Double Space 2024-2025

Now on its fourth publication this Spring 2025, Double Space prides itself in showcasing the academic excellence of undergraduate students in the UCC English department. The academic and creative work presented in this year's issue have been recognised under the UCC Undergraduate Award, the Patricia Coughlan Award, the Louise Clancy Memorial Prize, and the Eoin Murray Memorial Prize, showcasing a wide range of work spanning across time periods, topics, and media.
This variety of work proved difficult to define by way of a theme, but not impossible! The common thread throughout all academic and creative work is the recognition of humanity, and we at Double Space felt this was important to highlight in this year's issue. Our theme for this issue, Literature and Humanity, allows us to understand how even in the most tumultuous and unsure times, cultural attitudes, anxieties, and desires can be reflected within contemporary literature. By ordering our essays chronologically from oldest to newest, we aim to present how literature – and the academic discussion surrounding it – interacts with different aspects of these parameters; constructions of gender, of relationships, of nature, of the self, of society at large. From Sir Gawain to Disco Elysium, we aim to aid your understanding of the true impact which fictional narratives hold over our understanding of the world we live in.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who helped us with this year's publication! To our contributors, thank you for your exceptional work and cooperation. We would also like to thank all the lecturers who provided us with our wonderful essay tips, and for the overall fantastic work within the department. A special thanks to Dr Heather Laird and Dr Miranda Corcoran for establishing this wonderful publication, and for all the help they provided our team along the way. Last but not least, thank you to our Double Space team. From copy editing to social media management to web design, we could not have asked for a better, more hard-working group!
We hope you enjoy reading Double Space as much as we enjoyed working on it!
–Your Co-Editors-in-Chief, Sinéad and Venus