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1 results

  • Chapter 1 - The War Observed

  • from Part I - After the War: Ideologies in Transition
  • Edited by Eve Patten, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book:
    Irish Literature in Transition, 1940–1980
    Published online:
    28 February 2020
    Print publication:
    12 March 2020, pp 27-45

  • Summary

    This chapter reconsiders the cultural condition of 1940s Ireland in the context of wartime neutrality, exploring the literary response to the hostilities in Ireland itself, north and south, and the complex positioning of the writers involved who treated its effects on a domestic landscape, including Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Kate O’Brien, Elizabeth Bowen and Benedict Kiely. How did Irish writers respond to the aftermath of the Second World War and, in particular, the filtering of information about the Holocaust? The Irish author and playwright Denis Johnston, a BBC correspondent in the Middle East for much of the conflict, represents one of those with direct experience of the action and its diplomatic fallout. This chapter challenges a historical acceptance that Ireland became increasingly insular and detached as a result of its wartime political neutrality, and identifies instead a set of important literary engagements driven by the wider horizon of the conflict.