Irish Culture and Wartime Europe, 1938-48

The decade between 1938 and 1948 has been characterized as a time of stagnation and isolation in Ireland. During these years, however, many Irish writers and artists travelled extensively across the Continent, while a number of their English counterparts arrived in Ireland. Taking these journeys as a starting point, the essays in this collection explore afresh the cultural history of this decade and the continuing impact of the events around and during the Second World War on Irish literature and culture. Contents: Simon Workman (Carlow College), Kavanagh and MacNeice in the shadow of war; Kathryn White (UU), John Hewitt and the art of writing; Conor Linnie (TCD), Nevill Johnson, surrealism and the Second World War in Northern Ireland; Guy Woodward (TCD), A bombardier writes home: Stephen Gilbert; Anne Thompson (TCD), T.H. White, Ireland and the Second World War; Alex Runchman (TCD), English perceptions of Irish culture, 1941-3: John Betjeman; Eve Patten (TCD), Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and 1940s Ireland; Ute Anna Mittermaier (U Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna), Kate O'Brien's critique of Franco's Spain and de Valera's Ireland, 1936-46; Dorothea Depner (TCD), Francis Stuart in Germany; Tom Walker (TCD), "Nine rivers from Jordan": Denis Johnston's European journey and Irish search; Maurice Walsh (Kingston U), "Nine rivers from Jordan": a lost masterpiece of reportage; Julie Bates (International U Sarajevo), Samuel Beckett and W.G. Sebald; Gerald Dawe (TCD), The war came down on us here.