Ireland and the Czech Lands: Contacts and Comparisons in History and Culture

In recent years Irish scholars have become increasingly interested in Ireland’s profound and ongoing relationship with continental Europe. This volume is the first multidisciplinary collection of essays on Irish comparisons and contacts with the Czech Lands from the early modern period to contemporary times. Written by leading specialists and emerging scholars, the essays explore Irish-Czech exchanges and parallels in a variety of fields including history, politics, literature, theatre, journalism and physical education. Collectively, these essays demonstrate that Ireland and the Czech Lands have much in common and that they have enjoyed deep cultural connections: both countries are small European states with imperial pasts and a tradition of mutual migration and cultural transfer. Until now, however, Czech-Irish commonalities and connections have largely been overshadowed by both countries’ interactions with bigger, more powerful nations. This book remedies this neglect, offering new research which not only sheds light on Irish-Czech connections and contacts, but also offers new perspectives on the positions of both societies within the wider European context.

Gerald Power lectures in history and Irish Studies at Metropolitan University Prague. His first book, A European Frontier Elite: The Nobility of the English Pale in Tudor Ireland, 1496-1566, was published in 2012. His research interests lie in early modern history, and particularly in the interplay between monarchies and local elites in the context of the developing state.
Ondřej Pilný is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at Charles University, Prague. He is the author of Irony and Identity in Modern Irish Drama (2006) and editor of Global Ireland: Irish Literatures in the New Millennium (with Clare Wallace), Time Refigured: Myths, Foundation Texts and Imagined Communities (with Martin Procházka), and an annotated volume of J.M. Synge’s works in Czech. He has translated plays by J.M. Synge, Brian Friel, Martin McDonagh and Enda Walsh, and Flann O’Brien’s novel The Third Policeman.