On First Looking into Mercier's The Irish Comic Tradition

Abstract

ford tweeds in the midst of the blazing Southern California sun and the infor mality it encouraged, and announcing to the consternation of polite Dublin so ciety that he had been married three times. In terms of the American study of Irish writers, he remains one of the true pioneers. f came to The Irish Comic Tradition through the man. Now that the man is gone, the books endure. At the start of this year, I was writing about Martin McDonagh s plays in relation to Lady Gregorys The Workhouse Ward. Believ ing that the ostentatious display of the macabre and the grotesque in McDon agh's black comedies had affinities with the Gaelic tradition, 1 sought, and found, confirmation by rereading The Irish Comic Tradition on the subject. Is it possible for a writer to work in a tradition without being fully aware of it? I believe it is. My dialogue with Vivian will go on (and on)_ UNIVERSITY COLL KG DUBLIN