Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

The children in the village in the mountains whispered stories to one another. “I heard he’s got a long nose that he sniffs out children with!” “My big brother told me he saw a man with a tail when he was hunting in the forest!” “Mine said he saw something that walked like a man …

You can’t make someone love you, and other life lessons in The Death of the Heart

The Death of the Heart was Bowen's most well-known novel. [...] Upheaval, death, and travelling are some of the themes of the novel that Bowen would have been all-too-familiar with.

Is Jane Eyre a feminist novel?

I'm going a little off topic in today's blog post, and instead of discussing Irish literature, I'm talking about Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I've studied this novel twice now both on Erasmus and in this year's Victorian Literature module, and the question of feminism has come up both times. I believe Jane Eyre is a feminist novel, and here's why.

The Importance of Setting

Setting is important as it helps to establish characters as products of their time and culture. It provides the reader with context for the plot, and cultural context can answer a lot of questions readers may have about plot developments or characters' actions. For this reason, setting should not be ignored when analysing books.

Jimmy’s Hall

Jimmy's Hall, directed by Ken Loach, is based on the true story of a man who returns from the US and decides to rebuild the hall, so the young people in the area can have a future. However, there are those among the Church who don't agree with him.

Kate O’Brien and her Catholic Agnosticism, writing, and politics

Kate O'Brien was an Irish writer who was born in 1897. She was born into an bourgeoisie Catholic family in Limerick, though she was well-traveled by the end of her life in 1974. Most of her writing was banned in Ireland under the Censorship Act, and she was unique in her time for writing sex and sexuality into domestic romance novels.

Censorship in Ireland; Then and Now

Today, Irish newspapers and authors are protected under Article 10 of the ECHR, and the rise of social media, combined with the decline of the power of the Catholic Church, allows the Irish public to freely talk on a variety of uncomfortable subjects. However, as recently as fifty years ago, it was very different.

Lois Farquar: A Brief Character Study

Lois Farquar, the protagonist of The Last September, is a young Anglo-Irish woman growing up in Ireland in the early twentieth century. She lives with her aunt and uncle in a Big House in Munster, and, up until the events in the novel occur, has lived the typical life of an adolescent Anglo-Irish girl. The events in The Last September mark the beginning of an end to a lifestyle Lois and the Anglo-Irish citizens of Ireland enjoyed.

Elizabeth Bowen

Of the many Irish writers that emerged over the course of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Bowen is one of the most well-known. Keenly aware of her position as being part of the last generations of Anglo-Irish Protestants, and one of the most prominent female writers in Ireland, her awareness of the world changing around her …