History in Stories: The Irish Past and the Challenges of the Present

The symposium “History in Stories: The Irish Past and the Challenges of the Present,” organized by Irish Studies Würzburg (ISWÜ), took place at the University of Würzburg on July 1, 2022. Scholars from three disciplines – literary studies, TEFL methodology, and history – from three universities – University College Cork (UCC), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/Leuven Centre for Irish Studies (KU Leuven/LCIS), and Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg/Irish Studies Würzburg (JMU/ISWÜ) – in three European countries – Ireland, Belgium, and Germany – approached Irish “history in stories” from the vantage point of their national and disciplinary contexts. The contributors to this symposium drew on texts from and about the Irish past for their cultural knowledge and historical lesson. The meeting was funded by Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, Universitätsbund Würzburg, and the Irish Embassy through its Emigrant Support Programme. As main organizers, we would like to thank these institutions for their support. We are also grateful to our colleagues Franca Leitner and Jennifer Meier as well as to our student aids Anne-Sophie Hornung, Bianca Minxolli, David Schiepek and Antonios Smyrnaios for their assistance.

This volume includes, besides the papers given at the symposium, further contributions by colleagues from the three participating universities who joined the active presenters in discussion on July 1, 2022. Our sincere appreciation goes to all contributors for their participation. We would also like to thank our student aid Saskia Wohlfahrt for her assistance in preparing the manuscript and Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung for funding her engagement. We are also grateful to our student aid Lea Fröhlich, who handled the final edits. Special thanks go to Michael Rücker and the whole team at Peter Lang for their cooperation. Finally, we would like to thank Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Ahrens and Prof. Dr. Laurenz Volkmann for accepting this volume into the Anglo-American Studies series.

Ina Bergmann & Maria Eisenmann

Würzburg, December 2023

Ina Bergmann & Maria Eisenmann

In American Cultural History: A Very Short Introduction, Eric Avila starts out his introduction by writing about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which was published in 1852. He relates how the novel “became a lightning rod in the polarizing debate over slavery, sparking enough controversy for Abraham Lincoln to allegedly remark when he met Stowe for the first time that she was ‘the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war’” (Avila 1). Misogyny aside, the “president’s observation that a work of fiction could ‘make’ the American Civil War” (1) is quite remarkable. And Avila draws the conclusion from this anecdote that “cultural history is, quite simply, the history of stories, their origins, transmission and significance in time” (2).

And there it is, the title and topic of this volume, which we originally drew from eminent German historian Reinhart Koselleck. In his influential definition of the terms “Geschichte” and “Historie,” he specifies them as indicating the sequence of past events as well as their depiction (“sowohl den Ereigniszusammenhang wie dessen Darstellung”, 647). Sigrun Meinig, drawing on Koselleck’s designation, defines the term as follows: “‘History’ refers to the events or sequences of events in the past (res gestae) and to the cultural representations of such events (historiae rerum gestarum)” (37). The double meaning derives from the German, where Geschichte means both “history” and “story.”

What history will be written about the twenty-first century? It is certain that the beginning of this century has increased an awareness of and brought on a variety of trials and catastrophes, such as the climate crisis, the challenges of digitalization, a worldwide pandemic, the rise of totalitarianism, renewed racism and sexism, the drawbacks of globalization, and more. Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the Irish diaspora as well as their friends and partners in Europe furthermore have to deal with the effects of Brexit, the consequences of which are – due to Ireland’s history – uniquely politically charged on the island. In fact, the economic effects of the UK leaving the EU are hitting people and their lives equally hard across the whole confederation. However, the Irish situation can be seen as a key example of a specific European and maybe even more of a general global phenomenon.

Which strategies, approaches, and attitudes can be helpful when dealing with these not only European but transatlantic challenges? Is it possible to learn for the future by trying to learn from the past? Can a backward glance provide much needed guidance in this time of turmoil and offer blueprints for the shaping of the present? And can the younger generation, provided with the knowledge about the past, create a better future?

