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“I think we all just got a bit too proud of ourselves too soon”: heteronormativity, whiteness, and Far-Right extremism in Caroline O’Donoghue’s All Our Hidden Gifts trilogy

Mooney, Jennifer orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-8907-7765 (2025) “I think we all just got a bit too proud of ourselves too soon”: heteronormativity, whiteness, and Far-Right extremism in Caroline O’Donoghue’s All Our Hidden Gifts trilogy. Irish Studies Review . pp. 1-19. ISSN 0967-0882

Abstract
Caroline O’Donoghue’s All Our Hidden Gifts trilogy, comprising All Our Hidden Gifts (2021), The Gifts That Bind Us (2022), and Every Gift a Curse (2023), engages closely with the zeitgeist: it is markedly informed by the cultural, social, and political climate in Ireland during which it was written and published. The trilogy fictionalises a backlash in response to Ireland’s recent rapid cultural and societal change. It offers its readers the opportunity to consider anxieties that arose in Ireland during this time period and appraise Ireland’s status as a liberal society. In particular, the trilogy engages with concerns to do with Irish identity, heteronormativity, and whiteness, as well as anxieties about the threat that Far-Right extremism might pose to Ireland’s multiculturalism and adolescents. This article examines the trilogy’s intersectional approach to representing expressions of sexuality, gender, religion, race, and ethnicity in expansive ways. It questions whether the trilogy offers a complex investigation of discrimination and racism in Irish society or counterproductively reifies the hierarchical structures it seeks to critique.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Irish identity; young adult literature; heteronormativity; whiteness; Far-right extremism; adult anxieties
Subjects:Humanities > English literature
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science
DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of English
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
Official URL:http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09670...
Copyright Information:Author
ID Code:30947
Deposited On:16 Apr 2025 10:46 by Jennifer Mooney . Last Modified 16 Apr 2025 10:46
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