The tyranny of the past? revolution, retrospection and remembrance in the work of Irish writer, Eilis Dillon

This thesis examines the extent to which Eilis Dillon\u27s (1920-94) reliance on memory and her propensity to represent the past was, for her, a valuable motivating power and/or an inherited repressive influence in terms of her choices of genres, subject matter and style. Volume I of this dissertation consists of a comprehensive survey and critical analysis of Dillon\u27s writing. It addresses the thesis question over six chapters, each of which relates to a specific aspect of the writer\u27s background and work. In doing so, the study includes the full range of genres that Dillon employed - stories and novels in both Irish and English for children of various age-groups, teenage adventure stories, as well as crime fiction, literary and historical novels, short stories, poetry, autobiography and works of translation for an adult readership. The dissertation draws extensively on largely untapped archival material, including lecture notes, draft documents and critical reviews of Dillon\u27s work. It also includes the comments of the author\u27s family and friends recorded in personal interviews, which provide background details on Dillon, and form an assessment of her contribution to literature and the arts. The thesis, in contextualising Dillon\u27s output, takes a biographical and historico-literary approach, while its critical framework is underpinned by the work of relevant theorists in the multidisciplinary areas of memory studies and commemoration. Although recognising the benefits, both individually and in a national context, of the use of literature in a mnemonic sense, this thesis contends that the overuse of memory proved to be a restrictive yet reassuring factor for Eilis Dillon over a long and prodigious career. In Volume II, Dillon\u27s publications, editions and translations are presented in a searchable digital resource at the website http://research.dho.ie/dillon/. which was created as part of this study and is hosted by the Digital Humanities of Obervatory, http://dho.ie. The digital element of the thesis was undertaken as an integral component of the dissertation in part fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) initiated and supported by St Patrick\u27s College, Drumcondra, a college of Dublin City University (DCU), and An Foras Feasa, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM). Completed in collaboration with two fellow students, the process of digitisation is fully described, from its origins to its delivery online, in the accompanying written dissertation in Volume II