Stereotype blasting: Alan McMonagle as satirist and visionary

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines Irish writer Alan McMonagle’s use of dark satire in his debut novel Ithaca (2017), which presents the story of Jason, a vulnerable child who meets another of society’s scapegoats, an unnamed “girl at the swamp”, and whose friendship offers an escape from the misery of life in the bog hole they call home. McMonagle’s invective finds external expression in his comic blasting of social constructions based on gender and class stereotypes in the Irish literary tradition. His engagement with the absurd sometimes takes the form of humorous and ribald satire, and sometimes lends his work tones of existential tragedy. The purpose of this article is to highlight his mediating role as a satirical writer who, in holding a mirror up to politics, reveals the psychological pain of Irish society and offers an original perspective on social inclusion and change in the Irish context.