Irish Women Writers

Catalog description

The course is an overview of Irish Women Writers, both Anglo and Gaelic, in a variety of genres, from 1770 to the present.  Students will explore the fundamental difference between the privileged Anglo-Irish and the marginalized Gaelic Irish. The focus will be on various aspects of women’s issues including gender, folklore, religion, education, work, marriage, motherhood and feminism. Students will examine the oral lament of Eileen O’Connell, the Big House novel of Maria Edgeworth, and the Famine poetry of Eavan Boland. A major literary focus is on the Irish Renaissance and the plays of Lady Augusta Gregory.  Students will read an account of an Irish-speaking woman’s life on the Great Blasket Island, a short story about a convent school nun by Edna O’Brien, and story of fairy folklore by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne. There will be a research paper on Elizabeth Bowen’s novel, The Last September.  The historic content will include, the Penal Laws, the Great Hunger, and the Irish War of Independence. Our survey will also include samples of Gaelic Irish poetry, and Claire Keegan’s novella of a girl’s coming of age in 1980s Ireland. In our classroom conversations, reflection writings and essays, students will be asked to make informed observations on and between the Anglo and Gaelic perspectives.