It is common knowledge that the past can only be presented and received in narrative form. Texts are repositories of cultural and historical knowledge. Fictional texts and historical documents both provide histories. Thus, the focus of the symposium “History in Stories: The Irish Past and the Challenges of the Present” was to draw on texts from and about the Irish past for their cultural knowledge and historical lesson. Scholars from three disciplines – literary studies, TEFL methodology, and history – from three universities – University College Cork (UCC), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/Leuven Centre for Irish Studies (KU Leuven/LCIS), and Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg/Irish Studies Würzburg (JMU/ISWÜ) – in three European countries – Ireland, Belgium, and Germany – approached Irish “history in stories” from the vantage point of their national and disciplinary contexts at the symposium organized by ISWÜ on site at the University of Würzburg in July 2022. The meeting was funded by Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung, Universitätsbund Würzburg, and the Irish Embassy through its Emigrant Support Programme. This volume comes out of this symposium and includes further contributions by colleagues who joined the active presenters in discussion.

From the perspective of literary studies, genres such as the historical novel, historiographic metafiction, and life writing, among others, provide the reader not simply with nostalgia for a past time. Historical fiction is furthermore a critique of the present, transferred into a past setting. This means that literary texts can be salvaged for cultural and historical knowledge and even for a historical lesson. They can help to avoid the repetition of mistakes of the past and they can assist to shape ideas for the future. The same holds true, of course, for other media of cultural production.

New Historicism questions the notion of a “canonical” narrative of the past, rejecting the idea of histoire totale. By emphasizing history writing as literature, it draws attention to the creative, and subjective nature of historical narratives. As much as any writer, the historian is shaped by the values of the society and times they inhabit, and their histories – as rationalizations of the past – reflect these contemporary cultural preoccupations. Exploring History as text and identifying the changes and challenges of “history in stories” in the twenty-first century, reveals how written History – or rather histories – can lead to an understanding of its present.

And precisely here is the interface between literary studies and TEFL methodology because literary learning includes elements of intercultural learning in abstract or concrete terms, be it in an oblique or in a direct manner. Thus, literature can contribute to the goal of intercultural or transcultural learning as well as global education in the EFL classroom. Literary texts always present the other culture in fictionalized form and provoke culture-bound responses. In particular contemporary literary texts offer privileged insights into target cultures because they present an insider’s perspective and thus provide a sort of surrogate experience of encounters with another culture which is not easily accessible first hand.

This volume seeks to mine Irish history and stories for historical lessons. The reimagining and rewriting of the past in textual form is as old as historiography and literature itself, and to explore and identify the changes and challenges of “history in stories” in the twenty-first century and to teach them can open up paths to a better European and transatlantic future.

All contributions speak to all three aspects, literature & culture, history, and teaching, but to varying degrees. In the first section of this volume, the emphasis is on history. In his contribution “Salvation Beyond the Empire: Patrick, Salvation History, and Ireland” Damian Bracken explores the fifth-century writer Patrick, whose work stands out among contemporary imperial and Christian views of the barbaricum, presenting a positive view of the Irish and their Christian identity. The second essay “History in Stories: The Irish Benedictines in Ratisbon and Their Attempts to Interest a New Audience About Ireland in the Twelfth Century” by Helmut Flachenecker approaches the question of how Irish missionaries and monks immigrating to Germany in the Early Middle Ages communicated their culture and origins in their new home via haliographic texts, resulting in mostly negative reception. Exploring the relevance of insights about Ireland, Beatrix Färber’s contribution “Carl Gottlob Küttner: In Search of an Older Ireland” focuses on the experience of the tutor and writer travelling to Ireland in 1783/84, which he communicated in letters to a German friend.

