Estudios Irlandeses - Journal of Irish Studies

Taking their cue from comments made by director Lenny Abrahamson, many reviewers of Adam and Paul (2004) compared elements of the film's style and content with the Laurel and Hardy series and Beckett's Waiting for Godot. In terms of characterisation...

Abstract: The national system of education was introduced in Ireland in 1831, which meant the beginning of the end for hedge schools. Nevertheless, they lasted longer than it is popularly believed and up to the 1870s there were still many parents willing...

Abstract: Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1914) concludes at the point when Stephen Dedalus--a character substantially modelled on Joyce himself--is about to leave the Ireland of his childhood and young-adult years. Presented as a...

The year 2005 was a significant one for Irish documentary, marking the release of one of the most important non-fiction films ever seen on the island. Unfortunately, it was actually made in 1968. The re-release of Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin...

There was a sense of a yawning gap in the picture of Irish society emerging from RTE drama ever since the demise of Tolka Row (1964-1968). For the next two decades, there was talk of the need for a new urban serial. When RTE announced Fair City in...

December 2005 On being invited to contribute to Estudios Irlandeses with a reflection on film and television output in the year gone past, I felt that, rather than authoring a single overview, it would be useful to invite colleagues in Ireland to...

"Ireland has a lot to offer incoming film producers, quite apart from our tax incentives. Our locations are excellent. Our country is safe and welcoming to visitors. We speak English ... We have quite low levels of bureaucracy, and...

Man About Dog (2004) is an Irish comedy-caper-road-movie about three Northern wide-boys who mange to get their hands on a prizewinning greyhound. They travel from North to South in pursuit of their fortune chased by a big-shot greyhound breeder and...

Although Mickybo and Me (2005) and The Mighty Celt (2005) initially appear to have much in common by representing both images of the conflict in Northern Ireland and concepts of childhood, the films differ enormously in their treatment of such issues....

In any year 'Pure Mule' would be a significant achievement. That it received 8 IFTA nominations in 2005--winning 5--speaks for itself about its place in the televisual landscape of the past 12 months. RTE, through its Independent Production Unit (IPU)--as...

Abstract: This article considers Woolf's only visit to Ireland and her attitude to the country as revealed in her diary and in a review of a book about Maria Edgeworth. She considered the fault of the Irish to be their loquaciousness. Her diary reveals...

Shot in twenty-eight days, Fintan Connolly's The Trouble with Sex (2005) is a brash attempt at dealing with the formerly taboo subject of sex as a central subject in contemporary Irish cinema. Paradoxically however, more results in less. As was the...

Abstract: This paper aims at showing in what way artistic and historical traditions constitute for Derek Mahon a fundamental element of poetic writing, which is perhaps only a form of rewriting. Our purpose will follow three main lines: first the matter...