Irish Identities Revisited in Mary O’Donnell’s “Empire”

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing the liminal and thus ambiguous position of both Ireland and the Irish within the British Empire through Mary O’Donnell’s short story “Empire”, published in an eponymous collection in 2018. My approach is critically informed by the theoretical perspective of liminal studies, which have characterised the short story as the liminal genre par excellence, and are thus especially suitable to address the complexities of postcolonial identities. This paper focuses on the different thematic and narrative techniques the story employs to represent different Irish experiences, while negotiating conflicting identities and spaces at a time of political upheaval and social unrest – in the years surrounding the Great War and the Easter Rising – thus providing a contemporary perspective that invites reflection and re-consideration of the official Irish national memory.