ABSTRACT
For a number of Irish poets and writers whose politics were shaped in the crucible of the Thirties, the Second World War brought the idea of fighting fascism into stark reality, whilst at the same time creating conflicts of ideology and allegiance. The vexed question of Irish neutrality tested a competing array of loyalties for Irish writers on the Left. The dilemmas and contradictions for Irish Leftist writers were further complicated by geography, as they were located sometimes in wartime Britain, sometimes in Ireland. The chapter recovers the little-known wartime writing by Irish left-wing writers and explores the ethical and political dilemmas thrown up by war. This chapter examines how these quandaries, regarding political allegiance and literary response, were resolved, or accommodated, among the quartet of writers and their peers. The chapter also charts the artistic responses to the circumstances of the war: how Sayers and Daiken in different ways explored the parameters of their new identities as “anti-fascist Jewish writers”; diverse texts such as Ewart Milne’s war poetry; and the memoir writing about wartime Ireland by Stella Jackson.
