Introduction

Construction of Identity in Northern Irish Novels 219
chronic insomnia for some years” and “attributed it to the Anglo-Irish Agreement
and the creeping suspicion that this country would soon be in the hands of the
filthy Roman Catholic Church” (McLiam Wilson 280). Apart from his strong
dislike of Catholics he also hates black people and dreams of various possibilities
of “ridding the planet of all its dark-skinned humans” (ibid. 280). Ironically he has
to work with both a Catholic, Jake, and an Indian, Rajinder, and cannot do anything
about it. Furthermore, he is fantasising about a “hybrid dog, a vicious superdog,
which ate only black people” (ibid. 281): Without noticing it, Ronnie acknowledges
that a hybrid being is capable of doing far better things than a nonhybrid.
What he is actually dreaming of – a pure world of only white Protestant
people – in his vision only becomes possible by using the opposite, a being that is
not pure in that sense because it is unites different qualities.
3.3. The Colonised Body: Postcolonialism and Postmodernism
3.3.1. The Literary Postcolonial Moment
“I know Cúchulainn, I said. – But can you speak
Gaelic?”
Where They Were Missed, Lucy Caldwell
(2006, 139)
With respect to literature, the late nineteenth century saw a counter-movement
against British policies in the form of the Irish Renaissance, also termed the Celtic
Revival, which is generally dated from 1890 to 1920. The Home Rule movement,
led by Charles Stewart Parnell, as well as the Land League were just two developments
on the political and social level. Disillusioned by Parnell’s failure after his
affair with married Katharine O’Shea and his inevitable fall, and because an independent
Ireland seemed to be out of reach, people were in need of an Irish identity
more than ever. In order to realise this, the Irish Literary Movement, the Irish
Dramatic Movement and the already mentioned Gaelic League came into being.
The latter movement opted for a revival of the Irish (Gaelic) language with the
aim to use it both in everyday speech and writing (Imhof 61ff). It also provided
the literary movement with the material necessary for inventing a typical Irish
character, such as Celtic mythology and the revaluation of simple country life.
One of the major spokesmen for the Irish Literary Movement was William Butler
Yeats who ensured that these Irish folk tales and works by Irish writers became
accessible to the public, both nationally and internationally (Kosok 146). The key
characteristic for this literature is the blending of traditional Celtic topics with
contemporary Irish problems as for instance shown in Yeat’s poem The Wanderings
of Oisin (1889), in which the Irish hero Oisin stands in dialogue with St. Patrick.