THE EDUCATION PROFILE: Declan Kiberd, Prof of Drama and Anglo-Irish studies, UCDProf Declan Kiberd has been described as Ireland's foremost academic. He is a beacon to international students of Irish studies and a huge draw for UCD. A fact not lost on the many US universities who would love to lure him over the pond, writes Louise Holden
The story of Declan Kiberd is very flattering to Irish education. The inspirational figures he met through his schooling, his stellar performance on a university scholarship and his embrace of learning in its widest definition have made him what he is - a giant of academia.
Now, as professor of Drama and Anglo-Irish Studies at UCD, Kiberd's own students carry their devotion to him all over the world. His books on Anglo-Irish writing can be bought or borrowed from Chicago to Bombay. His learning is shared with the public through his accessible writing. He is a product of, and central to, Irish education, so why do rumours of his departure refuse to go away?
"It's been 25 years since I first heard that Declan Kiberd was off to work in America," says a long-standing colleague. "I had several phone calls and communications over the years confirming it as a fact. But he's still here."
Kiberd's visionary perspective on Irish culture has always appealed to US academics. It is understood that Kiberd has been in detailed negotiations with one US college, but his intentions are still unclear.
Only last month he was awarded an honorary degree from the University of St Thomas in Minnesota. Post-colonial studies blossomed in the US in the 1990s and distinguished critics of the Anglo-Irish oeuvre are highly prized Stateside. Kiberd has had plenty of offers, according to those close to him, but he has made his feelings about US university HR strategies quite clear.
"It's incredibly complicated because in America it's much easier to get hired under an affirmative action programme," he told a gathering in Queen's University Belfast in 1999. "Irish studies people have been accused of repackaging themselves for careerist purposes as post-colonial critics, but not really believing in it, just doing it for convenience. I think there's an element of truth in some of these allegations that bring it into disrepute, actually."
Kiberd weathered the lean years for post-colonial theory in Ireland. Now that he has succeeded in bringing the discipline back to the centre of literary scholarship, he's unlikely to abandon his watch, say colleagues. "In the earlier 1990s post-colonial theory was very unpopular in my own department on campus and we had a real struggle to keep it alive," Kiberd told students at Queen's. "It was amazing to me to watch colleagues in America who were turning to it for careerist purposes, when we felt we were under a certain interdiction for our belief in it, but that just shows you the difference between the professional structuring of the academy in North America and here."
The Irish university is changing now, however. Since Hugh Brady took over at UCD, more than one tenured professor has turned purple over his Guinness in the faculty common room. Brady, formerly of Harvard, has brought US ideals to Belfield - star turns, high value research centres, commercial sensibilities. It's no secret that some traditionalists find the whole business a bit vulgar. Is Kiberd amongst them? "Declan is in a difficult position, because he has always been an oppositional intelligence," says a peer. "It's hard for him to move into a central position. However, Brady thinks highly of Kiberd and while the two might clash on certain issues, Brady knows a star performer when he sees one."
Declan Kiberd has been described as Ireland's foremost academic. He is a beacon to international students of Irish studies and a huge draw for UCD. He was born in Clontarf in 1951 and met his first intellectual lodestar, John McGahern, as a primary school pupil in Belgrove. McGahern was his teacher, but left the job under the baleful gaze of an Irish clergy unwilling to accept the novelist's marriage to a divorcee. Donnachadh Ó Céileachair was another writer teaching at Belgrove when Kiberd was pupil.
Kiberd moved to St Paul's College, Raheny,where he found an intellectually supportive environment. He told The Irish Timesin 1999 that "the priests who taught me were liberal: they would admit that there were two sides to the debate about issues like contraception and divorce."
In sixth year he was encouraged to sit the scholarship exam for Trinity College Dublin. He opted to take both the Irish and English language test papers, because there was industrial unrest at the schools that spring, and "there was little else to do." Even the teachers' strike worked in his favour.
Early on in his Trinity days Kiberd put his head above the parapet. His democratic view of Irish culture and literature and his comfort with both the English and Irish languages helped him to view the Irish literary canon with fresh eyes. He made himself a champion of Irish studies. "Declan was a star in the firmament from the beginning," a fellow undergraduate of the day recalls. "As auditor of the Hist (the Trinity debating society) he was always a presence around the university." He was student of Brendan Kennelly in those years - another auspicious educational alliance.
Kiberd took a his doctorate at Oxford under Richard Ellman, the biographer of Joyce, Yeats and Wilde.
In these years,Kiberd developed a passion for cricket; a passion coloured by conscious irony, according to one of his cohorts. "Declan has a keen interest in Indian literature, and in post-colonial culture generally. He would have been tickled by the idea of cricket. He loves exploring the subversion of colonial culture - that's what lies behind much of his criticism."
Kiberd's book Inventing Ireland is an expansive work that draws together the Irish literary canon as a whole, instead of fragmenting it into linguistic silos as previous studies have done. It explores the Irish cultural psyche as a product of its colonial past. Ireland has historically been excluded or neglected in post-colonial studies.
His great gift, says a fellow academic, is his ability to take a bird's eye view of Ireland, while remaining "plugged in" to the culture on the ground.
"Kiberd makes the culture whole again. He crosses academic boundaries with style and human empathy. He remains connected to Ireland and enjoys his acclaim here. He reminds me of a modern day George Bernard Shaw."
An old friend agrees. "Declan is a home bird. He likes Dublin. He enjoys playing a role in public life here. He likes to get involved in Irish debates such as the Lisbon Treaty referendum."
Will he involve himself in debates at UCD? "There's a generation of academics who feel that the new, commercial approach to running a university is inimical to the humanities. It's not just an issue in UCD. Declan has strong ideas about the university and its role in society. Like Declan himself, the university should stand on the margins, offering an independent view. He would be troubled by the idea of a money-driven university. But he wouldn't get involved in a row with Hugh Brady. He's not dogmatic."
A UCD insider confesses that there are those who would like Kiberd to get more involved in college politics, but they will be disappointed. "Declan doesn't push his ideologies on you. He reaches out and connects with people. He's more interested in developing ideas than trying to shout them down. Intellectual generosity is his defining characteristic."
DECLAN KIBERD IN FOCUS
Job spec:Professor of Drama and Ango-Irish Studies at University College Dublin.
One of the world's leading post-colonial literary critics and Joycean scholars. A magnet for foreign students of Irish literature studying in this country.
Frequent media contributor and author of several popular books of criticism and cultural/political commentary
Books:
- Synge and the Irish Language
- Men and Feminism in Modern Literature
- Idir Dhá Chultúr(Essays on Interaction of Gaelic and English-language culture)
- Inventing Ireland - The Literature of the Modern Nation
- Irish Classics, The Irish Writer And The World
Other interests:Children's literature, cricket, comedy
Former teachers:John McGahern, Brendan Kennelly, Richard Ellman
Influences: Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Eilis Dillon, Vivian Mercier
