these philosophers in this ëdefinitioní provides a working example of
the problem with establishing a common ground from which Irish
feminism can be understood. It is just as problematic to imply that
ëIrishismí can apply to the heterogeneous communities living in
Ireland as it is to rely on male definitions of ëWomaní. Smythís use of
these definitions also demonstrates how both Irishness and femininity
have been assessed in terms of ënon-senseí, the irrational and
emotional.
Both Ailbhe Smyth and Gerardine Meaney have looked to
Continental philosophy drawing extensively on the work of the
feminists Julia Kristeva, HÈlËne Cixous and Luce Irigaray. Exploring
the poetry of Eavan Boland from the South and Medbh McGuckian
from the North, it is important to consider how far their poetry
provides a sensible and foundational feminist territory from which to
stand, and to ask whether the poetry moves into the sensual realms of
a nonsensical fluid subjectivity outlined, in particular, by Kristeva.
The use of Kristeva can be problematized as her theorization
regarding female identity is explored in relation to the poetry, whilst
bearing in mind the limitations of such theorization which have been
indicated by Nancy Fraser and Judith Butler.^17 The point of this is not
to totally refute Kristeva, but to see how her theorization affects
readings of the poetry and how, in view of the poetry, Kristevaís
comments may be resituated and developed.
Understanding the poetry in terms of feminist criticism within
Ireland, it is important to ask how far the female poets move to more
secular versions of identity that lie beyond preoccupations with the
national and historical as we know it. When the body of the Irish
nation has been feminized in terms of the icons Mother Ireland and
Cathleen NÌ Houlihan, how far do Irish women poets abandon
conventional maps of the national body so as to chart a less sacred,
more fluid, less grounded and less delimited elsewhere using improper
narratives such as those alluded to by Clair Wills in Improprieties
(1993)? In answer to this question, it is necessary to explore how the
17 Cf. Nancy Fraser & S. Barkley, Revaluing French Feminism: Critical Essays
On Difference (Indiana: University Press, 1991). Judith Butler, Gender
Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990)
and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ìSexî (London:
Routledge, 1993).