Professor Christopher Morash
Seamus Heaney Prof of Irish Writing, English
Biography
I am the Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, a post dedicated to the teaching and research of Irish writing, based in the School of English. I have published histories of Irish theatre, of Irish media (especially the telegraph), and of the Irish novel. Much of my work has been on Irish theatre, with books on theories of space in Irish theatre, and a monograph on Yeats's theatre. A 2013 book (with Shaun Richards) on theories of theatre space evolved into an interest in urban place-writing more generally, and in 2023 I published Dublin: A Writer's City. That book is the first of a series, Imagining Cities, for which I am Series Editor for Cambridge University Press, with a book on New Orleans in print, and London, New York, San Francisco, and Cambridge commissioned. In 2021, I was invited to curate the Unseen Plays series of audio plays for the Abbey Theatre. I have given keynote addresses to many of the major Irish Studies associations, including IASIL, CAIS, and ACIS. I chair the judging panel for the Dublin Literary Award, the world's richest prize for a single novel in English, and deliver the annual Dublin UNESCO City of Literature lecture. I am currently editing The Cambridge History of the Irish Novel.
Publications and Further Research Outputs
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Knowing Ruskin's Cat: Yeats and the Proper Names of the Aesthetic in, editor(s)Charles I. Armstrong, Adrian Paterson, and Tom Walker , The Edinburgh Companion to W.B. Yeats and the Arts, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2024, pp99-111 , [Chris Morash]
Padraic Colum, Playwright in, editor(s)Pádraic Whyte and Keith O'Sullivan , 'That Queer Thing, Genius': The Writings of Padraic Colum, London, 2024, pp8-30 , [Chris Morash]
'Cityful Passing Away': Resituating Dublin in, editor(s)Ato Quayson, Jini Kim Watson , The Cambridge Companion to the City in World Literature,, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, pp99-121 , [Chris Morash]
Chris Morash, Dublin: A Writer's City, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, ix - 314pp, xi-xvi, 1-314pp
'A Dead, Living Murdered Man': Staging the Irish Gothic in, editor(s)Jarleth Killeen, Christina Morin , Irish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2023, pp65-81 , [Chris Morash]
Chris Morash, The Problem of The Herne's Egg: Yeats, Theatre and Materiality, International Yeats Studies, 7, (1), 2023, p107-122
Technologies of Sound: Telephone/Gramophone in, editor(s)Margaret Kelleher, James O'Sullivan , Technology in Irish Literature and Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023, pp65-82 , [Chris Morash]
Morash, Christopher, Yeats on Theatre, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2021, vii - 250pp
Displaced States: The Imagined Annihilation of Time and Space in, editor(s)Annex (collective) , States of Entanglement: Data in the Irish Landscape, Barcelona, Actar, 2021, pp174-188 , [Chris Morash]
'Glancing Encounters Are No Good': Interview with John Banville in, editor(s)Earl G. Ingersoll and John Cusatis , Conversations With John Banville, Jackson, Miss., University Press of Mississippi, 2020, pp153 - 167, [Chris Morash]
Yeats and Oedipus: The Dark Road in, editor(s)Torrance, Isabelle and O'Rourke, Donncha , Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp218 - 236, [Morash, Christopher]
'Somehow It Is Not the Same': Irish Theatre and Transition in, editor(s)Eve Patten , Irish LIterature in Transition: 1940-1980, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp34-49 , [Chris Morash]
Chris Morash, Re-placing `the Triumph over Time and Space': Ireland, Newfoundland, and the Transatlantic Telegraph, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 43, (1), 2020, p58-79
Chris Morash, Shaun Richards, The Long Crisis of Irish Realism: A Phenomenological Reading, Modern Drama, 61, (2), 2019, p192-212
Yeats, the Abbey, and Theatrical Modernism in, editor(s)Gregory Castle , A HIstory of Irish Modernism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp64-77 , [Chris Morash]
W.B. Yeats's The Dreaming of the Bones: Self-Consuming Images of Identity in, editor(s)Johannes Riquet and Martin Heusser , Imaging Identity: Text, Mediality and Contemporary Visual Culture, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, pp165-186 , [Chris Morash]
Louise MacNeice, 1907-1963 in, editor(s)Gerald Dawe , The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp167-180 , [Chris Morash]
Places of Performance in, editor(s)Chris Morash, Nicholas Grene , The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre, Oxford, Oxford Unversity Press, 2016, pp425-442 , [Chris Morash]
Chris Morash, 'Bewildered Remembrance': Yeats's Dreaming of the Bones and 1916, Field Day Review, 11, (1), 2015, p120-135
'Where All Ladders Start': Famine Memories in Yeats's Countess Cathleen in, editor(s)Marguéite Corporaal, Christopher Cusack, Lindsay Janssen, Ruud van den Beuken , Global Legacies of the Great Irish Famine, Oxford, Peter Lang, 2014, pp119 - 136, [Chris Morash]
