the Gaels, Normans, or Christianity, the extent of this mythology’s relevance today is whatever extent it is conceptualized as “Irish.” As such, the first chapter locks onto an aspect that could feasibly transcend time and resonate with modern Irish society: gender. Of course, the epistemological dynamics of gender^[1] in the first-century common era are vastly different than the twentieth century …

Ulster, Georgia, And The Civil War: Stories Of Variation, William Loveless

Honors Theses

Ulster, Georgia, and The Civil War: Stories of Variation explores the lives of 13 men from Northern Ireland who immigrated to the American South and fought for the Confederacy. The author pursues the stories of each man’s life in order to have a more thorough understanding of what life looked like for Irish/Ulster immigrants in the South during the 19^th century. By looking at the lives of the men in Ulster, their first experiences in the United States, their experiences in the Civil War, and their lives following the war, the author identifies more variation than consistent trends.

Volunteer Women: Militarized Femininity In The 1916 Easter Rising, Sasha Conaway

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

Women were an integral part to the Easter Rising, yet until recently, their contributions have been forgotten. Those who have been remembered are often women who bucked conservative Irish society’s notions of femininity and chose to actively participate in combat, which has led to a skewed narrative that favors their contributions over the contributions of other women. Historians and scholars favor these narratives because they are empowering and act as clear foils to the heroic narratives of the male leaders in the Easter Rising. In reality, however, most of the women who joined Cumann na mBan or worked for the …

Host City, Inishmore, Jordan Sandfer

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

A nomadic con artist, bent on inflating the price of his family land, deceives a small Irish town on the verge of bankruptcy into hosting an international sporting event.

The Survival Of Irish Gaelic In The Gaeltacht Of County Galway, 1880-1920, Eileen Hogan

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

In the 1850s in post-famine Ireland, the Irish-Gaelic language was neglected in favor of English which equipped speakers to be members of the United Kingdom. But, the agrarian society of the County Galway Gaeltacht (designated Irish-speaking region) remained a stronghold of the Irish language despite British imperialists. The Survival of Irish-Gaelic addresses the survival of the native language in the Galway Gaeltacht. While my work has identified several reasons for the survival in this one specific region, this thesis focuses upon interrelated explanations. First, the Catholic schools in the Gaeltacht continued to teach in Irish despite the attempts of the …

Hadrian Iv (1154-1159) And The “Bull” Laudabiliter: A Historiographical Review, Sebastian Lidbetter

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This work represents an exploration into the historiography of a hotly debated historical document known as Laudabiliter. In 1155 Pope Hadrian IV (most often styled Adrian and sometimes Adrien) issued Laudabiliter to King Henry II of England. Laudabiliter states that King Henry could invade Ireland to root out the weeds of vice amongst the Irish people, who had supposedly steered away from the Catholic faith, and rule Ireland as its lord. Hadrian IV claimed the right to do this because the Donation of Constantine granted successors of St. Peter, i.e. the pope, dominion over any and all islands.

Any …

Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Darker, Jennifer Sarra

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This creative thesis consists of the first seven chapters of the novel, Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Darker. Set in two time periods, 2017 and 1849, the plot centers around a newly renovated castle hotel in County Cork, Ireland. Newlyweds, Alicia and Greg Silvan discover a bottle of absinthe that is Spanish in origin. Alicia is haunted by the ghost of former owner, Keira O’Shea, as well as the disappearance of her father in hurricane Katrina. Alicia finds Keira’s handwritten journal and begins to read about Keira’s life and love and loss at the end of the Great Irish …

Designing Narrative Artefacts, Jennifer Dempsey

Masters

This thesis documents an investigation that explored the use of narrative and material culture to present aspects of women’s lives from eighteenth-century Cork city to a twenty-first century museum audience. There were two objectives of this research. The first was to create a catalogue of elements from material culture through which these women’s lives would be revealed. The second was to use narrative to make this information accessible and engaging.

