Introduction: Eco-Fictions, The Animal Trope and Irish Studies

[...]during the decades of the economic boom, the Irish land of the Celtic Tiger was plundered mercilessly by unscrupulous property developers, and its historical sites and natural resources were appropriated as commodities for tourism. Whereas such conceptual frameworks emerged in the late seventies and early eighties, the consolidation of their bases, principles and values in the 1990s, as well as the development of their methodologies, coincided with the years of the Celtic Tiger, when Ireland and the Irish were being carried on a tide of economic prosperity which would have disastrous consequences, although these were only discerned by a small number of artists and intellectuals. [...]the much-needed revision of and deep reflection on ecology and the environment in Ireland came only after the economic collapse of 2008. The process of edition of the present issue took place, to a significant extent, during the period of confinement forced by the Covid-19 pandemic, when academics were saturated with online classes, sundry telematic commitments and difficult access to library sources. [...]we want to express our most sincere gratitude to the readers who generously agreed to assess the submitted contributions, to the authors who diligently revised their manuscripts according to the indications received by the reviewers, and, most emphatically our gratitude goes to the former general editor of Estudios Irlandeses, Dr. José Francisco Fernández Sánchez who always encouraged and supported us, supervising our work from the very beginning, and patiently answering our endless e-mails.