'"The Medium is the Message": The Irish Book in the Informatics Age'

The chapter comprises a study of the relation between digital technology on internet and the creation of a specifically Irish literary zone involving in effect the identification of a corpus, a canon and a tradition associated historically with a terrestial location and now branded in the "non-place" taxonomy of cyberspace. The study of these matters is illustrated with quotations from works of Marshall McLuhan and James Joyce which significantly anticipate the tendency of the argument and demonstrates the existence of a specifically Irish tradition of thought regarding technological media and literary content. The chapter also conducts a guided tour of Irish literary sites, with remarks on their design and contents, and others which serve as reliable sources for Irish literary material which have been compiled under other banners, e.g., English literature or women's writing. It concludes with an appraisal of the future of Irish literature and Irish literary studies in a world of internet websites and palm-readers.