Joseph S. O’Leary

Irreducible Ireland

Moore, Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett

This book, in tandem with Joysis Crisis (2021), attempts an existential reading of Irish writers who shaped the nation’s spiritual outlook for more than a century. Each of them lived an intense psychodrama which brought them into conflict with social and religious orthodoxy. Each of them saw himself as a liberator, yet none of them reached a serene harmonious vision. In attempting to follow their thought into its last recesses, we confront daring philosophical questions about the self, God, sexuality, freedom, life and death. These are framed in terms that are distinctively Irish, and the five great writers leave it to their compatriots to find the answers. Close reading of five Moore stories, five Yeats poems, and three Beckett compositions allows the existential questions to be sighted at the level of the actual writing. The theological potential of literature is thus given a concrete profile and a dialogue is opened up between Christian faith and these “unacknowledged legislators” of the Irish soul.

“With magisterial erudition and great ease of control of the material, O’Leary gives an account of Beckett that is beautifully and clearly written throughout. It reads exceptionally well, standing out against the standard styles of Beckett criticism. His points are freshly informative and interesting, and deftly stated within a splendid breadth of reference and scholarship. This is marvelous stuff!”  —David J. Taylor

“O’Leary’s broad and deep reading of Irish authors saves us from Bord Fáilte Paddywackery – no forty shades of green here but the grey defiant flint of Aran contra mundum, as cover illustration. This inspiring work strikes a chord that reverberates from Amheirgin to Ó Riada and beyond.”  —Tadhg Ó Dúshláine

“Shifting between close attention to the text and wider reflections, the discussion remains engaging, accessible, and insightful throughout. It brings to a climax O’Leary’s long-sustained project of overcoming obfuscatory conventions that miss what is ‘irreducible’ and liberating in the Irish writers celebrated here.”  — Brian Fox

Available from Amazon US, UK, JP, &c. Also available in e-book format for Apple and Kindle.