The history of
Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in
IrishIrish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now only spoken natively by a small minority of the Irish population but also plays an important symbolic role in the life of the Irish state, and is used...
and the other in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to categorise.
The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century, while the first known poems in English from Ireland date to the 14th century. Although some cross-fertilization between the two language traditions has always happened, the final emergence of an English-language poetry that had absorbed themes and models from Irish did not appear until the 19th century. This culminated in the work of the poets of the
Celtic RevivalCeltic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on Celtic art and traditions. Although the revival was complex and multifaceted, occurring across many fields and in various countries in North-West Europe, its best known incarnation is...
at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
Towards the last quarter of the century, modern Irish poetry has tended to a wide range of diversity, from the poets of the Northern school to writers influenced by the
modernistModernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late...
tradition and those facing the new questions posed by an increasingly urban and cosmopolitan society.
Early Irish poetry
Poetry in Irish represents the oldest
vernacularVernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular - the speech of the "common people".In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin...
poetry in Europe. The earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short
lyricsLyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
on themes from
religionA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their
scribeA scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
authors in the margins of the
illuminated manuscriptAn illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s that they were copying.
Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the
Táin Bó Cúailngeis a legendary tale from early Irish literature, often considered an epic, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse...
. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in
proseProse is the ordinary form of written language. The word "prose" is derived from the Latin prosa, which literally translates to "straightforward". Prose is adopted for the discussion of facts and topical reading, as it is often articulated in free form writing style...
, with
versePoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
interpolations at moments of heightened tension or emotion. Although usually surviving in recensions dating from the later medieval period, these sagas and especially the poetic sections, are linguistically archaic, and afford the reader a glimpse of pre-Christian Ireland.
Medieval/Early modern
Irish bards formed a professional hereditary
casteA caste is a combined social system of occupation, endogamy, culture, social class, and political power. Caste should not be confused with class, in that members of a caste are deemed to be alike in function or culture, whereas not all members of a defined class may be so alike.Although Indian...
of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions of
clanA clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by actual or perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members may nonetheless recognize a founding member or apical ancestor...
and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that was
syllabicSyllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses that are present. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed, such as Japanese or modern French or Finnish—as opposed to accentual verse, which is common in stress-timed...
and used
assonanceAssonance is refrain of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse. For example, in the phrase "Do you like blue?", the is repeated within the sentence and is assonant.Assonance...
,
half rhymeHalf rhyme sometimes called slant, sprung, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off rhyme or imperfect rhyme is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved. Many half rhymes are also eye rhymes. Half rhymes are widely used in Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Icelandic verse...
and
alliterationAlliteration is a literary or rhetorical stylistic device that consists in repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in close succession...
. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were
chronicleGenerally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler...
rs and
satiristsSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire,
glam dicin, could raise boils on the face of its target. However, much of their work would not strike the modern reader as being poetry at all, consisting as it does of extended genealogies and almost journalistic accounts of the deeds of their lords and ancestors.
The Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape and comprises about 176 poems in total. The earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, so the Dindshenchas was probably a kind of textbook in origin.
Verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as
OssianOssian is the narrator, and supposed author, of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, a character from Irish mythology...
ic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period. They represent a move from earlier prose tales with verse interludes to stories told completely in verse. There is also a notable shift in tone, with the Fionn poems being much closer to the
RomanceAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about the marvelous adventures of a chivalrous, heroic knight errant,...
tradition as opposed to the epic nature of the sagas. The Fionn poems form one of the key
CeltCelts is a modern term used to describe any of the European peoples who spoke, or speak, a Celtic language...
ic sources for the
ArthurianKing Arthur is a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defense of Britain against the Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated...
legends.
British Library Manuscript, Harley 913, is a group of poems written in Ireland in the early 14th century. They are usually called the
KildareCounty Kildare is one of the traditional counties of Ireland. It is located within the province of Leinster and was named after the town of Kildare . Kildare is the 25th largest of Ireland’s 32 counties in area and ninth largest in terms of population...
poems because of their association with that county. Both poems and manuscript have strong
FranciscanThe term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic religious orders, also known as the Orders of Friars Minor, that follow a body of regulations known as "The rule of St. Francis", or a member of one of these orders. As well as Roman Catholic there are also small Old Catholic and...
associations and are full of ideas from the wider
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
an
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
tradition. They also represent the early stages of the second tradition of Irish poetry, that of poetry in the English language, as they were written in
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing...
.
During the Elizabethan reconquest, two of the most significant English poets of the time saw service in the Irish colonies. Sir
Walter RaleighSir Walter Raleigh, Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall was a English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, and explorer.Raleigh was born to a Protestant family in Devon, the son of Walter Raleigh and Catherine Champernowne...
had little impact on the course of Irish literature, but the time spent in
MunsterMunster is a province of Ireland, located in the south-west of the island. The province is not used as an administration division as such, with the counties filling that role. Much of the area aside from Clare is represented internationally by the South constituency of the European Parliament...
by
Edmund SpenserEdmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy.-Life:Edmund Spenser was born in London around 1552...
was to have serious consequences both for his own writings and for the future course of cultural development in Ireland.
Spenser's relationship with Ireland was somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, an idealised Munster landscape forms the backdrop for much of the action for his masterpiece,
The Faerie Queen. On the other, he condemned Ireland and everything Irish as barbaric in his prose polemic
A View of the Present State of Ireland.
In
A View, he describes the Irish bards as being,
Given that the bards depended on aristocratic support to survive, and that this power and patronage was shifting towards the new English rulers, this thorough condemnation of their moral values may well have contributed to their demise as a caste.
Gaelic poetry in the 17th century
For historical context see Early Modern Ireland 1536-1691
The Battle of Kinsale in 1601 saw the defeat of Hugh O'Neill, despite his alliance with the Spanish, and the ultimate victory in the
Elizabethan conquest of IrelandThe Tudor re-conquest of Ireland took place under the English Tudor dynasty during the 16th century. Following a failed rebellion against the crown by the Geraldines in the 1530s, Henry VIII was declared King of Ireland by statute of the Irish parliament, with the aim of restoring such central...
came with his surrender to crown authority in 1603. In consequence, the system of education and patronage that underpinned the professional bardic schools came under pressure, and the hereditary poets eventually engaged in a spat - the
Contention of the bardsThe Contention of the Bards was a literary controversy of early 17th century Gaelic Ireland, lasting from 1616 to 1624 , in which the principal bardic poets of the country wrote polemical verses against each other and in support of their respective patrons.There were thirty contributions to the...
- that marked the end of their ancient influence. During the early 17th century a new Gaelic poetry took root, one that sought inspiration in the margins of a dispossessed Irish-speaking society. The language of this poetry is today called Early Modern Irish. Although some 17th century poets continued to enjoy a degree of patronage, many, if not most, of them were part-time writers who also worked on the land, as teachers, and anywhere that they could earn their keep. Their poetry also changed, with a move away from the
syllabic verseSyllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed number of syllables per line or stanza regardless of the number of stresses that are present. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed, such as Japanese or modern French or Finnish—as opposed to accentual verse, which is common in stress-timed...
of the schools to
accentualAccentual verse has a fixed number of stresses per line or stanza regardless of the number of syllables that are present. It is common in languages that are stress-timed, such as English—as opposed to syllabic verse, which is common in syllable-timed languages, such as classical Latin.Nursery...
metres, reflecting the oral poetry of the bardic period. A good deal of the poetry of this period deals with political and historical themes that reflect the poets' sense of a world lost. In 1616 to 1624 was the
Contention of the bardsThe Contention of the Bards was a literary controversy of early 17th century Gaelic Ireland, lasting from 1616 to 1624 , in which the principal bardic poets of the country wrote polemical verses against each other and in support of their respective patrons.There were thirty contributions to the...
