“Celtic Tiger Ireland :  An End to Traditional Irish Literature?”

I.  Field of Interest

There is something particularly alluring about Irish culture in the United States .  From our extravagant celebration of Saint Patrick’s Day, to the hundreds of Irish pubs popping up in the trendiest corners of our cities, Americans seem to be in search of a truly authentic Irish experience.

Growing up in the midst of the Irish explosion in the United States , I could not help but become fascinated by Ireland ’s seemingly magical culture.  Along with many others, I wanted to know what it was like to be Irish, to grow up in Ireland , and to experience their famously rich culture.  Unfortunately, I knew that attending a Saint Patrick’s Day parade, or ordering a pint of Guinness at one of the many new Irish pubs was not going to offer me that true view into Irish life. Turning to Irish literature, I found my window into Ireland .

Because of my love for Ireland and its rich culture, I plan to undergo a serious study of contemporary Irish literature focusing on the celebrated Irish author Edna O’Brien and her son, Carlo Gébler.  Together, the authors’ span of writing and their mother/son relationship will allow me to compare their work in terms of contemporary Ireland .  Out of this research, I hope to discover whether or not Ireland ’s recent economic boom, the “Celtic Tiger,” has put an end to what we know as traditional Irish literature.  The University Scholar program will prove to be an invaluable tool in my research, allowing me to completely immerse myself in the study of Ireland and its literature.  Additionally, my research and findings will be beneficial to me during graduate school, where I hope to continue in my studies of Irish literature.

II.  Project Proposal

Reading a variety of Irish authors including Jonathan Swift, William Butler Yeats, and John Millington Synge, a captivating pattern becomes apparent in their writing.  Each of the author’s works weave together stories rich in both plot and Irish history.  Swift’s anger over the impoverished Dubliners of the eighteenth century is conveyed to his readers.  Yeats’s writing fueled by his Irish Nationalist identity is powerful, yet enchanting.  Synge’s dramas describe rural Irish life, giving readers a glimpse of people who spoke in the Irish language and retained older customs.  The authors’ purely Irish stories directly contribute to a unique literary tradition, a tradition defined by its rather exclusive focus on issues afflicting Irish society.

During the past fifteen years, Ireland has experienced an economic boom known as the “Celtic Tiger.”  The faces of Irish cities and towns have changed:  once known for its rich agriculture, Ireland is now a top exporter of computer software.  With such a major social and cultural transformation, one begins to wonder if Ireland ’s rich literary tradition has also felt the change. That is, traditional Irish literature and a suddenly modern, technologically-sophisticated nation do not appear to go hand-in-hand. The socio-economic reality of the “Celtic Tiger” is that contemporary Irish literature may have been fundamentally altered. Yeats and Synge, known as the Revivalists, spent their literary careers renewing and redefining a literary tradition that was nearly compromised during the colonial period in Ireland .  Has Irish literature lost focus on its potent and powerful history, thereby destroying the Revivalists’ hard work?  Has the “Celtic Tiger” set the stage for a new and redeveloped literary tradition?   Traditional Irish literature deals with the traumas of cultural and familial dysfunction, bringing light to issues plaguing Ireland – has the “Celtic Tiger” disposed of this means of literary catharsis?  With Edna O’Brien and her son, Carlo Gébler as my lens, I plan to use these questions to focus my research.

Edna O’Brien has emerged as one of Ireland ’s most famous and popular modern novelists.  With a literary career beginning in 1960 and continuing today, O’Brien has lived through a significant portion of modern Irish history, much of which can be traced within her writing.  An author focused on Irish history and women’s issues, O’Brien’s outspoken literary style has won international acclaim, as well as criticism back home in Ireland .  In her dissertation, “Rewriting the Nation:  Edna O’Brien, Patrick McCabe and the Second Wave of Modern Irish Fiction,” Kathryn Kleypas describes O’Brien’s perfect candidacy as a subject for an investigation into whether or not Ireland has lost its literary tradition.  Kleypas writes,

As a woman and as an Irish person Edna O’Brien is the inheritor of a long and rich literary tradition, a tradition of which she speaks very eloquently in many essays, books, and interviews.  To insert her work chronologically into that of the long Irish tradition and to examine her work not in a vacuum as many critics do but as part of a vibrant tradition which informs her work and is informed by it is to open the reading much more. (Kleypas 57).

