Conor McPherson’s The Veil: The Haunting Reflection of the Past in Early Twenty-First-Century Ireland

As an early twenty-first-century Gothic play, McPherson’s The Veil reflects the socio-economic problems and traumas of Ireland after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economy. As indicated by the title and the prevalent mirror image within the play, the playwright holds up a mirror to the past and through a correlation between nineteenth-century and early twenty-first-century Ireland, he points out the everlasting impacts of postcolonial traumas in the present. In the play, the economic predicament of the landholders and the tenants functions as a microcosm of contemporary Ireland as the post-Celtic Tiger period brought back the problems of the past such as unemployment, dispossession and emigration. Moreover, during the early twenty-first century, the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economy created a haunted landscape replete with ghost estates while also producing zombie banks cannibalising the Irish society. In this regard, the impoverished and harsh conditions of nineteenth-century Ireland transforming people into zombified figures and the effects of economic decline in the early twenty-first century such as ghost estates and zombie banks are closely intertwined. The zombie figure signifies not only economic hardships but also the enduring legacy of colonialism in the present. At the intersection of the past and the present, McPherson presents an uncanny and zombified portrayal of contemporary Ireland. Accordingly, this article explores the traumatic echoes of Ireland’s revenant past in the aftermath of the dramatic economic crisis.