ANNE MACCARTHY

The book provides a new perspective on the establishment of Irish literature in English. This emerged in the early nineteenth century in an effort to create an independent writing in Ireland. the author explores the activities of these early years to later investigate canon formation in the twentieth century as well as contemporary definitions of Irish writing in English. She finally proposes the existence of another literature in the early twentieth century in Ireland and proffers an explanation for its exclusion from the new canon.