Digital Commons Network^™

Acting In Good Faith, Tanya Dean

Articles

No abstract provided.

Minerals And Memories: Ireland's Ballrooms Of Romance, Tanya Dean

Articles

No abstract provided.

Women’S Stories Transforming Understandings Of Abortion, Amy M. Walsh

Articles

Wind energy harvesting for electricity generation has a significant role in overcoming the challenges involved with climate change and the energy resource implications involved with population growth and political unrest. Indeed, there has been significant growth in wind energy capacity worldwide with turbine capacity growing significantly over the last two decades. This confidence is echoed in the wind power market and global wind energy statistics. However, wind energy capture and utilisation has always been challenging. Appreciation of the wind as a resource makes for difficulties in modelling and the sensitivities of how the wind resource maps to energy production results …

“800 Years We Have Been Down”: Rebel Songs And The Retrospective Reach Of The Irish Republican Narrative, Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

From the glamorous, cross-dressing “Rebel, Rebel” of David Bowie, to the righteous Trenchtown “Soul Rebel” of Bob Marley and The Wailers, both varied and various musical articulations of cultural and socio-political rebellion have long enjoyed a ubiquitous presence across multiple soundscapes. As a musicological delineator in Ireland, however, ‘rebel’ conveys a specifically political dynamic due to its consistent deployment as an all-encompassing descriptor for songs detailing events and personalities from the Irish national struggle. This paper sets out to examine the specific musical delineator of “rebel song” from both musicological and politico-ideological perspectives with a view to interrogating its appropriateness …

Epistolary Mcgahern, Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

Feminist Ethics And Research With Women In Prison, Christina Quinlan, Lucy Baldwin, Natalie Booth

Articles

In this article, a new model, An Ethic of Empathy, is proposed as a guide for researchers, particularly new scholars to the discipline. This model emerged from the authors’ concerns regarding the application of ethics to studies that focus on the experience of female offenders in criminal justice systems. The key issue is the vulnerability of incarcerated and post-release women in relationship to the powerful status of social scientist researchers. The complexity of ethics in such research settings necessitates a particular ethical preparation, involving formation, reflection, understanding, commitment, care, and empathy. Three cases are outlined which document the authors’ ethical …

‘Gilded Gravel In The Bowl’: Ireland’S Cuisine And Culinary Heritage In The Poetry Of Seamus Heaney, Anke Klitzing

Articles

Seamus Heaney’s poetry is rich in detail about agricultural and food practices in his native Northern Ireland from the 1950s onwards, such as cattle-trading, butter-churning, eel-fishing, blackberry-picking or home-baking. Often studied from an ecocritical perspective, the abundance of agricultural and culinary scenes in Heaney’s work makes a gastrocritical focus on food and foodways suitable. Food has been recognized as a highly condensed social fact, and writers have long tapped into its multi-layered meanings to illuminate socio-cultural circumstances, making literature a valuable ethnographic source. A gastrocritical reading of Heaney’s work from 1966 to 2010, drawing on Rozin’s Structure of Cuisine, shows …

How Irish Food Criticism Reflected And Helped Shape A Changing Nation, 1988-2008, Diarmuid Cawley, Claire O' Mahony

Articles

The perception and practice of eating out are linked to larger socioeconomic patterns. Newspaper restaurant reviews provide evidence of these trends which can be traced along a specific timeline. The early 1980s in Ireland were a difficult time for restaurants due to high taxes on food, a national recession and a lack of positive restaurant reviews. The economic upturn in the following decade contributed to unprecedented developments in the restaurant industry. Dining out became a regular activity – fueled in part by restaurant criticism by Irish food journalists, which joined pre-existing theatre, music and book reviews as regular features in …

Food And The Irish Short Story Imagination, Anke Klitzing

Articles

Short fiction is a format heartily embraced by the Irish literary imagination since the nineteenth century. This paper takes a gastrocritical approach to investigate the role of food in selected stories from the recently published anthology The Art of the Glimpse (2020). It shows that through the years, food and foodways have been valuable tools for Irish writers, providing setting and context, themes and symbols, plot points, conflicts, characterisation, as well as the quintessential epiphanies.

