A history of Irish working-class writing

Michael Pierse

"A History of Irish Working-Class Writing provides a wide-ranging and authoritative chronicle of the writing of Irish working-class experience. Ground-breaking in scholarship and comprehensive in scope, it is a major intervention in Irish Studies scholarship, charting representations of Irish working-class life from eighteenth-century rhymes and songs to the novels, plays and poetry of working-class experience in contemporary Ireland. There are few narrative accounts of Irish radicalism, and even fewer that engage 'history from below'. This book provides original insights in these relatively untilled fields. Exploring workers' experiences in various literary forms, from early to late capitalism, the twenty-two chapters make this book an authoritative and substantial contribution to Irish studies and English literary studies generally"-- "Michael Pierse is Lecturer in Irish literature at Queen's University Belfast. His research mainly explores the writing and cultural production of Irish working-class life. Over recent years this work has expanded into new multidisciplinary themes and international contexts, including the study of festivals, digital methodologies in public humanities and theatre-as-research practices. Michael has contributed to a range of national and international publications, is the author of Writing Ireland's Working Class: Dublin after O'Casey (2011), and has been awarded several Arts and Humanities Research Council awards and the Vice Chancellor's Award at Queen's"--