Overview

The Maamtrasna Murders of 1882—in which three men who spoke only Irish were wrongfully sentenced to death after a trial conducted fully in English—stand as one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in Irish history. In this book, Margaret Kelleher uses the Maamtransa case, notorious for its failure to interpretive and translation services to monoglot Irish speakers, as a starting point for an investigation into broader sociolinguistic issues. Uncovering archival materials not previously consulted, this book illuminates a story that has proven to be a much messier social narrative than previously recognized. Kelleher show that, although the wrongful execution of monolingual Irishmen have historically been the best-known feature of the case, the complex significance of language use in an isolated region mirrors the dynamics that continue to influence the fates of monolingual and bilingual people today.  

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9781910820421

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'For those people today whom we might see as the symbolic descendants of Myles Joyce - seeking legal representation in a court whose language is not theirs - standing at the bar of judicial process and of public opinion can remain a perilous place.' ;Margaret Kelleher on the the shambles of Maamtrasna, Irish Times, November 2018

Author Information

Margaret Kelleher is Professor and Chair of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at UCD. Her books include The Feminization of Famine (1997), The Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2006), co-edited with Philip O'Leary, and Ireland and Quebec: Interdisciplinary Essays on History, Culture and Society (2016), co-edited with Michael Kenneally. From 2009 to 2016 she was Chairperson of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures.

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