Edward Said and Irish Criticism

Abstract

The work of Edward Said has been influential on a global scale, in a manner that very few scholars can ever hope to match. It can safely be asserted that no anti-imperialist writer since Frantz Fanon has successfully addressed so many audiences. This essay traces the response to Said’s work, including but not only his most famous work, Orientalism, in Irish criticism and debates over the last three decades.We will see, in the work of Said’s allies and emulators, and that of his detractors, a number of variations, turns, adaptations, and inflections on Said’s own books and essays. Surveying the archive of responses to Said is valuable in itself, but it also provides a barometer of Irish intellectual engagement with wider international geo-political issues and historical shifts.