Daniel Corkery's cultural criticism: Selected writings

Daniel Corkery was the most influential and provocative cultural critic of the early Irish Free State. Since the 1960s, Corkery's name, however, has become increasingly synonymous with a narrow-gauge nationalism that, in the eyes of many, has sought to stifle an emerging 'modern' Ireland. This publication makes the case for a reassessment of Corkery's cultural criticism, and reveals that the commonplace depiction of a parochial and racist Corkery, while not entirely groundless, is based on a reading of his critical writings that is both selective and reductive. Corkery's cultural criticism is viewed in this book, not as the product of a backward-looking and insular nationalism, but as intellectual work within an international context of anti-colonialism.