ABSTRACT
To write about Northern Ireland is to be always in the middle of something. This can be the middle of an ongoing, rapidly changing political situation. It can involve navigating a path through the intersections of different academic disciplines. This chapter is informed by ten years of working and living in the North of England while writing about, teaching, and doing public engagement activity on the literature and culture of the North of Ireland. In his introduction to Queering the Green, Paul Maddern notes that the most powerful issues for the writers in the anthology were how Ireland deals with Brexit, climate change, the marginalisation of working class and women’s voices, the legacy of institutional abuse, the influx and treatment of refugees and migrants, and how Ireland meets the needs of its people of colour and its queer communities.
