Irish poetry
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Irish poetry is poetry written by poets from
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 there has always been some cross-fertilization between the two language traditions, an English-language poetry that had absorbed themes and models from Irish did not finally emerge until the 19th century. This culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century.[citation needed]
Towards the last quarter of the 20th century, modern Irish poetry tended to a wide range of diversity, from the poets of the Northern school to writers influenced by the
Early Irish poetry
Literacy reached Ireland with Christianity in the fifth century. Monasteries were established, which by the seventh century were large, self-governing institutions and centres of scholarship. This was to have a profound effect on Irish-language literature, poetry included.[1]
The earliest Irish poetry was unrhymed, and has been described as follows: "It is alliterative syllabic verse, lyric in form and heroic in content, in praise of famous men, or in lament for the death of a hero".[1] It survived as epic interludes in Irish sagas in the early Modern Period.[1]
The monastic poets borrowed from both native and Latin traditions to create elaborate syllabic verse forms, and used them for religious and nature poetry. The typical combination of end-rhyme, internal rhyme and alliteration came originally from the example of late Latin hymns, as elaborated by Irish monks. The new metres are the vehicle for monastic lyric poems inspired by love of Nature, love of solitude and love of the Divine which have been described as the finest Irish poetry of their age, and which could be extended to cover more personal concerns.[2] An example is a long poem which is put into the mouth of Marbán the hermit, brother of Guaire, king of Connacht, and of which the following is an excerpt:
Fogur gaíthe |
Sound of the wind in a branching wood, grey cloud; river-falls, cry of a swan – beautiful music. |
The professional secular poets continued to praise and lament famous men, but adopted the new verse forms, which in time would be codified in classical form under the name Dán Díreach.[2]
Medieval/early modern
Irish bards formed a professional hereditary
As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were chroniclers and satirists 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
Verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as
British Library Manuscript, Harley 913, is a group of poems written in Ireland in the early 14th century. They are usually called the
During the Elizabethan reconquest, two of the most significant English poets of the time saw service in the Irish colonies. Sir Walter Raleigh had little impact on the course of Irish literature, but the time spent in Munster by Edmund Spenser 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 Queene. 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:
soe far from instructinge younge men in Morrall discipline, that they themselves doe more deserve to be sharplie decyplined; for they seldome use to chuse unto themselves the doinges of good men, for the ornamentes of theire poems, but whomesoever they finde to bee most lycentious of lief, most bolde and lawles in his doinges, most daungerous and desperate in all partes of disobedience and rebellious disposicon, him they sett up and glorifie in their rymes, him they prayse to the people, and to younge men make an example to followe.
Given that the bards depended on aristocratic support to survive, and that the balance of power was shifting towards the new
Gaelic poetry in the 17th century
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
Caithfidh fir Éireann uile |
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 Wars. It expressed the opinion that Catholics should not tolerate Protestantism in Ireland,
Creideamh Chríost le creideamh Lúiteir... |
The religion of Christ with the religion of Luther is like ashes in the snow |
Following the defeat of the Irish Catholics in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (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 |
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, French and English,
Le execution bhíos súil an cheidir |
The first thing a man expects is execution, the last that costs be awarded against him [in court] |
Transport transplant, mo mheabhair ar Bhéarla' |
Transport transplant, is what I remember of English... |
After this period, the poets lost most of their patrons and protectors. In the subsequent
You Popish rogue", ni leomhaid a labhairt sinn |
"You Popish rogue" is not spoken |
The Jacobites' defeat in the War, and in particular James II's ignominious flight after the Battle of the Boyne, gave rise to the following derisive verse,
Séamus an chaca a chaill Éire, |
James the shit who lost Ireland, |
The main poets of this period include Dáibhí Ó Bruadair (1625?–1698), Piaras Feiritéar (1600?–1653) and Aogán Ó Rathaille (1675–1729). Ó Rathaille belongs as much to the 18th as the 17th century and his work, including the introduction of the aisling genre, marks something of a transition to a post-Battle of the Boyne Ireland.
Female poets
The first part of the seventeenth century saw three notable female poets (all born in the previous century).
