Overview

This volume provides a critical analysis of Irish literature and the timely appraisal of contemporary developments in which ideas about Irishness have been constructed, exploited, and racialised. Exploring race, exceptionalism, and white supremacy, this book aims to start a conversation about the ways in which the idea of what it means to be ‘Irish’ has been constructed, reified, and commodified and the role that Irish Studies, and academia in general, plays in this. Dismantling the notion of Irishness, this text examines contemporary developments in Ireland relating to asylum seekers and ‘non-nationals’ in contemporary literary works, exploring a phenomenon that structures and creates power disparities. This volume will be an essential resource for academics interested in understanding current developments in Irish society.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sean O’ Dubhghaill
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.480kg
ISBN:  

9781032947068

ISBN 10:   1032947063
Pages:   166
Publication Date:   29 December 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Hostility and Hospitality 1.1. Afrophobia and Hibernophobia are not new: What is ‘group threat theory’? 1.2. The Contact Hypothesis and structural violence: How racial prejudice wanes as estrangement does 1.3. Host/Guest 1.4. Ireland’s full: When hospitality runs out Chapter 2: Suspect Communities and Hibernophobia 2.1. Suspect Communities 2.2. Similar behaviours, different levels of suspicion 2.3. On the receiving end of suspicion: On auto-ethnography 2.4. All suspicions are imagined unequally 2.5. Imagined communities versus suspect communities are equivalent to an imagined community versus a community imagined Chapter 3: Multiculturalism, populism and xenophobia 3.1. To oppose immigration 3.2. What multiculturalism needs to succeed 3.3. What kinds of policies does multiculturalism entertain? 3.4. No fences make good neighbours: Resolving conflict 3.5. Populism, or division is normal and natural 3.6. Irexit, or lies that populists need to be true 3.7. When is it rational to be xenophobic? Chapter 4: Diaspora Policy 4.1. The Irish diaspora is a great resource 4.2. Identity and business 4.3. The risk to Irish studies Chapter 5: Leuven and the reinvention of Ireland 5.1. The Irish diaspora and enterprise 5.2. The fire in Leuven Chapter 6: Re-visiting how the Irish became White (supremacists) 6.1. Difference and Prophet Song 6.2. The Irish became White 6.3. On the impossibility of studying the Irish 6.4. No one gives a damn about the Irish Chapter 7: Believe in Dublin. Believe in Ireland

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Author Information

Sean O’ Dubhghaill is Professor of International Relations at the Brussels School of Governance. He published An Anthropology of the Irish in Belgium: Belonging, Identity and Community in 2020.

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