womenandexileinirishliteratureandculture ! !reading!group!...5!!!!...

Women and Exile in Irish Literature and Culture

Reading Group The London Irish Women’s Centre

2pm-‐5pm on Wednesdays October 12th to December 14th 2011

Approaching Euston, Bernard Canavan

The Women and Exile in Irish Literature and Culture Reading Group is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and supported by the London Irish Women’s Centre.

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Each year the AHRC provides funding from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities. Only applications of the highest quality are funded and the range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK. For further information on the AHRC, please go to: www.ahrc.ac.uk.

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Introduction

In the 1990s women were, according to one historian, still the ‘great unknown’ of Irish

emigrant history, but more recently the work of historians and social scientists has begun to

uncover this missing history. This is all the more striking, given that we now know that at

least as many women as men emigrated from Ireland in the last century. In Irish literature, a

similar pattern can be observed – the male Irish writer and artist as exile is a dominant

figure, but his female counterpart is far less visible. In the sessions to come, we will look at

how a range of different authors have responded to the history of Irish women emigrants

over time and will talk about the same in relation to the lived experience of Irish women,

their emigration to Britain, in particular to England, and the Ireland they left behind. The

early sessions will look at the role of women in the established tradition of Irish literature

and the role of women in depictions of the male-‐centred experience of emigration, but we

will go on to discuss more recent writing that shows a particular concern for the fate of the

Irish woman emigrant. In doing so, we will read poems, short stories, novels and first-‐hand

testimonies of the emigrant experience that explore the reasons why Irish women left, or

had no choice but to leave Ireland. We will also examine their experience on arriving in

Britain, and their presence in the diasporic community. In addition, we will read and discuss

a number of texts that imagine the lives of Irish women born in England, and the experience

of second and third generation Irish women. The reading group will be a forum for the

discussion of the lived experiences of Irish emigrant women and the way in which the same

is reflected and imagined in the Irish literary tradition.

An important feature of the series will be guest visits from authors who have written about

the Irish community, and in particular the experience of Irish women, in Britain, including:

Moy McCrory, Anna May Mangan, Janet Behan, Ann Rossiter, Bronwen Walter, Joanne

O’Brien, and Eamer O’Keeffe.

You will find all of the materials needed for the reading group in your LIWC book bag.

Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn and Edna O’Brien’s The Light of Evening are also available as audio

books from the LIWC library.

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A note about the meetings

The meetings will be informal discussions of the books and films in question – the important

thing is to share our responses to the works. The questions I have provided are just a

starting point and the conversation will be driven by questions raised within the group.

Where appropriate, I will provide additional material on handouts week-‐to-‐week.

If at any point you need to get in touch with me, my email address is:

[email protected]

You can also contact me by leaving a message at the London Irish Women’s Centre, 59 Stoke

Newington Church Street, N16 OAR.

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 020 7249 7318

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Reading Group Outline Week 1 Wednesday 12th October Irish Women and Emigration Introduction Week 2 Wednesday 19th October Women, Exile, and the Irish Literary Tradition Short stories: George Moore, ‘Home Sickness’ (The Untilled Field, 1903); James Joyce, ‘Eveline’ (Dubliners, 1914); and Liam O’Flaherty, ‘The Letter’ (The Short Stories of Liam O’Flaherty, 1937) Poems: Eavan Boland, ‘The Emigrant Irish’, ‘An Irish Childhood in England: 1951’, ‘Mise Eire’ (Eavan Boland: Collected Poems, 1995); Paula Meehan, ‘The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks’ (The Man Who Was Marked by Winter, 1991) Paintings by Irish artists from Sean Keating to Bernard Canavan Week 3 Wednesday 26th October Leaving the Republic of Ireland, Leaving Northern Ireland Viewing of ‘I Only Came Over for a Couple of Years... Interviews with London Irish Elders’ (A film by David Kelly and Tony Murray, 2003) Short stories: Evelyn Conlon, ‘Transition’ (My Head is Opening, 1987); Moy McCrory, ‘Bleeding Sinners’ (Bleeding Sinners, 1988); Emma Donoghue, ‘Going Back’ (Ireland in Exile, 1993) Poems from Irish Lifelines: An Anthology of Poetry by Irish Women Survivors in London. Ed. Eamer O’Keeffe. London: London Irish Women’s Centre, 2008. Week 4 Wednesday 2nd November Irish Women in England Viewing and discussion of Atom Egoyan’s film adaptation of William Trevor’s novel Felicia’s Journey (1999) Week 5 Wednesday 9th November The Irish Woman Writer in England Visit by Janet Behan (author of Brendan at the Chelsea, 2008) Moy McCrory, ‘Touring Holiday’, ‘Prize Giving’ (The Water’s Edge and Other Stories, 1985); Anna May Mangan, Me and Mine (2011)

