This article assesses the critical role played by youth theatre for young people in contemporary Irish society, tracing its origins from the 1970s to the 2020s, with particular consideration of the Celtic Tiger period. It takes into account the positive discourses surrounding youth theatre and interrogates how the practice encourages the personal, social and artistic empowerment of young people in Ireland today. Creative organisations such as Graffiti Theatre Company (Cork) serve as examples of pioneers of good practice for youth social engagement and community outreach work. Drawing on education and cultural studies, this article asserts that Irish youth theatre still maintains a strong social vocation, and we examine the institutional frameworks at play behind this. This includes tracing the history behind the recent boom in opportunities for arts funding, the growing urgency of youth well-being, and the role of the Irish education system in its encouragement of youth creativity.
This article examines the representation of children in fiction written during the 19th century about the 1798 rebellion. 1798 was the most frequent setting for historical fiction in Ireland during this period, with both nationalist and unionist authors returning to 1798 to argue for their vision for the future of Ireland. In the three novels discussed, Donal Dun O’Byrne (1869) by Denis Holland, Shilrick, the Drummer: or Loyal and True (1894) by Julia Agnes Fraser and Corrageen in ’98 (1898) by Adela Elizabeth Orpen, children are to a large extent used as symbols for the author’s ideas about the causes of the rebellion and the way forward for Ireland.
This paper wishes to assess and question the transgenerational aspect of the legacy of the conflict on the lives and mental health of young people in Northern Ireland, which is being heavily researched by academics in the post-conflict period. However mental health is just one aspect of the intergenerational transmission as socio-economic aspects seem to prevail in the art forms studied here as case studies and transformation processes. A multifaceted methodology will be used combining social science and two art forms: a novel, Close to Home, by Michael Magee (2023), and a documentary, The Flats, by Alessandra Celesia (2024).
Focusing on A Swift Pure Cry (2006) and Solace of the Road (2009) by Irish children’s book author Siobhan Dowd, this article aims to examine how the myth of Ireland as a maternal isle is debunked. As nostalgic and glamorised as Ireland may appear to the teenage characters, their painful longing for their lost Irish mothers prevents them from moving forward and growing up. By remembering and reimagining Ireland, Dowd’s ambition is the construction of the individual emancipated voices of girls freed from dominant social, religious discourses and embracing their origins without being hindered by their heritage.
