Abstract
During the Troubles period, texts produced in, or with a focus on, Northern Ireland have often been necessarily concerned with the violence of the Troubles, but this thesis will argue that there is a paucity of texts that investigate the role of women in the conflict. Approaching this problem as a Creative Writing doctorate, this project contends that a reimagining of the role of women in the Troubles narrative can be achieved through researching and writing a novel, So It Is. Following the National Association of Writers in Education’s benchmark statement, in which it was stated that Creative Writing research comprises “both research into content and research into form” (NAWE, 2008, emphasis in original), the thesis will investigate content by defining and interrogating the Troubles narrative, as formed up to this point, and the role of women in those narratives, before discussing form through the narrative structures and strategies employed in the writing of the creative text, So It Is. This research into both content and form supports the main focus of the critical-creative project: the novel, So It Is, which was published on 14th June 2012 by Myriad Editions. Described by The Financial Times as a “confident debut novel” So It Is invites us to “speculate on the link between two female characters” (Evans, 2012), with the narrative being split into a coming-of-age story focused on a young female protagonist, Aoife Brennan, growing up in Belfast and a thriller narrative centred on a female paramilitary, Cassie. Presenting the process and context of writing, through the critical exegesis, and the creative text, this Creative Writing thesis comprises a cohesive practice-based doctorate that reimagines the role of women in the Troubles narrative.