A Generational Perspective on Irish Identity: From a Traumatized Generation to Several Irish Models in John McGahern’s Amongst Women (1990)

When speaking of Irishness as a traumatized identity, John McGahern's Amongst Women (1990) powerfully portrays this viewpoint with emphasis on Irish family and nationalism. Therefore, this article attempts to wrestle with a challenging aspect in the recent Irish debate on identity and nationalism, which is that Irish collective and individual experiences have undergone a shift in terms of social incentives that all dwell on scarcely addressed psychological variables. That is to say, the article's primary objective is to explore Irish identity, which has historically been imagined to be one continuum, by delving into the concepts of generations, social shift, and trauma. Finally, by uncovering the representations of social shift after the Irish War of Independence in this novel, the article's finding brings to light a previously overlooked aspect in Irish literature, namely Irishness: a concept infused with a multitude of symptoms curtailing a deeply psychologically traumatized culture.