Field Day and Irish Postcolonial Criticism

Abstract

Postcolonial theory has been, and remains, one of the dominant modes of literary and cultural criticism within the broader discourse of Irish studies. A range of internal factors complicates readings of colonial occupation, in which notions of language, nationality, ethnicity, faith, class, and gender were drastically affected. Indeed, the depth and protraction of Ireland’s colonial experience, together with the vanguard initiative of its anticolonial agitation, are judged as both instrumental to and informative of subsequent Third World anticolonial movements. A recurrent criticism of postcolonial studies is its reliance on literary/textual material rather than on what is perceived as more concrete or quantifiable historical data. The legacy of such an internecine academic dispute is that there has rarely been ‘constructive’ critical dialogue between Irish literary critics and historians with respect to imperial histories, anticolonial histories or postcolonial theory. Irish literary and historical studies, then, seem to offer propitious material with which to profitably explicate the temporal and spatial differentials of imperialism, anticolonialism and postcolonialism. The debate surrounding Ireland’s ‘putative postcolonial condition’ (Lloyd, 1993: 155) has, to a large extent, been centred on the work of the Field Day Theatre Company. Together with several other leading Irish artists and intellectuals, including Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel, Stephen Rea and Tom Paulin, the critic and writer Seamus Deane has been centrally involved in the evolution and machinations of the Field Day enterprise.