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Please join The James Joyce Centre for the launch of a new special issue and podcast series dedicated to the untold history of Ireland’s unmarried women. Celibacy in Irish Women’s Writing, edited by Dr. Paul Fagan, is an open-access Humanities special issue dedicated to less familiar feminist, queer, and activist versions of…
Please join The James Joyce Centre for the launch of a new special issue and podcast series dedicated to the untold history of Ireland’s unmarried women.
Celibacy in Irish Women’s Writing, edited by Dr. Paul Fagan, is an open-access Humanities special issue dedicated to less familiar feminist, queer, and activist versions of celibacy in Irish women’s movements and literature. Boasting new research from leading experts in Irish women’s writing, the essays explore representations of unmarried and widowed women in writing by Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O’Brien, Mary Lavin, Molly Keane, Eva Gore-Booth, Edna O’Brien, and more, in order to better understand the historical trajectories of the ‘female celibate’ as a political and cultural figure in Ireland.
In the accompanying podcast series Unmarried Sisters, Dr Paul Fagan speaks to leading figures in Irish, gender, and sexuality studies to learn more about historical collaborations and the bonds formed between differently celibate Irish women—whether in friendships, romantic relationships, creative collaborations or forms of political and revolutionary organisation—and to explore celibacy’s imbrications with first-wave feminist politics, patterns of queer kinship, and Irish literary modernism.
The special collection and podcast will be launched by Prof. Katherine Ebury (incoming UCD James Joyce Chair), with additional remarks by the editor Dr. Paul Fagan (University of Vienna) and contributors Prof. Anne Fogarty (UCD), Prof. Maureen O’Connor (UCC), Dr. Deirdre Foley (TCD) and Dr. Fae McNamara (Teesside University).
The special issue and podcast series were made possible by the support of the Research Ireland project Celibacy in Irish Women’s Writing, 1860s–1950s (GOIPD/2022/634).
Refreshments will be provided. The event is free but booking is essential.
The James Joyce Centre is supported by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport.
