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

Yıl 2021, Cilt: 61 Sayı: 1, 359 - 383, 24.06.2021

Tuğba Şimşek

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

Öz

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.

Anahtar Kelimeler

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

Kaynakça

• Arensberg, Conrad M. and Solon T. Kimball, eds. Family and Community in Ireland. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1968.
• Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies Theory and Practice. London: Sage, 2003.
• Bauman, Zygmunt. “Identity in the Globalizing World.” Identity in Question. Eds. Anthony Elliott and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 2009. 1-12.
• Bertha, Csilla. “Brian Friel as Postcolonial Playwright.” The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel. Ed. Anthony Roche. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006. 154-65.
• Biletz, Frank A. Historical Dictionary of Ireland. Plymouth: Scarecrow, 2014.
• Brown, Terence. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922-2002. London: Harper Perennial, 2004.
• Carrassi, Vito. “The Precursor of Yeats in the Recovery of the Narrative Tradition.” The Irish Fairy Tale: A Narrative Tradition from the Middle Ages to Yeats and Stephens. Lanham: John Cabot UP, 2012. 43-58.
• Chambers, Lilian, and Eamonn Jordan, eds. Introduction. Theatre of Conor McPherson: Right Beside the Beyond. Dublin: Carysfort, 2012. 1-19.
• Clancy, Michael. New Directions in Tourism Analysis: Brand New Ireland? Tourism, Development and National Identity in the Irish Republic. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. Ebrary. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.
• Cleary, Joe. “Estranged States: National Literatures, Modernity and Tradition, and the Elaboration of Partitionist Identities.” Literature, Partition and the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 51-94.
• Cronin, Michael, and Barbara O’Connor, eds. Introduction. Irish Tourism: Image, Culture, and Identity. Clevedon: Channel View, 2003. 1-18. Ebrary. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.
• Cummings, Scott T. “Homo Fabulator: The Narrative Imperative in Conor McPherson’s Plays.” Ed. Eamonn Jordan. Theatre Stuff: Critical Essays on Contemporary Irish Theatre. Dublin: Carysfort, 2009. 303-12.
• Daly, Mary E. History of Ireland and the Irish Diaspora: Slow Failure: Population Decline and Independent Ireland, 1920-1973. Wisconsin: The U of Wisconsin P, 2006.
• Dantanus, Ulf. “The Inner Life of the Nation: Religion, the Otherworld and Death in Con-temporary Irish Drama.” Redefinitions of Irish Identity: A Postnationalist Approach. Eds. Irene Gilsenan Nordin and Carmen Zamorano Llena. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010. 267-92. Ebrary. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.
• Deane, Seamus. Strange Country: Modernity and Nationhood in Irish Writing since 1790. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.
• Elliott, Anthony and Charles Lemert. “The Global New Individualist Debate: Three Theories of Individualism and Beyond.” Identity in Question. Eds. Anthony Elliott and Paul du Gay. London: Sage, 2009. 37-64.
• Ferguson, Molly Elizabeth. “The Ghost in the Irish Psyche: Ghost Stories in Contemporary Irish Literature.” Diss. U of Connecticut, 2010. ProQuest. Web. 15 May 2014.
• Fitzpatrick, Lisa. “Representing Sexual Violence in Early Plays of Conor McPherson.” Theatre of Conor McPherson: Right Beside the Beyond. Eds. Lillian Chambers and Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort, 2012. 61-76.
• Fogarty, Matthew. “‘Most foul, strange and unnatural’: Refractions of Modernity in Conor McPherson’s The Weir.” The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies 17 (2018): 17-37. MURAL- Maynooth University Research Archive Library. Web. 24 Jan. 2021.
• Foster, Robert Fitzroy. Modern Ireland 1600-1972. London: The Penguin, 1988.
• Gibbons, Luke. “The Global Cure? History, Therapy and the Celtic Tiger.” Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy. Eds. Peadar Kirby, Luke Gibbons and Michael Cronin. London: Pluto, 2002. 87-106.
• Gilleard, Chris. Old Age in Nineteenth-Century Ireland Ageing under the Union. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
• Grene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004.
• Grene, Nicholas. “Ireland in Two Minds: Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson.” The Yearbook of English Studies 35 (2005): 298-311. JSTOR. Web. 29 Dec. 2013.
• Guinnane, Timothy W. The Vanishing Irish Households, Migration, and the Rural Economy in Ireland, 1850-1914. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997.
• Gussow, Mel. “From Dublin to Broadway, Spinning Tales of Irish Wool.” The New York Times. 1 Apr. 1999. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.
• Hachey, Thomas E. “From Free State to Republic, 1922-1996.” The Irish Experience: A Concise History. Eds. Thomas E Hachey, Joseph M. Hernon, Jr., and Lawrence J. McCaffrey. Rev. ed. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. 167-267.
• Hall, Stuart. “The Question of Cultural Identity.” Modernity: An introduction to Modern Societies. Eds. Stuart Hall, David Held, Don Hubert, and Kenneth Thompson. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996. 596–632.
• Hazucha, Andrew. “The Shannon Scheme, Rural Electrification, and Veiled History in Conor McPherson’s The Weir.” New Hibernia Review 17.1 (2013): 67-80. Ebsco. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
