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Teresa Deevy: Life, Scholarship, Practice

  • Úna Kealy(author)
  • Kate McCarthy(author)
Chapter of: Active Speech: Critical Perspectives on Teresa Deevy(pp. 1–38)
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TitleTeresa Deevy
SubtitleLife, Scholarship, Practice
ContributorÚna Kealy(author)
Kate McCarthy(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0432.00
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0432/chapters/10.11647/obp.0432.00
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightÚna Kealy; Kate McCarthy;
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2025-04-07
Long abstract

‘Teresa Deevy: Life Scholarship, Practice’ synthesises primary and secondary sources created by Deevy, her close friends and contemporaries who knew her and critiqued her work as she created it. Bringing together disparate sources, the chapter creates a more complete picture, than has been hitherto pieced together, of how Deevy navigated her life as a deafened woman and the role that her sister Nell played in that journey. Presenting the most comprehensive review of Deevy’s literary and dramatic output and the evolution of scholarship and practice of Deevy’s work to date; summarising the chapters within the Active Speech collection; and contextualising the collection within feminist scholarship, the chapter constitutes an indispensable resource to Deevy scholars.

Page rangepp. 1–38
Print length38 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Locations
Landing PageFull text URLPlatform
PDFhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0432/chapters/10.11647/obp.0432.00Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0432.00.pdfFull text URL
HTMLhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0432/chapters/10.11647/obp.0432.00Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0432/introduction.xhtmlFull text URLPublisher Website
Contributors

Úna Kealy

(author)
Lecturer in Theatre Studies and English at South East Technological University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4660-2838

Úna Kealy lectures in Theatre Studies and English in South East Technological University (SETU). Prior to her career in academia, Úna worked as a drama workshop facilitator and arts manager in Britain and Ireland in both state-funded and commercial theatre organisations. In 2022, she worked with Amanda Coogan, Alvean Jones, Lianne Quigley, Dublin Theatre of the Deaf, Cork Deaf Community Choir, and SETU staff and students on a research project entitled Lyrical Bodies, an investigation of Teresa Deevy’s ballet Possession, which was performed in Project Arts Centre, Dublin and The Granary Theatre, Cork as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival in 2024. With Kate McCarthy, she has co-authored ‘Writing from the Margins: Re-framing Teresa Deevy’s Archive and Her Correspondence with James Cheasty c.1952–1962’, Irish University Review 52.2 (2022); ‘Shape Shifting the Silence: An Analysis of Talk Real Fine, Just like a Lady by Amanda Coogan in collaboration with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf: An Appropriation of Teresa Deevy’s The King of Spain’s Daughter (1935)’, in The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights, Vol 1: 1716–1992 (Liverpool University Press, 2021); and ‘Participatory Performances: Spaces of Creative Negotiation’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance (Palgrave, 2018). Other publications include ‘Resisting Power and Direction: The King of Spain’s Daughter by Teresa Deevy as a Feminist Call to Action’, Estudios Irlandeses, 15 (2020) and ‘Stasis, Rootlessness and Violence in Lay Me Down Softly’, in The Art of Billy Roche: Wexford as the World (Peter Lang, 2012). With Richard Hayes, she co-authored ‘Artistic Vision and Regional Resistance: The Gods Are Angry, Miss Kerr and the Red Kettle Theatre Company, a Case Study’, in The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance (Palgrave, 2018).

Kate McCarthy

(author)
Lecturer in Drama at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at South East Technological University
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5095-0344

Kate McCarthy is Lecturer in Drama at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, South East Technological University (SETU). Her public engagement takes many forms, including: theatre practice, workshops, drama and theatre education projects, educational resources, public talks, and podcasts, as well as publications and conference contributions. Alongside co-authored publications on Teresa Deevy and contemporary regional theatre practice with Úna Kealy, she has co-authored book chapters and co-created educational resources about Waterford’s Magdalene Laundry and Saint Dominick’s Industrial School (with Jennifer O’Mahoney, SETU) and on drama education (with Marian McCarthy, UCC). As a practitioner, she facilitates and devises performances and drama education projects in Ireland and Britain. Kate is a co-researcher on the Lyrical Bodies Project and the Waterford Memories Project. She is the Policy and Advocacy Elected Member of the Irish Society for Theatre Research (ISTR) (2023–2026).

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