.
The poets adapted to the new English dominated order in several ways. Some of them continued to find patronage among the Gaelic Irish and
Old EnglishThe Old English were the descendants of the settlers who came to Ireland from Wales, Normandy and England after the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169-71. Many of the Old English became assimilated into Irish society over the centuries and their nobility were effectively the ruling class in the...
aristocracy. Some of the English landowners settled in Ireland after the
Plantations of IrelandPlantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland were established throughout the country by the confiscation of lands occupied by Gaelic clans and Hiberno-Norman dynasties, but principally in the provinces of Munster and Ulster. The lands were then granted by Crown authority to colonists from Britain...
also patronised Irish poets, for instance George Carew and
Roger BoyleRoger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery , British soldier, statesman and dramatist. He was the third surviving son of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork and Richard's second wife, Catherine Fenton. He was created Baron of Broghill on 28 February 1627...
. Other members of hereditary bardic families sent their sons to the new
Irish CollegeIrish Colleges is the collective name used for approximately 34 centres of education for Irish Catholic clergy and lay people opened on continental Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The Colleges were set up to educate Roman Catholics from Ireland in their own religion following the...
s that had been set up in Catholic Europe for the education of Irish Catholics, who were not permitted to found schools or Universities at home. Much of the Irish poetry of the seventeenth century was therefore composed by Catholic clerics and Irish society fell increasingly under Counter reformation influences. By mid century, the subordination of the native Catholic upper classes in Ireland boiled over in the
Irish Rebellion of 1641The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, but developed into inter communal violence between native Irish and English and Scottish Protestant settlers, starting a conflict known as the Irish Confederate Wars....
. Many Irish language poets wrote highly politicised poetry in support of the Irish Catholics organised in
Confederate IrelandConfederate Ireland refers to the period of Irish self-government between the Rebellion of 1641 and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649. During this time, two-thirds of Ireland was governed by the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the "Confederation of Kilkenny"...
. For instance, the cleric poet Pádraigín Haicéad wrote,
Éirigh mo Dhúiche le Dia ("Arise my Country with God") in support of the rebellion, which advised that
- Caithfidh fir Éireann uile
- o haicme go haonduine...
- gliec na timcheall no tuitim
("All Irishmen from one person to all people must unite or fall")
Another of Haicéad's poems
Muscail do mhisneach a Banbha ("Gather your courage oh Ireland") in 1647 encouraged the Irish Catholic war effort in the
Irish Confederate WarsThis article is concerned with the military history of Ireland from 1641-53. For the political context of this conflict, see Confederate Ireland....
. It expressed the opinion that Catholics should not tolerate
ProtestantismProtestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
in Ireland,,
- Creideamh Chríost le creideamh Lúiteir...
- ladgadh gris i sneachta sud
(The religion of Christ with the religion of
LutherMartin Luther changed the course of Western civilization by initiating the Protestant Reformation. As a priest and theology professor, he confronted indulgence salesmen with his The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Luther strongly disputed their claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could...
is like ashes in the snow")
Following the defeat of the Irish Catholics in the
Cromwellian conquest of IrelandThe Cromwellian conquest of Ireland refers to the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of the English Parliament in 1649...
1649–53, and the destruction of the old Irish landed classes, many poets wrote mourning the fallen order or lamenting the destruction and repression of the Cromwellian conquest. The anonymous poem
an Siogai Romanach went,
- Ag so an cogadh do chriochnaigh Éire
- s do chuir na milte ag iarri dearca...
- Do rith plaig is gorta in aonacht
("This was the war that finished Ireland and put thousands begging, plague and famine ran together")
Another poem by Éamonn an Dúna is a strange mixture of Irish and English,
- Le execution bhíos súil an cheidir
- costas buinte na chuine ag an ndeanach
(The first thing a man expects is execution, the last that costs be awarded against him [in court]")
- Transport transplant, mo mheabhair ar Bhéarla
- A tory
Rapparees were Irish guerrilla fighters who operated on the Jacobite side during the 1690s Williamite war in Ireland...
, hack him, hang him, a rebel,
- a rogue, a thief a priest, a papist
After this period, the poets lost most of their patrons and protectors. In the subsequent
Williamite war in IrelandThe Williamite War in Ireland, also known as the Jacobite War in Ireland and in Ireland as Cogadh an Dá Rí or The War of the Two Kings, was the opening conflict following the deposition of King James II in 1688 when he attempted to regain the throne of his Three Kingdoms from his daughter Mary II...
Catholic
JacobitesJacobitism was the political movement dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
tried to recover their position by supporting James II. Dáibhi Ó Bruadair wrote many poems in praise of the Jacobite war effort and in particular of his hero, Patrick Sarsfield. The poets viewed the war as revenge against the Protestant settlers who had come to dominate Ireland, as the following poem extract makes clear,
- "You Popish rogue", ni leomhaid a labhairt sinn
- acht "Cromwellian dog" is focal faire againn
- no " cia sud thall" go teann gan eagla
- "Mise Tadhg" geadh teinn an t-agallamh
("You Popish rogue" is not spoken, but "Cromwellian dog" is our watchword, "Who goes there" does not provoke fear, "I am Tadhg" [an Irishman] is the answer given") From Diarmuid Mac Carthaigh,
Céad buidhe re Dia ("A hundred victories with God").
The Jacobite's defeat in the War, and in particular
James IIJames II & VII was King of England and Ireland as James II, and Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
's ignominious flight after the
Battle of the BoyneThe Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thrones - the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William, who had deposed James in 1688...
, gave rise to the following derisive verse,
- Séamus an cháca, a chaill Éireann,
- lena leathbhróg ghallda is a leathbhróg Ghaelach
("James the shit has lost Ireland, with his one shoe English and one shoe Irish")
The main poets of this period include
Dáibhí Ó BruadairDáibhí Ó Bruadair was one of the most significant Irish language poets of the 17th century. He lived through a momentous time in Irish history and his work serves as testimony to the death of the old Irish cultural and political order and the decline in respect for the once honoured and feared...
, (1625?–1698),
Piaras FeiritéarPiaras Feiritéar was an Irish poet.Feiritéar was a Norman-Irish lord of Baile an Fheirtéaraigh in Corca Dhuibhne. Although best known as a poet, it was his role as a leader of the nascent Catholic Irish community of Norman- and Gaelic- Irish origin which ultimately lead to his execution in...
(1600?–1653) and
Aogán Ó RathailleAodhagán Ó Rathaille, also spelt Aogán Ó Rathaille or Anglicised as Egan O'Rahilly , was an Irish language poet. He is credited with creating the first fully developed Aisling poem.- Early life :...
(1675–1729). Ó Rathaille belongs as much to the 18th as the 17th century and his work, including the introduction of the
aislingThe aisling , or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry...
genre, marks something of a transition to a post
Battle of the BoyneThe Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thrones - the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William, who had deposed James in 1688...
Ireland.
The 18th century
The 18th Century perhaps marks the point at which the two language traditions reach equal weight of importance. In Swift, the English tradition has its first writer of genius. Poetry in Irish now reflects the passing of the old Gaelic order and the patronage on which the poets depended for their livelihoods. This, then, is a period of transition writ large.
