Institutionalized through religious, moral and political discourses, the family has become an icon of Irish culture. Historically, the influence of the Church and the State fostered the ideal of a nuclear family based on principles of Catholic morality, patriarchal authority, heterosexuality and hierarchy, which acted as the cornerstone of Irish society. However, in recent decades the introduction of liberal policies, the progressive recognition of womens rights, the secularization of society and the effects of immigration and globalization have all contributed to challenging the validity of this ideal, revealing the dysfunction that may lie at the heart of the rigidly constructed family cell. This volume surveys the representation of the concepts of home and family in contemporary Irish narrative and film, approaching the issue from a broad range of perspectives. The earlier chapters look at specific aspects of familial dysfunction, while the final section includes interviews with the writer Emer Martin and filmmakers Jim Sheridan and Kirsten Sheridan.

Marisol Morales-Ladrón is Senior Lecturer at the University of Alcalá, where she teaches Irish and English literature. She is the author of Breve introducción a la literatura comparada (1999) and Las poéticas de James Joyce y Luis Martín-Santos (2005). She also edited Postcolonial and Gender Perspectives in Irish Studies (2007) and coedited Global Ireland: Current Perspectives on Literature and the Visual Arts (2011). She has served as Chair of the Spanish Association for Irish Studies (AEDEI) and as a board member of AEDEI and the Spanish Society for Comparative and General Literature (SELGyC).

Contents: Marisol Morales-Ladrón/Inés Praga/Asier Altuna-García de Salazar/Juan F. Elices/Rosa González-Casademont: Introduction: Home, Family and Dysfunction in the Narrative and Filmic Discourses of Ireland – Marisol Morales-Ladrón: Portraits of Dysfunction in Contemporary Irish Women’s Narratives: Confined to the Cell, Lost to Memory – Inés Praga: Home Revisited: Family (Re)Constructions in Contemporary Irish Autobiographical Writing – Asier Altuna-García de Salazar: Family and Dysfunction in Ireland Represented in Fiction Through the Multicultural and Intercultural Prisms – Juan F. Elices: Familiar Dysfunctionalities in Contemporary Irish Satirical Literature – Rosa González-Casademont: Representation of Family Tropes and Discourses in Contemporary Irish-Themed Cinema – Asier Altuna-García de Salazar: From Escaping to Facing Dysfunction: An Interview with Emer Martin – Rosa González-Casademont: «There is no point in making local stories that are not universally true»: An Interview with Jim Sheridan – Rosa González-Casademont: «Ireland is a tough one when it comes to filming»: An Interview with Kirsten Sheridan.