Writing Ireland's working class

An interesting-looking new book:


Michael Pierse, "Writing Ireland's working class: Dublin after O'Casey" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

As a social other, Ireland's urban working class inhabits a 'non-place' in the national narrative, a place beset by galling levels of poverty and low social mobility. Its exclusion is not just social and economic, but cultural as well. Working-class Dublin in particular elicits little good press, and less in terms of academic commentary or cultural appreciation, so where and how does it appear in literature? Exploring the fiction and plays of this marginalised community after Sean O'Casey, this book breaks new ground in Irish Studies scholarship, charting alternative directions for academic research and unearthing submerged narratives in the history of Irish culture. Most of the works examined have received little or no critical commentary to date, yet this book makes a compelling case for their centrality to the history and appreciation of Irish literature. From O'Casey to Roddy Doyle, a rich tapestry of urban life is illuminated and explored, which presents a robust challenge to stereotyped and staid views of Irish life and literature.

Chapters

The shadow of Sean
Angry Young Men - Class Injuries and Masculinity
From Rocking the Cradle to Rocking the System - Writing Working-Class Women
Industry and the City - Workers in Struggle
Prison Stories - Writing Dublin at its Limits
Return of the Oppressed - Sexual Repression, Culture and Class
Revising the Revolution: Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry, Historiography, Politics and Proletarian Consciousness

"Ireland's new religious movements" launch

"Ireland's new religious movements", discussed here, will be launched in Dublin on Wednesday, March 30th by Marion Bowman, head of dept. of Religious Studies at the Open University. Dr Bowman will give a talk on "Contemporary Celticity". The event is in the Gutter Bookshop, Cow's Lane, Temple Bar, Dublin 8 at 6.30 and admission is free. A poster for the event is here.

Centre for the Study of Working-Class Lives, Strathclyde

The University of Strathclyde now has a Centre for the Study of Working-Class Lives, with a very impressive team of Colm Breathnach, Neil Davidson and Patricia McCafferty. Something like this is badly needed in "these islands" as witness the Irish interest in the Youngstown Center for Working-Class Studies.

They're launching it on Friday March 11th. The programme's as follows:

09.00–09.45 Registration and Coffee

09.45-09.50 Welcome

Professor Jim McDonald (University of Strathclyde)

09.50-10.00 Introduction

Neil Davidson (University of Strathclyde)

10.00-11.15 Session 1: Why a Centre for the Study of Working Class Lives?

Professor Michael Zweig (Stony Brook University)

11.15–11.30 Refreshment Break

11.30–12.45 Session 2: Class, Work and Deindustrialisation

Dr Tim Strangleman (University of Kent)

12.45–13.45 Buffet Lunch

13.45–15.00 Session 3: The Power of Class: Inequalities, Injuries and Actions in the History of Advanced Capitalism

Professor Michael J. Haynes (University of Wolverhampton)

15.00–16.15 Session 4: Panel Discussion

Geographies of Social Class in 21^st Century Britain

Professor Danny Dorling (University of Sheffield)

Where is the Working Class? Class Agency and Resistance in British Cities

Dr Andrew Cumbers (University of Glasgow)

16.15–16.30 Refreshment Break

16.30–17.45 Session 5: Representations of the Working Class in Contemporary Art and Culture

Gail Day (University of Leeds) and Steve Edwards (The Open University)

17.45-18.00 Reflections on the Conference

Professor Michael Zweig (Stony Brook University)

18.00–19.00 Wine Reception/Informal discussion

Registration is £40 to academics, free to students and non-academics. Email claire.mcconnell AT strath.ac.uk to book.

Religious movements, new and old

Ireland's new religious movements, the first academic overview of the range of new religion in Ireland, has just been published. As opposed to the received wisdom that everyone in Ireland has been born either Catholic or Protestant for centuries, the book shows among other things the growing significance of the rejection of religion (and "lukewarm religion"), the long history of alternative religions in Ireland, the importance of feminism and woman-centre religious movements, the complexities of migrant religion and Ireland's role as a global "Celtic" homeland.
Co-edited by Olivia Cosgrove, Laurence Cox, Carmen Kuhling and Peter Mulholland. Available from Cambridge Scholars at £50 sterling, which is pretty steep but libraries can buy in copies if asked. Full details here.

While the rest of Ireland was competing in building denominational churches (and collaborating in converting the "heathen" under the auspices of the British empire...), a number of Irish people travelled to Asia and joined anti-colonial movements both religious and political. One of the most interesting of these was a Dublin-born ex-hobo turned Buddhist monk (and scourge of Christian missionaries), U Dhammaloka (?1856 - ?1914). UCC is celebrating the centenary of his trial for sedition; full details and a ten-minute video are online here. This is also the Irish launch of a special issue of Contemporary Buddhism on the subject.

For a new Europe: university struggles against austerity

See here for details of a meeting in Paris next month for people involved in university struggles across Europe.

Interface 2/2: movements making media

Interface: a journal for and about social movements has just published issue 2/2, on the theme "Voices of dissent: activists' engagements in the creation of alternative, autonomous, radical and independent media". It can be found here and in a few days will migrate to this address.

Social movements under another name

More details here about new research on a working-class Dubliner who hoboed his way across America and became a key figure in the Asian Buddhist revival that heralded the birth of anti-colonial nationalism in a string of countries. A very different way of thinking about social movements.