Age is a missing category in Irish literary criticism and this book is the first to explore a
range of familiar and not so familiar Irish texts through a gerontological lens. Drawing on the
latest writing in humanistic critical and cultural gerontology this study examines the
portrayal of ageing in fiction by Elizabeth Bowen Molly Keane Deirdre Madden Anne Enright
Iris Murdoch John Banville John McGahern Norah Hoult and Edna O'Brien among others. The
chapters follow a logical thematic progression from efforts to hold back time to resisting the
decline narrative of ageing solitary ageing versus ageing in the community and dementia and
the world of the bedbound and dying. One chapter analyses the changing portrayal of older
people in the Irish short story. Recent demographic shifts in Ireland have focused attention on
an increasing ageing population making this study a timely intervention in the field of
literary gerontology.