This research is linked with Nano Nagle Place, a heritage centre in Cork city that opened in 2017. The centre documents the life of Nano Nagle, an eighteenth-century philanthropist who, …

The Cliff, Beatrice Ann Wedd

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Old And New Gods In An Age Of Uncertainty: Mixed Content Tales In Lebor Na Huidre, Eric Patterson

Masters Theses

This thesis will demonstrate that the mixed pagan and Christian content of LU, as examined through two selected exemplar tales, provides evidence of the unique merger of politics and religion in the localized setting of late eleventh century Clonmacnoise. Further, and more specifically, we will see that the mBocht family, influenced by its 2 participation in the Céli Dé movement and seeking to protect the societal standing and holdings of themselves and their monastery, used portions of these tales to send subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, messages to the Irish Church, to chieftains and kings across Ireland, and specifically …

“Names Portable As Alter Stones”: Nomadic Movement And Recollection In Seamus Heaney’S Poetry, Norah Toomey Hatch

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Seamus Heaney’s acknowledgement of the names of the places in his poems serve as a map, but a map that demonstrates the deterritorializing nature of memory and therefore meaning itself. The places become points of departure, places of transit, motivators of unstable memories, and catalysts for changing perspectives. Heaney’s use of location anticipates a future that is not bogged down by static meaning as the speakers in the poems face their own memories clouded by history, politics, and myth. Grappling with connotation, though, does not offer any closure from the multiplicity of meaning that the naming or visiting of certain …

The Power Of A Secret: Secret Societies And The Easter Rising, Sierra M. Harlan

Senior Theses

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (I.R.B.) and the Irish Volunteer Force (I.V.F.) altered Irish Nationalist tactics from Parliamentary supported Home Rule to a republican movement for Irish Independence. The actions of these secret societies between 1900 and 1916, during the Irish Revolutionary period,[1] are the reason that Ireland gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. The change from political negotiations by the ineffective Irish Parliamentary Party to the republican movement would never have happened without the Easter Rising of 1916. The centennial anniversary of this Easter Rising makes The Power of a Secret: Ireland’s Secret Societies and the Easter …

British Intelligence Operations During The Anglo-Irish War, Elliott N. Reid

All Master's Theses

This study examines the performance of the British authorities’ intelligence operations against those of the Irish Republican Army during the years 1919-1921. It is a reassessment of previous perceptions on the British as well as an examination of the British administration and its policies that adversely affected the success of their campaign against Irish nationalists. Upon its conclusion, this study will show that British law enforcement and the military were in fact more successful in combating Irish nationalists than previously believed.

A National Style: A Critical Historiography Of The Irish Short Story, Andrew Fox

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the artistic, historical and theoretical concerns that, for the past century, have shaped the Irish short story, the Irish nation and the body of criticism that mediates between the two. In Ireland, I argue, the prevailing critical narrative of the short story’s emergence and ongoing literary purpose has been bound up with the political narrative of the nation state’s decolonization. This process I view as symptomatic of a broader critical tendency to view Irish cultural narratives as inextricable from national ones, whereby literary interventions either are viewed as mere reflections of, or are assimilated to systems of …

Henry Viii And The Irish Political Nation: An Assessment Of Tudor Imperial Kingship In 16th Century Ireland, Emily Schwartz

Honors Theses

Ireland in the 16th century was by far the most self-governed domain under the authority of King Henry VIII. Within Ireland there were two distinct groups of people, the Gaelic Irish and the Anglo-Irish, whose cultural differences divided the island into two distinct political nations. The majority of Ireland was dominated by Gaelic Irish lordships. Gaelic Irish lords recognized the English king as their overlord, but followed Gaelic customs and laws within their lordships. The small sphere of English influence in Ireland was reduced even more by the political hegemony of the Anglo-Irish magnates. The most powerful magnate, the 9th …

The Irish Ordnance Survey's Six Inches To One Mile Map Of Ireland: Anglicization And Otherness, Reese C. Hentges

History Undergraduate Theses

By examining the power maps and language have over a nation this research reveals a correlation between the creation of the 1846 Six Inches to One Mile Maps of Ireland and the decline of the Gaelic language at the expense of the English language. By examining Irish Ordnance Survey maps, Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, and other documents from the Irish Ordnance Survey while the Six Inches to One Mile Maps of Ireland this thesis demonstrates that the Six Inches to One Mile Maps of Ireland was a tool of imperialism used by Great Britain to culturally assimilate Ireland by …

Blarney In St. Louie: Performing Irishness At The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904, Cassandra L. White

All Master's Theses

The dynamics of power between the privileged and those who must be subordinate to them was glaringly apparent at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. While natives from many countries were displayed in ethnographic villages, the Irish were represented in the Irish Industrial Exposition concession on the Pike. A group of ninety performers came from Ireland to show their skills this concession; among these were a troupe of actors from Dublin. The Dublin troupe was engaged to perform AE’s Deirdre, but left before they had been at the exposition for a month because they felt that the Irish …

