• An Litríocht Réigiúnach (BÁC: An Clóchomhar 1982).
• Eoghan Ó Tuairisc: Beatha agus Saothar (BÁC: An Clóchomhar 1988).
• B’Ait Leo Bean: Gnéithe den Idé-eolaíocht Inscne i dTraidisiún Liteartha na Gaeilge (BÁC: An Clóchomhar 1998);
• Trén bhFearann Breac: An Díláithriú Cultúir agus Nualitríocht na Gaeilge (BÁC: Cois Life 2005).

• ed., Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, Religio Poetae agus Aistí Eile (BÁC: An Clóchomhar 1987) [sel. essays].
• with Aisling Ni Dhonnchadna, Ar an gCoigríoch: Díolaim Litríochta ar Scéal na hlmirce (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2008), 455pp. [incls. Micí Mac Gabhann; Dónall Mac Amhlaigh; Pádraic Ó Conaire; Áine Ní Ghlinn; Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé; et mult. al.] 

Against all the odds, every generation since independence has produced writers of the highest calibre, and it is a huge privilege to be able to read the work of writers like Seosamh Mac Grianna, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Máiréad Ní Ghráda and Caitlín Maude, not to mention the truly wonderful new writing appearing each year from Irish-language publishing houses. This writing is deserving of critical appraisal, and a key responsibility of Modern Irish literary scholars is that of developing a critical language and a conceptual framework appropriate to that task.

One of the truly enriching aspects of working on modern and contemporary writing in Irish is the constantly unfolding dialogue between that writing and the rich Irish-language literary and oral tradition. Poetry and historical fiction in particular draw deeply from these wells, and my own attempts to examine ‘revisionist mythmaking’ in the work of contemporary authors have been deepened and enriched by the critical readings and insights of folklorists and scholars who are experts in the earlier literature.

[...]

As feminist critical perspectives came to the fore in the 1990s, gaining momentum in the wake of the publication in 1991 of the controversial first three volumes of the Field Day anthology of Irish writing, the question of female authorship in the Irish tradition could not be ignored. My doctoral thesis, a version of which was published in 1998 as B’ait leo bean: gnéithe den idé-eolaíocht inscne i dtraidisiún liteartha na Gaeilge, examined how literary genres and tropes were used over the centuries to embed a gender ideology that was profoundly disabling for women. While accounting for the dearth of named female authors, the study also acknowledged historical references to and examples of female creativity and female patronage. This dual focus was crucial, because an important motivation in undertaking that research was an understanding of the effect on contemporary women writers of the anxiety of absence associated with a male-dominated literary tradition.

In Trén bhFearann Breac: an díláithriú cultúir agus nualitríocht na Gaeilge, published in 2005, I looked at twentieth-century literature in Irish in the context of linguistic minoritisation and the accompanying processes of cultural displacement. The book critiques the Anglophone focus of much post-colonial literary criticism, both in Ireland and internationally, while also acknowledging the need for Irish-language scholars to place their own critical practice within a broader theoretical framework. Themes explored are the relationship between literary production and cultural and linguistic change, and writers’ diverse responses to questions of marginalisation, displacement, hybridity and interculturality. Since writing that book, I have been exploring further the idea of Irish-language literature as a form of minority discourse, and arguing that it is its preoccupation with issues of minority, sustainability and survival that connects literature in Irish to global ecological and humanitarian concerns.

[...]

I am sometimes asked if I find working on literature in a minoritised language like Irish limiting. My answer is always an emphatic ‘No’. In fact, part of my fascination with literature in Irish is the sense of marvel at the creative output of a language that is struggling for its very existence as a community language. Writers are aware of the endangered status of their chosen medium, and yet they insist on expressing themselves in a language that will never bring them fame or fortune, addressing their works to a small core readership or, in the words of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill in the poem “Ceist na Teangan”, placing their hopes i mbáidín teanga (‘in a language boat’) in anticipation that it may take them, like Moses in his basket, into the lap of some Pharoah’s daughter. [Cont.]