Language, Discourse, Society Series Editors: Stephen Heath, Colin MacCabe and Denise Riley Selected published titles: Matthew Taunton FICTIONS OF THE CITY Class, Culture and Mass Housing in London and Paris Laura Mulvey VISUAL AND OTHER PLEASURES Second edition Peter de Bolla and Stefan H. Uhlig (editors) AESTHETICS AND THE WORK OF ART Adorno, Kafka, Richter Misha Kavka REALITY TELEVISION, AFFECT AND INTIMACY Reality Matters Rob White FREUD S MEMORY Psychoanalysis, Mourning and the Foreign Body Teresa de Lauretis FREUD S DRIVE Psychoanalysis, Literature and Film Mark Nash SCREEN THEORY CULTURE Richard Robinson NARRATIVES OF THE EUROPEAN BORDER A History of Nowhere Lyndsey Stonebridge THE WRITING OF ANXIETY Imaging Wartime in Mid-Century British Culture Ashley Tauchert ROMANCING JANE AUSTEN Narrative, Realism and the Possibility of a Happy Ending Reena Dube SATYAJIT RAY S THE CHESS PLAYERS AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY Culture, Labour and the Value of Alterity John Anthony Tercier THE CONTEMPORARY DEATHBED The Ultimate Rush Erica Sheen and Lorna Hutson LITERATURE, POLITICS AND LAW IN RENAISSANCE ENGLAND Jean-Jacques Lecercle and Denise Riley THE FORCE OF LANGUAGE Geoff Gilbert BEFORE MODERNISM WAS Modern History and the Constituency of Writing Stephen Heath, Colin MacCabe and Denise Riley (editors) THE LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE, SOCIETY READER
Jennifer Keating-Miller LANGUAGE, IDENTITY AND LIBERATION IN CONTEMPORARY IRISH LITERATURE Michael O Pray FILM, FORM AND PHANTASY Adrian Stokes and Film Aesthetics James A. Snead, edited by Kara Keeling, Colin MacCabe and Cornel West RACIST TRACES AND OTHER WRITINGS European Pedigrees/African Contagions Patrizia Lombardo CITIES, WORDS AND IMAGES Colin MacCabe JAMES JOYCE AND THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORD Second edition Moustapha Safouan SPEECH OR DEATH? Language as Social Order: a Psychoanalytic Study Jean-Jacques Lecercle DELEUZE AND LANGUAGE Piers Gray, edited by Colin MacCabe and Victoria Rothschild STALIN ON LINGUISTICS AND OTHER ESSAYS Geoffrey Ward STATUTES OF LIBERTY The New York School of Poets Moustapha Safouan JACQUES LACAN AND THE QUESTION OF PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING (Translated and introduced by Jacqueline Rose) Stanley Shostak THE DEATH OF LIFE The Legacy of Molecular Biology Elizabeth Cowie REPRESENTING THE WOMAN Cinema and Psychoanalysis Raymond Tallis NOT SAUSSURE A Critique of Post-Saussurean Literary Theory Ian Hunter CULTURE AND GOVERNMENT The Emergence of Literary Education Language, Discourse, Society Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 333 71482 9 (hardback) 978 0 333 80332 5 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Language, Identity and Liberation in Contemporary Irish Literature Jennifer Keating-Miller Carnegie Mellon University
Jennifer Keating-Miller 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978 0 230 23750 6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-31489-8 ISBN 978-0-230-27508-9 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230275089 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
For Nana
If the notion of Ireland seemed to some to have become problematic, that was only because the seamless garment once wrapped like a green flag around Cathleen ní Houlihan had given way to a quilt of many patches and colours, all beautiful, all distinct, yet all connected too. No one element should subordinate or assimilate the others: Irish or English, rural or urban, Gaelic or Anglo, each has its part in the pattern. (Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland)
Contents Acknowledgements Preface viii x 1 A Habitable Grief?: The Legacy of Cultural and Political Strife in Ireland s Contentious Language Systems 1 2 A Republic of One: Individuality, Autonomy and the Question of Irish Collectivity in Seamus Deane s Reading in the Dark and Dermot Healy s A Goat s Song 24 3 Writing Republicanism: A Betrayal of Entrenched Tribalism in Belfast s Own Vernacular 58 4 The Misfit Chorus Line: Ireland from the Margins in Patrick McCabe s Call Me the Breeze 100 5 Casting Cathleen: Femininity and Motherhood on the Contemporary Irish Stage 136 Notes 176 Works Cited 179 Bibliography 182 Index 189 vii
Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank James F. Knapp, Colin MacCabe and Stephen Carr at the University of Pittsburgh, and Paul Hopper at Carnegie Mellon University, who each contributed to the growth of this project, oversaw its development and supported me in my efforts to see it come to print. I am also in debt to individuals throughout Ireland who agreed to be interviewed in my research process, including Seamus Deane, Dermot Healy, Patrick McCabe, Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Lawrence McKeown and Pam Brighton. I benefited as well from library facilities at University College Cork, Queen s University Belfast, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Rochester. Special thanks go to my godfather, Brian Allen, who assisted in scheduling