Main Introduction
Myth and Motherland
There has been some discussion of the connection between gender and
nation in Irish discourse as in Richard Kearneyís Field Day pamphlet
entitled Myth and Motherland (1984) and Gerardine Meaneyís Sex
and Nation: Women in Irish Culture and Politics (1991). Kearney
explains how, particularly in nationalist myth, the Irish woman is
connected with Irish territory as Ireland is traditionally viewed in
terms of Mother Ireland or as Cathleen NÌ Houlihan. This argument is
developed in David Cairns and Toni OíBrien Johnsonís Gender in
Irish Writing (1991) which contains essays questioning the position of
the feminine subject in relation to Irish nationality. Likewise, the
notion of Ireland as the mother country, raped by the imposition of
colonial power, is addressed by Lyn Innes in Woman and Nation
(1993).^1 While making the connection between gender and nation in
Irish literature, these studies have paid little attention to the
representation of nationality within contemporary Irish poetry. Nor
have they considered the ways in which previous conceptions of
nationality are being abandoned and critiqued by contemporary poets
and critics.
Clair Wills’s Improprieties: Politics and Sexuality in Northern
Irish Poetry (1993) begins to approach the transgressive aspects of
nationality and femininity in Irish writing while focusing on the poetry
of Tom Paulin, Medbh McGuckian and Paul Muldoon.^2 In this study,
Wills exposes how these poets undermine traditional sexual
representation using ‘improper’ narratives with the effect of redefining
1 Richard Kearney, Myth and Motherland (Field Day Pamphlet, No.5, 1984);
David Cairns & Toni OíBrien Johnson, Gender in Irish Writing (Milton
Keynes: Open University Press, 1991); C. L. Innes, Woman and Nation
(London: Harvester, 1993).
2 Clair Wills, Improprieties: Politics and Sexuality in Northern Irish Poetry
(Oxford: University Press, 1993).