Because We Are Poor : Irish Theatre in the 1990s

Victor Merriman's work on Irish theatre is in the vanguard

of a whole new paradigm in Irish theatre scholarship, one that is not content to

contemplate monuments of past or present achievement, but for which the theatre

is a lens that makes visible the hidden malaises in Irish society.

That he has been able to do so by focusing on a period when so much else

in Irish culture conspired to hide those problems is only testimony to the

considerable power of his critical scrutiny. Chris Morash, NUI Maynooth.