Dr Eoghan Smith

Lecturer in English and Creative Writing

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 graduated from Maynooth University in 2009 with a PhD in English. In 2011, he joined Carlow College, St. Patrick’s, where he teaches Creative Writing, modern and contemporary Irish writing, and world literature. Eoghan is the author of three novels, and he writes regularly for newspapers, journals and magazines on modern and contemporary literature.

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)

 

Selected Creative Practice pieces

‘A Vision of the World’, Irish Writers & Artists Handbook, ed. by Ruth McKee, 2nd edition, (Wordwell, 2024)

‘Writing A Mind of Winter’, Honest Ulsterman (October 2023)

 

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 Fiction’, ed. by Eoghan Smith and Simon Workman, Irish Studies Review, 31.3 (autumn 2023)

 

Articles and chapters            

‘Living for so long with ghosts’: Gothic Modes in Irish Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium’, in Haunted Hibernia: Contemporary Irish Gothic, ed. by Simon Workman and Sorcha Ní Fhlainn (Manchester: Manchester University Press, forthcoming)

 

‘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 Kathleen P. Costello-Sullivan, Derek Hand, and Neil Murphy (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2026), 266-276.

 

‘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), 511-515

 

‘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, ed. 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 Reviews       

‘Matthew Fogarty, Subjectivity and Nationhood in Yeats, Joyce and Beckett’, Irish Studies around the World, Estudios Irlandeses, 20 (March, 2025), 211-213

 

‘Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible’, Society (February 17, 2025) https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-025-01067-y

 

‘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, J.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, 27.2 (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, ed. 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) https://breac.nd.edu/articles/framed-on-the-threshold/

 

‘Cian T. McMahon, The Global Dimensions of Irish Identity: Race, Nation, and the Popular Press, 1840-1880’, Nordic Irish Studies, 15.2 (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