The Legend of Molly Malone

The Beauty of Convention Essays in Literature and Culture, edited by Marija Krivokapić-Knežević, Aleksandra Nikčević-Batrićević, 2014

Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2004

The Carceral Network in Ireland: History, Agency and Resistance, Ed. Fiona McCann, 2020

In this analysis of a single historical photograph of Provisional IRA prisoner, Mairead Farrell, I use communication scholar Sarah Kember's theory of the 'shadow of the object' to explore tensions around the loss of material objects and including photographs and their veneration and reproduction as both fetishized and transformed objects. I demonstrate how this photograph of Mairead Farrell embodies a mythical status as material object, how that status extends to it's physical setting, the Armagh Gaol, and illustrate how the photograph and the gaol become interconnected in emotions and meanings.

Between 1862 and 1875, the northeast anthracite coalfields of Pennsylvania experienced a drastic spike in murders, assaults, and other forms of violence against coalmine officials. Those at the very top of the coal and railroad industries believed that most of these crimes were perpetrated by an Irish secret society that went by the name Molly Maguires. In 1873 Franklin B. Gowen, President of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, brought in a Pinkerton detective by the name of James McParlan to bring about the end of the Molly Maguires. Five years later twenty Irishmen had met their demise at the end of the hangman’s noose based primarily on the testimony of McParlan. Since those twenty men met their fate, each generation has reinvented the Molly Maguires to suit the times and their individual agendas. They have been depicted in every light from mindless bloodthirsty killers to heroes of the proletarian class.

1997

Some things insist on becoming lost, like the be-ribboned straw hat L hutcure examine &S reprisentations the girl waved over the bridge snnrelks et h smu~lfiti dam h poisie to me. fhninine a2 I'Irhndr contemporaine et How ridiculous it looked, 22e preoccupation with Zrbbness as the prima y floating on the terrain of criticism has disturbing repercussions water between two fbrpoetry, because poems wbicb do not nourish these swans critical concerns are considered as either not who were coaxing reafly I&, or not r e d y poems. one another to love. remeten question I'Pternel&azsomption Although I tried to reach it, chez &S critiques litthaires que hpoksie it was swept away. irlandaise est prioritairement pri-"Sit still in the boat, you fool," ocrupk par &S mythes, I'histoire et she called, "sit still I'identitk nationale et rulturelle. or you'll fall into the river."-Joan McBreen, She told the one "The Straw Hat" who was beyond saving to have a nice day (she said it twice for effect)

A Sheela-na-gig is an enigmatic, medieval stone carving of a female figure with exposed genitalia. It is exceptional both as a public image of a woman with an exaggerated vulva and because it is often located on a religious building. This thesis explores the connection between the Sheela-na-gig and Irish contemporary art considering theological, feminist and historical themes. The artists Barrie Cooke, Louise Walsh and Eilis O'Connell are reviewed with a focus on their works that were inspired by the Sheela-na-gig. The Killinaboy and Ballyvourney churches are focal points in this thesis because of their connection to the artists and because they have Sheelas that became linked to saints. The theological writings on virtues and vices are present in early Irish texts of penitentials. These penitenials evolved into devotional rituals based on the Sheela, but were also used as a warning against immoral behaviour in monastic praxis. The thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to inspiration and the forces that bring together the Sheela, the artists and certain social and theological issues in Ireland. The analysis is supported by interviews and oral histories that were collected as part of the research. In this way, the underlying themes of feminism, sexuality, form, repression, history and nature are revealed as key to understanding how the Sheela has served as an inspirational figure for selected contemporary Irish art.

‘Little survives to chronicle the role played by women…yet a number of ballads contain fleeting references to their courage and sacrifice’. 1 Kinsella’s statement summarises the difficulties in attempting to locate examples of the elusive female ‘hero’, not only in history, but also within the song and the ballad traditions. Although women’s respective achievements during periods of rebellion were known by the general population, seldom were they recognised within the framework of history and even less so within the songs and ballads of the time. There is a distinct scarcity of songs and/or ballads in both the Irish and English language in which a female ‘hero’ is the central figure. Female characters within song and ballad usually are relegated to the ‘sought-after maiden’ of the love song genre, or, represented as various incarnations of ‘Ireland’ from maid to mother to old woman, a figure present mainly in the Irish language tradition of the aisling, or ‘vision’ poem/song. Does that mean, then, that the female ‘hero’, at least in the traditional mode by which heroes are defined, does not exist or simply is being overlooked? This paper explores the various portrayals of women within the song and ballad tradition and examines how these depictions are less about the realities of women’s actual involvement during periods of rebellion and political upheaval, but are more representative of the position imposed upon women by society as a whole in an attempt to maintain the eighteenth century ideology of separate spheres.