• Hill, Christopher Austin. “‘But It Was Changing,’ ‘And Now I Can’t Go Back’: Reflections of a Changing Ireland in the Work of Conor McPherson.” Diss. Ohio State U, 2010. OhioLINK. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
• Horgan, Mervyn. “Anti-Urbanism as a Way of Life: Disdain for Dublin in the Nationalist Imaginary.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies (2004): 38-47. Google Scholar. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.
• Hutchinson, John. The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State. London: Allen and Unwin, 1987.
• İnan, Dilek. “Conor Mcpherson’s The Weir: New Master of Irish Storytelling.” Tiyatro Araştırmaları Dergisi 36.2 (2013): 61-73. Google Scholar. Web. 30 Feb. 2016.
• Inglis, Tom. “The Religious Field in Contemporary Ireland: Identity, Being Religious and Symbolic Domination.” Ireland Beyond Boundaries: Mapping Irish Studies in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Liam Harte and Yvonne Whelan. London: Pluto, 2007. 111-34.
• Jordan, Eamonn. “Pastoral Exhibits: Narrating Authenticities in Conor McPherson’s ‘The Weir.’” Irish University Review 34.2 (2004): 351–68. JSTOR. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.
• Keogh, Dermot. “The Catholic Church in Ireland since the 1950s.” Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec. Ed. Leslie Woodcock Tentler. Washington: The Catholic U of America P, 2007. 93-149. Ebrary. Web. 19 Jan. 2016.
• Kerrane, Kevin. “The Structural Elegance of Conor McPherson’s The Weir.” New Hibernia Review 10.4 (2006): 105-21. Project Muse. Web. 29 Dec. 2013.
• Kuhling, Carmen, and Kieran Keohane. Cosmopolitan Ireland: Globalisation and Quality of Life. London: Pluto, 2007. Ebrary. Web. 25 Dec. 2014.
• Llewellyn-Jones, Margaret. “Myth and Masculinity.” Contemporary Irish Drama and Cultural Identity. Bristol: Intellect, 2002. 93-117.
• Lonergan, Patrick. “Irish Theatre and Globalisation: Faustian Pact?” Cultural Perspectives on Globalisation and Ireland. Ed. Eamon Maher. Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2009. 177-90. Ebrary. Web. 30 Feb. 2016.
• Lyons, Francis Stewart Leland. Ireland Since the Famine. Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, 1976.
• Mathews, P. J. “The ‘Sweet Smell’ of the Celtic Tiger: Elegy and Critique in Conor McPherson’s The Weir.” Theatre of Conor McPherson: Right Beside the Beyond. Eds. Lillian Chambers and Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort, 2012. 151-63.
• McGovern, Mark. “‘The Cracked Pint Glass of the Servant’: the Irish Pub, Irish Identity and the Tourist Eye.” Irish Tourism: Image, Culture, and Identity. Eds. Michael Cronin and Barbara O’Connor. Clevedon: Channel View, 2003. 83-103. Ebrary. Web. 25 Dec. 2015.
• McPherson, Conor. “Conor McPherson Lifts the Veil: His Characters Peer through Drunkenness (Which He’s Left Behind) and Existential Dread (Which He Hasn’t) for Glimpses of Truth.” Interview by Cassandra Csencsitz. American Theatre 24.10 (2007): 36-38. Ebsco. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
• McPherson, Conor. “Conor McPherson.” Interview by Jody Allen Randolph. Close to the Next Moment: Changing Ireland. Manchester: Carcanet, 2010. 79-88. Google Books. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
• McPherson, Conor. “Interview: Conor McPherson.” Interview by Caroline McGinn. Time Out London. 26 Sept. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2016.
• McPherson, Conor. “Interview with Conor McPherson.” Interview by Noelia Ruiz. Theatre of Conor McPherson: Right Beside the Beyond. Eds. Lillian Chambers and Eamonn Jordan. Dublin: Carysfort, 2012. 275-96.
• McPherson, Conor. “UCD Connections Conor McPherson Interview Part 6.” Interview by Dave Fanning. Youtube. Web. 22 Feb. 2016.
• McPherson, Conor. The Weir. Conor McPherson Plays: Two. London: Nick Hern, 2004. 11-74.
• O’Leary, Joseph S. “Religion, Ireland: in Mutation” Across the Frontiers: Ireland in the 1990s. Ed. Richard Kearney. Dublin: Wolfhound, 1988. 231-41.
• O’Mahony, Patrick, and Gerard Delanty. Rethinking Irish History: Nationalism, Identity and Ideology. London: Macmillan, 1998.
• O’Toole, Fintan. “Shadows over Ireland.” American Theatre 15.6 (1998). Ebsco. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
• O’Toole, Fintan. The Lie of the Land: Irish Identities. London: Verso, 1997.
• Pelletier, Martine. “New Articulations of Irishness and otherness on the Contemporary Irish Stage.” Irish Literature Since 1990: Diverse Voices. Eds. Scott Brewster and Michael Parker. Manchester: Manschester UP, 2009. 98-117.
• Pringle, Dennis. “Partition, Politics and Social Conflict.” Ireland: Contemporary Perspectives on a Land and its People. Eds. R. W. G. Carter, and A. J. Parker. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. 23-54.
• Scanlan, Margaret. Culture and Customs of Ireland. London: Greenwood, 2006. Google Books. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.
• State, Paul F. A Brief History of Ireland. New York: Infobase, 2009.
• Varenne, Hervé. “Dublin 16: Accounts of Suburban Lives.” Irish Urban Cultures. Eds. Chris Curtin, Hastings Donnan and Thomas M. Wilson. Belfast: The Queen U of Belfast, 1993. 99-122.
• Wallace, Clare. “A Micronarrative Imperative: Conor McPherson’s Monologue Dramas.” Irish Studies Review 14.1 (2006): 1-10. 19 Aug. 2006. Taylor and Francis. Web. 26 Jan. 2016.
• White, Timothy J. “What Does It Mean to Be Irish? The Transformation of Political Identity in Ireland.” Southeastern Political Review 24.1 (1996): 137-57. Wiley Online Library. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.
• Wood, Gerald C. Conor McPherson: Imagining Mischief. Dublin: The Liffey, 2003.