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Flann OBriens At Swim-Two-Birds is a complex reflexive novel that explores the creation of fiction. OBriens layered narrative includes several author/characters, each with his own literary theory. This discussion traces OBriens reflexive structures development and demonstrates its repercussions on the characters within the novel, and the novel as a whole. Beginning by placing OBriens novel within a critical framework, this study examines each of the four narrative levels and the uses of reflexivity in each. OBrien builds and dismantles several structures within his narrative levels, and this thesis shows that the basic reflexive structure of At Swim-Two-Birds is the only remaining structure at the novels end.

Flann OBriens At Swim-Two-Birds is a complex reflexive novel that explores the creation of fiction. OBriens layered narrative includes several author/characters, each with his own literary theory. This discussion traces OBriens reflexive structures development and demonstrates its repercussions on the characters within the novel, and the novel as a whole. Beginning by placing OBriens novel within a critical framework, this study examines each of the four narrative levels and the uses of reflexivity in each. OBrien builds and dismantles several structures within his narrative levels, and this thesis shows that the basic reflexive structure of At Swim-Two-Birds is the only remaining structure at the novels end.

Although the syntax of the left periphery of the Irish clausal architecture has been the subject of considerable research within the generative paradigm, many questions remain unresolved. The general goal of this thesis is to explore some of these understudied territories. Specifically, I consider two distinct, but ultimately related phenomena: headless relative clauses and dependent verbal morphology. I will make four major claims: The first two concern the syntax (and semantics) of the headless relative clause. First, despite the fact that the particles that appear in resumptive relative clauses and in headless relative clauses are morpho-phonologically identical as aN, headless relative clauses are derived by movement, not by means of resumption, and thus the particles in these two constructions are not the same. Second, headless relative clauses are amount relative clauses, in the sense of Carlson (1977); and thus I claim, adopting Grosu and Landman's (1998) notion of complex degree, that the element that undergoes A$'$-movement in a headless relative clause is a complex degree, causing degree-abstraction in the semantics. The maximalization operator then applies to the degree-abstracted relative CP. I argue that it is this operator that triggers the appearance of the particle aN in the headless relative construction. The latter two claims concern the morphosyntax of the left periphery of Irish syntax: First, I claim that there are two tense features in a single finite clause domain of Irish, and that the so-called dependent forms of irregular verbs are the surface realization of the two tense features. This account provides a stepping stone to my final claim that a feature agreeing with the maximalization operator, but not the operator itself, is realized in the headless relative particle aN and that the particles found in resumptive relative clauses and in headless relative clauses are in fact distinct Vocabulary Items and thus they are homophonous. This thesis thus fills a gap in the descriptive account of Irish syntax, and provides new insights to the theory of relativization.

Although the syntax of the left periphery of the Irish clausal architecture has been the subject of considerable research within the generative paradigm, many questions remain unresolved. The general goal of this thesis is to explore some of these understudied territories. Specifically, I consider two distinct, but ultimately related phenomena: headless relative clauses and dependent verbal morphology. I will make four major claims: The first two concern the syntax (and semantics) of the headless relative clause. First, despite the fact that the particles that appear in resumptive relative clauses and in headless relative clauses are morpho-phonologically identical as aN, headless relative clauses are derived by movement, not by means of resumption, and thus the particles in these two constructions are not the same. Second, headless relative clauses are amount relative clauses, in the sense of Carlson (1977); and thus I claim, adopting Grosu and Landman's (1998) notion of complex degree, that the element that undergoes A$'$-movement in a headless relative clause is a complex degree, causing degree-abstraction in the semantics. The maximalization operator then applies to the degree-abstracted relative CP. I argue that it is this operator that triggers the appearance of the particle aN in the headless relative construction. The latter two claims concern the morphosyntax of the left periphery of Irish syntax: First, I claim that there are two tense features in a single finite clause domain of Irish, and that the so-called dependent forms of irregular verbs are the surface realization of the two tense features. This account provides a stepping stone to my final claim that a feature agreeing with the maximalization operator, but not the operator itself, is realized in the headless relative particle aN and that the particles found in resumptive relative clauses and in headless relative clauses are in fact distinct Vocabulary Items and thus they are homophonous. This thesis thus fills a gap in the descriptive account of Irish syntax, and provides new insights to the theory of relativization.

This thesis surveys musical culture's relationship with Irish nationalism after the Irish confederacy's rebellion in 1848 until the beginning of the Northern Irish Troubles in 1972. It is the first such study to engage with a wide range of source material, including not only songs but also sources generated by political actors and organisations. It thus asks how far music and dance contributed to political movements and identities. It demonstrates that music provided propaganda, while performances created spectacles that attracted attention and asserted the strength, territorial claims, and military credentials of particular movements. Nationalists and unionists appropriated music and musical rituals from history, Britain, and one another. Appropriated British army rituals represented paramilitaries as legitimate national armies. Recycling songs made compositions easier to learn and suggested that new organisations acted as part of a continuous, historical movement. Appropriating songs and rituals from opponents asserted superiority over those opponents. Songs marked national allegiance and were therefore fought over extensively. For theorists and revivalists, defining Irish music and dance constructed notions of Irish nationhood. However, this thesis is as much about qualifying the claims often made for musical culture. One result of the failure to engage comprehensively with extra-musical source material is that studies often crudely credit music with having inspired unity among Irishmen and resistance against the colonial ruler. Music's relationship with resistance was more nuanced, and could cultivate disunity as much as the opposite. This study also problematises distinctions between British, unionist, and nationalist culture. These were not discrete categories, but overlapping soundscapes that interacted with and penetrated one another. Nor is 'traditional' music neatly distinguished from 'modern', 'commercial' music. As this study explains, traditional music's advocates demonstrated a consistent willingness to adapt and engage with modern methods. Overall, this thesis provides unprecedented insight into music's impact on nationalist politics.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the turbulent changes within the Irish society affected the face of modern Irish drama. Ireland, originally a rural country bound by religious dogmas and its own colonial past, underwent a considerable amount of development in the latter half of the 20th century; it was predominantly manifested through an increased Celtic Tiger economic prosperity and decreasing influence of the Catholic Church. The central interest of Irish culture has always been the effort to define a unifying national metanarrative and identity. In the beginning of the 20th century this desire was motivated by a struggle to establish a vital opposition between Ireland and Great Britain and definitely renounce its depreciating status of a former colony. However, in the second half of the 20th century the discrepancy between the nationalist ideology driven idea of Irish identity (whose value has always been questionable to say the least) and its modern reality became unbridgeable. The introduction of this thesis is dedicated to summarizing the changes within the Irish society in the course of the 20th century. A brief characterization of this turbulent development should justify the urge of more recent artists to re-formulate the Irish national metanarrative to suit the 20th century...