In the same way Edna O’Brien fits perfectly within my investigation, her son, Carlo Gébler, will also be an integral aspect in the study.  Born in Dublin in 1954, he has developed a literary career focused both on Ireland and his own turbulent familial history.  As a son of an Irish woman and a Czech immigrant, Gébler embodies a new and more cosmopolitan Ireland .  Research on Gébler’s writing will offer a younger perspective on Ireland ’s recent change while simultaneously serving as a prime candidate for comparison of O’Brien’s work.

I intend to take an interdisciplinary approach to my project.  With exploration in the fields of English, History, Sociology and Political Science, I hope to answer my questions on a series of levels.  Research in the field of History will be a vital component to my project.  I plan to explore a vast scope of Irish history so that I may be able to set a foundation for Ireland ’s immense literary tradition, as well as acquire the evidence necessary in exploring the current transformation.   A look into the previous dissension between Northern Ireland and the Republic will be greatly important, followed by a concerted examination of the proposed causes and ramifications of the “Celtic Tiger.”  This study of Ireland ’s historical background will prove to be an essential component of my research in that it will provide both the rationale and motivation behind Ireland ’s literary tradition and its sudden change. 

A background in Political Science will also be fundamental in my studies.  I hope to explore the political atmosphere in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that has contributed to such revolutionary change in Ireland ’s economy and culture.  Sociology will provide me with the framework for a study of both the individual and mother/child relations, which will be crucial in my analysis of the characters within the novels I plan to read.  Finally, I will examine the ramification of political contention and religious persecution upon the Irish individual, and its subsequent expression within literature.

By tracking the development of Edna O’Brien and Carlo Gébler’s writing in such an interdisciplinary context, I will be more prepared to compare the changes in their writing with the social and political atmosphere in Ireland at a given time.  Additionally, the special relationship between O’Brien and Gébler will not only offer me a comparison between an older author and a contemporary author, but between a mother and a son.  The connection between the writers will allow me to accurately pinpoint the ramifications of traceable events:  events not only in Ireland ’s cultural history, but within the authors’ familial history as well. The culmination of this research will present me with a more accurate analysis of my goal – the determination of whether or not traditional Irish literature is coming to an end.

My project will encompass three semesters of coursework.  I will take a variety of undergraduate and graduate-level courses in the fields of History, Sociology, Political Science, and of course, English.  Acceptance into the University Scholar Program will provide me with access to graduate-level courses, thereby allowing me to sharpen the scope of my research.  The final product of my both my research and my three semesters of undergraduate and graduate-level coursework will be an extensive paper, which will also be considered as my honors thesis paper.  Being awarded the University Scholar distinction will allow me to accomplish my goal.

Dr. Mary Burke, an Assistant Professor of English, has agreed to be my project advisor.  After taking her Contemporary Irish Literature course last semester, I found that my fascination with Ireland and its literature was ever-increasing.  Dr. Burke’s assistance in my research and her firsthand knowledge of Irish life will be truly invaluable.  Additionally, her familiarity with Edna O’Brien’s work corresponds wonderfully with my project.

I also plan to work very closely with Dr. Brendan Kane, my second project advisor.  An Assistant Professor of History, Dr. Kane will provide me with the interdisciplinary component of my research.  As a professor with a specialization in the history of Ireland , Dr. Kane will guide my research of Irish history in terms of the timeline presented within the various pieces of literature I plan to study.

The most exciting and rewarding portion of my investigation will certainly be centered upon my literary research of O’Brien and Gébler.  I look forward to reading a number of Edna O’Brien’s novels and short stories, and plan to study these texts in the order they were written.  By reading O’Brien in this manner, I will be prepared to note the changes in her writing chronologically.  Texts written in the 1960’s and early 1970’s include The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue, A Pagan Place and Mother Ireland.  Texts written in the 1980’s and 1990’s include Lantern Slide, Time and Tide, House of Splendid Isolation, and Down by the River.  Finally, Wild Decembers and In the Forest, written in 2000 and 2002 respectively, will conclude my research of O’Brien’s writing.  Texts I will read by Gébler include How to Murder a Man, Father & I:  A Memoir, W9 and Other Lives, The Cure, and The Glass Curtain:  Inside an Ulster Community.  In order to broaden my knowledge of both O’Brien and Gébler, as well as explore research already completed on the “Celtic Tiger” and its relevant historical and social implications, I will turn to journal articles, essays and other novels that incorporate these topics.  I have already found some literature that will certainly be beneficial to my research.  This literature includes Denis Donoghue’s We Irish, Colin Coulter and Steve Coleman’s The End of Irish History:  Critical Reflections on the Celtic Tiger, Ivana Bacik’s Kicking and Scremaing:  Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century, and finally, Declan Kiberd’s Inventing Ireland and Irish Classics.

