ABSTRACT
Approaching Irish literature involves facing the uneasy task of finding out exactly what results from the sum of the two terms which form this phrase. As is only to be expected from a country that has undergone several waves of cultural and political colonization throughout its history, in Ireland identity has remained one of the central concerns of academics, writers and politicians. Received notions of Irishness – as imagined in colonial and canonical nationalist discourses – have been persistently challenged by the changing realities of the country, as have assumptions about what constitutes Irish writing.
