Awarded to Irish Romanticism: a Literary History by the American Conference for Irish Studies
Citation from Prof Cóilín Parsons, Georgetown University, Chair of the Judging Panel:
In an astonishingly wide-ranging but tightly argued cultural history, Connolly makes a definitive case for the Irish romantic moment (in a broad sense) as dynamic, politically engaged, and experimental. Irish Romanticism covers much ground—gardens, graves, seas, coasts, the material book, demography, fashion, and more—and makes a convincing argument that romanticism in Ireland sets an aesthetic and political agenda that will last for centuries. It is both a sweeping and a precise book, with granular close readings, a deep understanding of European romanticism more generally, and a keen ear for the traces of contemporary critical concerns in distant conversations. Irish Romanticism represents the very best of literary scholarship in the field of Irish Studies.