This book is an anthology focused on Shaw's efforts, literary and political, that worked toward a modernizing Ireland. Following Declan Kiberd's Foreword and the editor's Introduction, the contributing chapters, in their order of appearance, are from President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins, Anthony Roche, David Clare, Elizabeth Mannion, Nelson O'Ceallaigh Ritschel, Aisling Smith, Susanne Colleary, Audrey McNamara, Aileen R. Ruane, Peter Gahan, and Gustavo A. Rodriguez Martin. The essays establish that Shaw's Irishness was inherent and manifested itself in his work, demonstrating that Ireland was a recurring feature in his considerations. Locating Shaw within the march towards modernizing Ireland furthers the recent efforts to secure Shaw's place within the Irish spheres of literature and politics.
"The collection is successful in establishing what its coeditors set out to prove: that Shaw was a major Irish modernist, and more deeply engaged with Irish politics and the struggle for Irish independence than he and his supporters often liked to acknowledge. ... Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland opens up exciting new avenues for both Irish studies and Shaw scholarship." (Susan Harris, Victorian Studies, Vol. 65 (2), 2023)
"Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland offers a valuable corrective to Shaw's neglect by Irish studies, and I have learned a great deal from it. Indeed, my understanding of the Shavian canon and of 'public Shaw's' involvement in Irish political discourse has undergone a salutary revision for which I am most grateful to the editors of and contributors to this excellent volume." (Stephen Watt, SHAW The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, Vol. 41 (1), 2021)
"Bernard Shaw and the Making of Modern Ireland offers a valuable corrective to Shaw's neglect by Irish studies, and I have learned a great deal from it. Indeed, my understanding of the Shavian canon and of 'public Shaw's' involvement in Irish political discourse has undergone a salutary revision for which I am most grateful to the editors of and contributors to this excellent volume." (Stephen Watt, SHAW The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, Vol. 41 (1), 2021)