Ghosts and Wires: The Telegrah and Wire in, editor(s)Karen Steele and Michael de Nie , Ireland and the New Journalism, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp21-34 , [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash & Shaun Richards, Mapping Irish Theatre: Theories of Space and Place, Cambridge:, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 1 - 225pp
Christopher Morash, Ethical and Cultural Diversity': Can Irish Studies Be Oppositional and Institutional at the Same Time?, The Irish Review, 46, 2013, p71 - 78
Synge's Typewriter: The Technological Sublime in Edwardian Ireland in, editor(s)B, Cliff and N. Grene , Synge and Edwardian Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp21 - 33, [Christopher Morash]
Making Space: Towards a Spatial Theory of Irish Theatre in, editor(s)P. Lonergan and N. Grene , Irish Drama: Local and Global Perspectives, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2012, pp7 - 22, [Christopher Morash]
Ibsen in Inish: Lennox Robinson, Ibsen and the Censorship of Publications Act in, editor(s)R. Dixon and I. Ruppo Malone , Ibsen and Chekhov on the Irish Stage, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2012, pp37 - 50, [Christopher Morash]
Literature and the Famine in, editor(s)J. Crowley, W. J. Smyth and M. Murphy , Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-52,, Cork, Ireland, Cork University Press, 2012, pp640 - 647, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash & Jonathan Bank and John P. Harrington, Teresa Deevy Reclaimed: Volume One, New York, Mint Theater, 2011, 158 pppp
Theatre in, editor(s)J. Murphy , The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Vol. IV: The Irish Book in English, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp587 - 594, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, The Hungry Voice: Poetry of the Irish Famine., 2, Dublin, Irish Academic Press,, 2009, 299pppp
Disenchanted Island: From Celtic Twilight to Celtic Tiger in, editor(s)G. Girard , Territoires de l'estrange dans la littérature irlandaise au XXe siècle, Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009, pp251 - 266, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, A History of the Media in Ireland., Cambridge:, Cambridge University Press, 2009, xvii - 244pp
John Devitt, Nicholas Grene, Chris Morash, Shifting Scenes: Irish Theatre-Going, 1955-1985, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2008, 108pp
...how feeble and inexpressive is the word!": Staging the Irish Famine" in, editor(s)E. Angel-Perez and A. Poulain , Hunger on Stage, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008, pp132 - 148, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, Denis Johnston's Swift Project: 'There Must Be Something Wrong with the Information, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 33, (2), 2007, p56 - 59
The Remains of Ellen Hanley: Theatre, Commodification, and Irish Identity in the Nineteenth Century in, editor(s)N. Allen and E. Patten , That Island Never Found: Essays and Poems for Terence Brown, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2007, pp19 - 32, [Christopher Morash]
Theatre in Ireland 1690-1800: From the Williamite Wars to the Act of Union in, editor(s)M. Kelleher and P. O'Leary , The Cambridge History of Irish Literature. Vol. 1: To 1890., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp372 - 406, [Christopher Morash]
Theatre and Print, 1550-1800 in, editor(s)R. Gillespie and A. Hadfield , The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Volume III: The Irish Book in English, 1550-1800., Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp319 - 334, [Christopher Morash]
An Afterword on Silence in, editor(s)G. Cusack and S. Goss , Hungry Words: Images of Famine in the Irish Canon, Dublin, Irish Academic Press,, 2006, pp300 - 308, [Christopher Morash]
The Road to God Knows Where: Can Theatre be National? in, editor(s)N. Grene and C.Morash , Irish Theatre on Tour. Irish Theatre Diaspora Series 1, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2005, pp101 - 115, [Christopher Morash]
Theatre in, editor(s)Joseph Cleary and Claire Connolly, , Cambridge Companion to Irish Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp322 - 338, [Christopher Morash]
Nicholas Grene and Chris Morash, Irish Theatre on Tour: Irish Theatrical Diaspora Series 1, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2005, xix + 229pp
Tantalized by Progress in, editor(s)C. Connolly , Theorising Ireland, London, Macmillan, 2003, pp114 - 124, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, A History of Irish Theatre,1601-2000, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, xx - 322pp
Murphy, History, and Society in, editor(s)N. Grene , Talking About Tom Murphy, Dublin, Carysfort Press, 2002, pp17 - 30, [Christopher Morash]
Something's Missing': Theatre and the Republic of Ireland Act, 1949 in, editor(s)R. Ryan , Writing in the Republic: Literature, Culture, Politics in the Republic of Ireland, 1949-1999, London, Macmillan, 2000, pp64 - 81, [Christopher Morash]
