ABSTRACT
Approaching Irish cinema through the concept of genre raises a key question: how might genre and nation—at first sight two distinct categories—be connected? In film theory, “genre” is largely a phenomenon of Hollywood, while Irish cinema provokes debates about colonial representations, national and nationalist traditions, and indigenous forms of storytelling. Nevertheless, contemporary Irish filmmaking frequently mixes motifs clearly marked as nationally specific with an eclectic array of generic features derived from American popular culture, suggesting, if the pairing is to be maintained, the need for a different conception of genre from that elaborated for Hollywood.
