The Queen of Dirt Island

The Queen of Dirt Island explores the treatment women face in contemporary Irish society. Throughout the novel, women consistently face a standard that their male peers do not, and they are subject to gender-based oppression at the hands of both men and women.

The community’s reaction to Saoirse’s pregnancy highlights the double standard faced by women in the novel. When Saoirse becomes pregnant, the blame for her pregnancy is directed at her rather than the singer who assaulted her; he is not even aware of the existence of his daughter. This blame does not just come from the men in their village, either. At first, both Eileen and Nana blame Saoirse for becoming pregnant as a teenager, which got Eileen driven out of her family home in the first place. It takes the intervention of Saoirse’s uncles Chris and Paudie to convince Eileen and Nana to treat her with compassion. Eileen and Nana have internalized the standards of the society that they live in, believing that pregnancy is always the fault of the mother, not the father, and they treat Saoirse poorly due to those conceptions. Saoirse also gets this treatment from Oonagh, who accosts her in the street, thinking that her boyfriend, Oisín, is the father of Saoirse’s child.