Mnemofictions: Rewriting the past in "Ghost Light" by Joseph O’Connor

Abstract

John Millington Synge's contributions to the development of modern Irish drama and to the Gaelic Revival (and, thereby, to Irish memory culture at large) are undeniable. Little is known, however, of his relationship with Miss Molly Allgood, who was an actress at the Abbey Theatre and his fiancée. In this essay I read Joseph O'Connor's 2010 novel, Ghost Light, as a specimen of posthumous ventriloquism – a work of fiction which seeks to give voice to an elderly, forgotten woman who, in 1952 and thenceforth, after her death, was shamefully deprived of her right to keep Synge company in the collective memory of her nation. O'Connor creates prosthetic memories (which I call mnemofictions) for Molly Allgood so that she may eventually claim her due place in Irish memory culture. Consequently, O'Connor's work of fiction effectively redeems a past whose records were originally censored and tampered with.