The Call Of The Sidhe: Poetic And Mythological Influences In Ireland's Struggle For Freedom, Anna Wakeling

Honors Theses

The mythology of Ireland is millennia old, birthing a poetic tradition that has endured with the nation. This presentation explores how important Ireland's mythological heritage has been to its people, sustaining their fighting spirit during foreign invasions, political instability, and conflicts with England. The work if William Butler Yeats, in particular, embodies the struggles between the Protestant Ascendancy and the native Irish; Christianity and paganism; the Gaelic poetic tradition and newer English literature; and the push for peaceful independence negotiation versus the radical revolutionary movements inspired by ancient heroes. His life and poetry serve as a lens that brings the …

Issues And Challenges In The Delivery Of Secondary School Music Education In Ireland : A Regional Case Study, Marita Murray

Theses

Research in effective music experiences during childhood and teenage years has shown the potential for significant developmental effects. However, the number of students studying music as a subject in secondary school in Ireland is statistically low in comparison with other areas of schooling. International literature points to a number of key issues and significant challenges in the delivery of music as a subject, yet there has been little Irish research carried out in this area. This study aims to examine the delivery of school music education in a sample of Irish post-primary schools. It is a case study in delivery …

Amongst Women”: O’Brien, Beckett, And The Magdalen “Réamhscéal, Tiffany N. Manning

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is hard to escape the portrayal of what twentieth century life might have been like for a penitent living in one of Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. With its saturation in contemporary pop culture, the morality of these Irish Institutions has been called into question through blockbuster films and best-selling books. However, some believe that the many public representations of the Magdalen Laundries fail to tell the whole story. As tension surrounding Magdalen Laundries, as well as Church and State involvement in them, has continuously grown over the last couple of decades, many citizens of Ireland and, indeed, the world have …

Irish Travellers And The Transformative Nature Of Media Representation, Aisling Kearns

Honors Theses

The Travellers, a nomadic group of people indigenous to Ireland, have long been marginalized in Irish society as a result of discrimination. The Travellers themselves have had a history of working to keep themselves separate from the settled Irish, essentially maintaining their own ethnic identity. Traveller culture has undergone a number of changes since the 1960s, a period of increasing urbanization and economic transformation in Ireland. With the changes in both Traveller culture and Irish society as a whole, there has been a corresponding shift to a more positive relationship between the media (newspapers, documentaries, and commercial films and television) …

A Contested Policy: Irish And American Perspectives On Eire's Neutrality, Leah Egofske

All Theses

Although the Irish Free State had close relations and connections to the United Kingdom from its inception in 1922, Eire pursued a policy of neutrality throughout the Second World War. Although the majority of the Irish population supported neutrality, it attracted much criticism in Britain and America. The aim of this study is to explore Irish men and women's experience with neutrality alongside how American newspapers as well as American war correspondents based in Britain addressed and viewed Ireland's neutrality. In many ways, the Irish benefited from the policy of neutrality and the small nation was united on a level …

Historical Accuracy And The Ira Over 70 Years Of Cinema, Eric Scott Elliott

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine how the Irish Republican Army has been represented in theatrical cinema since the 1930s. The goal is to demonstrate the necessity for historical accuracy in movies produced for public entertainment, which often neglect historical facts and circumstances in portraying an organization as controversial and complex as the IRA. This has been done by examining five movies produced for wide-distribution and comparing each to the detailed historical record. Upon analysis of these movies, it becomes clear that the films which are the most historically relevant are also the most powerful cinematic productions, both …

The Tri-River Region : The Geographic Key To Lasting Change In Ireland, Eugene Ryan Fitzpatrick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This research aims to identify the geographic area between the Nore, Barrow, and Suir rivers as the primary gateway for significant permanent changes to the Irish cultural landscape between the fourth and sixteenth centuries. This has been done by examining the successive waves of invasion which have swept over the island, and noting the high frequency with which many pivotal events have occurred in the region. Christianity, the Vikings, continental Church reforms, the Norman invasion, and many subsequent repercussions by English administrators, entered into Ireland through this area first. Upon examination, it becomes clear that Ireland possess a geographic corridor …