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Week 6 Wednesday 16th November London Irish Stories: A Writer Speaks Visit by Anna May Mangan (author of Me and Mine, 2011) Week 7 Wednesday 23rd November Growing Up Irish in England: A Writer Speaks Visit by Moy McCrory (author of The Water’s Edge and Other Stories, 1985) Week 8 Wednesday 30th November Irish Women in America Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn (2009) Week 9 Wednesday 7th December Letters Home Edna O’Brien, The Light of Evening (2006) Visit by Eamer O’Keeffe (editor of Irish Lifelines: An Anthology of Poetry by Irish Women Survivors in London, 2008). Week 10 Wednesday 14th December Researching Irish Women in Britain This session will include contributions from Ann Rossiter (author of Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-‐Irish Underground, 1980-‐2000, 2009), Bronwen Walter (author of Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women, 2001), and Joanne O’Brien (co-‐author of Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain, 1988).

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Week-‐by-‐Week – Things to Think About

Week 1 Wednesday 12th October Irish Women and Emigration Introduction In this session, we will look at a selection of material on handouts, including extracts from Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain (Mary Lennon, Marie McAdam, and Joanne O’Brien, 1988), Emigration Matters for Women (Kate Kelly and Triona Nic Giolla Choille, 1990), Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain (Bronwen Walter and Mary Hickman, 1997), Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-‐Irish Underground, 1980-‐2000 (Ann Rossiter, 2009), Women and the Irish Diaspora (Breda Gray, 2004), Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (Bronwen Walter, 2000), and extracts from speeches by President Mary Robinson. Week 2 Wednesday 19th October Women, Exile, and the Irish Literary Tradition Short stories: George Moore, ‘Home Sickness’ (The Untilled Field, 1903); James Joyce, ‘Eveline’ (Dubliners, 1914); and Liam O’Flaherty, ‘The Letter’ (The Short Stories of Liam O’Flaherty, 1937) Poems: Eavan Boland, ‘Mise Eire’, ‘The Emigrant Irish’, ‘An Irish Childhood in England: 1951’ (Eavan Boland: Collected Poems, 1995); Paula Meehan, ‘The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks’ (The Man Who Was Marked by Winter, 1991) Paintings by Irish artists from Sean Keating to Bernard Canavan Things to think about... How are women portrayed differently in the three stories by Joyce, Moore, and O’Flaherty? What is Eveline’s dilemma in Joyce’s short story? What role do women play in Moore’s ‘Home Sickness’? What form does ‘Home Sickness’ take in the story? What unspoken fears are hinted at in O’Flaherty’s story?

What do you make of the opening words ‘I won’t go back to it’ in Eavan Boland’s poem ‘Mise Eire’? What is it that the poem rejects? What does it seek instead?

How does the poem ‘The Emigrant Irish’ imagine emigration? What is lost? Is anything gained, according to the poem?

How does ‘An Irish Childhood in England: 1951’ imagine the experience of the emigrant child? What role does language play in this experience? What do you find particularly striking or expressive about the poem?

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The poem ‘The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks’ by Paula Meehan is a direct response to the tragic circumstances of the death of fifteen-‐year-‐old Ann Lovett in Granard, Co. Longford in 1984 and, like Eavan Boland’s poem ‘Mise Eire’, features another female figure, who breaks her silence. What is the purpose of the poem? Who or what is held responsible for the events that the poem describes? Why is it so significant that the statue of the Virgin speaks? Week 3 Wednesday 26th October Leaving the Republic of Ireland, Leaving Northern Ireland Viewing of ‘I Only Came Over for a Couple of Years... Interviews with London Irish Elders’ (A film by David Kelly and Tony Murray, 2003) What do the women’s stories have in common? What do they share in spite of the difference in decades? Are the worlds that they describe familiar ones?

