Irish Identity Issue In The First World War

Frank Mc Guinness（1953-）and Sebastian Barry（1955-）are famous Irish writers in contemporary Irish literature.Frank Mc Guinness is hailed as an outstanding representative of the emerging generation of contemporary Irish playwrights.He has written more than 30 plays which has won for him various literary awards worldwide.His masterpiece Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme（1985）that describes Ulster Protestants‘participation in the First World War created a precedent for Irish writers,and enjoyed an important position in the Irish drama in the 20th century.The play has won for Mc Guinness international reputations,most notably of which are the London Evening Standard Award for―the Most Promising Playwright‖and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.Barry is famous for novel writ ing,and he is renowned as the―Laureate for Irish Fiction‖.His novel A Long Long Way（2005）,rare in contemporary Irish fictions,is about Irish people‘s participation in the First World War.As soon as it was published,the book was awarded Booker Prize,the highest prize in contemporary English fiction.Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme and A Long Long Way are comparatively rare works in Irish literature on the themes of the First World War.The mainstream First World War literature works are always written from British and American perspectives,and the similar writings from Irish perspectives are really rare and scare.Historically speaking,unlike Britain‘s intention for overseas colonies,Ireland‘s motivation participating in the First World War was to win the right of local autonomy from Great Britain.Yet,on the issue of autonomy,Ireland had split up into two parties of consent and opposition.The nationalists among the Dublin area participated in the war in the hope to promote the implementation of the Home Rule bill,while the unionists in Ulster area participated in the war in the hope to oppose the implementation of the Home Rule bill.The two works respectively by Mc Guinness and Barry presented the historic events of the Dubliners and Ulsters in the war,reexamined the experience of the Irishmen with different backgrounds in the First World War,and provided for a complementary perspective to their readers of the modern time.It could be found that although the characters in these two works have different social positions,they are all faced with similar problems of war trauma and loss of identity.Based on this,this thesis compares and analyzes the memory writing of Irish national identity in the First World War,and further explores and decodes the underlying intentions of the two writers.This thesis is divided into five parts.The first part is the introduction,the fifth part is conclusion,and the middle three parts are the main body of the thesis.The first leading part includes an introduction to the two writers,a summary of their works‘story plots,a literary review of the two works on a domestic and international scale,and a brief comparison between the works setting the First World War in Irish literature and the British First World War literature.It expresses the uniqueness of the First World War from an Irish perspective,and explains the topic of this thesis,and briefly clarifies the research value of this thesis as well.The second part introduces the historical background of British colonization on Ireland.The long colonization process creates such a complexity that first intermingle Irish and British cultures and then makes Irish identity with both Irish and British features at the same time.This part starts by analyzing the complexity Irish identity to show each character‘s reaction to the First World War,and then describe the identity conflicts facing by the protagonists and the process of experiencing identity loss in this complex environment.This sets the stage for the rest of the thesis.The third part combines the text and historical background to explain the loss of Irish identity which comes from two sources.On the one hand,it is the impact of war trauma,which is shared by all the works involving the First World War.On the other hand,it is the influence that was produced in a unique social environment of Ireland at that time.In the context of the independence movement,the Irish people were collectively forced to choose a specific camp,and this obliged passive choice denies them the complexity of personal identities which becomes the unique cause of identity loss.Take for example the36^th Division（Ulster Volunteer Division）and the 16^th Division（Irish Volunteer Division）described in two works.The 36^th Division emphasized loyalty and total British features while the 16^th Division stressed independence and pure Irish features.But after the war,the 36^th Division‘s loyalty for the Britain was ignored by the British government while the 16^th Division‘s patriotism was rejected by the Irish society.Both divisions were denied their respective identities,resulting in a lasting loss of Irish identity.The fourth part aims to better understand the two writers‘intention in describing the identity of the Irish in the First World War.This part places the two works‘textual writing in a grand historical background,explores the influence of the identity struggle between the Republic and Southern Ireland on the postwar memorial ceremonies,and solves the long historical and political disputes that have derived from the lack of First World War writings in the Irish literature.In order to interpret the two writers‘intention to rewrite the First World War after more than half a century,the thesis makes a detailed study of the writing background of the two writers and tends to discover the uniqueness and specific value of their works.The last part is a conclusion drowns on the basis of plentiful historical background materials.What is worth mentioning is that the two writers‘works not only inherit to a great extent the traditional anti-war theme of the First World War literature by demonstrating the cruelty of the war,but also describe as boldly as possible the identity issues and trauma that have long been embarrassing to the Irish,a lingering pain engraved on the minds of the Irish people.And these issues and trauma are such subject matters that had long been evaded by the previous writers in their earlier writings and creations.Finally,the thesis believes that the enthusiastic endeavors by the two Irish writers in their works have not only cast light upon problems of long-standing,but also conveyed a strong and effective healing power to the collective trauma of the Irish nation.The positive effects generated from the two works will certainly comply with the present trends of reconciliation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to embrace a more peaceful future and blessings in the years to come in the new century.