ABSTRACT
Irish cultural criticism was born during the revolutionary era of the late Victorian period as the child of crisis, and crisis remained its dominant mode of articulation and operation throughout the twentieth century. As the result of more recent developments at both a national and an international level – the demise of the Celtic Tiger, the advance of political populism, the escalating environmental crisis, and so on – that impression of crisis has moved from a metaphorical to a literal register in the last three decades or so. This essay brings together personal memory (my own and those of some of my contemporaries), cultural theory and the pressing politics of the present moment in an attempt to re-orient Irish Studies towards a more impactful and more responsible mode of operation going forward.
