Overview

Tracing the evolution of the figure of the writer-cum-bureaucrat from the Victorian Irish Civil Service through to the present day, this volume examines the scenes of literary art that developed behind counters and desks in bureaucratic Dublin and Belfast, as well as the international contexts in which Irish writers found administrative work in the diplomatic sphere. Advancing our sense of the shape and dynamics of these environments, the volume maps out literary networks spanning both local and central government institutions, thus shedding new light on the phenomenon of the literariness of Irish officialdom. The volume shows that Irish writers in bureaucratic institutions drew extensively upon their work-life experiences in their writing, frequently emulating or critiquing bureaucratic writing practices in their literary work. Whilst exploring the ways in which employment in state bureaucracies facilitated literary writing, the volume also articulates the specific challenges facing Irish writer-officials whose freedom of expression was drastically curtailed by their position as state functionaries. Examining this complex literary scene of the state functionary across time presents a new window into the workings of the Irish state, as processed through the creative imagination of those who knew it best.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jonathan Foster ,  Elliott Mills
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Liverpool University Press
ISBN:  

9781836244929

ISBN 10:   1836244924
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   15 January 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Irish Writers in State Bureaucracy Jonathan Foster, Elliott Mills and Karl O’Hanlon Bram Stoker in Dublin Castle Paul Murray ‘A colossal business run by amateurs’: Susanne R. Day and the Cork Poor Law Board of Guardians Maria Luddy External Affairs: The Surrealist Statecraft of Denis Devlin’s Dream Journal Greg Londe Innovating from Within: Irish Writers as Radio Programming Staff in the Nascent Civil Service Eileen Morgan-Zayachek Out in the Bones of the World: Irish Women Poets and Public Space 1930–1945 Lucy Collins ‘Bureaucratic Joyceanism’: Finnegans Wake and Other Required Reading for Civil Servants Joseph LaBine and Tobias W. Harris ‘Splendour and Strong Arm, Vessel of the State’: Ideological Interpellation in Brian O’Nolan’s Irish Dystopias Andrew V. McFeaters ‘A civil servant who writes poetry?’: Máire Mhac an tSaoi and Mid-Century Bureaucratic Modernity Síobhra Aiken ‘A Belfast “Archon Versifying in his Exile”’: The Office Poetry of Norman Dugdale Jonathan Foster and Christina McCambridge Death Duties: The Office Aesthetic of Dennis O’Driscoll John O’Donnell ‘Working for the Government’: The Poetry of Gerard Fanning in the Emerging Ireland of the 1970s Gerald Dawe

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Author Information

Jonathan Foster recently completed a PhD thesis at Stockholm University investigating representations of public administration in British fiction. He works mainly on literature and state bureaucracy. Elliott Mills is a Research Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. He focuses on Irish literature and modernism. He is completing a monograph on Flann O’Brien and twentieth-century media.

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