Gaelic songs: The end of an order
As the old native aristocracy suffered military and political defeat and, in many cases, exile, the world order that had supported the bardic poets disappeared. In these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that much Irish language poetry and song of this period laments these changes and the poet's plight. However, being practical professionals, the poets were not above writing poems in praise of the new English lords in the hope of finding a continuity of court patronage. This was not generally a successful tactic, and Gaelic poets tended to be folk poets until the Gaelic revival that began towards the end of the 19th century. However, many of the poems and songs written during this period of apparent decline live on and are still recited and sung today.
Cúirt An Mheán Oíche
Cúirt An Mheán Oíche (
The Midnight Court) by
Brian MerrimanBrian Merriman or in Irish Brian Mac Giolla Meidhre was an Irish language poet and teacher. His single surviving work of substance, the 1000-line long Cúirt An Mheán Oíche is widely regarded as the greatest comic poem in the history of Irish literature.-Merriman's life:Merriman appears to have...
(1747–1805) is something of an oddity in 18th century Irish poetry in Irish. Merriman was a teacher of mathematics who lived and worked in the Munster counties of
ClareCounty Clare commonly referred to as simply Clare, is a county of Ireland and part of the wider province of Munster. Clare is one of the 26 counties within the Republic of Ireland and it provides a basis for local government, in the form of its own constituency within the Dáil Éireann...
and
LimerickCounty Limerick is one of the traditional counties of Ireland and is located within the province of Munster. It was named after the city of Limerick ....
.
Cúirt An Mheán Oíche, effectively his only poetic work, was written around 1780. The poem begins by using the conventions of the
AislingThe aisling , or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry...
, or vision poem, in which the poet is out walking when he has a vision of a woman from the other world. Typically, this woman is Ireland and the poem will lament her lot and/or call on her 'sons' to rebel against foreign tyranny.
In Merriman's hands, the convention is made to take an unusual twist. The woman drags the poet to the court of the fairy queen Aoibheal. There follows a court case in which a young woman calls on Aoibheal to take action against the young men of Ireland for their refusal to marry. She is answered by an old man who first laments the
infidelityInfidelity is a violation of the mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of an intimate relationship, which constitutes a significant breach of faith or a betrayal of core shared values with which the integrity of the relationship is defined...
of his own young wife and the dissolute lifestyles of young women in general. He then calls on the queen to end the institution of
marriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged by a variety of ways, depending on the culture or demographic...
completely and to replace it with a system of
free loveThe term free love has been used since at least the 19th century to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage, especially for women. Much of the free-love tradition is an offshoot of anarchism, and reflects a civil libertarian philosophy that seeks...
. The young woman returns to mock the old man's inability to satisfy his young wife's needs and to call for an end to the celibacy among the clergy so as to widen the pool of prospective mates. Finally, Aoibheal rules that all men must mate by the age of 21, that older men who fail to satisfy women must be punished, that sex must be applauded, not condemned, and that priests will soon be free to marry. To his dismay, the poet discovers that he is to be the first to suffer the consequences of this new law, but then awakens to find it was just a nightmare. In its frank treatment of sexuality and of
clerical celibacyClerical celibacy is the practice in various religious traditions, in which clergy, monastics and those in religious orders adopt a celibate life, refraining from marriage and sexual relationships, including masturbation and "impure thoughts"...
,
Cúirt An Mheán Oíche is a unique document in the history of Irish poetry in either language.
Swift and Goldsmith
In
Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
(1667–1745), Irish literature in English found its first writer of real genius. Although best known for prose works like
Gulliver's TravelsGulliver's Travels , officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, is a novel by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers'...
and
A Tale of a TubA Tale of a Tub was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his most masterly...
, Swift was a poet of considerable talent. Technically close to his English contemporaries
PopeAlexander Pope is a famous eighteenth century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet.-...
and
DrydenJohn Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.-Early life:Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle...
, Swift's poetry evinces the same tone savage satire and horror of the human body and its functions that characterises much of his prose. Interestingly, Swift also published translations of poems from the Irish.
Oliver GoldsmithOliver Goldsmith was an Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
(1730?–1774) started his literary career as a
hack writerHack writer is a colloquial and usually pejorative term used to refer to a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline. In a fiction-writing context, the term is used to describe writers who are paid to churn out sensational,...
in London, writing on any subject that would pay enough to keep his creditors at bay. He came to belong to the circle of
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative, and has been...
,
Edmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his opposition to the French Revolution...
and Sir Joshua Reynolds. His reputation depends mainly on a novel,
The Vicar of WakefieldThe Vicar of Wakefield is a novel by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. It was written in 1761 and 1762, and published in 1766. It was one of the most popular and widely read 18th century novels among 19th century Victorians, for instance mentioned in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Jane Austen's Emma,...
, a play,
She Stoops to ConquerShe Stoops to Conquer is a comedy by the Irish author Oliver Goldsmith, son of an Anglo-Irish vicar, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a great favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in Britain and the United States. It is one of the few plays from the 18th...
, and two long poems,
The Traveller and
The Deserted Village. The last of these may be the first and best poem by an Irish poet in the English
pastoralPastoral, as an adjective, refers to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists, moving livestock around larger areas of land according to seasons and availability of water and food. "Pastoral" also describes literature, art and music which depicts the life of shepherds, often in a highly...
tradition. It has been variously interpreted as a lament for the death of Irish village life under British rule and a protest at the effects of agricultural reform on the English rural landscape.
Weaver Poets and Vernacular Writing
Local cultural differences in areas such as north and east Ulster produced minor, and often only loosely associated, vernacular movements which do not readily fit into the categories of Irish or English literature. For example, the Ulster
Weaver PoetsWeaver Poets, Rhyming Weaver Poets and Ulster Weaver Poets were a collective group of poets belonging to an artistic movement who were both influenced by and contemporaries of Robert Burns and the Romantic movement.-Origins:...
who wrote in an Ulster Scots dialect.
Working class or popular in nature, remaining examples are mostly limited to publication in self-published privately-subscribed limited print runs, newspapers, journals of the time..
The promotion of standard English in education gradually reduced the visibility and influence of such movements. In addition, the polarising effects of the politics of the use of English and Irish language traditions also limited academic and public interest until the studies of John Harold Hewitt from the 1950s onwards. Further impetus was given by more generalised exploration of non-"Irish" and non-"English" cultural identities in the latter decades of the 20th Century.
The 19th century
During the course of the 19th century, political and economic factors resulted in the decline of the Irish language and the concurrent rise of English as the main language of Ireland. This fact is reflected in the poetry of the period. The end of old ways, a feature of the bardic laments of the eighteenth century, is also to be found in the early nineteenth century poem
Caoine Cill Chais (
The Lament for Kilcash). In this verse the anonymous poet laments that the castle of Cill Chais stands empty, its woods are cut down and the Catholic religion is gone underground (Flood and Flood 1999:85-93):
Paradoxically, as soon as English became the dominant language of Irish poetry, the poets began to mine the Irish-language heritage as a source of themes and techniques. J. J. Callanan (1795–1829) was born in Cork and died at a young age in Lisbon. Unlike many other more visibly nationalist poets who would follow later, he knew Irish well, and several of his poems are loose versions of Irish originals. Although extremely close to Irish materials, he was also profoundly influenced by Byron and his peers; possibly his finest poem, the title work of
The Recluse of Inchidony and Other Poems (1829), was written in Spenserian stanzas that were clearly inspired by
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Probably the most renowned Irish poet to write in English in a recognisably Irish fashion in the first half of the nineteenth century was
Thomas MooreThomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and the The Last Rose of Summer.-Biography:...
