Shores of History, Islands of Ireland: Chronotopes of the Sea in the Contemporary Irish Novel

The article investigates the most significant patterns than can be traced in Irish contemporary fiction’s interest in the sea and its related maritime topographies, and argues how the most resonant associations of the sea imagery lie in the vexed relation between the historical past and communal and personal identity in the modern nation.Using the critical framework of the “chronotopes of the sea” (“at once geographies and topoi “, M.Cohen) and most notably the seaside/shoreline and the ship, in its analysis of novels by John Banville, Colm Toibin, Neil Jordan, Bernard Mac Laverty and Joseph O'Connor the article focusses on the association between memory, creativity and trauma, the sense of the past and the search for re/generation, and the trope of insularity as always referring to the identitarian tensions of Ireland.