Short stories: Evelyn Conlon, ‘Transition’ (My Head is Opening, 1987) Is it significant that the man in the story is a TD, and therefore a political and public representative? Maisie is described as ‘a silenced citizen’ at the end of the story – how does this relate to what the feminist writer Ann Rossiter calls the ‘Hidden Diaspora’ in her book Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-‐Irish Underground, 1980-‐2000?

Moy McCrory, ‘Bleeding Sinners’ (Bleeding Sinners, 1988) How is the female body represented in the story? What is the relationship between the world of the hospital and the events unfolding on the streets of Belfast beyond? ‘Evelyn would have gone anywhere with her husband, especially Canada. And for him she ended up stuck in Ulster.’ How does the story engage with the plight of Northern Irish women during ‘the Troubles’? How is emigration imagined in the story? In preparation for our author visit on the 23rd November, are there things we might want to ask Moy about her work and her experience of growing up Irish in Liverpool?

Emma Donoghue, ‘Going Back’ (Ireland in Exile, 1993) What is it that the characters fear most about the possibility of returning to Ireland? How does the story imagine Ireland? What do you make of Donoghue’s descriptions of London and the London-‐Irish community? Is England an uncomplicated refuge in this story? Poems from Irish Lifelines: An Anthology of Poetry by Irish Women Survivors in London (2008) What do we discover about the lives of Irish women in London from the anthology? What do we learn about the Ireland they left behind? How do the poems deal with loss, trauma, and survival?

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Week 4 Wednesday 2nd November Irish Women in England Viewing and discussion of Atom Egoyan’s film adaptation of William Trevor’s novel Felicia’s Journey (1999) How does the film establish Felicia’s home life and in particular her relationship with her father and great-‐grandmother? Felicia goes in search of the man who made her pregnant in the film, but to what extent is she also on the run from history? How is England imagined in the film? What do you make of Felicia’s dreams of home? How are encounters between Felicia and Mr Hilditch framed by Felicia’s Irishness? What is the significance of food and cooking in the film? Week 5 Wednesday 9th November The Irish Woman Writer in England This session will be split into two parts. The first half will be made up by a visit from the playwright Janet Behan, author of Brendan at the Chelsea, 2008. In the second half of the session, we will discuss the work of Moy McCrory and Anna May Mangan.

The Irish Woman Writer in England: A Writer Speaks Visit by Janet Behan (author of Brendan at the Chelsea, 2008) AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Janet’s father Brian (Behan, brother of playwright Brendan) emigrated from Dublin at the age of 25 and found himself, fresh off the boat, on the doorstep of a lodging house run by a couple of communists in Kennington Park Road. The woman who opened the door to him was soon to become his wife. Janet appeared on the scene three years later. She began writing when her children were small and her play Brendan at the Chelsea was produced in May this year at the brand new Lyric Theatre, Belfast. She lives in Stoke Newington with her husband and two sons.

Short stories: Moy McCrory, ‘Touring Holiday’, ‘Prize Giving’ (The Water’s Edge and Other Stories, 1985) ‘Touring Holiday’ deals in a very different way to Emma Donoghue’s ‘Going Back’ with the anxiety that sometimes accompanies ‘going home’ – what do we learn about the experience of second-‐generation Irish women from the story? What does ‘Prize Giving’ reveal about the tensions between the generations? What is the dilemma of the English-‐born child and her parents?

Anna May Mangan, Me and Mine (2011) What do we learn about the Irish community in London in the mid-‐twentieth century? What is most striking about the experiences of newly arrived Irish immigrants in London? The memoir deals with survival on a number of levels – How does it treat illness and loss? How would you describe the relationships between the women in the memoir, and the community that they create and maintain? In preparation for our author visit next week – are there things that we might particularly want to ask Anna May about the experience of writing the book, or the history that it records?

