Irish Television

This book looks at television comedy, drawn from across the UK and Ireland, and ranging chronologically from the 1980s to the 2020s. It explores depictions of distinctive geographical, historical and cultural communities presented from the insiders’ perspective, simultaneously interrogating the particularity of the lived experience of time, and place, embedded within the wide variety of depictions of contrasting lives, experiences and sensibilities, which the collected individual chapters offer. Comedies considered include Victoria Wood’s work on ‘the north’, Ireland’s Father Ted and Derry Girls, Michaela Coel’s east London set Chewing Gum, and Wales’ Gavin and Stacey. There are chapters on Scottish sketch and animation comedy, and on series set in the Midlands, the North East, the South West and London’s home counties. The book offers thoughtful reflection on funny and engaging representations of the diverse, fragmented complexity of UK and Irish identity explored through the intersections of class, ethnicity and gender.

The first indepth history of the controversies surrounding the establishment of Radio Telefis Eireann.

Irish Media: A Critical History maps the landscape of media in Ireland from the foundation of the modern state in 1922 to the present. Covering all principal media forms, print and electronic, in the Republic and in Northern Ireland, John Horgan shows how Irish history and politics have shaped the media of Ireland and, in turn, have been shaped by them. Beginning in a country ravaged by civil war, it traces the complexities of wartime censorship and details the history of media technology, from the development of radio to the inauguration of television in the 1950s and 1960s. It covers the birth, development and - sometimes - the death of major Irish media during this period, examining the reasons for failure and success, and government attempts to regulate and respond to change. Finally, it addresses questions of media globalisation, ownership and control, and looks at issues of key significance for the future. Horgan demonstrates why, in a country whose political divisions and economic development have given it a place on the world stage out of all proportion to its size, the media have been and remain key players in Irish history.

Since the turn of the 21st century, the television series has rivalled cinema as the paradigmatic filmic medium. Like few other genres, it lends itself to exploring society in its different layers. In the case of Great Britain and Ireland, it functions as a key medium in depicting the state of the nation. Focussing on questions of genre, narrative form, and serialisation, this volume examines the variety of ways in which popular recent British and Irish television series negotiate the concept of community as a key component of the state of the nation.

This book explores how news and information about the conflict in Northern Ireland was disseminated through the most accessible, powerful and popular form of media: television. It focuses on the BBC and considers how its broadcasts complicated the 'Troubles' by challenging decisions, policies and tactics developed by governments trying to defeat a stubborn insurgency that threatened national security. The book uses highly original sources to consider how the BBC upset the efforts of a number of governments to control the narrative of a conflict that claimed over 3,500 lives and caused deep emotional scarring to thousands of people. Using recently released archival material from the BBC and a variety of government archives, the book addresses the contentious relationship between broadcasting officials, politicians, the army, police and civil service from the outbreak of violence throughout the 1980s.

This book uses popular culture to highlight the intersections and interplay between ideologies, technological advancement and mobilities as they shape contemporary Irish identities. Marshalling case studies drawn from a wide spectrum of popular culture, including the mediated construction of prominent sporting figures, Troubles-set sitcom Derry Girls, and poignant drama feature Philomena, Anthony P. McIntyre offers a wide-ranging discussion of contemporary Irishness, tracing its entanglement with notions of mobility, regionality and identity. The book will appeal to students and scholars of Irish studies, cultural studies, as well as film and media studies.

Draws from a wide range of disciplines to bring together 36 leading scholars writing about 400 years of modern Irish history

Irish Immigrants in New York City, 1945-1995 Linda Dowling Almeida The story of one of the most visible groups of immigrants in the major city of immigrants in the last half of the 20th century. "Almeida offers a dynamic portrait of Irish New York, one that keeps reinventing itself under new circumstances." —Hasia Diner, New York University "[Almeida's] close attention to changes in economics, culture, and politics on both sides of the Atlantic makes [this book] one of the more accomplished applications of the 'new social history' to a contemporary American ethnic group." —Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati It is estimated that one in three New York City residents is an immigrant. No other American city has a population composed of so many different nationalities. Of these "foreign born," a relatively small percentage come directly from Ireland, but the Irish presence in the city—and America—is ubiquitous. In the 1990 census, Irish ancestry was claimed by over half a million New Yorkers and by 44 million nationwide. The Irish presence in popular American culture has also been highly visible. Yet for all the attention given to Irish Americans, surprisingly little has been said about post–World War II immigrants. Almeida's research takes important steps toward understanding modern Irish immigration. Comparing 1950s Irish immigrants with the "New Irish" of the 1980s, Almeida provides insights into the evolution of the Irish American identity and addresses the role of the United States and Ireland in shaping it. She finds, among other things, that social and economic progress in Ireland has heightened expectations for Irish immigrants. But at the same time they face greater challenges in gaining legal residence, a situation that has led the New Irish to reject many organizations that long supported previous generations of Irish immigrants in favor of new ones better-suited to their needs. Linda Dowling Almeida, Adjunct Professor of History at New York University, has published articles on the "New Irish" in America and is a longtime member of the New York Irish History Roundtable. She also edited Volume 8 of the journal New York Irish History. March 2001 232 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append. cloth 0-253-33843-3 $35.00 s / £26.5

This collective volume provides the reader with an exploration of Latin America from an Irish perspective. The contributors have explored the multiple, and sometimes surprising, links that exist between Ireland and Latin America, touching on specific features of these links such as the political and cultural influence of the Irish diaspora and their political relations. These topics are examined through different media, including literature, films, history, poetry and sociology, and offer an opportunity to discover an aspect of Irish culture and history that has not been widely studied. The authors deal with these questions from different cultural perspectives within past and present contexts, exploring two cultures and histories which, at times, are linked through their shared destinies. They also provide the reader with different national perspectives. In presenting the long-lasting and multifaceted relationships between Ireland and Latin America, the contributors have helped to deepen our understanding of a part of Ireland’s historical heritage that deserves more focus.

This is an exploration of the representation of Ireland and the Irish in British and US cinemas, as well as Irish-made films. The book offers readings of a wide range of key films such as The Butcher Boy (1997), Patriot Games (1992) and Angela's Ashes (1999). It discusses the full range of Irish cinematic productions from the low-budget work of Comerford and Breathnach, to the bigger Hollywood productions like Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992), and looks at the 'second' cinema of directors such as Neil Jordan and Jim Sheridan where medium-sized budgets allow for greater creative control in Ireland. Feeding into wider debates about national and cultural identity, post-national cinema and the role of the state, the book provides an overview of how a relatively small film culture such as Ireland's can live successfully in the shadow of Hollywood.