Abstract
This chapter surveys contemporary Irish plays set in urban and suburban Dublin during the Celtic Tiger and Post-Celtic Tiger periods. It analyses how a broad range of Irish dramatists have mapped the profound changes that this new economic paradigm brought about, and explores, in particular, representations of class and of inter-class relationships in contemporary Irish theatre. It also posits that the formation of identities through the interface of the material, personal and sexual relationships is a recurrent theme of Irish suburban writing.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Bolger, Dermot, The Passion of Jerome (London: Methuen, 1999).
———, The Consequences of Lightening¸ in The Ballymun Trilogy (Dublin: New Island Press, 2010).
Brady, Joseph, Dublin, 1950–1970: Houses, Flats and High Rise (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016).
Carr, Marina, Marble (Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2009).
Conroy, Amy, I (Heart) Alice (Heart) I, in The Oberon Anthology of Contemporary Irish Plays, ed. and intro. by Thomas Conway (London: Oberon Books, 2012).
Dolan, Paul, Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life (London: Allen Lane, 2014).
Farrell, Bernard, Fortyfour Sycamore (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1995).
———, Bookworms (Dublin: Mercier Press, 2012).
Forsyth, Ann, ‘Defining Suburbs’, Journal of Planning Literature, 27.3 (2012), 270–281.
Ging, Debbie, Men and Masculinities (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
Harris, Nancy, No Romance (London: Nick Hern Books, 2011).
Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Hughes, Declan, Shiver (London: Methuen, 2003).
Jordan, Eamonn and others, ‘Roundtable: Re-imagining Twentieth-Century Irish Theatre’, Irish University Review, 45.1 (2015), 90–102.
———, ‘Multiple Class Consciousnesses in Writings for Theatre During the Celtic Tiger Era’, in The Cambridge History of Irish Working-Class Writing, ed. by Michael Pierse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 378–396.
Keegan, Gary and Feidlim Cannon, dir., The Blue Boy (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2011).
McPherson, Conor, Plays One: Rum and Vodka, The Good Thief, This Lime Tree Bower, St Nicholas (London: Nick Hern Books, 2011).
Muphy, Elaine, Little Gem (London: Nick Hern Books, 2009).
———, Shush (London: Nick Hern Books, 2013).
Murphy, Jimmy, Two Plays: The Kings of Kilburn High & Brothers of the Brush (London: Oberon Books, 2001).
Murphy, Paul, ‘Class and Performance in the Age of Global Capital’, Theatre Research International, 37.1 (2012), 49–62.
O’Rowe, Mark, Howie the Rookie (London: Nick Hern Books, 1999).
Sandel, Michael, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (Penguin Books, Kindle Edition, 2008).
Savage, Mike, Social Class in the 21st Century (Pelican, Kindle Edition, 2015).
Sirr, Lorcan, ‘Unchartered Territory for the Middle Classes Forced to Rent’, Sunday Times, 9 April 2017, Move Section, p. 1.
Steger, Manfred B., and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Stembridge, Gerard, That Was Then (London: Methuen, 2002).
Trench, Rhona, Bloody Living: The Loss of Selfhood in the Plays of Marina Carr (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010).
West, Michael, Freefall (London: Methuen, 2010).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jordan, E. (2018). Suburban Sensibilities in Contemporary Plays Set in Dublin. In: Smith, E., Workman, S. (eds) Imagining Irish Suburbia in Literature and Culture. New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96427-0_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96427-0_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96426-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96427-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)