Carlow College Logo

Dr Eoghan Smith

Academic and Research Development Project Manager

Dr Eoghan Smith, Lecturer in English Literature
Dr Eoghan Smith, Lecturer in English Literature

Biography

Eoghan completed a BA in English and Philosophy in 2002 and the MA in Anglo-Irish Writing and Drama in 2003 at UCD. He obtained a PhD in English from Maynooth University in 2009. In 2011, he joined Carlow College, St. Patrick’s as a lecturer in English, where he teaches Creative Writing, modern and contemporary Irish writing, and world literature. Eoghan also writes fiction, and he is the author of three novels. He writes and reviews regularly for newspapers and magazines on contemporary Irish writing. Eoghan is also currently the Academic and Research Development Project Manager at Carlow College, where he has a role in programme development.

Research Interest

Eoghan’s areas of research are broadly in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Irish literature (particularly fiction) and culture. His current research interests lie in contemporary Irish writing, the fiction of John Banville, the literary and visual cultures of suburban Ireland, and philosophy and Irish writing. He is chair of the Carlow College Research Hub. He has co-organised a number of conferences and symposiums.

Eoghan has peer-reviewed for a wide variety of journals in the field of contemporary Irish literary studies. In 2024, he was appointed one of the editors for the Irish Literature in English area of the Literary Encyclopedia.

Publications

Novels   

  • A Mind of Winter (Dedalus, 2023)
  • A Provincial Death (Dedalus, 2022)
  • The Failing Heart (Dedalus, 2018)

Short stories

  • ‘Francis Furlong Disappears’, in Opulent Syntax: An Anthology of Irish Speculative Fiction (Neon Hemlock Press, 2022)

 

Books

  • Imagining Irish Suburbia in Literature and Culture, ed. by Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
  • John Banville: Art and Authenticity (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2014)

Edited journals

  • The Rise of the Phoenix: Restoration and Renaissance in Contemporary Irish Writing, ed. by Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman, Irish Studies Review special edition, 31.3 (Autumn, 2023)

Peer-reviewed articles & book chapters

  • ‘Banville and Europe’ in John Banville in Context, ed. by Nick Taylor-Collins and Bryan Radley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)
  • ‘Suburbia and Contemporary Irish Writing’, in Companion to Contemporary Irish Writing, ed. by Neil Murphy, Derek Hand and Kathleen Costello-Sullivan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, forthcoming)
  • ‘Introduction’ (with Simon Workman), ‘The Rise of the Phoenix: Restoration and Renaissance in Contemporary Irish Writing’, ed. by Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman, Irish Studies Review, 31.3 (autumn 2023), 325-330
  • ‘The Anxiety of Selfhood’, Symposium Articles Marking the 50th Anniversary of Lionel Trilling’s Sincerity and Authenticity, Society (August 2022)
  • ‘Autonomy, Naturalism and Folklore in Claire Keegan’s Walk the Blue Fields’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 40.2 (Spring 2019), 192-207
  • ‘Revivalism, modernism and beyond: Scandinavian influences on Irish literature’, Ireland and the North, ed. by Fionna Barber, Heidi Hansson and Sara Dybris McQuaid (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019), 267-284.
  • ‘John Banville in the Celtic Tiger Years’, Recalling the Celtic Tiger, ed. By Brian Lucey, Eamon Maher, and Eugene O’Brien (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019), 41-42
  • ‘Suburban Literature’, Recalling the Celtic Tiger, ed. By Brian Lucey, Eamon Maher, and Eugene O’Brien (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019), 309-310
  • ‘Introduction’ (with Simon Workman), Imagining Irish Suburbia in Literature and Culture, by Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 1-7
  • ‘Suburbia in Irish Literary and Visual Culture’ (with Simon Workman), Imagining Irish Suburbia in Literature and Culture, ed. by Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 77-95
  • ‘Elemental and Plain’: Story-telling in Claire Keegan’s Walk the Blue Fields’, Journal of the Short Story in English, 63 (Autumn 2014), 57-68
  • ‘‘An Infinity of Pragues’: John Banville’s Prague Pictures’, European Journal of English Studies, 17/2 (Summer 2013), 149-159
  • ‘Yeats, Beckett, Banville: Philosophical Idealism and Political Ideology in Modern Irish Writing’, ABEI Journal, 13 (São Paulo: ABEI/Humanitas 2011), 71-82
  • ‘After Joyce and Beckett: Art, Authenticity and Politics in the Fiction of John Banville’, The Politics of Irish Writing, ed. by Radvan Markus, Michaela Marková, Hana Pavelková and Katerina Jencová (Prague: Centre for Irish Studies, Charles University, 2010), 36-45

 

