“Stretching the Imagination into another World”: An Interview with Eibhear Walshe

Authors

  • Pilar Villar-Argáiz University of Granada

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2020-9386

Keywords:

Creative Writing, Georg Fiedrich Handel, Irish Literature, Oscar Wilde

Abstract

Eibhear Walshe is one of the most significant scholars in Ireland in the fields of literary criticism, biography and cultural history. As a senior lecturer in the School of English at University College Cork and director of Creative Writing at the same institution, he has been involved for more than three decades in the teaching and promotion of subjects of Irish literature. Walshe’s research interests reflect his fascination for the interconnections between politics, literature and sexuality. Since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Ireland in 1993, lesbian and gay studies has consolidated itself as an exciting and innovative field in contemporary Irish Studies and he has been representative of this new trend, both in his academic research and in his fictional work. Walshe is also a novelist himself and it is on this facet of his life that the following interview concentrates upon.

Author Biography

Pilar Villar-Argáiz, University of Granada

Pilar Villar-Argáiz is a Senior Lecturer of British and Irish Literatures in the Department of English at the University of Granada and the General Editor of the major series “Studies in Irish Literature, Cinema and Culture” in Edward Everett Root Publishers. She is the author of the books Eavan Boland’s Evolution as an Irish Woman Poet: An Outsider within an Outsider’s Culture (Edwin Mellen Press, 2007) and The Poetry of Eavan Boland: A Postcolonial Reading (Academica Press, 2008). She has published extensively on contemporary Irish poetry and fiction, in relation to questions of gender, race, migration and interculturality. Her edited collections include Literary Visions of Multicultural Ireland: The Immigrant in Contemporary Irish Literature (Manchester University Press, 2014), Irishness on the Margins: Minority and Dissident Identities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), the special issue of Irish Studies Review (entitled “Irish Multiculturalism in Crisis”, co-edited with Jason King, 2015), and the special issue of Nordic Irish Studies (entitled “Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion: Artistic Renderings of Marginal Identities in Ireland”, 2016). Villar-Argáiz is currently a member of the board of AEDEI (Spanish Association of Irish Studies) and EFACIS (European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies).

References

Haverty, Anne. Review. “The Other Woman in the Other Wilde Case: The Diary of Mary Travers – A Novel”. The Irish Times. 20 September 2014. 16 July 2018. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-other-woman-in-the-other-wilde-case-the-diary-of-mary-travers-a-novel-1.1931889.

Ní Dhuibhne, Eílís. “The Trumpet Shall Sound review: Imagining a Gay Handel”. The Irish Times. 2 February 2019. 16 July 2019. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-trumpet-shall-sound-review-imagining-a-gay-handel-1.3769412  

Sheridan, Colette. Review. The Irish Examiner. 27 July 2014. 16 July 2018. https://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/books/the-diary-of-mary-travers-276586.html.

Shine Thompson, Mary. Review. “Oscar Wilde’s Father Was also a Scandal”. The Independent. 27 July 2014. 16 July 2018. https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/books-oscar-wildes-father was-also-a-scandal-30460310.html.

Walshe, Eibhear. The Diary of Mary Travers: A Novel. Bantry: Somerville Press, 2014.

———. The Trumpet Shall Sound, A Novel. Bantry: Somerville Press, 2019.

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Published

2020-03-17

How to Cite

Pilar Villar-Argáiz. (2020). “Stretching the Imagination into another World”: An Interview with Eibhear Walshe. Estudios Irlandeses, 15(1), 156–162. https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2020-9386

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2020): Issue 15 - 2020

Section

Interviews

License

Copyright (c) 2020 Pilar Villar-Argáiz

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/