London Irish Fictions Narrative, Diaspora and Identity Fictions London Irish Tony Murray This is the first book about the literature of the Irish in London. By examining over 30 novels, short stories and autobiographies set in London since the Second World War, London Irish Fictions investigates the complex psychological landscapes of belonging and cultural allegiance found in these unique and intensely personal perspectives on the Irish experience of migration. As well as bringing new research to bear on the work of established Irish writers such as Edna O’Brien, John McGahern, Emma Donoghue and Joseph O’Connor, this study reveals a fascinating and hitherto unexplored literature, diverse in form and content. By synthesising theories of narrative and diaspora into a new methodological approach to the study of migration, London Irish Fictions sheds new light on the ways in which migrant identities are negotiated, mediated and represented through literature. It also examines the specific role that the metropolis plays in literary portrayals of migrant experience as an arena for the performance of Irishness, as a catalyst in transformations of Irishness and as an intrinsic component of second-generation Irish identities. Furthermore, by analysing the central role of narrative in configuring migrant cultures and identities, it reassesses notions of exile, escape and return in Irish culture more generally. In this regard, it has particular relevance to current debates on migration and multiculturalism in both Britain and Ireland, especially in the wake of an emerging new phase of Irish migration in the post-‘Celtic Tiger’ era. A rich, sympathetic and nuanced exploration of that strange blend of exile and escape, of suffering and play-acting, which characterises the Irish migrant experience in London […] a valuable, unprecedented and necessary book. Declan Kiberd, Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies, Notre Dame University Tony Murray Tony Tony Murray is Director of the Irish Studies Centre at London Metropolitan University. London Irish Fictions www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk Narrative, Diaspora and Identity Cover image: Bernard Canavan, Vertigo. © Bernard Canavan. Reproduced by kind permission of the artist. Tony Murray Design by Emily Wilkinson London Irish Fictions Narrative, Diaspora and Identity London Irish Fictions Narrative, Diaspora and Identity TONY MURRAY Liverpool University Press First published 2012 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2012 Tony Murray The right of Tony Murray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBNISBN 978-1-84631-831-3978-1-84631-831-3 Web PDF eISBN 978-1-84631-789-7 Typeset in Bembo by XL Publishing Services Ltd, Tiverton Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY To my mother and the memory of my father Contents Acknowledgements ix 1: Introduction 1 2: The Irish in London 21 Part I: The Mail-Boat Generation Introduction 39 3: Navvy Narratives 42 4: Escape and its Discontents 57 5: Ersatz Exiles 70 6: Departures and Returns 86 Part II: The Ryanair Generation Introduction 99 7: Gendered Entanglements 103 8: Ex-Pat Pastiche 118 9: Transit and Transgression 137 Part III: The Second Generation Introduction 149 10: Irish Cockney Rebels 154 11: Elastic Paddies 172 12: Conclusion 187 Author Biographies 193 Bibliography 197 Index 213 vii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Shaun Richards and Aidan Arrowsmith for their invaluable scholarly guidance in completing the thesis upon which this book is based. I am also indebted to Doug Field, Declan Kiberd, James Moran and Clair Wills for their expert advice in bringing the book to fruition. I would partic- ularly like to thank Joanne O’Brien and John Simms for their astute and insightful comments on the final manuscript. I am also grateful to Anthony Cond and Helen Tookey at Liverpool University Press for their professional guidance. I would like to express my appreciation to the following writers for being interviewed or for talking about their work at the Irish Writers in London Summer School: Maude Casey, Áine Collins, Shane Connaughton, Gretta Mulrooney, Edna O’Brien and Timothy O’Grady. My thanks, also, to the Garnett Foundation for supporting the summer school and to all of the writers and students over the last seventeen years who have helped provide the forum within which the subject matter for this book has been nurtured. I am also grateful to the following organisations which have helped support my research in different