Border Tropes in Eugene McCabe's 'Fermanagh Trilogy'

Abstract

This essay analyses Eugene McCabe’s short stories, ‘Cancer’, ‘Heritage’ and ‘Siege’ – known commonly as the ‘Fermanagh trilogy’ – focusing on them as border fictions. Written in the 1970s, the author argues that the stories share a material, cultural ‘borderliness’, a condition which is structured into McCabe’s writing about this part of Monahan-Fermanagh and the region along the border more widely. ‘Borderliness’ manifests itself as four thematic tropes that interconnect and complement each other. These tropes recur within and across the stories, expressing character and emotional states, defining dramatic conflicts, and shaping narrative structure. The origins of these literary tropes are indicated, selected examples are worked through and McCabe’s prose style is analysed. The essay situates the ‘Fermanagh trilogy’ within a lineage of cultural production from and about the border, and the interpretative frameworks that have arisen to understand the border’s socio-political significance.