Enigmas of Sacrifice: A Critique of Joseph M. Plunkett and the Dublin Insurrection of 1916

by W. J. Mc Cormack

Overview

Enigmas of Sacrifice: A Critique of Joseph M. Plunkett and the Dublin Insurrection of 1916 is the first critical study of the religious poet and militarist Joseph M. Plunkett, who was executed with the other leaders of the Dublin insurrection of 1916. Through Plunkett the author gains access to areas of nationalist thought that were more often assumed or repressed than publicly formulated. In this eye-opening book, W. J. Mc Cormack explores and analyzes Plunkett’s brief life, work, and influence, beginning with his wealthy but dysfunctional family, irregular Jesuit education, and self-canceling sexuality. Mc Cormack continues through Plunkett’s active phase when amateur theatricals and a magazine editorship brought him into the emergent neonationalist discourse of early twentieth-century Ireland. Finally, the author arrives at Holy Week 1916, when Plunkett masterminded the forgery of official documentation in order to provoke and justify the insurrection he planned. Mc Cormack analyzes Plunkett’s significant texts and provides context through critical perspectives on his milieu. Enigmas of Sacrifice is unique in its effort to understand a major figure of Irish nationalism in terms that reach beyond political identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611861914
Publisher:	Michigan State University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Series:	Studies in Violence, Mimesis & Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

W. J. Mc Cormack has taught in American, Austrian, Belgian, British, Hungarian, and Irish universities, specializing in a comparative criticism of Irish culture and history. He is a bibliographer, biographer, and poet (under the name Hugh Maxton).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xi

A Long Prologue: Crisis and Criticism 1

Chapter 1 Naming the Parts of a Life 37

Chapter 2 Actions of This Kind or That 147

Chapter 3 Affinity and Mimesis 217

Epilogue: Two Items Preserved among the Papers of George Noble Plunkett 295

Appendix 1 Two Book Lists (1909 and circa 1915) 307

Appendix 2 Contents of The Irish Review (1911-1914) 321

Appendix 3 The Forged Dublin Castle Document 1916 343

Notes 349

Select Bibliography of Primary Sources 373

Index 379