The politics of Irish memory

Irish culture is obsessed with the past. While representations of the past have always been an integral element of Irish culture, they are now one of its most compelling subjects. The tone that characterizes this subject is trauma. Emilie Pine explores the trauma and anti-nostalgia that dominates so much of contemporary Irish culture, placing it in the context of the international memory boom. This provocative study sheds new light on writers, film-makers and playwrights, from Nuala O'Faolain to Neil Jordan, and from Frank McGuinness to Marina Carr. The book addresses the issues that most preoccupy Irish society in the early twenty-first century: the traumas of institutional child abuse, suicide, emigration, the legacy of the hunger strikes, and the question of how to commemorate the Irish dead - and reveals how Irish culture plays a key role in resolving the traumas of the past.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.