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Week 6 Wednesday 16th November London Irish Stories: A Writer Speaks Visit by Anna May Mangan AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Anna May Mangan was a late bloomer and began her writing career at 50 after raising four children, being a carer for her elderly parents, and a two times cancer patient herself. In the past two years she has contributed articles to newspapers and magazines including The Times, Independent and Mail on Sunday. Anna May has been shortlisted for the London Fringe Short Fiction Award, the RTE Radio/Frank MacManus Short Story Competition and was placed second in the 2008 Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition. Week 7 Wednesday 23rd November Growing Up Irish in England: A Writer Speaks Visit by Moy McCrory AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Moy McCrory has written three collections of short stories and a novel, has had work commissioned for theatre and has been broadcast on radio and TV. Her fiction has been translated into German, French, Turkish, Vietnamese, Dutch and Russian and this year, her first book has been issued in a Japanese edition. As a writer born in England, her work has seen her claimed critically as an Irish writer. Her work has been included in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing and in Irish Writing in the Twentieth Century (Cork University Press). She was one of the featured writers chosen by the national short story campaign ‘Endangered Species’ in 2004. She has worked as both a travel writer and an arts reviewer and was a weekly columnist for the London Times. In 2008 she was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. Themes in her work include the effects of culture and background on women, women’s history, and Irish studies. Week 8 Wednesday 30th November Irish Women in America Colm Tóibín, Brooklyn (2009) What characterises the world that Eilis Lacey leaves behind in the novel (particularly in relation to the social codes of the town of Enniscorthy as Tóibín imagines it)? What does the novel have to say about 1950s Ireland? How does America compare to Britain in the novel as a destination for Irish emigrants and, in particular, for Irish women emigrants? How is Brooklyn imagined in the novel, and what is the significance of Eilis’s interaction with other immigrant communities? What do you make of the final part of the novel – the way in which Eilis is received when she returns home and the choices she faces about her future?

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Week 9 Wednesday 7th December Letters Home Edna O’Brien, The Light of Evening (2006) How would you describe the mother-‐daughter relationship in the novel? Why is the story of Eleanora’s mother’s time in America important? What do we learn about Eleanora’s life as a writer? How does the novel explore the challenges that she faces as an Irish woman writer? Her mother is a writer of a different kind, and letters sent by her mother from her rural home place appear throughout and are collected together at the end of the novel – why are these letters so important? The novel spans the twentieth century, from Eleanora’s mother’s youth during the early decades of the century to her death almost eighty years later – how does this larger history shape the novel? Visit by Eamer O’Keeffe AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Eamer O’Keeffe (editor of Irish Lifelines: An Anthology of Poetry by Irish Women Survivors in London, 2008) was in a Survivors Group in Ireland, but left the country in 1969 to escape religious control. In London, she felt able to write freely, and her work was first published in 1992. To date, she has had hundreds of poems in print, and has produced 10 booklets. She performed for years with Survivors Poetry, and also at poetry events and festivals. An ardent fan of Bob Cobbing’s ‘nonsense’, she is committed to increasing knowledge and understanding for all kinds of survivors through her writing. Week 10 Wednesday 14th December Researching Irish Women in Britain Visit by Ann Rossiter (author of Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-‐Irish Underground, 1980-‐2000, 2009), Bronwen Walter (author of Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women, 2000), and Joanne O’Brien (co-‐author, with Mary Lennon and Marie McAdam, of Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain, 1988).

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES Ann Rossiter, a long-‐standing Irish feminist, has lived in London for half a century. She has been an activist in feminist groups concerned with the Irish National Question and is still working in groups supporting Irish abortion seekers in Britain. Ann has written and taught on these subjects and holds a doctorate on the history of the encounter between English and Irish feminism during the years of ‘the Troubles’. Her book, Ireland's Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-‐Irish Underground, 1980-‐2000 was published in 2009.

Bronwen Walter is Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies at Anglia Ruskin University. She has published widely on Irish migration to Britain and Irish women in the diaspora. She is co-‐author of the CRE Report Discrimination and the Irish Community in Britain (1997) and her book Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women was published by Routledge in 2001. She directed the ESRC-‐funded project ‘The second-‐generation Irish: A Hidden

