A reflection on the Irish involvement in the American Indian Wars in Days Without End by

Sebastian Barry

Thomas McNulty, protagonist of Sebastian Barry’s Days Without End (2016), crossed the
Atlantic to build a life after the trauma of losing his family in Sligo, dead from famine. He gets
to the US in 1850, a period of expansionist violence and development of the American West as
a space of conquest and opportunity for some and tragedy for others. As hundreds of
thousands of Irishmen in the nineteenth century, Thomas served in the U.S. military and
engaged in fighting Native Americans. The Irish participation in the Indian Wars brings shame
in modern Irish memory and does not sit well within a broader narrative of Irish people
struggling against oppression. It is out of place that these Irish could be both victims (as in the
case of Famine emigrants) and aggressors. Thomas McNulty, however, had little choice but to
seek a new life in America and to earn a living as best he could. Being himself a victim, it is
ironical his involvement in the Indian Wars, or as Barry defines his protagonist’s role
“dispossessing people like his own people” (LEA, 2017). This dark story is intertwined with an
intimate love relationship between Thomas and his lover, the American John Cole. This paper
aims at exploring the novel’s investigation of racial and gendered identity through the bloody
conflicts Thomas and his lover go through, articulating the notions of national identity and self-
discovery, loss, love and compassion.

Keywords: Sebastian Barry - Irish fiction - Irish in America - Days Without End

Elisa Lima Abrantes is an Associate Professor of Literatures in English at Rural Federal

University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), and vice-president of the Brazilian Association of Irish
Studies (ABEI). PHD in Comparative Literature from UFF (2010), she holds a post-doctorate in
Irish Studies from USP (2015), with research on contemporary author Sebastian Barry and his
representation of the historical past.