José Carregal

My PhD dissertation concentrated on contemporary Irish author Colm Tóibín, and how the family emerges in his fiction as a complex metaphor for cultural change and as a key site to explore notions of social justice and individual freedom. Thanks to this research, I have authored encyclopaedia entries as well as articles on Tóibín’s novels and short fiction, published in prestigious journals such as Irish University Review, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Irish Fiction and English Studies.

Between 2017 and 2021, my research focused on the gay and lesbian writing produced in Ireland from the 1970s until the 2010s, by authors like Mary Dorcey, Emma Donoghue, Keith Ridgway and Jamie O’Neill among many others, who have addressed issues such as the queering of history, sexual subcultures, or the impact of homophobia and HIV/AIDS. My monograph, Queer Whispers (UCD Press, 2021), considers how these writers articulate a language of resilience and recognition of the continued struggles faced by queer Ireland.

Current research

In my research, I have consistently engaged with silence as both a creative medium and subject matter in Irish fiction and, more recently, have expanded my analytical approach to include theories of care and vulnerability. With M. Teresa Caneda-Cabrera, I am the editor of Narratives of the Unspoken in Contemporary Irish Fiction: Silences that Speak (Palgrave, 2023) and a special issue of Irish Studies Review, entitled “Vulnerability, Care and Relational Ethics in Contemporary Irish Culture” (2026).