Full Description
The Stained and Bloodied Cloths of Ireland presents a textiles and material culture view of Irish shame, oppression, morality and repression.
Ireland - North and South - has sustained significant change in the last 100 years, accelerating at the end of the 20th century with the legalization of contraception, divorce, gay marriage, the end of the 'Troubles', and freedom to choose abortion and reproductive autonomy. In parallel to this, troubling instances of abuse, repression and cruelty have come to light through a series of scandals. These included the exploitation of unmarried mothers as unpaid labour in laundries, the deaths of women and babies in mishandled miscarriages, the unhealthy entanglement of Church and State, and the intolerance shown to 'visible Irish and immigrant minorities' in the so-called 'land of a thousand welcomes'.
This collection of specially commissioned essays tells the stories of cloth, clothing, textiles and materials that have been actually or symbolically stained by blood or other bodily fluids in Ireland's last 100 years. By focusing on the role of these materials in the events and experiences of shame, oppression, morality and repression, the book 'lances the boil' of Irish social history, celebrating the movement of the island of Ireland into post-Church, post-conflict, post-nostalgia modernity that, while a painful transition, is a vital part of coming to terms with its past and looking to its future.
Contents
Preface (Catherine Harper, The British University in Egypt)
Introduction (Catherine Harper, The British University in Egypt)
1. Materials, Memory and Magdalene Laundries (Laura McAtackney, University College Cork, Ireland)
2. Close-knit: Mother Ireland and her dirty laundry (Niamh Dowdall, Royal Irish Academy, Ireland)
3. The Irish for Burial Place (Catherine Corless, Independent Researcher, Ireland)
4. Buried with Care: Cillíní shroud pins (Courtney Mundt, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland)
5. Gothic Kerry Noir (Catherine Harper; The British University in Egypt; and Faye McKeever)
6. Clothed by the Devil (Andrew Sneddon, Ulster University, Northern Ireland)
7. Missionary Blood (Claire Mitchell, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland)
8. On The Rag (Catherine Harper; The British University in Egypt)
9. Bleeding from a Cut above her Left Eye (Heather Richardson, The Open University)
10. Embracing the Hijab: Veiled and Empowered (Baisat Alawiye, Maynooth University, Ireland)
11. Isidore Nguimbi (Landa Wo, Société des Poètes Français, France)
12. DNA Doesn't Lie (Martine Brennan, Independent Researcher, Ireland)
13. The Beady Pocket (Anne Marie Stokes, University of Galway, Ireland)
14. A Map of Ireland: blood, semen, skin (Ed Madden, University of South Carolina, USA)
15. Dirt-Stained and Degraded Clothing in Irish Literature (Rachel Hynes, Independent Researcher, Ireland)
16. Blood on Your Hands (Catherine Harper, British University in Egypt)
17. She Was in her Night Attire (Mary McAuliffe, University College Dublin, Ireland)
18. Bleeding Women: gender, conflict and resistance (Margaret Ward, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland)
19. Threadbare resistance: solidarity and materiality (Jane Tynan, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands)
20. Giving the (Married) Woman 'a Normal Pelvis' (Marie O'Connor, Health Correspondent, RTÉ, Ireland)
21. Symphysiotomy and Law's Many-Tailed Binder (Máiréad Enright, University of Birmingham, UK)
22. A Crazy Group of Activists (Maeve O'Brien, Digital Repository of Ireland, Ireland)
23. Picking Scabs, Pain Portraits (Amy Walsh, University College Dublin, Ireland)
Bibliography
Index
