Contemporary Irish Detective Novel

Elizabeth Mannion earned her PhD at Trinity College, Dublin. Her research and teaching cover an interdisciplinary range of Irish studies, from modern drama to contemporary crime fiction. Recent publications include The Urban Plays of the Early Abbey Theatre: Beyond O’Casey, as well as chapters in the forthcoming Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland and A Cambridge History of Irish Working-Class Writing.

• Introduction; Elizabeth Mannion.- 1.Hello Dálaigh; Nancy Marck Cantwell.- 2.A ‘honeycomb world’; Brian Cliff.- 3.‘Where No Kindness Goes Unpunished’; Charlotte J. Headrick.- 4.Detecting Hope; Andrew Kincaid.- 5.Negotiating Borders; Carol Baraniuk.- 6.‘The Place You Don’t Belong’; Fiona Coffey.- 7.Voicing the Unspeakable; Shirley Peterson.- 8.‘Irish by Blood and English by Accident’; Elizabeth Mannion.- 9.Quirke, The 1950s and Leopold Bloom; Audrey McNamara.

“The critical scholars chosen to contribute to the collection are as diverse as the books examined, and this brings much to the table. … The Contemporary Irish Detective serves as a powerful tonic to those upset by poor service from the academic world.” (Gerard Brennan, Breac - A Digital Journal of Irish Studies, breac.nd.edu, June 19, 2019)“This collection of nine insightful essays opens new ground and advocates for a more considered appraisal of detective fiction, within Irish literary studies. Each essay offers a broad overview of several texts, considering reoccurring thematic issues across the series, rather than close readings of a single novel. The range and scope covered by the nine essays is commendable and a judiciously light theoretical emphasis, the absence of elitist academic jargon, will warm even casual readers to the analysis.” (John Singleton, Review of Irish Studies in Europe – RISE, Vol. 2 (1-3), March, 2018)“The collection of essays in The Contemporary Irish Detective Novel proposes – and provides – an expansion of Irish Studies to include also Irish detective fiction in a serious way. … As stated earlier, I consider this anthology to be of interest to many readers, both those interested in Irish studies, and those interested in crime fiction generally. The chapters successfully combine and expand both areas.” (Katarina Gregersdotter, Nordic Irish Studies, Vol. 16, 2017)