Selected newspaper/magazine articles & reviews

  • ‘The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry’, Books Ireland (June 2024)
  • ‘Mary and the Rabbit Dream by Noémi Kiss-Deáki’, 3:AM Magazine (May 2024)
  • ‘Irish Fiction 2008-2023: flourishing scene emerges from period of upheaval’, co-authored with Simon Workman, Irish Times (December 27, 2023)
  • ‘A Vision of the World’, Irish Writers & Artists Handbook, ed. by Ruth McKee (Wordwell, 2023)
  • ‘An Inspector Calls: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch’, Literary Review (September 2023)
  • ‘Kala by Colin Walsh’, Books Ireland (July 2023)
  • ‘At the World Askance: Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery’, Books Ireland (April 2023)
  • ‘Mary McGlynn: Broken Irelands’, Books Ireland (February 2023)
  • ‘John Banville: one of the greatest imaginations in Irish literary history’, Books Ireland (January 2023)
  • ‘John Banville: The Singularities’, The Irish Times (October 2022)
  • ‘Seán Hewitt, All Down Darkness Wide’, Books Ireland (August 2022)
  • ‘Ardal O’Hanlon, Brouhaha’, Literary Review (June 2022)
  • ‘Fragile tensions and acid humour – Marching Season by Rosemary Jenkinson’, Books Ireland (January 17, 2022)
  • ‘Under the Influence – risk-taking in a living stream of art: Gorse editions, no.2’, Books Ireland (November 3, 2021)
  • ‘A Paean to the Imagination’: Claire-Louise Bennett’s Checkout 19’, Books Ireland (September 13, 2021)
  • ‘Burnished Brilliance: Trouble by Philip Ó Ceallaigh’, Books Ireland (June 25, 2021)
  • ‘Anxieties of the present; horrors to come: Line by Niall Bourke’, Books Ireland (May 12, 2021)
  • ‘A Loosening and Tightening of the Knot – the artistry of Joanna Walsh’, Books Ireland (April 18, 2021)
  • ‘Love, Friendship and the brutality of war: Ciarán McMenamin, The Sunken Road’, The Irish Times (Feb 27, 2021), pp. 61
  • ‘Elaine Feeney, As You Were’, Books Ireland (November 12, 2020)
  • ‘Guests of a nation still fighting with itself: B.W. Black, The Secret Guests’, The Ticket, The Irish Times (Feb 8, 2020), 21
  • ‘The Global Reach of John Banville’s Imagination’, The Irish Times (November 24, 2016)
  • ‘It’s that Man again: John Banville’s The Blue Guitar’, Dublin Review of Books (September 2015)
  • ‘Imagining the Others: John Banville’s Book of Evidence’, Dublin Review of Books (October 2013)
  • ‘Haunted by Ghosts: Joseph O’Connor’s Ghostlight’, Dublin Review of Books (October 2010)
  • ‘The Melancholy Gods: Banville on Olympus’, Dublin Review of Books (March 2010)

              

Reviews              

  • Luke Russel, Evil: A Very Short Introduction, Society (November/December 2023), 1067-1070
  • ‘Joe Cleary, The Irish Expatriate Novel in Late Capitalist Globalisation’, Irish Studies Review, 30.3 (September, 2022), 518-520
  • Michael Ignatieff, On Consolation, Society, 59 (May 17, 2022), 305-309
  • ‘Eve Patten, ed., Irish Literature in Transition, vol.5, Irish Studies Review, 29.2 (April, 2021), 276-280
  • ‘Hedda Friberg, Reading John Banville Through Jean Baudrillard; ‘Pietra Palazzolo, Michael Springer and Stephen Butler, eds, John Banville and his Precursors; Neil Murphy, John Banville’, Irish University Review, 50.2 (November 2020), 391-396
  • ‘Chris Arthur, Hummingbirds Between the Pages’, Irish Studies Review, 28.1 (January 2020), 149-151
  • ‘Hedda Friberg, Reading John Banville Through Jean Baudrillard’, Nordic Irish Studies, 18 (2019/20), 155-159
  • ‘Reading Pearse Hutchinson, ed. by Philip Coleman and Maria Johnston’, ESSE Messenger, 28.1 (Summer 2019), 108-112
  • ‘Giulia Bruna, M. Synge and Travel Writing of the Irish Revival (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2017)’, Nordic Irish Studies, 17.2 (2019), 205-211
  • ‘George Moore: Across Borders, ed. by Christine Huguet and Fabienne Dabrigeon-Garcier, ESSE Messenger, 2 (Winter 2018), 30-34
  • ‘Caoimhín de Barra, The Coming of the Celts, AD 1860: Celtic Nationalism in Ireland and Wales (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018)’, Books Ireland 381 (September/October 2018), 39-40
  • ‘Reading 1759: Literary Culture in Mid-Eighteenth Century Britain and France, by Shaun Regan’, ESSE Messenger, 27.1 (Summer 2018), 76-79
  • ‘David Tucker, Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx’, ESSE Messenger, 26.2 (Winter 2017), 68-69
  • ‘Framed on the Threshold: Jo Baker, A Country Road, A Tree’, Breac (August 17, 2017)
  • ‘Cian T. McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity: Race, Nation, and the Popular Press, 1840-1880’, Nordic Irish Studies, 2 (2016), 154-158
  • ‘Irish Theatre in Transition, ed. by Donald E. Morse’, Nordic Irish Studies, 14 (Autumn 2015), 153-158
  • ‘Word and Image in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures and Cultures, ed. by Michael Meyer’, ESSE Messenger, 23.1 (Summer 2014), 82-84
  • ‘Andrew Tate, Contemporary Fiction and Christianity’, ESSE Messenger, 21.2 (Winter 2012), 73-75
  • ‘Brian McFarlane and Deane Williams, Michael Winterbottom; Tony Whitehead, Mike Leigh; Peter Marks, Terry Gilliam’, Film and Film Culture, 5 (April 2010), 219-223

 

 

Qualifications

  • 2004-2009 PhD: ‘John Banville: Art, Authenticity and Epic’, Maynooth University
  • 2002-2003 MA in Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama, University College, Dublin
  • 1999-2002 BA (Hons) n English & Philosophy, University College, Dublin