This book contains an exciting collection of essays focusing on a variety of alternative performances happening in contemporary Ireland. While it highlights the particular representations of
gay and lesbian identity it also brings to light how diversity has always been a part of Irish culture and is, in fact, shaping what it means to be Irish today. Inside there are provocative
chapters from scholars, theatre producers, and theatre artists from around the world analysing everything from the drag scene in Dublin to the Gay Pride Parades in Belfast. Cathleen Ni Houlihan
will never be the same!
Some forty years have passed since the first openly gay character appeared on the Irsih stage, sixteen years since homosexuality was decriminalised and two decades since theories of the queer
have disrupted notions of normativity. But where has Irish theatre scholarship been hiding all this time? Finally we have an important collection of essays employing methodologies from
literary, theatre andperformance studies disciplines to queer Irish theatre and by so doing, to contest the compulsory heterosexuality of nation building. This collection proudly asserts that
queermess and Irishness are conjoined at the performative hip!
Professor Brian Singleton, Trinity College Dublin