The second section of the volume concentrates on literary and cultural productions. In his contribution “Cautionary Tales: Deirdre Kinahan’s Dramatic Reassessment of Irish History in Raging (2022)”, Jochen Achilles offers an analysis of the Meath trilogy, in which the contemporary playwright re-evaluates Irish liberation through a female perspective, shifting the focus to the impact on rural regions and the cruelty of the conflict. Antonios Smyrnaios, in his essay “Transatlantic Quest: The Fusion of Immram and Initiation in Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea (2003), Mary Pat Kelly’s Galway Bay (2009), and Colum McCann’s TransAtlantic (2013)”, investigates the transatlantic quest in Irish American new historical fiction. In her contribution “An ‘American Idea’: Irish American Musical Theatre in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”, Anne-Sophie Hornung explores the contemporary as well as the present-day role of early Irish American musical theatre in defining American national identity. In “Resilient Women and the Belfast Blitz: Lucy Caldwell’s These Days (2022)”, Hedwig Schwall utilises the historical novel in order to connect the past with the present, juxtaposing the resilience of Belfast people in the Blitz with the political climate created during Covid and Brexit. Raphaël Ingelbien discusses Brexit’s impact on Irish-English writing through an analysis of the author’s work in “Brexit and the Remaking of Irish Diasporic Writing: Recovering Irish and European Pasts in Patrick McGuinness’s Throw Me to the Wolves (2019)”. Miriam Wallraven, in “‘Brexit, borders, barriers, identity’: Connected Forms of Liminality in Kerri ní Dochartaigh’s Irish Memoir Thin Places (2021)”, illuminates how the concept of liminal spaces can be utilized to break down borders, envisioning a future of connection and peace. Franca Leitner’s “Houses with Histories: Ruins as Lieux d’Oubli in Tana French’s The Likeness (2008), Dervla McTiernan’s The Ruin (2018), and Stuart Neville’s The House of Ashes (2021)” explores the connection between contemporary Irish crime fiction and the Gothic mode, illustrating how the genre gains additional pertinence in the context of Irish national trauma. Maureen O’Connor’s contribution “Moya Cannon’s Anthropocene Poetics: Writing the Knot That Binds Past, Present, and Future” investigates enduring themes such as time, death, history and the human place in creation, arguing that the poet imagines a way in which to reinvestigate these phenomena from a positive angle. In “Irish History, Personal Memory and Stupid Ideas: A Conversation with Patrick Freyne”, the author and Ina Bergmann talk about his memoir Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea (2020). Their exchange covers topics such as writing routines, personal memories, the genre of life writing, contemporary Irish literature as well as the Irish past and present.

The third section of the volume then finally looks at English language teaching. Focusing on the stark asymmetry in the portrayal of Ireland in “‘Irish Stories’: Ireland in German EFL Schoolbooks”, Aimée Waha investigates the influence this has on learners’ imagination of Ireland and its culture, especially in relation to its position in the English-speaking world. In her contribution “Irish American History and Hybrid Identity: Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn (2009) in the EFL Classroom”, Maria Eisenmann advocates for a stronger emphasis on themes like Irish migration and hybrid identity in the EFL classroom and demonstrates how the novel can be used to teach inter- and cross-cultural learning. In a further contribution to this volume, “The Troubles: Kenneth Branagh’s Film Belfast (2021) in the EFL Classroom”, Eisenmann explores the use of film as a plurimedial form of representation in the EFL classroom to teach the Troubles in English classes. Elke D’hoker, in “Teaching Language, Literature, and History Through Irish Short Stories: An Integrated and Dialogic EFL Approach”, presents a five-step model for teaching language, literary reading, and intercultural understanding in the secondary EFL classroom. Using the works of Irish writers like Liam O’Flaherty, Mary O’Donnell and Emma Donoghue, she shows how this model can also be used for teaching history and historical compassion. Finally, reflecting on performative approaches to Irish theatre plays, Manfred Schewe’s contribution “Engaging with History Through Story: A Performative Perspective” explores the potential of new intercultural pedagogical practices of teaching the (Irish) past to EFL classroom students.

To conclude this introduction and again put emphasis on the relevance of “history in stories”, we want to quote Irish President Michael D. Higgins, who in 2017 alluded to the Irish past, its lessons and the challenges of the present in a speech given at a meeting of the Eugene O’Neill society: