Ní Dhomhnaill’s Poetry as a Challenge to Patriarchy in the Irish Literary Tradition

Abstract

This article aims at reading Dhomhnaill’s poem, Mother, as a transgressive voice that tries, hardly, to break the silence over female literary production in Ireland. This reading aims to focus on Irish women’s attempts and transgression to negotiate their relation in Irish culture. Emphasis will be given to the lyric I who transgresses the traditional form of the literary hero, escaping from the nets of Mother Ireland through her anger. Thus, the myth of Mother becomes the big metaphor for our historical deconstructing purpose of mother as an image of controversy in feminist urge for new readings of patriarchies.