Publication: The Animal in Ireland — Real and Imagined

Bergmann, Ina, Maria Eisenmann, Maureen O’Connor and Kirsten Sandrock (eds.)

The Animal in Ireland — Real and Imagined

Review of Irish Studies in Europe (RISE) 9.1 (2026)

As the previous themed issue of RISE on ‘The Animal in Ireland – Real and Imagined’ has shown, Irish identity has long been associated with representations of the natural world: from the days of mythological cycle legends, through the early Christian era and centuries of British occupation to the country’s latest neoliberal self-fashioning as a ‘green’ marketing opportunity. This volume focuses on poetry and non-literary texts that deal with nonhuman animals, concluding with three original poems by Moya Cannon. Contributions include discussions of the poetry of Jane Clarke and Eamon Grennan, as well as an analysis of the 2022 Martin McDonagh film, The Banshees of Inisherin. From this non-literary text, the focus moves to considerations of contemporary art installations and finally to suggestions for bringing the figure of the animal effectively into the EFL classroom. These essays attend to the Irish specificities and implications of the human / nonhuman divide, taking into consideration the complexities of colonial history as well as the postcolonial present. At the same time, they attend to the transnational implications of Irish cultural productions that move productively from the local to the global, calling attention to the responsibility humans have to the nonhuman in addressing the climate crisis.

For more information see:

https://risejournal.eu/index.php/rise/issue/view/217