“More at Home Here than in Her Native Land”: F.D. Sheridan’s Image of Spain

This paper seeks to (re)introduce the largely overlooked Irish writer Florence Daphne Sheridan and critically examine her portrayal of 1950s and 1960s Spain in her short stories written in the 1980s. While other Irish authors such as Kate O’Brien and Pearse Hutchinson have received moderate attention in relation to their depictions of Spain, Sheridan’s literary representation of the country under Franco’s dictatorship remains largely ignored. This study explores Sheridan’s images of Spain using the framework of Imagology Studies, which focuses on the cultural construction of national identity through literary representations. Sheridan’s works offer a distinctive perspective on the intersections of Irish and Spanish cultural relations, moving beyond the romanticized or stereotypical images of Spain often found in British literature. Her fiction captures the complex realities of Spain during its developmental stage under Francoism and focuses on the effects of economic hardship, political oppression, and the influx of tourism.