(1779–1852), although he had no knowledge of, and little respect for, the Irish language. He attended Trinity College Dublin at the same time as the revolutionary Robert Emmet, who was executed in 1803. Moore's most enduring work,
Irish Melodies, was popular with English audiences. The poems are, perhaps, somewhat overloaded with harps, bards and minstrels of Erin to suit modern tastes, but they did open up the possibility of a distinctive Irish English-language poetic tradition and served as an exemplar for Irish poets to come. In 1842,
Charles Gavan DuffySir Charles Gavan Duffy, KCMG Irish nationalist and Australian colonial politician, was the 8th Premier of Victoria and one of the most colourful figures in Victorian political history. Duffy was born in Dublin Street, Monaghan Town, County Monaghan, Ireland, the son of a Catholic shopkeeper...
(1816–1903),
Thomas DavisThomas Osborne Davis was a revolutionary Irish writer who was the chief organizer and poet of the Young Ireland movement.-Early life:...
, (1814–1845), and
John Blake DillonJohn Blake Dillon was an Irish writer and Politician who was one of the founding members of the Young Ireland movement....
(1816–1866) founded
The NationThe Nation was an Irish nationalist weekly newspaper, published in the 19th century. The Nation was printed first at 12 Trinity Street, Dublin, on 15 October 1842, until 6 January 1844...
to agitate for reform of British rule. The group of politicians and writers associated with
The Nation came to be known as the Young Irelanders. The magazine published verse, including work by Duffy and Davis, whose
A Nation Once Again is still popular among Irish Nationalists. However, the most significant poet associated with
The Nation was undoubtedly
James Clarence ManganJames Clarence Mangan, born James Mangan was an Irish poet.-Early life:Mangan was the son of a former hedge school teacher who took over a grocery business and eventually became bankrupt....
(1803–1849). Mangan was a true
poète mauditA poète maudit is a poet living a life outside or against society. Abuse of drugs and alcohol, insanity, crime, violence, and in general any societal sin, often resulting in an early death are typical elements of the biography of a poète maudit....
, who threw himself into the role of bard, and even included translations of bardic poems in his publications.
Another poet who supported the Young Irelanders, although not directly connected with them, was
Samuel FergusonSir Samuel Ferguson was an Irish poet, barrister, antiquarian, artist and public servant. Perhaps the most important Ulster-Scot poet of the 19th century, because of his interest in Irish mythology and early Irish history he can be seen as a forerunner of William Butler Yeats and the other poets...
(1810–1886). Ferguson once wrote: 'my ambition (is) to raise the native elements of Irish history to a dignified level.' To this end, he wrote many verse retellings of the Old Irish sagas. He also wrote a moving elegy to Thomas Davis. Ferguson, who believed that Ireland's political fate ultimately lay within the Union, brought a new scholarly exactitude to the study and translation of Irish texts.
William AllinghamWilliam Allingham was an Irish man of letters and a poet.He was born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, Ireland, and was the son of the manager of a local bank who was of English descent...
(1824–1889) was another important Unionist figure in Irish poetry. Born and bred in Ballyshannon, Donegal, he spent most of his working life in England and was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and a close friend of Tennyson. His
Day and Night Songs was illustrated by
Dante Gabriel RossettiDante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 and was later to be the main inspiration for second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement...
and Millais. His most important work is the long poem,
Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland (1864), a realist narrative which wittily and movingly deals with the land agitation in Ireland during the period. He was also known for his work as a collector of folk ballads in both Ireland and England.
Ferguson's research opened the way for many of the achievements of the Celtic Revival, especially those of
YeatsWilliam Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright.Yeats may also refer to:* Yeats ,* Yeats , an impact crater on Mercury* Yeats , an Irish thoroughbred racehorse-See also:...
and
Douglas HydeDouglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...
, but this narrative of Irish poetry which leads to the Revival as culmination can also be deceptive and occlude important poetry, such as the work of
James HenryJames Henry was an Irish classical scholar and poet.-Life:He was born in Dublin the son of a woolen draper, Robert Henry, and his wife Kathleen Elder. He was educated by Unitarian schoolmasters and then at Trinity College, Dublin...
(1798–1876), medical doctor, Virgil scholar and poet. His large body of work was completely overlooked until Christopher Ricks included him in two anthologies, and eventually edited a selection of his poetry. Various in his means, cosmopolitan in his range and possessed of an acute wit, Henry shows the negative force of nationalism in Irish criticism: his omission from standard accounts and anthologies for over 100 years can only be due to his blithe disregard of the matter of Ireland. 'Irish poetry', James's example suggests, does not always have to be about Ireland.
Folk songs and poems
During the 19th century, poetry in Irish became essentially a folk art. One of the few well-known figures from this period was
Antoine Ó Raifteiri (Anthony Raftery)Antoine Ó Raifteiri was an Irish language poet who is often called the last of the wandering bards.-Biography:...
(1784–1835), who is known as the last of the wandering bards. His
Mise Raifteiri an file is still learned by heart in some Irish schools. In addition, this was one of the great periods for the composition of folk songs in both languages, and the majority of the traditional singer's repertoire is typically made up of 19th century songs.
The Celtic revival
Probably the most significant poetic movement of the second half of the 19th century was French
SymbolismSymbolism is the use of symbols to represent things such as ideas and emotions. Symbolism is sometimes used to refer specifically to totemic symbols that stand on their own, as opposed to linguistic symbols....
. This movement inevitably influenced Irish writers, not least
Oscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest "celebrities" of his day...
(1845–1900). Although Wilde is best known for his plays, fiction, and
The Ballad of Reading GaolThe Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval or Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol on or about 19 May 1897...
, he also wrote poetry in a symbolist vein and was the first Irish writer to experiment with
prose poetryProse poetry, as it is usually understood, is poetry written in prose that departs from some of the usual practices associated with prose discourse, for the sake of heightened imagery or emotional effect.-Characteristics:...
. However, the overtly cosmopolitan Wilde was not to have much influence on the future course of Irish writing. W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) was much more influential in the long run. Yeats, too, was influenced by his French contemporaries but consciously focused on an identifiably Irish content. As such, he was responsible for the establishment of the literary movement known as the
Celtic RevivalCeltic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on Celtic art and traditions. Although the revival was complex and multifaceted, occurring across many fields and in various countries in North-West Europe, its best known incarnation is...
. He won the
Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
in 1923. Apart from Yeats, much of the impetus for the Celtic Revival came from the work of scholarly translators who were aiding in the discovery of both the ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent folk song tradition in Irish. One of the most significant of these was
Douglas HydeDouglas Hyde , known as An Craoibhín Aoibhinn , was an Irish scholar of the Irish language who served as the first President of Ireland from 1938 to 1945...
(1860–1949), later the first
President of IrelandThe President of Ireland is the head of state of Ireland. The President is usually directly elected by the people for seven years, and can be elected for a maximum of two terms. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office, but the President does exercise certain limited powers with absolute...
, whose
Love Songs of Connacht was widely admired.
Yeats and modernism
In the 1910s, Yeats became acquainted with the work of
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish expatriate author, playwright and poet of the 20th century. He is known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of...
, and worked closely with
Ezra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet, critic and intellectual who was a major figure of the Modernist movement in the first half of the 20th century. He is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry...
, who served as his personal secretary for a time. Through Pound, Yeats also became familiar with the work of a range of prominent
modernistModernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1930 in the tradition of modernist literature; the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the dates...
poets. He undoubtedly learned from these contacts, and from his
1916Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* March – Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky, who wrote under the pen name "Guillaume Apollinaire", was wounded in the head by shell fragments while serving as a lieutenant in the infantry at...
book
Responsibilities and Other Poems onwards his work, while not entirely meriting the label modernist, became much more hard-edged than it had been.
A second group of early 20th century Irish poets worth noting are those associated with the
Easter RisingThe Easter Rising , was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic...
of 1916. Three of the Republican leadership, Padraig Pearse (1879–1916),
Joseph Mary PlunkettJoseph Mary Plunkett was an Irish nationalist, poet, journalist, and leader of the 1916 Easter Rising. His father, George Noble Plunkett, was a papal count and curator of the National Museum...
(1879–1916) and
Thomas MacDonaghThomas MacDonagh was an Irish nationalist, poet, playwright, and a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising.-Early Life:...
(1878–1916), were noted poets. Although much of the verse written by them is predictably
CatholicThe word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective , meaning "universal". In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. For some, the term "Catholic Church" refers to the church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, made up of the Latin Rite and the 22...
and Nationalist in outlook, they were competent writers and their work is of considerable historical interest. Pearse, in particular, shows the influence of his contact with the work of
Walt WhitmanWalter Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
. Individual from these groups the Boyne Valley "peasant poet"
Francis LedwidgeFrancis Ledwidge was an Irish war poet from County Meath. Sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was killed in action at the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I.-Early life:...
, killed 1917 in the Great War.
However, it was to be Yeats' earlier Celtic mode that was to be most influential. Amongst the most prominent followers of the early Yeats were
Padraic ColumPadraic Colum was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Celtic Revival.-Early life:...
(1881–1972),
F. R. HigginsFrederick Robert Higgins was an Irish poet and theatre director.-Early years:Higgins was born on the west coast of Ireland in Foxford, which is located in County Mayo...
(1896–1941), and
Austin ClarkeAustin Clarke was one of the leading Irish poets of the generation after W. B. Yeats. He also wrote plays, novels and memoirs...
(1896–1974). In the 1950s, Clarke, returning to poetry after a long absence, turned to a much more personal style and wrote many satires on Irish society and religious practices. Irish poetic Modernism took its lead not from Yeats but from Joyce. The 1930s saw the emergence of a generation of writers who engaged in experimental writing as a matter of course. The best known of these is
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....
(1906–1989), who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Beckett's poetry, while not inconsiderable, is not what he is best known for. The most significant of the second generation Modernist Irish poets who first published in the 1920s and 1930s include
Brian CoffeyBrian Coffey was an Irish poet and publisher. His work was informed by his Catholicism and by his background in science and philosophy, and his connection to surrealism. For these reasons, he is seen as being closer to an intellectual European Catholic tradition than to mainstream Irish Catholic...
(1905–1995),
Denis DevlinDenis Devlin was, along with Samuel Beckett and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of Irish modernist poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat.-Early life and studies:...
(1908–1959),
Thomas MacGreevyThomas MacGreevy was a pivotal figure in the history of Irish literary modernism. A poet, he was also director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1950 to 1963 and served on the first Irish Arts Council .-Early life:MacGreevy was born in County Kerry, the son of a policeman and a primary...
(1893–1967),
Blanaid SalkeldBlanaid Salkeld was an Irish poet, dramatist, and actor, whose well-known literary salon was attended by, among others, Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O'Brien...
(1880–1959), and
Mary Devenport O'NeillMary Devenport O'Neill was an Irish poet and dramatist and a friend and colleague of W. B. Yeats.O'Neill studied at the National College of Art in Dublin. She published two verse plays, Bluebeard and Cain and one collection of poetry, Prometheus and Other Poems...
(1879–1967). Coffey's two late long poems
Advent (1975) and
Death of Hektor (1982) are perhaps his most important works; the latter deals with the theme of nuclear apocalypse through motifs from Greek mythology. Of this group, Devlin is the least experimental; his friendship with Allen Tate while working at the Irish embassy in Washington is one index of the traditional tendencies of his verse. Long poems such as 'Lough Derg' (1946) and 'The Heavenly Foreigner' (written in the late 1940s and early '50s) explore ideas of Catholicism and Europe in a densely imagistic and occasionally obscure style.
While Yeats and his followers wrote about an essentially aristocratic Gaelic Ireland, the reality was that the actual
Irish Free StateThe Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand....
of the 1930s and 1940s was a society of small farmers and shopkeepers. Inevitably, a generation of poets who rebelled against the example of Yeats, but who were not Modernist by inclination, emerged from this environment.
Patrick KavanaghPatrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. He is regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th Century, and his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poem On Raglan Road...
(1904–1967), who came from a small farm, wrote about the narrowness and frustrations of rural life. John Hewitt (1907–1987), whom many consider to be the founding father of
Northern IrishNorthern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it is situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
poetry, also came from a rural background but lived in Belfast and was amongst the first Irish poets to write of the sense of alienation that many at this time felt from both their original rural and new urban homes.
Louis MacNeiceFrederick Louis MacNeice was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and C. Day Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...
(1907–1963), another Northern Irish poet, was associated with the left-wing politics of
Michael RobertsMichael Roberts may refer to:*Michael Roberts , British poet, writer, critic and broadcaster*Michael Roberts , British historian specializing in the early modern period and known for his studies of Swedish history*Michael Roberts , British Conservative Party politician, Cardiff MP 1970–1983*...
's anthology
New Signatures but was much less political a poet than
W. H. AudenWystan Hugh Auden who signed his works W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or...
or
Stephen SpenderSir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
, for example. MacNeice's poetry was informed by his immediate interests and surroundings and is more social than political. In the South, the Republic of Ireland, a post-modernist generation of poets and writers emerged from the late 1950s onwards. Prominent among these writers were the poets Antony Cronin, Pearse Hutchinson, John Jordan, Thomas Kinsella and John Montague, most of whom were based in Dublin in the 1960s and 1970s. In Dublin a number of new literary magazines were founded in the 1960s;
Poetry Ireland,
Arena,
The Lace Curtain, and in the 1970s,
Cyphers.
Poetry in Irish
With the foundation of the Irish Free State it became official government policy to promote and protect the Irish language. Although not particularly successful, this policy did help bring about a revival in Irish-language literature. Specifically, the establishment in 1926 of
An Gúm ("The Project"), a Government sponsored publisher, created an outlet both for original works in Irish and for translations into the language.
Since then, a number of Irish-language poets have come to prominence. These include
Máirtín Ó DireáinMáirtín Ó Direáin born in Sruthán on Inishmore in the Aran Islands was an Irish language poet.The son of a small-farmer, Máirtín Ó Direáin spoke only Irish until his mid-teens. He worked as a civil servant from 1928 until 1975...
(1910–1988),
Seán Ó RíordáinSeán Ó Ríordáin was an Irish language poet born in the Irish-speaking parish of Muskerry in County Cork. His native area was rich in Gaelic literature, and the Irish language was the predominant language of Ó Ríordáin's environment until the age of fifteen, when he moved to Inis Carra, an...
(1916–1977),
Máire Mhac an tSaoiMáire Mhac an tSaoi is an Irish language scholar and academic.-Background:Mhac an tSaoi was born Máire MacEntee in Dublin. Her father, Seán MacEntee, was one of the founding members of Fianna Fáil, a long-serving TD and Tánaiste in the Dáil and a participant in the Easter Rising of 1916...
(born 1922),
Michael HartnettMichael Hartnett was an Irish poet who wrote in both English and Irish. He was one of the most significant voices in late 20th century Irish writing.-Early life and background:...
(born 1941),
Gabriel RosenstockGabriel Rosenstock is an Irish poet and haiku writer.-Biography:He was born in Kilfinane, County Limerick in 1949. He currently resides in Dublin....
(born 1949), and
Nuala Ní DhomhnaillNuala Ní Dhomhnaill is an Irish poet.Born in Lancashire, England in 1952, of Irish parents, she moved to Ireland at the age of 5, and was brought up in the Dingle Gaeltacht and in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Her uncle is Monsignor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta of An Daingean, the leading authority alive on...
(born 1952). While all these poets are influenced by the Irish poetic tradition, they have also shown the ability to assimilate influences from poetries in other languages. The dramatist and actor
Micheál MacLiammóirMicheál Mac Liammhóir was an English-born Irish actor, dramatist, impresario, writer, poet and painter...
(1899-1978) included many poetic verses he wrote in the Irish-language in his works.
The Northern School
The Northern Irish poets have already been mentioned in connection with John Hewitt. Of course, there were others of some importance too, including
Robert GreacenRobert Greacen was an Irish poet and member of Aosdána. He was educated at Methodist College Belfast and Trinity College Dublin.-Publications:...
(1920-2008), who along Valentin Iremonger edited an important anthology,
Contemporary Irish Poetry in 1949. Greacen was born in Derry, lived in Belfast in his youth and then in London during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. He won the Irish Times Prize for Poetry in 1995 for his
Collected Poems, after he returned to live in Dublin when he was elected a member of
Aosdana. Other poets of note from this time include Roy McFadden (1921–1999), a friend for many years of Greacen. Another Northern poet of note is
Padraic FiaccPadraic Fiacc is an Irish poet, and member of Aosdána, the exclusive Irish Arts Academy.- Biographical information :...
(1924- ), who was born in Belfast, but lived in America during his youth. n the 1960s, and coincident with the rise of
the TroublesThe Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
in the province, a number of
UlsterUlster is one of the four Provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island.Ulster is composed of nine counties: Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone are part of Northern Ireland; while Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan are part of the Republic of Ireland.-Terminology:The...
poets began to receive critical and public notice. Prominent amongst these were
John MontagueJohn Montague is an Irish poet. He was born in New York and brought up in Tyrone. He has published a number of volumes of poetry, two collections of short stories and a two volumes of memoir. He is one of the best known Irish contemporary poets...
(born 1929),
Michael LongleyMichael Longley is a Northern Irish poet from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is married to Edna Longley an influential critic on modern Irish and British poetry....
(born 1939),
Derek MahonDerek Mahon is a Northern Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.-Biography:Mahon was born the only child of Ulster Protestant working class parents. His father and grandfather worked at Harland and Wolff while his mother worked at a local Flax Mill...
(born 1941),
Seamus HeaneySeamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He currently lives in Dublin.-Early life:...
(born 1939), and
Paul MuldoonPaul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from County Armagh, Northern Ireland as well as an educator and academic at Princeton University.-Life and work:...
(born 1951).
Heaney is probably the best-known of these poets. He won the
Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
in 1995, and has served as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory and Emerson Poet in Residence at
HarvardHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
, and as Professor of Poetry at
OxfordThe University of Oxford , located in the UK city of Oxford, is the oldest surviving university in the English-speaking world and is regarded as one of the world's leading academic institutions. Although the exact date of foundation remains unclear, there is evidence of teaching there as far back...
. Derek Mahon was born in Belfast and worked as a journalist, editor, and screenwriter while publishing his first books. His slim output should not obscure the high quality of his work, which is influenced by modernist writers such as
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalist....
.
Muldoon is Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor in the Humanities at
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
. In 1999 he was also elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. Some critics find that these poets share some formal traits (including an interest in traditional poetic forms) as well as a willingness to engage with the difficult political situation in Northern Ireland. Others (such as the Dublin poet
Thomas KinsellaThomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Inchicore, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated through the medium of Irish at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell...
) have found the whole idea of a Northern school to be more hype than reality, though it must be noted that this view is not widely held.
Experiment
In the late 1960s, two young Irish poets,
Michael SmithMichael Smith is an Irish poet, author and translator.A member of Aosdána, the Irish National Academy of Artists, Michael Smith was the first Writer in-Residence to be appointed by University College, Dublin and is an Honorary Fellow of UCD. He is a poet who has given a lifetime of service to the...
(b. 1942) and
Trevor JoyceTrevor Joyce is an Irish poet, born in Dublin.He co-founded New Writers' Press in Dublin in 1967 and was a founding editor of NWP's The Lace Curtain; A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism in 1968....
(b. 1947) founded the
New Writers PressNew Writers Press is an Irish small press that specialises in poetry publishing. The press was founded in 1967 by the poets Michael Smith and Trevor Joyce and Smith's wife Irene in response to what they felt to be the stagnant state of Irish poetry at the time....
publishing house and a journal called
The Lace CurtainThe Lace Curtain was an occasional literary magazine founded and edited by Michael Smith and Trevor Joyce under their New Writers Press imprint...
. Partly this was to publish their own work and that of some like-minded friends, and partly it was to promote the work of neglected Irish modernists like Coffey and Devlin. Both Joyce and Smith have published considerable bodies of poetry in their own right. Among the other poets published by the New Writers Press were
Geoffrey SquiresGeoffrey Squires is an Irish poet who works in what might loosely be termed the modernist tradition.-Early life:While born in Derry, he grew up in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland...
(born 1942), whose early work was influenced by
Charles OlsonCharles Olson , was an important 2nd generation American modernist poet who was a crucial link between earlier figures like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, a rubric which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San...
, and
Augustus YoungFor the U.S. Representative from Vermont, see Augustus Young .Augustus Young is an Irish poet.-Biography:Young worked in London as an epidemiologist and adviser to health authorities, and now lives in France...
(born 1943), who admired Pound and who has translated older Irish poetry, as well as work from Latin America and poems by
Bertolt Brecht' was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner...
. Younger poets who write what might be called experimental poetry include
Maurice ScullyMaurice Scully is an Irish poet and editor who works in the modernist tradition. Scully was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, where he edited the student literary magazine, Icarus...
(born 1952), and
Randolph HealyRandolph Healy is an Irish poet and publisher.Healy was born in Scotland and moved to Dublin at the age of 18 months. After leaving school at the age of 14 to work in a number of jobs, he returned to full-time education and graduated in mathematical sciences from Trinity College, Dublin. He now...
(born 1956). Almost all these poets along with many younger experimentalists have performed their work at the annual SoundEye Festival in Cork.
Outsiders
In addition to these two loose groupings, a number of prominent Irish poets of the second half of the 20th century could be described as outsiders, although these poets could also be considered leaders of a mainstream tradition in the Republic which was critically eclipsed by the Ulster-centric focus of American and British-based Irish Studies academics and the prejudices of others who are gender study specialists. These include
Thomas KinsellaThomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Inchicore, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated through the medium of Irish at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell...
(born 1928), whose early work was influenced by Auden. Kinsella's later work exhibits the influence of Pound in its looser metrical structure and use of
imageryImagery is used in literature to refer to descriptive language that evokes sensory experience.-Forms of imagery:Imagery can be in many forms, such as metaphors and similes....
but is deeply personal in manner and matter. He is Professor of English at Temple University, Philadelphia. Kinsella also edited the poetry of Austin Clarke, who, in his later work at least, could also be included with the outsiders in Irish poetry.
