'Kicking Bishop Brennan up the arse...': Catholicism, deconstruction and postmodernity in contemporary Irish culture (Pre-published version)

Abstract

This chapter will examine the changing role of the Catholic Church as structure in contemporary Ireland, seeing this altered role as part of a larger process of societal change across the western world. Indeed, what is remarkable is not that the church has lost its hegemonic status, but rather that this process has been so belated. I will trace the analysis of such structural dissemination briefly through the work of Lyotard, Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida, before locating the iconographic image of Bishop Brennan being kicked up the arse in a polyptich with three other images which graphically illustrate this process of structural dissemination that I see as typical of the condition of postmodernity.