This collection of essays aims to provide new insights into the debate on postnationalism in Ireland from the perspective of narrative writing.

Irish inhabitants of the 'four obedient shires' - a term commonly used to describe the region at the heart of the English colony in the later Middle Ages - were significantly anglicised, taking on English names, dress, and even legal status. However, the processes of cultural exchange went both ways. This study examines the nature of interactions between English and Irish neighbours in the four shires, taking into account the complex tensions between assimilation and the preservation of distinct ethnic identities and exploring how the common colonial rhetoric of the Irish as an 'enemy' coexisted with the daily reality of alliance, intermarriage, and accommodation. Placing Ireland in a broad context, Sparky Booker addresses the strategies the colonial community used to deal with the difficulties posed by extensive assimilation, and the lasting changes this made to understandings of what it meant to be 'English' or 'Irish' in the face of such challenges.

This is a book about Irish nationalism and how Irish nationalists developed their own conception of the Irish race. Bruce Nelson begins with an exploration of the discourse of race--from the nineteenth--century belief that "race is everything" to the more recent argument that there are no races. He focuses on how English observers constructed the "native" and Catholic Irish as uncivilized and savage, and on the racialization of the Irish in the nineteenth century, especially in Britain and the United States, where Irish immigrants were often portrayed in terms that had been applied mainly to enslaved Africans and their descendants. Most of the book focuses on how the Irish created their own identity--in the context of slavery and abolition, empire, and revolution. Since the Irish were a dispersed people, this process unfolded not only in Ireland, but in the United States, Britain, Australia, South Africa, and other countries. Many nationalists were determined to repudiate anything that could interfere with the goal of building a united movement aimed at achieving full independence for Ireland. But others, including men and women who are at the heart of this study, believed that the Irish struggle must create a more inclusive sense of Irish nationhood and stand for freedom everywhere. Nelson pays close attention to this argument within Irish nationalism, and to the ways it resonated with nationalists worldwide, from India to the Caribbean.

This volume contains a selection of the proceedings of a conference on European problems of identity titled Europe and its Others, which was held in St Andrews in July 2007. It looks at some of the histories and stories that connect the European margins to an imagined or imaginary centre of this complex continent as seen mostly from within, and with self-reflective insights from literary, socio-historical and cinematic perspectives. By following the marginal route created by the essays, the volume juxtaposes, as in a mosaic, a range of artistic discourses produced in many European languages. Each of these discourses highlights a different perception of belonging or not belonging to Europe; and each of these discourses brings to the fore in its respective society a fresh perspective on new European territories seen not as 'the other' but rather as contiguous tiles in a mosaic of idiosyncrasies. Lying one next to the other, these territories engage in dialogue poetically - harmoniously or dissonantly - in an attempt to create through their juxtaposition an enigmatic poetic discourse of the margins.

This work, in assessing cosmopolitanism as a cause, argues that justifications and critiques of the cosmopolitan are shaped as much by political and cultural forces as by the distinctive philosophical tradition in which it is situated.

Irish women writers have a large following, and their works are attracting large amounts of scholarly and critical attention. Through roughly 75 alphabetically arranged entries written by more than 35 expert contributors, this reference overviews the lives and works of Irish women writers active in a range of genres and periods. Each entry includes a brief biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a survey of the writer's critical reception, and a list of works by and about the author. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography. Ireland has an especially lively literary tradition, and works by Irish writers have long been recognized as interesting and influential. While male writers have received the bulk of the critical attention given to Irish literature, contemporary women writers are among the most widely read Irish authors. This reference overviews the lives and works of Irish women writers active in a range of periods and genres. Included are roughly 75 alphabetically arranged entries written by more than 35 expert contributors. Among the writers discussed are: ; Elizabeth Bowen ; Mary Dorcey ; Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory ; Anne Hartigan ; Norah Hoult ; Paula Meehan ; Iris Murdoch ; Edna O'Brien ; Katharine Tynan ; Sheila Wingfield ; And many more. Each entry includes a brief biography, a discussion of major works and themes, a review of the writer's critical reception, and a list of works by and about the writer. The volume closes with a selected, general bibliography.

In the closing decades of the sixteenth century, England attempted its first colonial expansion into the New World through planned settlements in Ireland, Newfoundland, Virginia, and Guiana. All of these colonial efforts were unsuccessful. Yet these projects were a significant cultural force in early modern England. Influenced by recent work in postcolonial theory and cultural studies, Shannon Miller's Invested with Meaning examines the documentary and material remains of these vanished colonies to explore the multiple influences of the Irish and New World encounters on English culture. Miller contends that the projects sponsored by the Raleigh circle were inextricably bound to the economic and social transformations of English systems, including the transition from a feudal-based economy to an emergent capitalism, the redefinition of the patron-client relationship, and challenges to the categories of gentry and merchant. These social and economic transitions shaped the goals of the colonization projects and dictated the ways in which the writers and artists of these enterprises could frame the New World and its people; influenced by the changes in England, their construction of the New World both reflected and helped to constitute a sense of English national identity.