Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama
The ethical exhortation ‘not to forget’ runs the risk of ‘a memory that would never forget anything’. At the other extreme is the no less dangerous risk of total amnesia, an erasure of the past that immediately suggests Freud and the return of the repressed. The complex balance to be found between...
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European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies
2017-03-01
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| Series: | Review of Irish Studies in Europe |
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| Online Access: | https://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/rise/article/view/1441 |
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| author | Anthony Roche |
| author_facet | Anthony Roche |
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The ethical exhortation ‘not to forget’ runs the risk of ‘a memory that would never forget anything’. At the other extreme is the no less dangerous risk of total amnesia, an erasure of the past that immediately suggests Freud and the return of the repressed. The complex balance to be found between memory and forgetting is particularly fraught in Northern Ireland and the politics of how the past is to be negotiated in the current post peace process climate. I propose to look at this subject in relation to the trauma engendered by decades of violence in two Northern Irish plays: Quietly (2012) by Owen McCafferty, set in the post peace process climate of 2009 but harking back to a violent incident in the same location thirty-five years earlier; and Frank McGuinness’s Carthaginians (1988), a canonical play about one of the central events in ‘the Troubles’, Bloody Sunday of 30 January 1972, but set more than a decade later.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b3421680c24f4ca98e5d17e44b6e846f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2398-7685 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2017-03-01 |
| publisher | European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Review of Irish Studies in Europe |
| spelling | doaj-art-b3421680c24f4ca98e5d17e44b6e846f2025-08-20T03:24:48ZengEuropean Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish StudiesReview of Irish Studies in Europe2398-76852017-03-0112Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish DramaAnthony Roche The ethical exhortation ‘not to forget’ runs the risk of ‘a memory that would never forget anything’. At the other extreme is the no less dangerous risk of total amnesia, an erasure of the past that immediately suggests Freud and the return of the repressed. The complex balance to be found between memory and forgetting is particularly fraught in Northern Ireland and the politics of how the past is to be negotiated in the current post peace process climate. I propose to look at this subject in relation to the trauma engendered by decades of violence in two Northern Irish plays: Quietly (2012) by Owen McCafferty, set in the post peace process climate of 2009 but harking back to a violent incident in the same location thirty-five years earlier; and Frank McGuinness’s Carthaginians (1988), a canonical play about one of the central events in ‘the Troubles’, Bloody Sunday of 30 January 1972, but set more than a decade later. https://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/rise/article/view/1441Northern Irish DramaTraumaFrank McGuinnessOwen McCafferty. |
| spellingShingle | Anthony Roche Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama Review of Irish Studies in Europe Northern Irish Drama Trauma Frank McGuinness Owen McCafferty. |
| title | Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama |
| title_full | Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama |
| title_fullStr | Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama |
| title_full_unstemmed | Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama |
| title_short | Memory, Trauma and Forgetting in Northern Irish Drama |
| title_sort | memory trauma and forgetting in northern irish drama |
| topic | Northern Irish Drama Trauma Frank McGuinness Owen McCafferty. |
| url | https://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/rise/article/view/1441 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT anthonyroche memorytraumaandforgettinginnorthernirishdrama |