Living With Machines. Ethical Implications And Imaginative Agency As Local Tactics Of Dwelling And Resistance In Everyday Interactions With Artificial Intelligence, Ester Toribio-Roura

Articles

With the widespread of the Internet of things (IoT), algorithms are increasingly managing our everyday life. From navigating our way in cities to keeping track of our health, artificial intelligence has been beneficial to us in many ways. However, its algorithms can also be detrimental as a consequence of biased human programming. The result is that while technological progress delivers more and more human-like artificial intelligence, humans become dehumanised and therefore, disempowered in their everyday interactions with artificial intelligence.The solution(s) is not single-handed and calls for combined interventions at the macro and micro levels. Whilst reviewing recent top-down developments on …

Femagogical Strategies In The Art School: Navigating The Institution, Barbara Knezevic, Amy Walsh

Articles

This writing aims to define and examine ‘femagogy’ and the transformative potential for an inclusive intersectional feminist teaching practice in Fine Art education in the context of the contemporary Irish art school. This writing will trace the influence of linguistic power structures and the influence of broader institutional patriarchy in an educational setting and outline the inspirations and genealogies of femagogy. This writing provides situated embodied examples of femagogy in practice. It proposes the femagogical model of teaching as one that situates itself outside prevailing patriarchal models and proposes strategies to reimagine knowledge production and navigate the prevailing structural patriarchy …

My Palate Hung With Starlight: A Gastrocritical Reading Of Seamus Heaney’S Poetry, Anke Klitzing

Articles

Nobel-prize winning poet Seamus Heaney is celebrated for his rich verses recalling his home in the Northern Irish countryside of County Derry. Yet while the imaginative links to nature in his poetry have already been critically explored, little attention has been paid so far to his rendering of local food and foodways. From ploughing, digging potatoes and butter-churning to picking blackberries, Heaney sketches not only the everyday activities of mid-20th century rural Ireland, but also the social dynamics of community and identity and the socio-cultural symbiosis embedded in those practices. Larger questions of love, life and death also infiltrate the …

Ireland In The European Eye: At Home In The Heart Of Europe : Book Review: An Excellent Analysis Of Ireland’S Interactions With Its European Allies, Eamon Maher

Articles

This essay collection provides an excellent analysis of Ireland’s various interactions with its European allies, from the early medieval period up to the present moment. The essays cover things as diverse as history, religion, literature, tourism, politics, trade, journalism, architecture, music and film in 22 chapters by experts from various disciplines, who serve up an informative and welcome survey that emphasises the historical ties that bind the Emerald Isle to its largest neighbour and the Continent.

Bernard Maclaverty: A Novelist With A Catholic Sensibiliy., Eamon Maher

Articles

Like many others I would imagine, my first introduction to the work of the Belfast writer Bernard MacLaverty (born in 1942) was through the successful film adaptations of his first novel, Lamb, with Liam Neeson in the main role, and the highly successful ‘Troubles’ film, Cal, based on the novel of the same name. Nominated for several prestigious literary awards, a member of Aosdána, author of numerous well-regarded novels and short story collections, MacLaverty is nevertheless largely neglected in terms of the critical attention he has attracted. The shining exceptions are the essay collection, About Bernard MacLaverty: New …

Retrieving The Real Frederick May, Mark Fitzgerald

Articles

Although Frederick May (1911–85) is seen as holding an important position in the history of twentieth-century composition in Ireland, writing about May has been sporadic. There exists no serious biographical study to date and most of the commentary on the music has been superficial and frequently misleading. Utilizing the recently re-catalogued collection of May’s manuscripts in the Manuscripts and Archives Research Library in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and also libraries and public collections in Cork, the United States, London, the Czech Republic and Vienna as well as a number of private archives, this essay attempts to build a clearer picture …

The Half-Life And Death Of The Irish Catholic Novel : In A Country Renowned For Its Catholicism, It Is Unusual The ‘Catholic Novel’ Never Took Root, Eamon Maher

Articles

In Underground Cathedrals (2010), the Glenstal monk and author Mark Patrick Hederman described artists as the “secret agents” of the Holy Spirit: “Art has the imagination to sketch out the possible. When this happens something entirely new comes into the world. Often it is not recognised for what it is and is rejected or vilified by those who are comfortable with what is already there and afraid of whatever might unsettle the status quo”. Reflecting on this position, one wonders to what extent Irish novelists have fulfilled the important role outlined by Hederman. In the past, they definitely did offer …

"Then To Death Walked, Softly Smiling": Violence And Martyrdom In Modern Irish Republican Ballads, Seán Ó Cadhla

Articles

This article critically considers the representation of death within the song tradition of modern Irish Republicanism. I explore how such representations have changed in parallel with the various ideological metamorphoses that Irish Republicanism has undergone, specifically in the twentieth century. I argue that the centrality of self-sacrifice has resulted in the development of ballad narratives that deliberately obfuscate on the issue of Republican violence, resulting in the deaths of all Republican militants (regardless of cause or context), ultimately portrayed as a form of heroic self-martyrdom.

