Ranging across the fields of history, literary studies, music studies, theatre and performance studies, film studies, media studies, and the study of material culture, this volume provides a snapshot of some of the most exciting emerging European research on Ireland. The essays gathered here approach Ireland as an interface, a locus that allows intercultural exchange, examining contact zones with other cultures as sites of productive and mutually enriching dialogue. Featuring three sections – Transnational and Intercultural Interactions, Dialogues with the Past, and Hauntings and Traumas – the collection aims at a discussion and further development of interdisciplinary dialogues in Irish studies, treating the frontiers of disciplines, research areas, and methodologies as interfaces that are changing how we understand Ireland past, present, and future. This dimension of the book is enhanced by two extensive interviews with renowned Irish documentary film-makers (Alan Gilsenan, Gillian Marsh, and Pat Collins) and leading performance practitioners and activists (Lian Bell and Maeve Stone).


CONTENTS


Acknowledgments ix
JAMES LITTLE (Charles University, Prague)
Introduction 1


TRANSNATIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL INTERACTIONS


GAVAN TITLEY (Maynooth University / Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki)
The Strange Life of Free Speech Today: A Transnational Reflection on Nationalism, Racism, and Noise 9


MARION BOURDEAU (Jean Moulin – Lyon 3 University)
Transcultural Dialogue through Connection: Storytelling as a Hopeful Interface in Colum McCann’s Apeirogon 23


JOCHEN ACHILLES (University of Würzburg)
Synge’s Playboy as Intercultural Contact Zone: The Globalization of the Western World 35


DIALOGUES WITH THE PAST: MEMORY, RECOVERY, AND COMMEMORATION


VOJTĚCH HALAMA (Charles University, Prague)
From Director to Coordinator: The Irish State and the Official Commemoration of the Easter Rising in 1966 and 2016 53


SUSAN CURLEY MEYER (University College Dublin)
Women, War, and Wearable History: Winifred Carney, Grace Gifford-Plunkett, and a Classically Inspired Cameo Brooch 65


MARY MCAULIFFE (University College Dublin)
A “woman’s doom”: Class and Gendered Violence during the War of Independence 83


RACHEL ANDREWS (University of Galway)
Digital Witnessing as Memory Work: The Case of the Bessborough Planning Hearing 97


MICHAEL LYDON (University of Galway)
A Popular Centenary: Irish Popular Music’s Re-Interpretation of the 1916 Rising 113


ANNA FALKENAU (University of Galway)
Intersections, Confluence, and Embodiment of Irish Traditional and Folk Music Revivals: Galway, 1961-1981 125


SEÁN CROSSON (University of Galway)
Roundtable on Irish Documentary Cinema with Alan Gilsenan, Gillian Marsh, and Pat Collins 145


CLARE WALLACE (Charles University, Prague)
Art-making, Activism, and Collaboration: Plenary Conversation with Lian Bell and Maeve Stone 161


HAUNTINGS AND TRAUMAS: COMMUNITY, CLASS, AND GENDER


LAOIGHSEACH NÍ CHOISTEALBHA (University of Galway)
“I’m their ghost”: Trauma, Radiance, and the Macabre in Anthony Glavin’s “Living in Hiroshima” 185


RADVAN MARKUS (Charles University, Prague)
The Epidemic and the Carnivalesque: Ó Cadhain’s Unpublished Play Typhus 201


ALESSANDRA BOLLER (University of Siegen)
“Ties constitute what we are”: Haunted Gender and Class Identities in Post-Celtic Tiger Narratives of Community 211


JESSICA BUNDSCHUH (University of Stuttgart)
Post-Agreement Border Infringements and Listicle Framing in Michelle Gallen’s Big Girl, Small Town 231


List of Contributors 243