<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<records>
<record>
    <language>eng</language>
        <publisher>Journal of Irish Studies</publisher>
        <journalTitle>Estudios Irlandeses</journalTitle>
        <eissn>1699-311X</eissn>
            <publicationDate>2026-07-16</publicationDate>
        <volume>21.2</volume>
    <issue>21.2</issue>
        <startPage>54</startPage>
    <endPage>65</endPage>
    <publisherRecordId>15138</publisherRecordId>
    <documentType>article</documentType>
    <title language="eng"><![CDATA[ Ireland through a Spanish Lens in Maurice Leitch’s Gone to Earth   (2019) ]]></title>

    <authors>
     
      <author>
        <name><![CDATA[ Alberto Lázaro-Lafuente ]]></name>
        <affiliationId>1</affiliationId>
      </author>
        </authors>

    <affiliationsList>
       
      <affiliationName affiliationId="1"><![CDATA[ Universidad de Alcalá, Spain ]]></affiliationName>
        </affiliationsList>

        <abstract language="eng"><![CDATA[ Maurice Leitch was a Northern Irish writer whose fiction is marked by a distinctive exploration of identity, displacement and the psychological legacy of political conflict. His early novels The Liberty Lad (1965) and Poor Lazarus (1969), as well as the later Silver’s City (1981), are set in Ulster and portray life in a region shaped by frustrations, sectarian division and historical tension. Through understated yet powerful narratives, Leitch reflects on the enduring impact of Ireland’s troubled past, frequently exploring themes of exile, memory and silence. While his final novel, Gone to Earth (2019), departs geographically by setting its story in postwar Spain, it continues to resonate with the concerns of Leitch’s Irish fiction, subtly refracting themes of loss, violence, dislocation and historical reckoning through a foreign landscape. The novel’s Spanish setting becomes a mirror for the Irish experience, with its suppressed histories and unresolved legacies of violence. Drawing on concepts from trauma and memory studies, this article examines how Leitch constructs a narrative of transnational reflection, in which Ireland’s own conflicts and silences are reimagined through the remnants of Spain’s civil war and Franco’s regime.
 ]]></abstract>
    
    <fullTextUrl format="pdf">https://www.estudiosirlandeses.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/6_Lazaro.pdf</fullTextUrl>
    
          <keywords language="eng">
              <keyword>Maurice Leitch</keyword>
              <keyword>Gone to Earth</keyword>
              <keyword>Northern Ireland fiction</keyword>
              <keyword>the Troubles</keyword>
              <keyword>postwar Spain</keyword>
            </keywords>
      </record>
</records>