San alt seo, déantar anailís chriticiúil ar léiriú an bháis i dtraidisiún amhránaíocht Phoblachtach na …

The Production Of Ek Tha Tiger: A Marriage Of Convenience Between Bollywood And The Irish Film And Tourist Industries, Giovanna Rampazzo

Articles

This article examines a collaboration between the Irish and Hindi film industries, adopting the production of Kabir Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger (2012) in Dublin as a case study. It critically narrates the arc of the film’s production, foregrounding the intersecting concerns of Yash Raj Films and Irish creative and cultural institutions. Ek Tha Tiger represents Ireland through constructed idyllic images which proved to be successful in attracting tourists. Tracing the links between the production of the film and the promotion of tourism to Ireland, this article explains how the film was used to construct a ‘tourist gaze’ for audiences in …

Catholic Guilt : Longing And Belonging In The Fiction Of François Mauriac And John Mcgahern, Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

‘Ireland On A Plate’: Curating The 2011 State Banquet For Queen Elizabeth Ii, Elaine Mahon

Articles

State dining has been shown to define the social, cultural and political position of a nation’s leaders (Albala, 2011; Baughman, 1959; Strong, 2003) and has been used by rulers for centuries to display wealth, cement alliances and impress foreign visitors (Albala, 2007; De Vooght and Scholliers, 2011; Young, 2002). This paper will show how the state banquet for Queen Elizabeth II was carefully curated to represent Ireland’s diplomatic, cultural and culinary identity. As the first visit by a reigning British monarch since Ireland had gained independence from Britain in 1922, the state visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland in …

Faith In Our Fathers: Can You Believe In Fictional Priests?, Eamon Maher

Articles

I was struck recently by an article that appeared in the online section ofthe Irish Times (November 14th. 2015). Written by a priest called Martin Boland, the piece was prompted by the publication of a novel by John Boyne, A History of Loneliness, which has as its main protagonist Fr Odran Yates, who is forced to live in an Ireland where the priest is more likely to be viewed as a paedophile or pariah than as a respected member of society. Clearly a novelist as disaffected as Boyne admits to being with the Catholic Church, would find it hard to …

Catholic Sensibility In The Early Fiction Of Edna O'Brien, Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

Albert Camus And The Dilemma Of The Absent God, Eamon Maher

Articles

The year 2013 marked the centenary of the birth of Albert Camus. In this article Eamon Maher considers Camus' writing on religion,focusing in particular on two novels, The Outsider and The Plaque. They offer a powerful analysis of the seeming absence of God from a world a suffering, a challenge for all who profess Christian belief.

Deciphering Irish Catholic Identities: Past And Present, Eamon Maher

Articles

This collection of essays, compiled and edited by Oliver Rafferty, is a significant contribution to making sense of the tangled labyrinth that is Irish Catholic identities. The plural is important here, as there are, in fact, multiple Catholic identities, something that is often forgotten in the rush to blandly link “Irish” and “Catholic”.

''They All Seem To Have Inherited The Horrible Ugliness And Sewer Filth Of Sex'' : Catholic Guilt In Selected Works By John Mcgahern (1934-2006), Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Journalism : How Fictional Narrative Compensates For Journalism’S Shortcomings In John Banville’S The Book Of Evidence, Ian Kilroy

Articles

How fictional narrative compensates for journalism’s limitations in John Banville’s novel The Book of Evidence.

The Religious Landscape Of Walter Macken's Fictional Universe, Eamon Maher

Articles

Eamon Maher lectures in the Department of Humanities, Technological University Dublin. He is director of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies.

Revisiting Walter Macken’S Connemara, Eamon Maher

Articles

As a writer, Macken was attuned to the menacing depths that lay behind the physical exterior: the infertile bogland that makes farming problematic, the harsh character of the inhabitants, their callous treatment of one another, their superstitious religiosity and frustrated love affairs. I read most of Macken’s novels as a teenager and enjoyed them enormously. It is a shame that there is little or no critical attention now paid to someone who had such a successful career as a novelist, playwright, actor and director. Even the publication by his son Ultan of a biography, Walter Macken: Dreams on Paper, by …

Fifty Years Of ‘The Barracks’, Eamon Maher

Articles

John McGahern’s first novel, The Barracks , was published 50 years ago, thus marking the arrival of one of Ireland’s most significant writers of the latter half of the20th century. The following year, 1964, saw the book awarded the prestigious Macauley Fellowship, which allowed McGahern to avail of a one-year sabbatical from his teaching duties in Scoil Eoin Baiste in Clontarf.

Seeking Redemption Through Art: The Example Of Colum Mccann, Eamon Maher

Articles

Colum McCann is rightly acknowledged as being one of Ireland’s most talented living novelists. The success of his most recent novel, Let the Great World Spin (2009), which won the National Book Award in America in 2009 and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2011, really cemented his reputation as a writer of substance. He is also one of the new generation of Irish novelists who possess few discernibly ‘Irish’ traits, their preoccupations being of a more global nature.