The rise of the phoenix: restoration and renaissance in contemporary Irish writing

Abstract

The focus of this special edition of the Irish Studies Review is on responses in Irish writing to the social, political, economic, and cultural realignments in Irish life that began after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger in 2008. In particular, the essays here examine how Irish writers have reckoned with the rise of the so-called “Celtic Phoenix,” a term that gained currency in the middle of the 2010s, and how the form, direction, and dissemination of Irish literature have evolved during this period. Obviously, to provide a completely exhaustive account of Irish literature from 2008 to the present would require significantly more space than is available here, and it need hardly be stated that it was not possible to comprehensively survey the entire literary landscape over the course of eight essays, nor was that our intention. Furthermore, although poetry, film, and, to a lesser extent, drama have flour-ished during this period, the scope of this special edition encompasses primarily prose fiction, with some attention paid to non-fiction. The short story and the novel, in particular, have been characterised as central to a current literary “renaissance” in Ireland, and the formal daring and thematic boldness of this new writing has been enabled and engendered by the “agility” and “dynamism of Ireland’s publishing scene.” 1 The authors here engage with some of the key literary directions, trends, and concerns, mostly, though not exclusively, in the work of writers who have emerged over the last decade and a half, and it is our aim that this scholarship will usefully contribute to the growing body of critical work on what now appears, even at this close juncture, to be one of the most significant 10 to 15 years in modern Irish literary history. The phrase “Celtic Phoenix” requires some elucidation. As a locution, it clearly evokes the term “Celtic Tiger” and substitutes the image of a ruthless, rapacious predator with the immortal figure of the phoenix – a periodically self-immolating and miraculously resur-recting bird of myth. While both phrases could be viewed as potentially glib or reductive, they are important signifiers that have gained significant