Politic Words: Writing Women Writing History

Politic Words is an invigorating mix of the personal, the political and the poetic. Gerry Dawe flings his net wide. From Eavan Boland’s ’secret history’ of women to war memoirist Christabel Bielenberg’s luminous prose; from the vaulting ambition of Éilís Dillon’s historical fiction to hunger striker’s Bobby Sands’ favourite poet, the now unsung Ethna Carbery, he takes us on a bracing journey from the Troubles to Brexit. Drawing on contemporaneous criticism, Dawe revitalizes 35 years of cultural history into urgent news from the literary front.

(Mary Morrissy, Novelist and former associate director of the writing programme, University College Cork)

Politic Words reflects five decades of writing about and discussing Irish literature, both inside the university classroom and in various literary and academic forums. Part one concentrates upon Irish women writers, their influence and example including Edna Longley, Eavan Boland and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin alongside the achievements of younger contemporaries such as Lucy Caldwell and Leontia Flynn. Part two develops some of the historical settings and themes of part one while exploring the social and political legacies of traumatic Irish historical events such as the Great Famine, and its representation in the fiction of William Carleton and reimagined by later interpreters including Benedict Kiely. The collection concludes with a series of readings of Irish culture and politics in terms of the legacy of the Troubles, the impact on Ireland of Brexit and renewed calls for Irish reunification. Politic Words is the final part of a trilogy of studies by Gerald Dawe published by Peter Lang in their Reimagining Ireland series.

Gerald Dawe taught literature and drama for forty years in universities in Ireland and the US. He is Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin. He has published over twenty books of poetry and non-fiction since his first collection Sheltering Places appeared in 1978. He has readings and lectures in many parts of the world. He lives in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin.