The project seeks to investigate the publication and mediation of the Irish short story in the influential Irish literary periodical The Bell between 1940 and 1954 so as to assess The Bell’s seminal role in the formation of a canon and a normative meta-narrative about the short story in Ireland. Through a detailed study of both the actual stories and the views on the short story in The Bell within the larger literary, cultural and ideological framework of this periodical, the research will assess and explain the magazine's contribution to the Irish short story's rise to fame as a quintessential 'national’ genre in mid-century Ireland.