A collection of plays by one of Ireland's finest dramatists of the 80s and 90s Tea in a China Cup focuses on the differing experiences of three generations of women in a working-class Belfast Protestant family, a tapestry of tales linked by the central character Beth, torn between the influence of traditions and the rejection of gentility and respectability. Did You Hear the One About the Irishman? shows how both nationalists and loyalists are dependent on one another; Joyriders, grew out of the work Reid did with residents at the notorious Davis Flats estate and is structured around the day-to-day activities of four Catholic teenagers on a youth training scheme running at a now-disused textile mill in Belfast and plays on the idea of Britain taking a joy-ride through Ireland; The Belle of Belfast city shows Dolly, a former music-hall star whose bawdy songs and unconventional antics conjure a magical Belfast far removed from that represented by her nephew Jack, a hardline loyalist politician. My Name, Shall I Tell You My name? is "Fierce, poignant...a formidable portrait of intransigent, archaic patriotism" (The Times) and Clowns (the sequel to Joyriders) is a "warmhearted, compassionate play". (The Guardian)

The women who appear in these pages are both well-known and unknown, real and invented. They include, for instance, the fiery Elizabeth Fitzgerald who defended her castle so successfully, and Granuaile, the pirate queen from Galway.

This book is a study of the plays, performances and writings of Christina Reid. It explores Reid’s work through her own words, both in interviews and writings; through theoretical engagements in other disciplines, such as psychology and geography; and through responses to her plays in production. It is a compilation of sorts, gathering together interviews, critical material, unpublished works and theatrical reviews to reflect the breadth and depth of Reid’s contribution to the theatrical culture of Northern Ireland, during the Troubles and beyond.

Chris Morash's widely-praised account of Irish Theatre traces an often forgotten history leading up to the Irish Literary Revival. He then follows that history to the present by creating a remarkably clear picture of the cultural contexts which produced the playwrights who have been responsible for making Irish theatre's world-wide historical and contemporary reputation. The main chapters are each followed by shorter chapters, focusing on a single night at the theatre. This prize-winning book is an essential, entertaining and highly original guide to the history and performance of Irish theatre.

This book examines the topic of excess in modern Irish writing in terms of mysticism, materialism, myth and language. The study engages ideas of excess as they appear in works by major thinkers from Hegel, Kierkegaard and Marx through to Nietzsche, Bataille, Derrida and, more recently, Badiou. Poems, plays and fiction by a wide range of Irish authors are considered. These include works by Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, G. B. Shaw, Patrick Pearse, James Joyce, Sean O’Casey, Louis MacNeice, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bowen, Roddy Doyle, Seamus Heaney, Marina Carr and Medbh McGuckian. The readings presented illustrate how Matthew Arnold’s nineteenth-century idea of the excessive character of the Celt is itself exceeded within the modernity of twentieth-century Irish writing.

The very different histories of the North and South are reflected in their literature. While women in the Republic of Ireland have tended to write about social issuessexism, crime, unemployment, and domestic violencewomen in Northern Ireland focused on their society's historical tension and primarily nationalist and unionist politics. However, Pelan maintains that feminist ideology has provided contemporary Irish women with an alternate political stance that incorporates gender and nationality/ethnicity and allows them to move beyond the usual binaries of politics, history, and languageIrish and English. In an analysis enriched by a sophisticated but accessible engagement with contemporary feminist and gender theory, Pelan concludes that Irish women's writing, whether at the community or mainstream levelNorth or Southconsistently articulates political issues of direct relevance to the lives of Irish women today. As a result, such work retains close links with the initial impetus of the second wave of feminism as a political movement and questions the legitimacy of long-standing social, religious, and political conventions. From within the framework provided by this second wave, argues Pelan, Irish women can critique certain masculine ideologiesnationalist, unionist, imperialist, and capitalistwithout forfeiting their own sense of gender and national or ethnic identity. The book's significance lies in its placement of women's writing in the center of contemporary political discourse in Ireland and in ensuring that the writing from this periodmuch of it long out of printcontinues to exist as sociological as well as literary records. It will be of interest to a general and scholarly audience, especially those in the fields of contemporary Irish writing, feminism, and literary history.

This collection of critical essays addresses literary discourses on the mobility of women writers in various Atlantic regions of Europe. These literary systems (Ireland, Galicia, and Wales) experienced a rebirth in the second half of the twentieth century through their respective modern cultural artefacts, and the first decades of the present century have seen new research exploring emergent literatures in Europe, new European identities on the move, and even the dialogue between the various cultures of the Atlantic archipelago. This book centres on women writers and how they deal in their work with the issue of mobility. Authors and critics have tended to analyse travel by focusing on the transgression of patriarchal models of Western societies by white, middle-class women, these previously being mainly restricted to the private sphere, as well as on postcolonial issues with ethno- and Euro-centric slants. Notions of the construction of otherness are at stake here, in that even white women may be considered as belonging to a different ethnic group when they are migrants, thus showing how vulnerable and dependent women can be when isolated in a different environment. The narrative of history as progress may also be challenged in the twenty-first century by visions of nomadic women at risk of being displaced, both in their homeland and abroad.

Provides information on the history and present practice of theater in the world.