“A Pole of Differentiation”: Pasts and Futures in Irish Working-Class Writing

The chapter outlines the current state of play in the scholarly study of Irish working-class writing. It explores issues with regard to the historiography of the Irish working class, analyses its diasporic and colonial contexts, and provides a brief introduction to Irish working-class writing over the past three centuries and its study in the academy. The chapter also suggests some of the prominent themes across this literature, which suggest points of commonality (as well as contrast) with working-class writing in other international contexts.