This collection addresses Irish drama, theatre and culture through the interdisciplinary lens of performance studies. It is arranged thematically, identifying key areas such as ‘Tradition, Ritual, and Play’, ‘Political Performances’ and ‘Gender, Feminism, and Queer Performance’. This allows the analysis of performance sites, such as tradition, place, politics and gender, both from a general thematic approach and from the performance-studies perspective. In her contribution, Bernadette Sweeny considers the performance traditions of Ireland that are based in gesture and are embodied and participatory rather than textual. Through her analyses of ritual as performance, she explores the appropriation of characters known as Wrenboys and the communal practice of ‘keening’ both in their traditional setting and in their representation onstage in order to argue that ‘although often neglected in formal studies, such performance traditions have an embodied influence on evolving performance style and idiom’ (p. 21).

In the wake of the 2004 referendum (which removed the automatic citizenship from children born in Ireland) and the growing tension between nationals and so-called ‘non-nationals’, Sara Brady discusses the potential of Gaelic games, traditionally seen as sites of memory and identity, to encourage new immigrants to Ireland to ‘make their own Irishness’ (p. 38). David Cregan analyses the growing participation in and performance of pilgrimage despite recent changes in Ireland's religious practice. Drawing on Victor Turner, he argues that the ‘cultural walls of the Church in Ireland have crumbled and the Irish, as they have so often done in the past, return to the natural, the archaic, and the performative to connect with something spiritual’ (p. 124). Finally, Fintan Walsh looks at beauty pageants as ‘phenomena where social norms are produced, challenged and refined’ (p. 196–7). He proposes the new term ‘homelysexuality’: a sexual asset that is simultaneously devoid of eroticism, domesticated, marketable, commercial and inherently linked to a brand of ‘Irishness’ (p. 197). He does so in order to challenge its commercialization through established performances such as the Rose of Tralee and suggests that the emergence of queer pageants, such as the Alternative Miss Ireland contest, challenge and subvert established Irish gender constructs.

The contributions acknowledge prominent moments in Ireland's cultural, social and political history, ranging from charged political acts such as de Valera's signing of the Oath of Allegiance in 1927 to moments of immense social trauma such as the Great Famine and Bloody Sunday. The effect of these historical events on past performances of ‘Irishness’ is highlighted, yet simultaneously the dialogue moves forward to incorporate performative actions by Ireland's diverse contemporary society.