Irish Studies Discourses of Unity in Ireland and Europe

The binary between a united Ireland and the current form of partition has provoked writers and scholars and established an important debate about what unity would look like. Discourses of Unity in Ireland and Europe charts and critically discusses the challenges of articulating unity while one-sided discourses—on either nationalist or unionist grounds—have gradually been integrating an Irish identity that finds itself between Britain and Europe. Crucial to all of this is the role of writers in reimagining Irish writing before and after the Northern Ireland peace process and in reconstituting an idea of Irish unity in their works. Maurice Fitzpatrick, Christoph Reinfandt, and Raphael Zähringer bring together scholars from the fields of philosophy, political science, diplomacy, history, and literary and cultural studies to interpret how the concept of unity has manifested in literary, historical, and political texts. This wide-ranging approach considers a variety of economic perspectives, including how generations of economic shifts have impacted the image of Ireland’s relationship with the UK and Europe. Ultimately, Discourses of Unity in Ireland and Europe provides coordinates for current debates about how to prepare for Irish unity and what shape it should or could take.