Introduction

Abstract

This themed issue of RISE seeks to remap the Irish literary and cultural landscapes in the middle decades of the twentieth century. It defines this period as from the 1930s to the 1970s — roughly coinciding with the conservative years of ‘de Valera’s Ireland’, starting from the ratification of Bunreacht na hÉireann in 1937 supervised by de Valera through Seán Lemass’ programmes of economic expansion which led to Ireland’s European Economic Community membership in 1973. It understands literary and cultural landscapes in the broadest terms: horizontally as a geographic space with borders real and imagined; vertically as a space where high and low cultures clash and commingle. This issue includes six essays by contributors based across the globe. They show us the various forms of border-crossing — geographic, linguistic, generic — that contribute to a fuller map of Irish literature and culture in the mid-twentieth century.