Decades before Irish crime fiction emerged on international Best Seller lists, the North American journalist Mark McGarrity staked a claim as the first author of a contemporary Irish detective series. From the late 1970s until his death... more
Decades before Irish crime fiction emerged on international Best Seller lists, the North American journalist Mark McGarrity staked a claim as the first author of a contemporary Irish detective series. From the late 1970s until his death in 2002, he published sixteen volumes in the Peter McGarr series under the pen name Bartholomew Gill. This chapter explores the McGarr series as a template for the Celtic Tiger police procedurals that emerged in the noughts. It finds that the series mimics the social realism of post-war American detective fiction in a manner that draws parallels to the societal changes in Ireland that accompanied the foundation and early years of the European Union.
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This essay considers the dramaturgical impact of the 1913 Dublin Lockout on Bernard Shaw. Plays covered include: Back to Methuselah, Candida, Getting Married, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days,” John Bull’s Other Island, Mrs. Warren’s... more
This essay considers the dramaturgical impact of the 1913 Dublin Lockout on Bernard Shaw. Plays covered include: Back to Methuselah, Candida, Getting Married, “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days,” John Bull’s Other Island, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, The Devil’s Disciple and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion. It follows the historical timeline of Shaw’s public debates and friendships with various groups from the Nonconformists to the Church of England, in conjunction with Shaw’s opining on Irish national affairs. The two issues of particular interest are organized labor and Parnell.
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This essay examines Belfast- and Dublin-set realism of the early twentieth century. Considering a mix of literatures--including the pre-Wake fiction of James Joyce, short- and long-fiction of Liam O’Flaherty, and the Dublin Trilogy of... more
This essay examines Belfast- and Dublin-set realism of the early twentieth century. Considering a mix of literatures--including the pre-Wake fiction of James Joyce, short- and long-fiction of Liam O’Flaherty, and the Dublin Trilogy of Sean O’Casey--it reviews the extent to which the working classes were portrayed as economic fodder for and collateral damage in the business of nation building.
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This Introducton to The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel traces Irishness—and its erasure—in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British detective fiction, and considers the paraliterary status of the detective genre within Irish... more
This Introducton to The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel traces Irishness—and its erasure—in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British detective fiction, and considers the paraliterary status of the detective genre within Irish Studies.
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Distinctions of race, class, and gender are central to each volume in Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan series, along with a running commentary on social inequities along these lines. This commentary reveals Maeve's own susceptibility to harm,... more
Distinctions of race, class, and gender are central to each volume in Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan series, along with a running commentary on social inequities along these lines. This commentary reveals Maeve's own susceptibility to harm, unifying her with women citywide, including victims of the crimes she investigates. The series stops short of being polemical, but, with its focus on observation, vulnerability and empathy, it is a cautionary tale of the price paid for living in a surveillant society.