John JordanJohn Jordan may be:*Sir John Newell Jordan , British diplomat*John Jordan , American basketball player and coach for the University of Notre Dame*Johnny Jordan , English footballer...
(1930–1988) was an Irish poet born in Dublin on 8 April 1930. He was educated at Synge Street CBS, University College, Dublin (U.C.D.) and Pembroke College, Oxford. In his teens he acted on the stage of the Gate Theatre, Dublin, before winning a Scholarship in English and French to Oxford University from U.C.D. In the mid-1950s he returned to U.C.D. as a lecturer in English and taught there until the end of the 1960s. He was a celebrated literary critic from the late 1950s until his death in June, 1988 in Cardiff, Wales, where he had participated in the Merriman Summer School.
He was also a short-story writer, a poet and a broadcaster. In 1962 he re-founded and edited the literary magazine Poetry Ireland. In this journal, he introduced a number of poets who were to become quite famous later, including
Paul DurcanPaul Durcan is a contemporary Irish poet.-Life and Works:His main published collections include: A Snail in my Prime, Crazy About Women, Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil and Cries of an Irish Caveman...
,
Michael HartnettMichael Hartnett was an Irish poet who wrote in both English and Irish. He was one of the most significant voices in late 20th century Irish writing.-Early life and background:...
and
Seamus HeaneySeamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. He currently lives in Dublin.-Early life:...
. This first series of
Poetry Ireland lasted until 1968–69. In 1981 he became the first editor of the new magazine published by the Poetry Ireland Society, called
Poetry Ireland Review. His
Collected Poems (Dedalus Press) and
Collected Stories (Poolbeg Press) were edited by his literary executor,
Hugh McFaddenHugh McFadden is an Irish poet, literary editor and freelance journalist.He was born in Derry, lived briefly there and in County Donegal, before moving to Dublin...
, and published in Dublin in 1991. His Selected Prose,
Crystal Clear, also edited by McFadden, was published by Lilliput Press in Dublin in 2006. Jordan's Selected Poems, edited with an Introduction by Hugh McFadden, was published in February 2008 by Dedalus Press.
Basil PayneBasil Payne is an Irish poet.- Life and work :Payne was educated at Synge Street CBS and University College Dublin. In the 1960´s he held many poetry readings in Dublin, and in 1964 he won a Guinness International poetry prize, followed by another Guinness International prize in 1966...
(1923) was born in Dublin on June 23, 1923. Like John Jordan, he was educated at Synge Street CBS and University College, Dublin. In the 1960´s he held many poetry readings in Dublin, and in 1964 he won a Guinness International poetry prize, followed by another Guinness International prize in 1966. From 1972 to 1978 he lectured in literature at several universities in the USA, and in 1975 he received the Governor's Special Citation for unique contribution to the Arts in New Jersey. His published work amounts to three slim volumes, and numerous inclusions in anthologies of Irish poetry. According to the
website run by his son, a more voluminous work,
Dark and Light Fantastic, remains unpublished.
Michael Hartnett (1941–1999) was unusual amongst Irish poets in that he was equally fluent in both Irish and English. As well as original work in both languages, including haiku in English, he published translations in English of bardic poetry and of the
Tao Te ChingThe Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing , originally known as Laozi , is a Chinese classic text. Its name comes from the opening words of its two sections: 道 dào "way," Chapter 1, and 德 dé "virtue," Chapter 38, plus 經 jīng "classic." According to tradition, it was written around the 6th century BC by the...
. In his 1975 book
A Farewell to English he declared his intention to write only in Irish in the future, describing English as 'the perfect language to sell pigs in'. A number of volumes in Irish followed:
Adharca Broic (1978),
An Phurgóid (1983) and
Do Nuala: Foighne Chrainn (1984). In 1984 he returned to Dublin to live in the suburb of Inchicore. The following year marked his return to English with the publication of
Inchicore Haiku, a book that deals with the turbulent events in his personal life over the previous few years. This was followed by a number of books in English including
A Necklace of Wrens (1987),
Poems to Younger Women (1989) and
The Killing of Dreams (1992). He died in Dublin in 1999, aged 58.
Eoghan Ó TuairiscEoghan Ó Tuairisc was an Irish poet and writer.-Life:He was a native of Ballinasloe, County Galway and was educated at Garbally College. His entered St. Patrick’s Teacher Training College, Drumcondra in 1939, graduating with a Diploma in Education in 1945...
(Eugene Watters) (1919–1982) was another bilingual poet. His
The Weekend of Dermot and Grace (1964) is one of the most interesting Irish long poems of the second half of the 20th century and one of the few examples of the application of the lessons of
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
's
The Waste LandThe Waste Land[A] is a 434 line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922...
in any work by an Irish poet.
Patrick GalvinPatrick Galvin is an Irish writer and poet born in the south side of Cork on Margaret Street, a poor part of Cork known for its variety of local characters.-Biography:...
(born 1927) worked mainly with the ballad tradition and his poetry displays his left-wing politics. He has also written several volumes of memoirs, one of which,
Song for a Raggy BoySong For a Raggy Boy is a 2003 film directed by Aisling Walsh. It is based on the book of the same name by Patrick Galvin and is based on true events.-Plot:...
, has been made into a film.
Cathal Ó SearcaighCathal Ó Searcaigh is an Irish poet who writes in the Irish language .Ó Searcaigh was born in Gort a' Choirce, a town in the Gaeltacht region of Donegal, and lives at the foot of Mount Errigal...
(born 1956) writes exclusively in Irish. Many of his poems are candidly
homoeroticHomoeroticism refers to the representation of same-sex love and desire, most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements...
in their subject matter. He has also written plays, such as
Oíche Ghealaí ("Moonlit Night"), whose
homosexualHomosexuality is the romantic or sexual attraction or behavior among members of the same sex, situationally or as an enduring disposition. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is considered to lie within the heterosexual-homosexual continuum of human sexuality, and refers to an individual’s...
content created controversy when it opened in
LetterkennyLetterkenny with a population of 17,568 is the largest town in County Donegal, part of the Province of Ulster in Ireland. It is located on the River Swilly...
in 2001. Other poets mentioned further on in the sections on women poets and Irish poetry in the Twenty-first Century would deserve a prominence equal to the poets mentioned here.
Women poets
The second half of the century also saw the emergence of a number of women poets of note. Two of the most successful of these are
Eavan BolandEavan Boland is an Irish poet.-Biography:Boland's father, Frederick Boland, was a career diplomat and her mother, Frances Kelly, was a noted post-expressionist painter. She was born in Dublin in 1944...
(born 1944) and
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin-Life:Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is the daughter of Eilís Dillon and Professor Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin. She was educated at University College Cork and The University of Oxford. She lives in Dublin with her husband Macdara Woods and their son Niall. She is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin where she is...
(born 1942). Boland has written widely on specifically feminist themes and on the difficulties faced by women poets in a male-dominated literary world. She is professor of English at
Stanford UniversityThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...
. Ní Chuilleanáin's poetry resists easy summaries and shows her interest variously in explorations of the sacred, women's experience, and Reformation history. She has also translated poetry from a number of languages. Ní Chuilleanáin is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin where she is an associate professor of English Literature. Other women poets of note are; Vona Groarke; Kerry Hardie; Medbh McGuckian; Paula Meehan; and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, whose first language is Irish, but whose work has been translated into English.
