This collection of critical essays finds itself at the intersection of cultural, literary and film studies, and explores the various ways in which dysfunction is expressed in Irish studies. Dysfunction can be regarded as part and parcel of a portrayal of a landscape of trauma and crisis that may have been traditionally repressed in Ireland at large. However, dysfunction also envisages mediation, managing, transcending and healing. As such, this volume examines how Ireland tackles dysfunction at large, but more importantly, how mediation, managing, healing and transcending help in the understanding of the ever-changing and on-going process of the construction of an Irish identity today; sometimes looking back at the past, but always creating the need of inventing new ways to understand the future of Ireland. The collection presents essays which tackle dysfunction from different and multifarious perspectives that range from sociological, historical and literary discourses to more contemporary insights into dysfunction in today’s Ireland. It encompasses theory and analysis and includes the works of both senior academics and emerging scholars, as well as those outside academia.

Health services are at the top of the public and political agenda in Ireland. They dominate media coverage, incite passion and protests, and either enable or prevent people from living longer, healthier lives. Yet much of the rhetoric and discussion is confused; much of the spin inaccurate. Most people are unable to understand why the Irish health system is the way it is. This book demystifies and explains health services in Ireland. Going beyond the political rhetoric and media hysteria, it provides an understanding of this byzantine, unequal, dysfunctional system. The book exposes the apartheid that characterizes healthcare in Ireland, drawing on ordinary people's experiences, interviews with health professionals, and policy documents. Irish Apartheid should be required reading for policymakers, politicians, and health professionals.

This book focuses on the design and operation of power-sharing in deeply divided societies. Beyond this starting point, it seeks to examine the different ways in which consociational institutions emerge from negotiations and peace settlements across three counter-intuitive cases – post-Brexit referendum Northern Ireland, the Brussels Capital Region and Cyprus. Across each of the chapters, the analysis assesses how the design or mediation of these various forms of power-sharing demonstrate similarity, difference and complexity in how consociationalism has been conceived of and operated within each of these contexts. Finally, a key objective of the book is to explore and evaluate how ideas surrounding power-sharing have evolved and changed incrementally within each of the empirical contexts. The unifying argument within the book is that power-sharing has to have the capacity to adapt to changing political circumstances, and that this can be achieved through the interplay of formal and informal micro-level refinements to these institutions and the procedures that govern them, that allow such institutions to evolve over time in ways that increase their utility as conflict transformation governance structures for deeply divided societies. This book fills the gap in the published literature between theoretical and empirical studies of power-sharing, and will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, consociationalism, European politics and IR in general.

Despite the best efforts of the English government, Elizabethan Ireland remained resolutely Catholic. Hutchinson examines this ‘failure’ of the Protestant Reformation. He argues that the emerging political concept of the absolutist state forms a crucial link between English policy in Ireland and the aims of the Calvinist reformers.

James Charles Roy, a noted authority on Irish history and travel, escorts a disparate group of Americans through the lonely backwaters of ancient Ireland. Visions of a glorious enterprise evaporate as he sees a dejected and weary handful of aged American tourists disembark at Shannon Airport. Fortified by Guinness, Roy hurls himself into sharing with them the joys and wonders of Ireland's twisted byways. Determined to avoid clichéRoy leads his group to obscure Celtic coronation sites, monasteries, and remote abbeys as he spins a narrative that pulls Ireland's chaotic story into coherence. His unsuspecting charges begin to shed their hesitancies, relishing their guide's idiosyncratic approach to Ireland. Black comedy aside, Roy touches an emotional chord: how the economic phenomenon known as the Celtic Tiger has transformed Old Ireland into a high-tech power. At the tour's end, Roy embarks alone for the inaccessible Ardoilean, a seventh-century Celtic hermitage in County Galway. His vision of an Ireland lost forever is an emotional tour de force.