Eamonn Wall – författare

In recent decades, a large and well-regarded volume of creative work has emerged from the West of Ireland, written by residents of the region, by those raised in West of Ireland families outside the region, and by seasonal and occasional visitors. The fiction of John McGahern, the plays and films of Martin McDonagh, Tim Robinson's maps and place studies, the work of Richard Murphy, and the poetry of Mary O'Malley, Moya Cannon, and Sean Lysaght are known and admired worldwide. Yet, for all that has been made of the Western themes and settings in the work of such writers, and others, little effort has been made to examine their work collectively and in depth. Eamonn Wall's Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions is the first critical study to examine these seven contemporary Irish writers in their shared Western context. Wall describes, analyzes, and contextualizes their work to show the fundamental ways in which the region has influenced and shaped it. Certain themes and commonplaces recur obsessively: the bilingual nature of Western life and language, landscape, gender, poverty, the individual's relationship to nature and place, connections between Christianity and paganism, the overpowering weight of history, and each author's complex relationship to the Irish Literary Revival of Yeats, Lady Gregory, and J. M. Synge. Although well-developed theoretical approaches to reading Western American literature have been practiced for years, no such approaches exist in Irish discourse. Wall draws on extensive research on the literature of the American West for a comparative study that places the Irish and American Wests side by side. Underlined by an engagement with the role ecology plays in the study of literature, Writing the Irish West highlights uncanny connections between the works of West-of-Ireland writers and their Western American counterparts.

Eamonn Wall arrived in the United States in the 1980s as part of a wave of young, educated immigrants who became known as the ""New Irish"". In this book he comments on his own experiences and those of his generation, who identify as much with contemporary immigrant America as they do with the long-settled Irish American community. Wall's starting point is the now closed Sin-e Cafe in New York's East Village, which was a hangout in the early 1990s for expatriate Irish musicians, actors and writers. He comments on the poetry, fiction, essays, and memories of both the New Irish and Americans of Irish heritage, locating them within a literary and historical context. This is also a deeply personal book in which Wall wrestles with his own identity as an Irishman living in America, from the streets of Manhattan to the western hills of Nebraska.

« In an era when borders that previously defined Irish literature – whether spatial, social or of the body - demand renewed interrogation, Eamonn　Wall’s book breathes energy and rigour into readings of Irish writers ranging from ‘homegrown’ to ‘immigrant and diasporic’, and reveals the emergence of increasingly hybrid creative practices ».(Lorna Shaughnessy, Poet and　Director of　Crosswinds: Irish and Galician Poetry and Translation).« Using Gloria Anzaldua’s work,　Wall　examines "borderlands" in Irish writing. These liminal spaces are not just territories, but culture, tradition, and time.　Wall　focuses on the borders that divide like class, gender, and sexuality but also language and the divide between the physical and spiritual worlds».(Timothy J. White, Professor of Political Science, Xavier University).In this study, Eamonn Wall brings the work of the American writer/scholar/activist Gloria Anzaldúa into dialogue with contemporary Irish and Irish American writing to reveal the many strategies that authors employ to describe, represent and navigate borders and borderlands. Borders, as Wall reveals, are not only geographical, but they are also psychological, ethical, gendered, abstract and obvious, and underlie much of life. Borderlands are liminal spaces in areas alongside borders that can be both liberating and frightening. Employing Anzaldúa’s language and methodology, Wall’s reveals how central borderlands are to the work of John McGahern, E.M. Reapy, Anna Burns, Úna Minh-Kavanagh, Terence Winch, Louis Owens, James Welsh, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, Philip Casey, and others.

"One of our most beloved contemporary poets", is how former Ireland Professor of Poetry Paula Meehan describes Philip Casey (1950-2018). Cherished by many for his tenderness, fortitude, hope and tenacity, Philip was an award-winning novelist, admired poet and vital presence on the Irish literary scene for four decades. Philip battled repeated health challenges, stood up for causes he believed in, and relished making mischief. He was, in the words of the poet Theo Dorgan, "some man for one man". Philip believed in the idea of a community of writers, and his open-mindedness drew others towards him - whether to his Dublin home, or to his grassroots support base in his earlier home of Hollyfort, Co Wexford. His booming laugh and powerful handshake were legendary. The many contributors, including Sebastian Barry, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Dermot Bolger, Moya Cannon and Thomas Lynch, praise Philip Casey's gifts as a writer of poetry and fiction, as well as highlighting their admiration for him as a man.