ways: Institute for the Study of European Transformations (London Metropolitan University); British Association for Irish Studies; International Association for the Study of Irish Literature. I am indebted to the numerous people who supported or advised me in different ways over the years, including: Laura Agustin, Marie Arndt, Lucy Bland, Avtar Brah, Sean Campbell, Derek Collins, Shirley Cully, Anna Davin, Polly Devlin, Sieglinde Dlabal, Ricardo Domizio, Steve Donelan, Mary Doran, Eibhlín Evans, Martina Evans, Seamus Finnegan, Aidan Flood, Alan Foulkes, Geoffrey Frosh, Lisa Frost, Irene Gedalof, John Goodby, Breda Gray, Jackie Harnett, Liam Harte, Mary Hickman, Eamonn Hughes, Sean Hutton, Lisa Hyde, Laura Izarra, David Kelly, Helen Kelly, Michael Kenneally, Madeleine Kingston, Jessica March, ix London Irish Fictions Ann Marshall, Zacarias Marco Pastor, Margaret McCurtain, Tony McDonnell, Nicole McLennan, Ellen McWilliams, Frank Molloy, Jonathan Moore, Sarah Morgan, Maureen Murphy, Máirín Nic Eoin, Mary Nelis, Jerry Nolan, Miriam Nyhan, Bernard O’Donoghue, John O’Donoghue, Sean O’Donovan, Kathy O’Regan, Brian O’Shea, Michael Parker, Crispin Partridge, Martine Pelletier, Lance Pettitt, Susannah Radstone, Megan Redmond, Ann Rossiter, Damhnait Rumney, Louise Ryan, Deirdre Shanahan, Gerry Smyth, Barbara Taylor, Lyn Thomas, Richard Trevan, Corinne Turner, Stanley van der Ziel, Francie van Hout, Cecily and Didier Villain, Hazel Walker, Bronwen Walter, Inge Weber-Newth, Wendy Wheeler, Bridget Whelan, Alan Williams, Briar Wood, Brian Wright. I have benefitted enormously from the inspirational teaching of a number of people, in particular Eric Smith (St Aloysius College, London), Barry Baker (Manchester Polytechnic), Noel O’Connell (Irish Literary Society), Mary Hickman, Sabina Sharkey and Paul Sheehan (Polytechnic of North London). I would particularly like to thank Bernard Canavan for agreeing to let me use his marvellous painting for the cover and Seán Ó Domhnallain who, perhaps unwittingly, set me forth upon this course many years ago. Finally, I am eternally grateful to my family and friends and, in particular, Joanne, for her unwavering support and encouragement and without whom this would not have been possible. x 1 Introduction So for what seems a long time London remained partly a not quite convincing fiction, partly a symbol of ambiguity, partly an overcast physical fact.1 For centuries, London has occupied a powerful place in the imagina- tion of artists of all kinds. Writers, in particular, have profoundly influenced popular perceptions of the city. This has especially been the case for people who have visited or migrated to London from elsewhere. New arrivals, whether from the provinces, continental Europe or further afield, have all formed relationships with the city in the light of work by writers such as Samuel Pepys, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf and Zadie Smith. For arrivals from other parts of the former British Empire or the Commonwealth, coming to London has often been a wholly recognizable yet profoundly unsettling experience. This is nowhere better illustrated than by the case of the Irish. The long entan- gled history of Britain and Ireland has resulted in a mutually familiar but deeply ambivalent relationship between its peoples. The often passionate yet sometimes conflicted attitudes to questions of cultural identity that this has provoked are at the heart of the literature I examine in this book. Writing has been one of the traditional ways in which the Irish have negotiated such matters. Obliged, as a consequence of colonization, to communicate through a foreign tongue, the Irish made a virtue of neces- sity and produced some of the greatest literature in the English language. This facility with words has been commonly attributed to a Gaelic oral tradition which held the skills of good storytelling in high regard. Certainly, for the Irish in London, a facility with words was a quality which helped smooth the process of adjustment to a new environment and society. Writing about this in 1801, one commentator observed: ‘In almost every tavern or coffee-house you may meet with one or more 1 London Irish Fictions of these orators, whose wit and fluency are exerted for the amusement of the company.’2 For a long time, London provided an important plat- form for Irish politicians and journalists, and it was no different for writers who saw the city as their primary means of professional advance- ment. Despite this long-established relationship with the city, the