Re-Mapping Exile : Realities and Metaphors in Irish Literature and History

Exploring exile in Irish writing, the essays use both structuralist and poststructuralist lenses to reframe absence, hybridity, and otherness. By examining literature, political texts, and songs, they redefine exile from a mere physical state to an enriched, existential experience that challenges traditional narratives.

The essays in this collection combine historical, cultural, and literary analyses in their treatment of aspects of exile in Irish writing. Some are 'structuralist' in seeing exile as a physical state of being, often associated with absence, into which an individual willingly or unwillingly enters. Others are 'poststructuralist', considering the narration of exile as a celebration of transgressiveness, hybridity, and otherness. This type of exile moves away from a political, cultural, economic idea of exile to an understanding of exile in a wider existential sense. The theme of exile is discussed in a wide range of texts including literature, political writings and song-writing, either in works of Irish writers not normally associated with exile, or in which new aspects of 'exile' can be discerned. The essays cover, among others: Butler, D'Arcy McGee, Mulholland, Joyce, Hewitt, Van Morrison, Ní Chuilleanáin, Doyle, and Banville.