This book contains an exciting collection of essays focusing on a variety of alternative performances happening in contemporary Ireland. While it highlights the particular representations of gay and lesbian identity it also brings to light how diversity has always been a part of Irish culture and is, in fact, shaping what it means to be Irish today. Inside there are provocative chapters from scholars, theatre producers, and theatre artists from around the world analysing everything from the drag scene in Dublin to the Gay Pride Parades in Cathleen Ni Houlihan will never be the same! Some forty years have passed since the first openly gay character appeared on the Irish stage, sixteen years since homosexuality was decriminalised and two decades since theories of the queer have disrupted notions of normativity. But where has Irish theatre scholarship been hiding all this time? Finally we have an important collection of essays employing methodologies from literary, theatre and performance studies disciplines to queer Irish theatre and by doing so, to contest the compulsory heterosexuality of nation building. This collection proudly asserts that queerness and Irishness are conjoined at the performative hip!