To supplement my research, I hope to travel to Ireland during my senior year.  This trip will provide me access to materials that I could not obtain in the United States , such as manuscripts and drafts of various authors held in Irish archives and museums.  I would be able to attain a first-hand sense of Irish culture.  Additionally, I would have the means to explore the indigenous perception of Ireland ’s literary tradition in light of the country’s newest and most contemporary literature.


III.  Plan of Study

In anticipation of my application to be a University Scholar, I have already taken classes that provided me with a preliminary knowledge of Irish literature.  In the spring of 2005, I took Dr. Mary Burke’s English 234 – Contemporary Irish literature.  In addition, this semester I took Dr. Burke’s English 233 – Early and Modern Irish Literature.  These courses have both reaffirmed my desire to study Irish literature, as well as provided me with the introduction to a number of contemporary Irish authors, including Edna O’Brien.  The following is my proposed plan of study during the next three semesters:

Spring 2006

English 251HW:           Honors II:  American Literature – Michael Meyer (3)

English 267:                  Celtic and Norse Myth and Legend – Tamarah Kohanski (3)

English 365:                  Irish Literature –Thomas Shea (3)

Psychology 245:           Abnormal Psychology – Dean Cruess(3)

Political Science 251:    Law & Society – Frank Goetz (3)

My coursework during the spring semester will serve as a stepping stone in my study of Edna O’Brien, Carlo Gébler and the “Celtic Tiger.”  English 251HW:  American Literature, while not focusing on Irish literature, is necessary in that it completes a requirement for graduation as an honors scholar.  English 267:  Celtic and Norse Myth and Legend will provide me with a background in very early Irish literature.  This course will supply me with background of myths and legends that may be alluded to in modern Irish writing.  English 365:  Irish Literature, my first graduate course, will offer me a broad background in Irish literature.  Psychology 245:  Abnormal Psychology will be important in that it will give me a background for analyzing the characters presented in O’Brien and Gébler’s writing.  Finally, Political Science 251:  Law & Society, will supply me with a broad background in the legal field, and equip me with knowledge that may be applied to Ireland ’s recent turbulent political atmosphere.

Fall 2006

English 254HW:           Honors IV:  English Literature – Jean Marsden (3)

English 299:                  Independent Study with Mary Burke

History 265:                 History of Ireland – Brendan Kane (3)

Sociology 290: Social Movement and Social Change – Mary Clare Burke (3)

English  371:                 Literary Criticism (3)

My fall coursework will begin with an Independent Study with my project advisor, Dr. Mary Burke.  With Dr. Burke, I look forward to a critical exploration of both O’Brien and Gébler.  English 254HW:  English Literature covers some early Irish writers, which will be important in that it will reinforce the early Irish literary tradition.  History 265:  History of Ireland , will help guide my study of Irish history.  Sociology 290:  Social Movement and Social Change is important in that it will reveal the patterns of change as shown in contemporary Ireland .  Finally, English 371:  Literary Criticism, will provide me with the background in analysis of texts, a skill important in my exploration of O’Brien and Gébler’s writing.

Spring 2007

English 258HW:           Honors VIII:  Honors Thesis with Mary Burke (3)        

Sociology 250:             Sociology of the Family (3)

English 350:                  World Literature in English (3)  Sociology 236:  White Racism (3)

Political Science 255:    Politics of Crime and Justice                  History 229: 20th Century Europe (3)

There are more courses listed here than I plan on pursuing, yet I would like flexibility in the event that my research leads me in various directions.  I will continue with an independent study with Dr. Mary Burke, but in English 258HW:  Honors Thesis, since I plan to use my University Scholar project as my Honors Thesis.   History 229:  Europe in the 20th Century will provide me with a framework of Ireland and the other European countries during the tumultuous 20th century.  Sociology 236:  White Racism is an important course since this type of racism has become an increasingly prevalent issue in Ireland .   Political Science 255:  Politics of Crime and Justice will give background that may explain recent violence in Ireland .

Work Cited

Kleypas, Kathryn.  “Rewriting the Nation:  Edna O’Brien, Patrick McCabe and the Second Wave of Modern Irish Fiction.”  Dissertation presented for PhD.   State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2001.