This essay explores the semiotic complexity and cultural significance of Debbie Jenkinson's Midlands (2023), situating it within the evolving landscape of Irish graphic storytelling. Through a close analysis of visual grammar and panel structure, the essay examines how Midlands addresses themes of grief, belonging, and identity formation in the aftermath of personal and cultural disruption. Drawing on semiotic theory, Irish literary traditions, and the legacy of oral storytelling, the article positions Midlands as a quiet but radical contribution to the Irish literary canon-one that reimagines inherited narrative forms through the lens of sequential art. Rather than focusing on mythic or heroic tropes, Jenkinson turns to the textures of everyday life, using visual narrative to explore emotional ambiguity and psychological transition. The essay argues that Midlands marks a significant evolution in the expressive potential of Irish graphic literature, both theoretically and formally.
This article explores the way in which Eil & eacute;an N & iacute; Chuillean & aacute;in uses perception and perspective in her poetry to transcend the boundaries that separate reality from the worlds of imagination, folklore and spirituality, with a particular interest in colour and the visual. It will also be argued that language is one of the fundamental tools the poet uses to analyse the otherness and the difference between contrasting dimensions, and that the margin that divides them is a significant space in itself. The texts examined belong to different phases of the author's career in order to emphasise the presence of these nuances of thought throughout her literary production.
Drawing on transfeminist critique and autofiction theory, this essay explores three autofictional writings by three female Irish authors. Acknowledging the systemic and patriarchal oppression of women, the analysis of the novels A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride (2013), A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa (2020) and Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett (2021) will focus on how each author deals with individual manifestations of this condition. Furthermore, the different strategies of emancipation and liberation that each writer adopts will be taken into consideration. The main goal of this essay is to demonstrate how the experience of oppression distorts the authors’ perception of their identities, leading them to represent themselves as autofictional characters.
Despite being regarded as one of Ireland’s foremost short-story writers, O’Faolain’s literary output also encompasses travelogues, although this literary genre is sometimes considered as a minor phase in his writing career. His travel books include An Irish Journey, A Summer in Italy, An Autumn in Italy, and the article “In Search of Sardinia”, written for the American magazine Holiday. This essay analyses the characteristic traits of his travel writing, namely the constant presence of characters, delineated through the deliberate and sophisticated dialogic form, the setting of the narrated stories, and the personal reflections. His way of narrating and describing the places he visited, between wonder and reality, with disenchantment and irony, makes his travel books a personal form of narrative, thanks to the rich vocabulary due to the artistic maturity, intertextuality, and internationalization of his work.
