Current CFP

Call for Papers
Death and the Irish Diaspora
Special Issue of Éire-Ireland

Special-Issue Editors:
Chris Cusack, Radboud University
Sophie Cooper, Queen's University Belfast

Éire-Ireland: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Irish Studies welcomes submissions for a Spring/Summer 2026 special issue on death and the Irish diaspora.

It is a popular refrain that “the Irish are good at death.” Although a common belief, recent research appearing in journals (for example, the February 2024 issue of Journal of Traumatic Stress) and popular texts such as Kevin Toolis’ My Father’s Wake (2018) have reinforced the importance of this subject. More recently, academic studies by Salvador Ryan (2016), Niamh Ann Kelly (2017, 2018), Bridget English (2017), Ciara Breathnach (2022), and Michelle McGoff-McCann (2023) have explored different facets of death in Irish society. However, there are few recent publications looking at death and its representation in the Irish diaspora to extend the work of Cian McMahon on death at sea during the Famine (2021) or the investigations of Christopher Cusack and Lindsay Janssen (2023) on death in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish American fiction. As such, there is a lacuna in the scholarship, even though experiences with, responses to, and representations of death connect a wide range of themes and can function as a lens for studying religion, class, gender, and labor practices in the social, political, and cultural worlds of Irish emigrants and their descendants.

The guest editors therefore welcome submissions on all aspects of death and dying in the Irish diaspora. We encourage articles from all disciplinary backgrounds and from all diasporic geographies, including within the structures of empire. We are also happy to receive articles which consider continuities in practice between Ireland and the diaspora. Authors might focus on (representations of) the places and spaces associated with death, such as cemeteries (including potter’s fields), funeral homes, morgues, and crematoriums, as well as the sites where death happens, including the domestic sphere, hospitals, poorhouses, emigrant vessels, quarantine stations, worksites, and prisons. Additionally, we are interested in the interplay between death practices and traditions (including the wake and keening), cognitions, and their literary and cultural representations in providing insight into the intercultural dynamics of diasporic identity formation.

Interested contributors should submit an abstracts of 500 words to the special issue editors by 31 October 2024. Final papers will be expected by 1 May 2025 and should be between 6,000 and 10,000 words, inclusive of footnotes, and submitted digitally in Word format. All submissions will be subject to peer review and should be prepared according to either the MLA Style Manual or the Chicago Manual of Style (with footnotes rather than in-line citations when using Chicago style). In addition, if you plan to submit an article for consideration by the editors, please adhere to the directions given in the style guide for the journal. A copy of the style guide may be accessed on the website of the Irish American Cultural Institute: http://www.iaci-usa.org/images/E-I_STYLE_SHEET_rev11-24-14.pdf.

Please send your submissions electronically to both guest editors:
Sophie Cooper (s.cooper@qub.ac.uk)
Chris Cusack (chris.cusack@ru.nl)