interviews in Ireland while I was in the United States, to Anne-Marie Murray, formerly of Dubbeljoint Theatre Co., for assisting me in navigating Belfast, and to David Bleich and Beth Olivares, for numerous discussions as my research progressed over the last several years. I must also thank the Irish Nationality Room Committee at the University of Pittsburgh for a generous research grant in the summer of 2004 that enabled me to launch this entire escapade, and to the University of Pittsburgh for a Pre-Doctoral Andrew Mellon Fellowship in 2007 2008 to support my completion of this work. I would like to thank Christabel Scaife, Christine Ranft and all of the editorial and support staff associated with Palgrave Macmillan. Additionally, I would also like to extend thanks to the following publishers for permission to cite from their authors work: Declan Kiberd s Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation, published by Jonathan Cape, reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. Patrick McCabe s Call Me the Breeze, reprintedbypermissionfromharpercollins Publishers. Gerry Adams The Street (1992) reprinted with permission from Brandon/Mount Eagle Publications. Dermot Healy s A Goat s Song, copyright 1994 by Dermot Healy. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Eavan Boland A Habitable Grief & Mother Ireland : A Habitable Grief, Mother Ireland, from The Lost Land by Eavan Boland. Copyright 1998 by Eavan Boland. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. A Habitable Grief, Mother Ireland from The Lost Land by Eavan Boland. Copyright 1998 by Eavan Boland. Used by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd. viii
Acknowledgements ix in UK/Commonwealth excluding USA/Canada. Seamus Deane s Reading in the Dark, copyright 1996 by Seamus Deane. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Christina Reid, Plays 1, used by permission from Methuen Drama, an imprint of A&C Black Publishers who are also thanked for permission to quote from Martin McDonagh s The Beauty Queen of Leenane. I would like to thank Danny Morrison et al. for permission to cite from Binlids. Thanks also go to Pearse Elliott for permission to cite from A Mother s Heart. I would especially like to thank my husband Billy and my son Liam, who patiently support my work and reward me with their smiles and laughter. I would also like to thank my parents, John and Maureen, for their unyielding emotional, financial and intellectual support for each and every one of my endeavors. Thanks are also extended to all my family and friends in the US, Ireland and elsewhere, who have encouraged me throughout the years. Without you all, I am lost.
Preface Language, Identity and Liberation in Contemporary Irish Literature is a study of literary movements in multiple genres connected to the political and social changes in Ireland and Northern Ireland since the early nineteeneighties. As the region developed into a self-possessed member of the European Union, its new presence affected Irish writers work. This study focuses on writers representations of the region s contested language systems in Standard English, Irish and Irish-English that have been historically linked to political affiliation and cultural identity. As writers consider the effects that Ireland s rapid economic development and post-conflict resolutions have on various communities, I suggest their work may contribute to the region s continued development of democratic processes that challenge nationalist imperatives. While this survey is representative of contemporary trends in Irish literature, it is not comprehensive. Due to the limitations of space and time, many talented writers work has not been addressed in the following pages. I believe this project can initiate a course of inquiry to invite further dialogue on the significance of Ireland s relationship to language, aesthetic representation and the region s developing democracy. After conducting interviews with several of the writers whose work I analyze, including Seamus Deane, Patrick McCabe, Dermot Healy, Gerry Adams and others, I found their levels of conscious attention to portrayals of the region s language systems vary. But a common characteristic shared by these writers that is demonstrated in their respective work is an explicit focus on Ireland s contemporary and rapidly changing culture and politics. Their attention to the region s historical legacy and individual Irish citizens participation in democratic processes at the turn of the twenty-first century is of paramount concern, a sentiment seemingly shared by other writers like Christina Reid, Danny Morrison, Pearse Elliott, Brenda Murphy, Christina Poland and Jake MacSiacais. Collectively, these writers illustrate a movement of compelling social significance, which demonstrates the region s cultural and political hybridity that challenges nationalist rhetoric of ethnic, linguistic or cultural purity. I only hope this subject will prove to be of interest to others to ensure that this discussion can and will continue in coming years. x