Irish poetry today
Irish poetry in the 21st Century is undergoing development as radical as the 1960s. Increased globalisation has led to a younger generation of poets seeking influences and precursors as varied as post-war Polish poets and Contemporary Americans. An explosion of talent and publishing has been one of the consequences of free secondary school education introduced in the 1960’s, allowing many southern poets (e.g.
Thomas McCarthyThomas McCarthy is an Irish poet, novelist, and critic, born in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, Ireland and educated at University College, Cork. Former Editor of The Cork Review and Poetry Ireland Review...
, John Ennis, Dennis O’Driscoll,
Nuala Ní DhomhnaillNuala Ní Dhomhnaill is an Irish poet.Born in Lancashire, England in 1952, of Irish parents, she moved to Ireland at the age of 5, and was brought up in the Dingle Gaeltacht and in Nenagh, County Tipperary. Her uncle is Monsignor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta of An Daingean, the leading authority alive on...
) to come to wider notice.
Among the significant Irish poets to have emerged in recent years are:
Pat BoranPat Boran is an Irish poet. Born in Portlaoise, Boran has lived in Dublin for a number of years. He is the publisher of the Dedalus Press which specialises in contemporary poetry from Ireland, and international poetry in English-language translation, and was until 2007 Programme Director of the...
,
Ciaran CarsonCiarán Carson, born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is a poet and novelist. He lives in Belfast.-Early years:Ciarán Carson was born in Belfast into an Irish-speaking family. He attended St Marys CBGS Belfast before proceeding to Queen's University, Belfast to read for a degree in English...
,
Patrick ChapmanPatrick Chapman is an Irish writer. His poetry collections are Jazztown, , The New Pornography, , Breaking Hearts And Traffic Lights, and A Shopping Mall on Mars, . His collection of stories is The Wow Signal,...
,
Harry CliftonHarry Clifton is an Irish poet. He was born in Dublin, but has lived in Africa and Asia, as well as more recently in continental Europe...
,
Tony CurtisTony Curtis is an Irish poet.Curtis was born in Dublin, and educated at the University of Essex and at Trinity College, Dublin.-Works:*The Shifting of Stones *Behind the Green Curtain *This Far North...
,
Padraig J. DalyPádraig J. Daly is a contemporary Irish poet.Pádraig J. Daly was born in Dungarvan, County Waterford and is now working as an Augustinian priest in Dublin...
,
Gerald DaweGerald Dawe is a Northern Irish writer and poet.-Early life:Gerald Dawe was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and grew up in the religiously 'mixed' upper northside where he lived with his mother, sister and grandmother, who came from a family well known in musical and newspaper circles in Belfast...
,
Greg DelantyGreg Delanty is a noted contemporary Irish poet.Delanty won the National Poetry Competition in 1999 and was awarded the Austin Clarke Centenary Poetry prize in 1996...
,
Séan Dunne- Career :Dunne edited several anthologies, beginning with "The Poets of Munster" and finishing with the "Ireland Anthology" which was completed posthumously by George O'Brien and his partner Trish Edelstein. He released 3 collections of poems...
,
Paul DurcanPaul Durcan is a contemporary Irish poet.-Life and Works:His main published collections include: A Snail in my Prime, Crazy About Women, Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil and Cries of an Irish Caveman...
,
Vona GroarkeVona Groarke is an Irish poet, and was born in Edgeworthstown in the Irish midlands in 1964. She has published four collections of poetry with the Gallery Press: Shale , Other People's Houses , Flight , and Juniper Street...
, Kerry Hardie, John Hughes, Thomas McCarthy,
Hugh McFaddenHugh McFadden is an Irish poet, literary editor and freelance journalist.He was born in Derry, lived briefly there and in County Donegal, before moving to Dublin...
, Paula Meehan,
Sinéad MorrisseySinéad Morrissey is a poet from Northern Ireland.Raised in Belfast, she was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where she took BA and PhD degrees, and won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 1990...
,
Gerry MurphyGerry Murphy is an Irish poet.-Life & work:Gerry Murphy was born in Cork City in 1952. His work is witty, openly intellectual and often satirical and is "highly, self-consciously literary"...
,
Bernard O'DonoghueBernard O'Donoghue is a noted contemporary Irish poet and academic.Born in Cullen, County Cork, Ireland, he moved to Manchester, England when he was 16, where he attended St Bede's College. He has lived in Oxford, England since 1965...
,
Conor O'CallaghanConor O'Callaghan is an Irish poet, born in Newry in 1968. He has published three collections of poetry: The History of Rain , Seatown , and Fiction...
,
Caitriona O'ReillyCaitriona O'Reilly is an Irish poet and critic. She took BA and PhD degrees in Archaeology and English at Trinity College, Dublin, and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for her poetry collection, The Nowhere Birds ; she has also held the Harper-Wood Studentship from St John's...
,
Justin QuinnJustin Quinn is an Irish poet and critic, born in Dublin in 1968. He received a doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, where his contemporaries included poets Caitriona O'Reilly and Sinéad Morrissey, and now lives with his wife and sons in Prague...
,
Maurice RiordanMaurice Riordan was born in Lisgoold, County Cork, in 1953, and is a poet, translator, editor and tutor. He has published three collections of poetry: A Word from the Loki , a largely London-based collection which was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T. S...
,
Gerard McKeownGerard McKeown is a writer from Ballymena, Northern Ireland. A graduate of Cumbria Institute of the Arts, he is best known for his performance poetry, which draws as much from disciplines such as stand up comedy and bardic story telling as it does poetry.He has performed as a support act for other...
and
William WallWilliam "Bill" Wall is an Irish novelist, poet and short story writer. He was born in Cork City in 1955, but grew up in the coastal village of Whitegate. He received his secondary education at the Christian Brothers School in Midleton. He progressed to University College Cork where he graduated in...
While academic attention has remained, perhaps disproportionately, focused on poetry from Northern Ireland, several of the younger generation of Irish poets (
William WallWilliam "Bill" Wall is an Irish novelist, poet and short story writer. He was born in Cork City in 1955, but grew up in the coastal village of Whitegate. He received his secondary education at the Christian Brothers School in Midleton. He progressed to University College Cork where he graduated in...
, Justin Quinn, Caitriona O'Reilly) have proved perceptive and independent critics of the contemporary scene.
Sources
- The Irish domain of poetryinternational.org A selection of many of the better contemporary practitioners
- Early poetry in Irish and English, ucc.ie.
- Swift, library.utoronto.ca.
- Cuirt an Mheán Oíche, showhouse.com.
- Goldsmith poems, library.utoronto.ca.
- More Goldsmith poems, theotherpages.org.
- Mangan, irishcultureandcustoms.com
- Moore, library.utoronto.ca.
- Ferguson, poetry-archive.com.
- Wilde, ucc.ie.
- Plunkett, josephmaryplunkett.com
- SoundEye, soundeye.org.
- The Arts Council, artscouncil.ie.
- Poetry Ireland, poetryireland.ie.
- General biographical information, irishwriters-online.com.
Further reading
- Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British, 1580-1650 New ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)
- John Flood & Phil Flood, Kilcash:1190-1801 (Dublin, Geography Publications 1999)
- Padraig Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War (Cork: Cork University Press, 2000)
- Eamonn o Cairdha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685-1766: A fatal attachment (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004)
- Keith Tuma, Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
- John Hewitt (ed), Rhyming Weavers: And Other Country Poets of Antrim and Down (Belfast: Blackstaff Press,2004)
- William Wall, "Riding Against the Lizard - Towards a Poetics of Anger" (Three Monkeys Online)
External links