Reading List

*As we are continuously updating the reading list it is advisable that you check this page regularly for new readings.

Keelin Burke

Leanne Lane, Rosamond Jacob: Third Person Singular, Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2010, chapter 6, “Politics 1922-1936”

Margaret O’Callaghan, “Introduction: Women and Politics in Independent Ireland, 1921-1968,” in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Volume V: Irish Women’s Writing and Traditions, ed. Angela Bourke, et al., Cork: Cork University Press, in association with Field Day, 2002.

Jim Culleton

Tuesday Evening (following the news) by Darren Donohue [PDF available on request – added 10 May]

Dialogue by Gregory Rosenstock [PDF available on request – added 10 May]

The Press by David Lloyd [PDF available on request – added 10 May]

The Pride of Parnell Street by Sebastian Barry [PDF available on request – added 10 May]

Seamus Deane

Brian Friel, Plays, 2 vols. (London, 2001) [especially vol. 1)

Seamus Deane, ‘Field Day’s Greeks (and Russians)’, in Marianne McDonald and J. Michael Walton eds., Amid Our Troubles: Irish Versions of Greek Tragedy (London, 2002), pp.148-164

Ciaran Deane, ‘Brian Friel’s Translations: The Origins of a Cultural Experiment’, Field Day Review, 5 (2009), 7-48

Kevin Whelan, ‘Between: The Politics of Culture in Friel’s Translations’ Field Day Review, 6 (2010), 7-28

Christopher Murray, ed., Brian Friel: Essays, Diairies, Interviews 1964-1999 (London, 1999)

Alan Peacock ed., Brian Friel, Essays (Gerrards Cross, 1993)

Marilyn Richtarik, Acting Between the Lines: Field Day Theatre and Irish Cultural Politics 1980-1984 rev. ed, (Oxford, 2001)

Aidan O’Malley, ‘Field Day and the Translation of Irish Identities’ (London, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011)

Celia de Freine

Primary text

Mná Dána (Arlen House / Syracuse University Press)

On the Border of Memory : Childhood in a Divided Ireland (New Hibernia Review, Vol 8, No 1, Spring 2004, pages 9 – 20)

A Soap for TnaG : Writing “Ros na Rún” (New Hibernia Review, Vol 3, No 1, Spring 1999, pages 142-148)

Diarmaid Ferriter

Roy Foster, Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change 1970-2000 (London, 2007)

Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-2002 (London, 2004) chapters 11-13

John Gibney

Christopher Morash, A history of Irish theatre, 1601-2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Aideen Howard

Carmel Winters, B for Baby, (Methuen)

Nancy Harris (Nick Hern), No Romance

Stacey Gregg (Nick Hern), Perve

Marina Carr, Sixteen possible glimpses

Declan Kiberd

Fintan O’Toole, Tom Murphy: The Politics of Magic

Anthony Roche ed, Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel

Richard Kearney, Anatheism

José Lanters

For Kilroy:

Thomas Kilroy, Talbot’s Box. Oldcastle, Co. Meath: Gallery Press, 1997.

Nicholas Grene, “Staging the Self: Person and Persona in Kilroy’s Plays.” Irish University Review 32/1 (2002): 70-82.

Patrick Mason, “Acting Out.” Irish University Review 32/1 (2002): 137-47.

Anthony Roche, “An Interview with Thomas Kilroy.” Irish University Review 32/1 (2002): 150-58.

For McDonagh:

Martin McDonagh, The Pillowman. (Available from Dramatists Playservice or Faber & Faber).

José Lanters, “The Identity Politics of Martin McDonagh.” In Martin McDonagh: A Casebook. Ed. Richard R. Russell (Routledge, 2007): 9-24.

Patrick Lonergan, “ ‘Never mind the shamrocks’: Globalizing Martin McDonagh.” In Martin McDonagh: A Casebook. Ed. Richard R. Russell (Routledge, 2007): 149-77.

Joseph Lennon

Primary texts

Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats
Woman and Scarecrow

Secondary texts

Richard Russell, “Talking with Ghosts of Irish Playwrights Past: Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats …” Comparative Drama Vol. 40, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 149-68.