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Population in Multi-‐ethnic Britain’ (2000-‐2002) and co-‐authored an academic study to inform the Task Force on Policy regarding Emigrants (2002). Joanne O’Brien is a photographer and writer who has been based in London since 1979. She works on documentary and portraiture and is especially interested in issues of identity and culture. She was co-‐author, with Mary Lennon and Marie McAdam, of Across the Water (1988), the first book on Irish women’s emigration to Britain. She has also written a book on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, A Matter of Minutes (2002). She was a founder member of Format Photographers (1983-‐2003), an all women photo-‐agency. Widely published in books, newspapers and magazines, her work was included in the Faces of the Century (2000) exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. She has also worked in China, the USA, and Europe. www.joanneobrien.co.uk Selected Group Shows: 2010 ‘Format Photographers 1983-‐2003’ the National Portrait Gallery, London 2003 ‘Ultimate Format’ Photofusion Gallery, London 2000 ‘Faces of the Century’ National Portrait Gallery, London. 1998 ‘Hidden Truths’ Centro de Imagen, Mexico Selected Solo Shows: 2010 February ‘Photograph of the Month’, National Portrait Gallery, London 2007 ‘Pathways to Northumberland Park’ Bruce Castle Museum, London, Commissioned by the Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University 2000-‐1 ‘When did you come over’ touring show for the Smurfit Irish Archive on the Irish in Britain, University of North London

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Additional Reading

Below is a representative selection of books, dvds, and critical material available from the LIWC library (in some cases, multiple copies are available). Please feel free to browse the shelves of the library and select items of interest. The development of the library has been made possible by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Eavan Boland, New Collected Poems. Manchester: Carcanet, 2005.

Dermot Bolger, ed. Ireland in Exile: Irish Writers Abroad. Dublin: New Island, 1993.

Dermot Bolger, The Journey Home. 1990. London: Flamingo, 2003.

Maeve Brennan, The Visitor. Dublin: New Island, 2006.

Mary Rose Callaghan, Emigrant Dreams. Dublin: Poolbeg, 1996.

Emma Donoghue, Hood. London: Penguin, 1995.

Atom Egoyan, dir. Felicia’s Journey (1999)

Anne Enright, What are you like? 2000. London: Vintage, 2001.

Anne Enright, The Gathering. 2007. London: Vintage, 2008.

Elgy Gillespie, Vintage Nell: The McCafferty Reader. Dublin: Lilliput, 2005.

Breda Gray, Women and the Irish Diaspora. London: Routledge, 2004.

Liam Harte, The Literature of the Irish in Britain: Autobiography and Memoir, 1725-‐2001. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Jennifer Johnston, The Christmas Tree. 1981. London: Headline, 1999.

Jennifer Johnston, The Gingerbread Woman. 2000. London: Headline, 2001.

James Joyce, Dubliners. 1914. London: Penguin, 2000.

Maeve Kelly, Florrie’s Girls. Belfast: Blackstaff, 1989.

Mary Lennon, Marie McAdam, and Joanne O’Brien, Across the Water: Irish Women’s Lives in Britain. London: Virago, 1988.

Moy McCrory, Bleeding Sinners. London: Methuen, 1988.

John McGahern, Amongst Women. 1991. London: Faber, 2008.

Paula Meehan, The Man Who Was Marked by Winter. Washington: Eastern Washington University Press, 1994.

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George Moore, The Untilled Field. 1903. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 2000.

Peter Mullan, dir. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls. 1960. London: Phoenix, 2007.

Edna O’Brien, Girl with Green Eyes. 1962. London: Phoenix, 2007.

Edna O’Brien, Girls in their Married Bliss. 1964. London: Phoenix, 2007.

Kate O’Brien, Pray for the Wanderer. 1938. Bath: Cedric Chivers, 1976.

Kate O’Brien, Mary Lavelle. 1936. London: Virago, 1994.

Joseph O’Connor, Cowboys and Indians. 1991. London: Vintage, 2008.

Julia O’Faolain, The Irish Signorina. 1984. London: Faber, 2009.

Julia O’Faolain, No Country for Young Men. 1980. London: Faber, 2009.

Nuala O’Faolain, Are You Somebody? 1996. Dublin: New Island, 2008.

Liam O’Flaherty, The Short Stories of Liam O’Flaherty. 1937. London: Sceptre, 1990.

Kate O’Riordan, The Memory Stones. London: Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Ann Rossiter, Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora: The ‘Abortion Trail’ and the Making of a London-‐Irish Underground, 1980-‐2000. London: Iasc, 2009.

Patrick O’Sullivan, ed. Irish Women and Irish Migration. London: Leicester University Press, 1995.

Jim Sheridan, dir. In America (2004)

Colm Tóibín, The South. 1990. London: Picador, 1992.

William Trevor, Felicia’s Journey. 1994. London: Penguin, 1995.

Bronwen Walter, Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women. London: Routledge, 2001.

womenandexileinirishliteratureandculture ! !reading!group!...5!!!!...

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