France and Ireland in the Public Imagination

This engaging collection of essays considers the cultural complexities of the Franco-Irish relationship in song and story, image and cuisine, novels, paintings and poetry. It casts a fresh eye on public perceptions of the historic bonds between Ireland and France, revealing a rich variety of contact and influence. Controversy is not shirked, whether on the subject of Irish economic decline or reflecting on prominent, contentious personalities such as Ian Paisley and Michel Houellebecq. Contrasting ideas of the popular and the intellectual emerge in a study of Brendan Kennelly; recent Irish tribunals are analysed in the light of French cultural theory; and familiar renditions of Franco-Irish links are re-evaluated against the evidence of newspaper and journal accounts.Drawing on the disciplines of history, art, economics and literature, and dipping into the good wines of France and Ireland, the book paints a fascinating picture of the relationship between the two countries over three dramatic centuries.https://arrow.tudublin.ie/afisbo/1007/thumbnail.jp

Monitoring and Reducing Plagiarism: A Case Study at South East European University, Macedonia

AbstractMost teachers of English language and literature are aware of the widespread prevalence of plagiarised student work and most responsible teachers use measures todetect and deter plagiarism in their classes. However, without clear institutional supportand guidelines, the efforts of individual teachers may appear insufficient, especially in theage of 'copy paste' plagiarism from the internet.This paper uses a case study from the English Department of South EastEuropean University to explore this issue and it describes the development of an antiplagiarism strategy at departmental level. By using a plagiarism report form to enable teachers to report cases of plagiarism to a departmental committee, an effort was madeto quantify the extent of the problem. This paper analyses the data thus gathered with reference to several international studies on plagiarism. The paper explores student and staff attitudes to plagiarism, their level of understanding of the rules of citation andmakes recommendations for institutional policies in this area. The paper concludes thata collective and ongoing effort is needed at all levels of the University in order to have ameaningful impact on student behaviour

“Across the divide / Of the Andes”: Harry Clifton and Latin America

In his poems of Latin America, Harry Clifton (b. 1952) illuminates “the region of the world most neglected by the Irish state” (Peadar Kirby). Since his return to live in Ireland in 2004, Clifton has sought deeper clarification of his paternal (Irish) and maternal (Latin American) roots. This essay explores how Clifton’s cosmopolitanism draws on the freedoms of placelessness alongside the geographical specificities of place broaching issues of colonialism, language and identity. The desolate aridity of the Atacama region of northern Chile and bohemian Buenos Aires are connected to a newly cosmopolitan Ireland. These poems mark Clifton’s successful coming home linking his Irish and Latin American origins

Humility, Self-Awareness, and Religious Ambivalence: Another Look at Beckett's ‘Humanistic Quietism’

This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Edinburgh University Press at http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/jobs.2014.0104. This article provides a commentary on the opaque and often contradictory arguments of ‘Humanistic Quietism’, Samuel Beckett's 1934 review of Thomas MacGreevy's Poems. Using Beckett's complicated relationship to both his own Protestant upbringing and the Catholicism of MacGreevy as a starting point, the article proposes new ways of understanding Beckett's ambivalent comments about MacGreevy's interiority, prayer-like poetry, humility, and quietism. It draws on Beckett's comments on Rilke, André Gide, and Arnold Geulincx, as well as his familiarity with Dante, to unpack the review's dense allusions and make sense of Beckett's aesthetic allegiances. </jats:p

Responses to the Holocaust in Modern Irish Poetry

This essay examines twentieth and twenty-first century responses by Irish poets to the Holocaust. It argues that, despite the illiberal tendencies of the Irish state towards Jewish immigration during and after the 1939-1945 war, recent commemorative activities in Ireland have included the Holocaust and are part of a wider commemorative ‘opening up’ in Ireland towards twentieth-century historical events. Important contemporary Irish poets have written Holocaust poems of notable merit including: Seamus Heaney, Harry Clifton, Derek Mahon, Pearse Hutchinson, Paul Durcan, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Kinsella and Tom Paulin, all of whom are discussed here. These poets are noted as second-generation Holocaust poets, more at home in the lyric form and less troubled by communicative dilemmas than their precursors such as Paul Celan and Samuel Beckett whose resemblance is briefly discussed. The essay concludes by arguing that Giorgio Agamben’s arguments about testimony after Auschwitz are strikingly pertinent to some of the poems under discussion. It also suggests that the historical essays of Hubert Butler may have acted as an unseen influence on some of these writers

‘I see where I stand’ Detachment and Engagement in Harry Clifton’s Poetry

This essay reads Harry Clifton’s poetry as a body of work that illustrates the poet’s engagement with and detachment from the poetry of his peers. It notes Clifton’s chosen routes of travel in Africa, Asia, and Europe, his interest in Ireland and its elsewheres and his endeavours to find an ideal distance to write from. It also elucidates his Irish subject matter, his involvement with journals, editors and publishers as well as his critical readings of 20th-century Irish poetry. The essay engages with important strands of current critical thinking that have sought to examine a post-nationalist Ireland with Clifton being seen as a bridge between an older and younger circle of writers. Neither hermetic nor sociable, Clifton emerges as a poet engaging with concentric circles of Irish poetry on his own terms

The Language of Globalization in Contemporary Irish Poetry

<p class="p1">This essay considers how contemporary Irish poets have responded to the changing socio-economic realities of Irish life since 1990. Through an examination of themes of work, consumerism, the encroachment of cyber-space and changing urban lifestyles, the essay demonstrates how Irish poets have risen to the challenge of finding a language to capture what Zygmunt Bauman characterizes as ‘liquid modernity’. A range of poets are considered, including the late Dennis O’Driscoll, Rita Ann Higgins, Peter Sirr as well as Billy Ramsell, Kevin Higgins and Iggy McGovern. These poets’ musings provide excellent examples of how the poet can turn the language of globalization into a critique of globalization’s economic hegemony.</p