SOURCE: "De-colleenizing Ireland: William Trevor's Family Sins," in Notes on Modern Irish Literature, Vol. 5, 1993, pp. 28-33.

In the essay below, Fitzgerald-Hoyt analyzes "Kathleen's Field" and "Events at Drimaghleen" to support of her argument that Trevor breaks typical stereotypes of Irish women.

The identification of Ireland with female icons—Hibernia, Erin, the old woman, the colleen—has for centuries been a potent and pernicious tendency. Curiously, these stereotypes historically have been embraced by Irish and English alike: the metaphor of Ireland as oppressed woman or occasionally as militant standard-bearer fueled Irish nationalist posters and political cartoons. Conversely, the image of weeping, pliant Hibernia was juxtaposed with the simian-appearing Fenian to indicate to English Victorian audiences the difference between good (i.e., tractable) Irish and bad (i.e., rebellious) ones.

As the diverse women in the 1988 documentary Mother Ireland point out, whether the image be of the poor old woman...