Davide Mazzi – författare

Constitutions tell us something about the shared values cherished by nations who adopt them. By reason of their significance for the countries where they are in force, constitutional texts may be approached from various perspectives, including political science and legal theory. In this book, a different angle is taken on the matter. As its object of study, the Constitution of Ireland is investigated from a discourse perspective. In particular, the volume fields the following research questions: Why has the Constitution been such a key document for the Republic?; What was and is the impact of the Constitution on Irish public discourse, at both a popular and a specialised level?; How was the Constitution represented and "argued" by the Irish press upon its enactment?; How has it entered the argumentation of Irish judges across the decades, as they have been required to pronounce on the compatibility of proposed legislation with its norms? By combining a wide range of analytical approaches, the book establishes a workable, integrated and highly flexible methodological framework for the study of the relationship between Ireland's founding charter and the country's public sphere.

This book focuses on the representation of the Gaeltacht in the Irish press. It examines texts from a key moment in the history of Irish journalism, namely the decade between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth (1895−1905). Newspapers and periodicals have often been discussed with a view to their contents, or else they have served as supporting materials for scholars in Irish history. However, little to no interest has been taken so far in the language of the Irish press and the structure or discursive organisation of its news texts. In an attempt to contribute to filling this gap, this work is intended to carry out a corpus-based and discourse study of Irish news texts. The analysis fields the following general questions: How was the Gaeltacht represented in mainstream newspapers of the time? What aspects of Irish identity does the representation highlight, beyond the vivid description of remote places? In that regard, what are the concurring or competing voices of journalists engaging in the Irish public sphere? How do such voices actively shape news discourse in order to argue distinctive visions of Ireland?