Deconstructing Ireland intervenes with authority and originality in an area rife with debate and passionate opinion, where cultural theory and analysis run alongside the daily challenge of political events. Colin Graham examines the course by which the history of modernity and colonialism has constructed an idea of 'Ireland', produced more often as a citation than an actuality.The author's approach - using Derridean deconstruction in alliance with positions in postcolonial and Subaltern Studies - illuminates the way in which this concept of the nation plays across discourses of authenticity, fiction and fantasy in a fascinating range of material. Successive chapters examine the utopian musings of Ignatius Donnelly, John Mitchel and Sean Hillen; the continuing reinvention of Irish criticism; the relation of the figure of the intellectual-artist and the 'people' in James Joyce; the tension between postcolonialism and nationalism in the Field Day project and the political thought of John Hume and Rich
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