Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
The fabric of the island of Ireland is marked by the leakage of persistent sores and unhealed wounds borne by the unhealed messy flesh of the national body, which is symbolically swaddled, shrouded, stifled and sheltered by cloth. Ireland is a stained and bloodied cloth, marked irreversibly by conflict and abuse, bloodied by repression and denial, sullied by hunger and history. Blood, flowing from stigmata onto cloth, haemorrhage in extremis from wounds, real or imagined, is steeped deep into the Irish psyche, reflecting a narrative of abjection, sacrifice, memory and mourning.
Recommended Citation
In Skelly, J. et al (co-ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of World Textiles, Vol.8 (Politics and Power), 2025.
Comments
In Skelly, J. et al (co-ed.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of World Textiles, Vol.8 (Politics and Power), 2025.