Dr Feargal Whelan B.A (UCD),M.A. (UCD), PhD (UCD) Visiting Research Fellow
Research and Teaching Interests
I lecture on twentieth and twenty-first century Irish literature with a specific interest in the work of Samuel Beckett and the drama of the Gate Theatre, and have published and presented widely on the topics. I have worked closely with Mouth on Fire theatre company on their annual productions at the Beckett in Foxrock festival, and with their various Irish language productions of Beckett, providing introductory public lectures and performing Beckett’s poetry on-stage in Irish, and have scripted and provided expert interview appearances in a number of Beckett-themed television documentaries. I am an executive board member of the Samuel Beckett Society and edit its publication The Beckett Circle. I was also a contributing core member of the Gate Theatre Research Network The Gate Theatre Research Network funded jointly by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, NUI Galway, and Charles University Prague. A particular interest is Protestant writing in Ireland in the 1920s and 1930s.
Publications
Book Chapters and Journal Articles
- ‘Samuel Beckett and Ireland’, The Oxford Handbook to Samuel Beckett, eds Mark Nixon and Dirk Van Hulle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Forthcoming 2023).
- ‘Imprecations from the Brighton Road to Foxrock Station’: the effect of place on Mouth on Fire’s staging of All That Fall, in Beckett’s Afterlives: Adaptation, Remediation, Appropriation. eds Jonathan Bignell, Anna McMullan & Pim Verhulst, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2023.
- ‘The Old Haunts: Beckett’s Obsessional Irish Landscapes’, in Reading Ireland, 15 (Spring/Summer) 2022, 8-18.
- ‘The Permanent Way: Movement and Stasis in Beckett’s Railways’ in Beckett and Technology, eds Einat Adar, Galina Karyushina and Mark Nixon, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021, 29-43.
- ‘Máiréad Ní Ghráda’s An Triail/On Trial (1964): Hiding Hypocrisy in Plain Sight’ in The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights (1716-2016) vol I., eds David Clare, Fiona McDonagh and Justine Natake, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021, 257-266.
- ‘The Use of Minority Languages at Dublin’s Gate Theatre and Barcelona’s Teatre Lliure’ with David Clare, in A Stage of Emancipation: Change and Progress at the Dublin Gate Theatre, eds Ruud van den Beuken, Marguerite Corparaal, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021, 131-150.
- ‘Pedagogies of Place: Dublin’ with Georgina Nugent-Folan, in Journal of Beckett Studies 29:1, April 2020, 66-73.
- ‘The Big House in the Suburbs: Home Thoughts from Abroad in Watt’ in Beckett and Politics, eds. William Davies and Hannah Bailey, London: Palgrave, 2020, 249-261.
- ‘“No nation wanted it so much”: Beckett, Swift and Psychiatric Confinement in Ireland’. Estudios Irlandeses: Journal of Irish Studies 14.2 2019, 92-103.
- ‘Lord Longford’s Yahoo: An Alternative National Myth from an Alternative National Theatre’ in The Gate Theatre, Dublin: Inspiration and Craft eds. David Clare, Des Lally, Patrick Lonergan. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2018, 147-160
- ‘Schenectady Putters and Leaving Certificate Ta-Tas: Satirizing Irish Nation-Building in “Echo’s Bones”’ in Beckett and Modernism eds Olga Bolodorova, Pim Verhulst and Dirk van Hulle. London: Palgrave, 2018, 147-159.
- ‘All Hats and Moustaches: Commemorating and Performing 1916 in 2016’ in Estudios Irlandeses, 12 2017, 140-150.
- ‘“In Bantu or Erse”: Staging Beckett in Irish’ in Staging Beckett in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Eds. Trish McTighe and David Tucker. London: Bloomsbury, 2016, 121-136.