O'Brien, Eugene

Dr. Eugene O’Brien is currently Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of English at Mary Immaculate College in the University of Limerick. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University Limerick.

Examining Irish Nationalism in the Context of Literature, Culture and Religion: A Study of the Epistemological Structure of Nationalism

2002 0-7734-7238-X
Argues that it is only through its epistemological perspective that nationalism can be properly analyzed. It goes on to offer such an analysis, utilizing the work of Jacques Lacan. The strong connections between nationalism and religion are examined Finally, the supposed difference between political nationalism and ‘cultural nationalism’ is interrogated.

The Question of Irish Identity in the Writings of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce

1998 0-7734-8237-7
This study seeks to redefine the notions of Irishness and of Irish identity which have been current in cultural and socio-political discourse since the beginning of this century, and secondly, it offers readings of the work of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce which demonstrate their similar negative epistemologies of identity. It is part of the work’s argument that cultural and aesthetic writings have seminal influences on the political infrastructure of the modern nation, and so the book analyzes the political import of cultural and literary movements. In what is possibly the first such project in terms of Irish studies, it offers a critique of essentialist and foundationalist views of Irishness as Gaelic, Catholic, and nationalist, through the application of the theoretical writings of Theodore Adorno, Jacques Derrida, and Emmanuel Levinas. Given the current conflicts of identity in Northern Ireland, this is a timely study which sheds light on the mindsets which create mutually exclusive notions of identity.