Defining the Field of Irish-Australian Literature: Challenges and Conundrums

Abstract

What constitutes Irish-Australian literature – if such a category exists – is by no means clear. This essay seeks to map the field and identify which Australian writers might be included. It does so while questioning how such a taxonomy could be constructed and how research on this under-explored area might proceed. Not only is the potential field large and amorphous, but it also presents formidable issues of ‘identity politics’. Because such study is performed in an era when identities are understood to be unstable and discontinuous, the article argues for an inclusive approach, noting that what constitutes ‘Irishness’ is internally contested. It asks questions about how émigré writers and their descendants and those who draw on the political and historical matter of Ireland have transformed such legacies. It also considers how those few writers who made the reverse journey engage with Irish literature and culture. The article speculates that such a study may potentially reconfigure understanding of the Australian literary tradition and the process of naturalising ‘the nation’, or at least complicate that narrative.