Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T05:17:21.154Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - Literature and the Technologies of Radio and Television

from Part II - Infrastructures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2023

By
Robert J. Savage
Edited by
Margaret Kelleher  and
James O'Sullivan
Margaret Kelleher
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
James O'Sullivan
Affiliation:
University College Cork
Get access

Summary

Across the globe radio developed rapidly as a popular and transformative technology in the aftermath of the Great War. In the 1920s it quickly became a means of mass communication reaching millions, enabling listeners access to news, information, and entertainment. In Ireland the advent of ‘wireless’ broadcasting coincided with independence and the partition of the island. Initially, broadcasting in Ireland looked inward as it sought to help define and consolidate the deeply conservative states that emerged from the violence of the Irish Revolution. However, identities throughout the island of Ireland have evolved to challenge the narrow, defensive, insular states that struggled to assert themselves a century ago. This chapter addresses the evolution of broadcasting in Ireland and how Irish writers have successfully used radio and television to find regional, national, and global audiences. Although presented in an Irish context, much of their writing transcends national borders because it explores the human condition in a variety of dramatic and comedic forms.

Keywords

Radio ÉireannBBCRTÉdramalanguagethe troublesviolencereligion
Type
Chapter
Information
Technology in Irish Literature and Culture , pp. 99 - 117
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Select Bibliography

Bloom, Emily, The Wireless Past: Anglo-Irish Writers and the BBC, 1931–1968 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, Edward, A Post-Nationalist History of Television in Ireland (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).Google Scholar
Cathcart, Rex, The Most Contrary Region: The BBC in Northern Ireland, 1924–1984 (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Dowling, Jack, Doolan, Lelia, and Quinn, Bob, Sit Down and Be Counted: The Cultural Evolution of a Television Station (Dublin: Wellington Ltd, 1969).Google Scholar
Fallon, Brian, An Age of Innocence: Irish Culture, 1930–1960 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1998).Google Scholar
Fanning, Ronan, Independent Ireland (Dublin: Helicon Ltd, 1983).Google Scholar
Gorham, Maurice, Forty Years of Irish Broadcasting (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1967).Google Scholar
Hill, John, TV That Tackled the Troubles: Play for Today and Northern Ireland (London: British Film Institute, 2020).Google Scholar
McIntosh, Gillian, The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth-Century Ireland (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
McIntosh, Gillian ‘Tyrone Guthrie and the BBC in Belfast’, Éire-Ireland 50:1–2 (Spring/Summer 2015), 13–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLoone, Martin, ‘The Construction of a Partitionist Mentality: Early Broadcasting in Ireland’, in Broadcasting in a Divided Community: Seventy Years of the BBC in Northern Ireland, ed. McLoone (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1996), pp. 20–34.Google Scholar
McLoone, Martin Film, Television and the Troubles: A ‘Troubles Archive’ Essay (Belfast: Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 2009).Google Scholar
Morash, Christopher, A History of the Media in Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).Google Scholar
O’Leary, Philip, Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State, 1922–1939 (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Pettitt, Lance, Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Pine, Richard, 2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Quinn, Deirdre, ‘Spiked: Bodies, Power, and Broadcasting’, Éire-Ireland 50:1–2 (Spring/Summer 2015), 137–55.Google Scholar
Reynolds, Paige, ed., The New Irish Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, Robert J., Irish Television: The Political and Social Origins (Cork: Cork University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Savage, Robert J. A Loss of Innocence? Television and Irish Society, 1960–1972 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Savage, Robert J. The BBC’s ‘Irish Troubles’: Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Smith, James M., Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×