Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016

Edited by Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke

Classical Presences

First interdisciplinary analysis of the significance of classical Greek and Roman sources in Irish political discourse.
Includes analyses of unpublished archival materials, of literature and scholarship in both English and Irish languages, and of material culture.
Highlights Ireland as a unique postcolonial case in classical reception studies.

Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016

Edited by Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke

Description

This collection addresses how models from ancient Greece and Rome have permeated Irish political discourse in the century since 1916. The 1916 Easter Rising, when Irish nationalists rose up against British imperial forces, became almost instantly mythologized in Irish political memory as a turning point in the nation's history that paved the way for Irish independence. Its centenary has provided a natural point for reflection on Irish politics, and this volume highlights an unexplored element in Irish political discourse, namely its frequent reliance on, reference to, and tensions with classical Greek and Roman models. Topics covered include the reception and rejection of classical culture in Ireland; the politics of Irish language engagement with Greek and Roman models; the intersection of Irish literature with scholarship in Classics and Celtic Studies; the use of classical referents to articulate political inequalities across gender, sexual, and class hierarchies; meditations on the Northern Irish conflict through classical literature; and the political implications of neoclassical material culture in Irish society. As the only country colonized by Britain with a pre-existing indigenous heritage of expertise in classical languages and literature, postcolonial Ireland represents a unique case in the field of classical reception. This book opens a window on a rich and varied dialogue between significant figures in Irish cultural history and the Greek and Roman sources that have inspired them, a dialogue that is firmly rooted in Ireland's historical past and continues to be ever-evolving.

Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016

Edited by Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke

Classical Presences

List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
1. Classics and Irish Politics: Introduction Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke
I: RECEPTION AND REJECTION OF THE CLASSICS IN IRELAND
2. The Use and Abuse of Classics: Thoughts on Empire, Epic, and Language Declan Kiberd
3. Greece, Rome, and the Revolutionaries of 1916 Brian McGing
4. Classics in the Van of the Irish Revolt: Thomas MacDonagh, 'alien to Athens and Rome?' Eoghan Moloney
II: LANGUAGE POLITICS
5. Translating into Irish from Greek and Latin in the Early Years of the Irish State Síle Ní Mhurchú
6. Classics through Irish at University College, Galway, 1931-78 Pádraic Moran
Â7. Dinneen's Irish Virgil Fiachra Mac Góráin
8. Classics, Medievalism, and Cultural Politics in Myles na gCopaleen's Cruiskeen Lawn Columns Cillian O'HoganÂ
III: BETWEEN SCHOLARSHIP AND LITERATURE
9. Abjection and the Irish-Greek Fir Bolg in Aran Island Writing Arabella Currie
10. Sinn Féin and Ulysses: Between Professor Robert Mitchell Henry and James Joyce Edith Hall
11. Yeats and Oedipus: The Dark Road Chris Morash
IV: GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND CLASS
12. Wilde, Classicism, and Homosexuality in Modern Ireland Eibhear Walshe
13. Trojan Women and Irish Sexual Politics, 1920-2015 Isabelle Torrance
14. Irish Didos: Empire, Gender, and Class in the Irish Popular Tradition to Frank McGuinness's Carthaginians Siobhán McElduff
V: CLASSICAL POETRY AND NORTHERN IRELAND
15. Elegies for Ireland: W. B. Yeats, Michael Longley, and the Roman Elegists Donncha O'Rourke
16. Michael Longley's 'Ceasefire' and the Iliad Maureen Alden
17. Post-Ceasefire Antigones and Northern Ireland Isabelle Torrance
VI: MATERIAL CULTURE AND (DE)COLONIALISM
18. Classicism in the Making of Commemorative Monuments in Newly Independent Ireland Judith Hill
19. The Politics of Neoclassicism in Belfast and Dublin: A Tale of Two Buildings Suzanne O'Neill
20. The Classical Themes of Irish Coinage, 1928-2002: Images from a Usable Past Christine Morris
21. Epilogue Richard P. Martin
Bibliography
Index

Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016

Edited by Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke

Classical Presences

Author Information

Isabelle Torrance, Professor of Classical Reception, Aarhus University,Donncha O'Rourke, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Edinburgh

Isabelle Torrance is Professor of Classical Reception at Aarhus University, Denmark. She has published extensively on classical Greek literature, especially Greek tragedy, and its reception. From 2019-2024 she is Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project Classical Influences and Irish Culture.

Donncha O'Rourke is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on classical literature, especially Roman elegiac and didactic poetry.

Contributors:

Maureen Alden is Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Ancient Greek at Queen's University, Belfast.

Arabella Currie is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Exeter's English Department.

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at King's College London.

Judith Hill is an architectural historian and author.

Declan Kiberd is Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English and Irish language and literature at the University of Notre Dame.

Fiachra Mac Góráin is an Associate Professor of Classics at University College London.

Richard P. Martin is Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics at Stanford University.

Siobhán McElduff is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of British Columbia.

Brian McGing is Emeritus Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College Dublin.

Eoghan Moloney is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies at the University of Winchester.

Pádraic Moran is Lecturer in Classics and Head of Discipline at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

Chris Morash is the inaugural Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing and was formerly Vice Provost at Trinity College Dublin.

Christine Morris is the Andrew A. David Senior Lecturer in Greek Archaeology and History at Trinity College Dublin.

Síle Ní Mhurchú is Lecturer in Modern Irish at University College Cork.

Cillian O'Hogan is Assistant Professor of Medieval Latin at the University of Toronto.

Suzanne O'Neill is a lecturer in the School of Histories and Humanities at Trinity College Dublin.

Donncha O'Rourke is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Edinburgh.

Isabelle Torrance is Professor of Classical Reception at Aarhus University and Principal Investigator on the project 'Classical Influences and Irish Culture' (CLIC) funded by the European Research Council (2019-2024).

Eibhear Walshe is Senior Lecturer in English at University College Cork and Director of Creative Writing.

Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016

Edited by Isabelle Torrance and Donncha O'Rourke

Classical Presences

Reviews and Awards

"A weighty and wide-ranging volume ... Chapters are contributed by a formidable cast of scholars from several disciplines. They cover a wide range of Irish literary and material cultural engagements with the Greek and Roman classics." -- Emma Bridges and Henry Stead, Greece & Rome

"Immensely informative and thought-provoking, it tackles much material (archival and otherwise) that is new, difficult to access, and highly engaging. The editors and contributors have succeeded admirably in giving the classics their due place in Irish political life across a fraught century and more." -- Bryn Mawr Classical Review