To One Thing Constant Never': Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing in, editor(s)M. Kelleher , Making it New: Essays on the New Leaving Certificate English Syllabus, Dublin, Lilliput Press, 2000, pp220 - 234, [Christopher Morash]
All Playboys Now: The Playboy of the Western World and the Audience in, editor(s)N. Grene , J.M. Synge and Irish Theatre., Dublin, Lilliput Press, 2000, pp135 - 150, [Christopher Morash]
Celticism: Between Race and Nation in, editor(s)Tadhg Foley and Seán Ryder , Ideology and Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 1998, pp206 - 213, [Christopher Morash]
The Time is Out of Joint (O Cursèd Spite)': Towards a Definition of Supernatural Narrative in, editor(s)Bruce Stewart , That Other World: The Supernatural and the Fantastic in Irish Literature and its Contexts, Colin Smythe, 1998, pp123 - 143, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, Maley, W. and Richards, S, The Triple Play of Irish History, The Irish Review, 20, (Winter/Spring), 1997, p23 - 46
Christopher Morash, Famine/Holocaust: Fragmented Bodies, Éire/Ireland, 32, (1), 1997, p136 - 150
Augustine...O'Brien...Vico...Joyce in, editor(s)Anne Clune and Tess Hurson , Conjuring Complexities: Essays on Flann O'Brien,, Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, 1997, pp133 - 142, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, Sinking Down into the Dark: The Famine on Stage, Bullán, 3, (1), 1997, p75 - 86
Making Memories: The Literature of the Irish Famine in, editor(s)Patrick O'Sullivan , The Meaning of the Famine. Vol. 6 of The Irish World Wide: History, Heritage, Identity,, London, Leicester UP, 1997, pp40 - 56, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash & R. Hayes, Fearful Realities: New Perspectives on the Irish Famine., Dublin:, Irish Academic Press,, 1996, 180pp.pp
Ever Under Some Unnatural Condition': Bram Stoker and the Colonial Fantastic in, editor(s)Brian Cosgrove , Literature and the Supernatural, Dublin, Columba Press, 1995, pp95 - 119, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, Spectres of the Famine, The Irish Review,, 17-18, (Winter), 1995, p74 - 79
The Rhetoric of Right in Mitchel's Jail Journal in, editor(s)Joep Leerssen, A.H. van der Weel, and Bart Westerweel , Forging in the Smithy: National Identity and Representation in Anglo-Irish Literary History, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1995, pp207 - 218, [Christopher Morash]
Christopher Morash, Creativity and Its Contexts., Dublin, Lilliput Press, 1995, 83 pp.pp
Christopher Morash, Writing the Irish Famine, Oxford, Clarendon, 1995, 213pppp
Christopher Morash, The Little Black Rose Revisited: Church, Empire and National Destiny in the Writing of Aubrey De Vere, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 20, (2), 1994, p45 - 52
Reflecting Absent Interiors: The Big House Novels of Charles Lever in, editor(s)Otto Rauchbaue , Ancestral Voices: The Big House in Anglo-Irish Literature, Hildesheim, Zürich, and New York, Georg Olms, 1992, pp61 - 78, [Christopher Morash]
On Minor Literature: Nineteenth-Century Ireland in, editor(s)Joseph McMinn , The Internationalism of Irish Literature and Drama, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smyth, 1992, pp209 - 216, [Christopher Morash]
Lever's Post-Famine Landscape in, editor(s)Tony Bareham , Charles Lever: New Evaluations,, Gerrards Cross, Colin Smythe, 1991, pp86 - 95, [Christopher Morash]
Research Expertise
Description
My research interests range widely across the field of Irish literary and cultural studies. I have published widely on Irish theatre, including a standard history, as well as a theorical work on theatre space. I am also the editor of the Cambridge History of the Irish Novel. However, I'm also very interested in technology and culture (and have published the only synoptic history of Irish media to range from the 16th century to the 21st century, and have published on the transatlantic telegraph). I have a long-held interest in Yeats, and have published the most recent monograph on his theatre and theatre theory. My interest in Irish Famine writing goes back to the 1990s, but remains active. Today, however, I am probably best known now for my work on literary Dublin, arising out of my book, Dublin: A Writer's City (2023), which is part of a series I am editing for Cambridge University Press, and which has given rise to many public talks, as well as feeding into my annual UNESCO City of Literature lecture. I am currently editing the 330,000-word Cambridge History of the Irish Novel, due for publication early in 2026.Recognition
Awards and Honours
Member, Royal Irish Academy
McGeorge Fellow, University of Melbourne
Jakob Fugger Research Fellow, University of Augsburg
Honorary Professor, Beijing Foreign Studies University
Theatre Book Prize for A History of Irish Theatre, 1601-2000 (Cambridge, 2002)
Memberships
Member of the Royal Irish Academy
International Association for the Study of Irish Literature (IASIL)
Canadian Association of Irish Studies (CAIS)