This course is an introduction to the power, variety and continuing importance of Irish writing. Students will study the relationship between art and its social and cultural context, as well as explore the following themes: history, memory, mythology and the occult, cultural identity, the origins and creations of language; religion and ‘terrorism’.

We will begin with Maria Edgeworth's lively and insightful 'Big House' novel Castle Rackrent, which illuminates the fading feudal world of Ireland past. Next, we explore the varied works of WB Yeats, who touches on Romantic, Victorian and Modernist literary traditions. We will also consider the lyrical comedies of JM Synge; James Joyce's and Samuel Beckett's experiments with language; the airy, committed poetry of Patrick Kavanagh and the work of Elizabeth Bowen and Eimear McBride. In the final classes, we will unpick the memorable poems of Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney, and examine a diverse range of modern Irish poetic voices.

Related study trip

Optional weekend trip to Dublin, including historical and literary tours of the city, taking in Trinity College Library and the Book of Kells, a ninth-century manuscript of the Gospels, and either Kilmainham Jail, where leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were executed, or The Dublin Writer's Museum.

While subsidised by ASE, an additional fee of approximately £200 is payable for this trip.

ASE reserves the right to change the content of course-specific study trips where necessary.