Introduction

Construction of Identity in Northern Irish Novels 249
sentment of nationalist or unionist ideas (otherwise he might as well have chosen
to live in a Catholic area). Helen in One by One in the Darkness equally chose to live
in a mixed area. Like Jake she is living in South Belfast just off the Ormeau Road
(Madden 44). Jake’s friend Chuckie is living in Eureka Street, another fictive street
in the novel (there is a Eureka Drive in Belfast, however); “Eureka” meaning “I
have found [it]” (Duden 552). The street’s name that is at the same time the title
of the book thereby is representative for the development of a number of characters
in the novel. Both Chuckie and Jake find love, Chuckie on top finds a way to
earn money. Aoirghe finds a way to leave her nationalist views behind and look
into the future with “clear eyes” (McLiam Wilson 396). Chuckie’s mother Peggy
and his friend Deasely find new ways of living by outing themselves as homosexuals.
Finally, they all have found a way to live in a city like Belfast without despairing
by the city’s agony.
4.2. The City Mirroring Northern Irish Society
“In this city, the natives live in a broken world – broken
but beautiful.”
Eureka Street, Robert McLiam Wilson
(1996, 215)
Depictions of the city and urban life have always been of great importance to
authors such as James Joyce, John Dos Passos, Virginia Woolf or Paul Auster 33.
Worthy to remember is Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway’s walk through London while
preparing for a party that same evening. The reader accompanies her through
Westminster, hearing the strikes of Big Ben and crosses with her Victoria Street
(Woolf 6). “I love walking in London”, Mrs. Dalloway says, “Really, it’s better
than walking in the country” (ibid. 8). While Joyce’s Dublin is converted into a
scene that resembles the journeys of Odysseus, Auster’s New York illustrates the
city’s anonymity and John Dos Passos gives a convincing picture of urban life in
New York before the Great Depression. The city thus invokes different associations,
whether pictures of consumerism, anonymous masses or a declaration of
love. While One by One in the Darkness and Where They Were Missed engage with the
city mainly as a contrast to the countryside and depict Belfast as a place predominantly
associated with fear, hatred and violence, Eureka Street grants the city a
more detailed report and even dedicates a whole chapter to it. For Wim Tigges
Belfast is thus the true protagonist of the novel (187). In consequence he compares
the portrayal of Belfast to that of Joyce’s Dublin: “The physique of the city
is vitalized in Eureka Street by the mention of street names, for instance when fol-
33 James Joyce, Ulysses (published 1922). John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer (published 1925).
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (published 1925). Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy (published
1987 in one volume).