Paula Murphy, “Staging Histories in Marina Carr’s Midlands Plays” Irish University Review, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Autumn – Winter, 2006), pp. 389-402

Patrick Lonergan

Rowe Readings
Terminus, Howie the Rookie, and Crestfall (latter two available in O’Rowe Plays One)

Walsh Readings

The Walworth Farce, New Electric Ballroom, Penelope (WF and NEB are available in a single-volume edition from Theatre Communications Group; all three are available in single editions from Nick Hern Books).

Helen Lojek

Dramatic Landscapes

Brian Friel, Wonderful Tennessee

Conor McPherson, The Weir

Workshop with Frank McGuinness

Frank McGuinness, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme

Alternative Theatre in Northern Ireland

Charabanc, Somewhere Over the Balcony available in Four Plays by the Charabanc Theatre Company: Inventing Women’s Work. Ed. Claudia Harris. Colin Smythe Ltd., 2006. (PDF available on request)

Maria R. DiCenzo, “Charabanc Theatre Company: placing women center-stage in Northern Ireland.” Theatre Journal 45.2 (May 1993) 175-84. (Available online)

P.J. Mathews

Conor McPherson, The Weir (London: Nick Hern, 1998).

P.J. Mathews, ‘In Praise of “Hibernocentricism”: Republicanism, Globalisation and Irish Culture’, The Republic, 4 (2005): 5-14.

Fintan O’Toole, ‘Can Irish dramatists tackle the big questions again?’, Irish Times, 7 June 2011.

Brian Ó Conchubhair

From Bealoideas to Beckett

Breandán deLap,‘Never mind the Quality, Feel the Gaelic’, in Druids, Dudes and Beauty Queens (New Island 2001), 215-230.

Victoria White, ‘Fiche Bliain ag Fas’, Irish Theatre Magazine, 15 Sept 2010

Roundtable

Micheal O Conghaile, The Connemara Five (Arlen House, 2006).

Alan Titley, ‘Modern Irish Prose: A Necessary Introduction for the Uninitiated,’ Krino 1986-1996, 122-131.

Lionel Pilkington

Time, Memory, and Ideas of Performance in Contemporary Irish Drama

Core text: Brian Friel, Translations (1980)

Secondary readings:

Rebecca Schneider ‘Protest Now and Again’ TDR: The Drama Review 54.2 (Summer 2010) (T 206) pp 7-11

Conor McPherson ‘Afterword—The Weir’ in John P. Harrington (ed) Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (New York: Norton, 2009) 559-63.

Trailer to National Theatre and Abbey Theatre production of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock

Paige Reynolds

Readings:

Colm Tóibín, Testament (2011).

Colm Tóibín, Beauty in a Broken Place (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2004).

Kate Costello Sullivan, “Politics and the Lost Mother(s) in The Heather Blazing,” Mother/Country: Politics of the Personal in the Fiction of Colm Tóibín (Peter Lang, 2012): 65-96.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette, “Acting Age on Stage: Age-Appropriate Casting, the Default Body, and Valuing the Property of Having an Age,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 18:1 (Fall 2003): 7-28.

Shaun Richards

Mark O’Rowe, Terminus. London, Nick Hern Books. 2007

Articles

Declan Hughes, ‘Who The Hell Do We Think We Still Are?: Reflections on Irish Theatre and Identity’, in Eamonn Jordan (ed.) Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Dublin, Carysfort Press, pp. 8-15.

Tom Kilroy, ‘A Generation of Playwrights’, in Eamonn Jordan (ed.) Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Dublin, Carysfort Press, pp. 1-7.

Shaun Richards, "’To me, here is more like there’: Irish Drama and Criticism in the Collision Culture, Irish Studies Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2007, pp. 1-15.

Anthony Roche

Primary text

Brian Friel, Translations (Faber and Faber).

Secondary text

Friel’s Translations in Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995)

Friel’s Translations in Anthony Roche, Brian Friel: Theatre and Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

Domino Torres

Introduction and Chapter One:
Kuhling, Carmen and Kieran Keohane. Cosmopolitan Ireland. 2007.

Selected sections from:
Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics. 2008.

*As we are continuously updating the reading list it is advisable that you check this page regularly for new readings.