City Maps, Cartographies of Power: Space, Class and Gender in Recent Dublin Poetry

Abstract

This paper attempts to prove that class, sex and sexuality have a strong impact on the production and distribution of cityscapes. At the same time, it will demonstrate that the urban space has an active role in the acquisition of human subjectivity. These theoretical issues will be illustrated in the work of Dublin writer Paula Meehan. For this poet the absence of public spaces for women in Dublin shows the complicity between the city and the gender hierarchy sanctioned by the lrish patriarchal society. The poet also denounces the space segregation of those who belong to the less favoured social strata of the capital city of lreland.