IRELAND/IRISHNESS IN TRANSITION: CONOR MCPHERSON'S “THE WEIR”

Year 2021, Volume: 61 Issue: 1, 359 - 383, 24.06.2021

Tuğba Şimşek

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.1.14

Abstract

As a contemporary Irish playwright who is well-known for his monologue plays, Conor
McPherson (1971- ) illustrates the changing process of Irishness within the scope of
clashing traditional and modern values in The Weir. In the early twentieth century as a
result of the nationalist and isolationist policy, Irish identity was constructed as rural,
agricultural, and Catholic, but it began to change with the impact of the Celtic Tiger
referring to an economic boom starting in the mid-1990s. In this article, The Weir is
analysed as a transition play representing the 1990s in terms of the collision of the old and
the new Irishness with regard to social, sexual, and religious values. This paper aims to
examine and discuss Ireland and Irishness in transition within the context of rural-urban,
traditional-modern, local-global dichotomies escalating by the impact of the Celtic Tiger
period.

Keywords

Conor McPherson, The Weir, The Celtic Tiger, Irish Identity

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