‘Oh Lord, What is a Big House?’: Ulster Women’s Big House Novels and the Irish Revolution – Dr Dawn Sherratt-Bado

Summary:  ‘Oh Lord, what is a Big House?’ exclaimed the renowned novelist Molly Keane, when recounting the burning of her home during the Irish War of Independence. Despite enormous popular interest in the revolution on both sides of the Irish border, little has been said about its impact on Ulster women’s literature. Dr Sherratt-Bado will survey Big House novels by a range of Ulster women to gauge how their writing about the revolution speaks to our contemporary political climate of commemoration. 

Biography: Dr Dawn Miranda Sherratt-Bado is Visiting Scholar in the Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. She specializes in Irish women’s writing, and is co-editor of the landmark anthology Female Lines: New Writing by Women from Northern Ireland (New Island Books, 2017). Dawn is a frequent contributor to The Irish Times and the Dublin Review of Books, and she has appeared on RTÉ Radio and BBC Radio Ulster to discuss her work. You can find her on Twitter @drdawnmiranda.