Ireland has often been held to be somehow exceptional, an island on the edge of Europe whose historical, social and cultural trajectories have at times led it to diverge in surprising ways from both its nearest neighbour, Great Britain, and the wider world. This perception of Irish exceptionalism has long played a role in how the island has been understood both within and beyond its borders.
From its early vernacular and Latin literary contributions — some of the most significant in medieval Europe despite its liminal position at the edge of the known world — to its influence on modernist literature and theatre, from the cultural nationalism of the Gaelic Revival to the twenty-first century success of Irish playwrights or writers such as Martin McDonagh and Sally Rooney, from the 1990s and 2000s global fascination to “Celtic” popular music and culture (Sinéad O’Connor, Enya, The Corrs, Riverdance) and the more recent “green wave” of films, television series and popular music, Ireland has frequently been framed as occupying an exceptional space in the world of art and culture
— or at least as having provided a literary, artistic, cultural and linguistic contribution out of proportion to its size.
Ireland’s unique position as Western Europe’s only postcolonial nation has also fostered a sense of national and cultural uniqueness, which throughout the 20th century was reflected in persistent economic underdevelopment, the highest emigration rates within the European Economic Community, the strong influence of the Catholic Church over public morality, education, and health in the Republic and a long and protracted history of intractable ethno-nationalist conflict in the north of the island.
However, developments since the late twentieth century have challenged claims of Irish uniqueness and exceptionalism. The short-lived Celtic Tiger economic boom contradicted the narrative of Ireland’s economic underdevelopment, indicating Ireland’s alignment with global neoliberal market economics. Revelations of clerical abuse scandals diminished the standing and authority of the Catholic Church and contributed to the liberalisation of private morality as reflected in legislative changes permitting divorce, same-sex marriage, and abortion, which brought Ireland in line with European liberal democracies. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 ended armed conflict the north and established a power-sharing government between nationalists and unionists. Recently, both Northern Ireland and the Republic have experienced rising anti-immigration sentiment and protests, mirroring the emergence of radical populist movements across Europe. Ultimately, is Ireland merely as exceptional as anywhere else?
The 2026 SOFEIR conference aims to convene researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to examine, reassess and challenge discourses of Irish exceptionalism. Participants are encouraged to identify and classify these discourses, uncover overlooked or forgotten narratives, and investigate their origins, contexts, and the cultural forces, institutions, and individuals that shaped them. The conference seeks not only to challenge or deconstruct these discourses in light of historiographical changes and cultural shifts, but also to highlight and account for the specific characteristics that contribute to the perception of Ireland and Irishness as exceptional.
We particularly welcome interdisciplinary and comparative contributions that engage with the notion of continuity, liminality, and Ireland’s place between periphery and centre. Is Ireland as exceptional as anywhere else, or does its history, culture, and politics demand a more sustained claim to singularity? We invite contributions that examine the ways in which discourses of difference have been constructed, sustained, and challenged, as well as those that reassess Ireland’s place in wider contexts.
Possible areas for exploration include, but are not limited to:
— The short story – a prototypically Irish genre?
— Stylistic and linguistic characteristics of Irish literature
— Irish literary figureheads: exceptions or representative of a wider anglophone literature
— Place and Irish literature and art: karst, bogs, and lochs
— The persistence of Ireland’s oral tradition in written literature or in contemporary oral forms
— Irish theatre
— Irish popular culture (music, films, TV series, Internet culture…)
— The Irish language
— Ireland’s status as a colonial or postcolonial nation in the West
— The exceptional nature of the conflict in and around Northern Ireland
— Exceptional solidarities (e.g. Irish nominal or actual support of Palestine)
— From the Celtic tiger to the Paper Tiger: Ireland and neoliberalism
— Early Medieval Ireland: a land of saints and scholars?
— From monocultural Ireland to post-Celtic Tiger, post-GFA multiculturalism
— The emergence of an Irish populist right
— Religion and belief systems in Ireland
— Irish landscapes, ecologies and environmentalism
— Comparative approaches: Ireland and other “exceptionalist” nations (e.g. the U.S.)
— Queer, feminist, and critical race approaches to Irish identity and normativity
Please email a 250-word abstract and 50-word bio to Tim Heron (sofeir2026@gmail.com) for consideration no later than 15 December 2025.