Conflicts and Crises, Dialogues and (Dis-)Connections: Renegotiations of Identities through Irish Narratives of Community

Abstract

In the first two decades of the 21st century, the condition of glocality was rendered highly visible by the 2008 world financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland, as elsewhere. Moreover, glocality can impact on such forms of identity as that of nationality, either with an exclusionary impetus or effecting the recognition of shared experiences. This article examines how the community, as a spatiotemporal concept, serves as a means of exploring renegotiations of identity and modes of interdependence in a glocal world. Discussing short fiction by Roddy Doyle and Emma Donoghue, published against the background of changing cultural narratives of Irishness during the Celtic Tiger period, I argue that short story cycles function as multi-layered reflections and interventions that place Irish identities in dialogue with other affiliations, but also with Irish history. Such a critical discussion renders visible the potential in literary fiction for coming to terms with conflicts that are rooted in essentialist understandings of identity and for opening up possibilities for renegotiations in light of local and global interrelations. When Doyle’s and Donoghue’s stories reflect upon and criticise exclusionary tendencies, they further the recognition of shared experiences despite cultural difference within a glocal world. Thereby, they interrupt the perpetuation of simplifying identity discourses based on notions of alterity and exceptionalism, contribute to identity renegotiation, and invite the possibility for building communities during times of continuous crisis.