Fionnghuala Ní Bhriain (Inghean Dhomhnaill Uí Bhriain) (c. 1557-1657), a member of the O'Brien dynasty, who had been Chiefs of the Name and Earls of Thomond, wrote a lament (her only surviving poem) for her husband, Uaithne Ó Lochlainn, Chief of the Name and Lord of Burren in County Clare.[3]
Caitilín Dubh (fl. 1624), whose patrons were also the O’Brien dynasty, wrote for them a series of laments in the new accentual metres.[3]
The 18th century
The eighteenth century saw the flourishing of highly literate, technically adept poets in the Irish language. This period saw the triumph of popular accentual metres, as opposed to the elaborate syllabic metres which had prevailed until then. These accentual metres, however, still featured a complex system of internal rhymes, and it is likely that they had been in use for some centuries previously. The poets themselves seldom had patrons to support them and supported themselves with such occupations as farming or teaching.
A salient figure at this time is Aogán Ó Rathaille (1670–1726), a bridge between the old world in which he was educated and the new one in which the professional poet had no place. He wrote in the new metres but preserved the attitudes of a previous age.[4]
In 1728 Tadhg wrote a poem in which there is a description of the members of the Ó Neachtain literary circle: twenty-six people are mentioned, mostly from Leinster but with others from every province.[4]
Outside Dublin, it was in the province of
The best-known members of this network of poets included Seán Ó Tuama (c. 1706–1775), Aindrias Mac Craith (died c. 1795), Liam Ruadh Mac Coitir and Seamus McMurphy (Seán na Ráithíneach). Their poetry illuminates daily life and personalities of the period – landlord and tenant, the priest and the teacher, the poet and the craftsman, the marketplace, marriage and burial, music and folklore.[4]
The craft of poetry was also cultivated in south Ulster, where poets would similarly come together to compete for primacy. They included a handful of women, including Máire (or Mailligh) Nic a Liondain and Peig Ní Chuarta.[4]
Among the most prominent names in
Alongside the work of the literate poets there flourished a traditional
Swift and Goldsmith
In Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Irish literature in English found its first notable writer. Although best known for prose works like Gulliver's Travels and A Tale of a Tub, Swift was a poet of considerable talent. Technically close to his English contemporaries Pope and Dryden, Swift's poetry evinces the same tone of savage satire, and horror of the human body and its functions that characterises much of his prose. Swift also published translations of poems from the Irish.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774) started his literary career as a hack writer 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 Johnson, Edmund Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds. His reputation depends mainly on a novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, a play, She Stoops to Conquer, 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 pastoral 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 that do not readily fit into the categories of Irish or English literature. For example, the Ulster
Working-class or popular in nature, remaining examples are mostly limited to publication in self-published privately subscribed limited print runs, newspapers, and journals of the time.[7]
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 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 folk tradition of poetry in Irish (usually expressed in song) retained its vigour in the 19th century, often combing assonance and alliteration to considerable effect. Songs of all sorts were common in Irish-speaking areas before Ireland's Great Famine of the 1840s - love songs such as Dónall Óg and Úna Bhán, songs about the ancient heroes of the Fianna, working songs, religious songs, laments, humorous and satirical songs, lullabies and children's songs. Songs of the supernatural (changelings, revenants, spirits) were also popular. Patriotic songs were rare.[8] The poetic quality of the love songs in particular has been described as unusually high:[9]
Ceo meala lá seaca ar choillte dubha daraí, |
A mist of honey on a frosty day over the dark oak woods - I love you without concealment, fair-skinned girl of the bright breasts, your slender waist, your mouth, your soft and curly hair; my first love, don't leave me, since it's you who worsened the pain of love. |
The Great Famine, with its material and sociological consequences, had a considerable effect on Irish music. The number of Irish speakers declined because of death or emigration. There was a radical shift in land use, with tillage giving way to pasture, which was less labour-intensive. Songs to do with ploughing, reaping and sowing could no longer be sustained. There were, however, contemporary songs in Irish about the Famine itself, such as An Drochshaol (from
There was already an Irish tradition of songs in English. This included English songs, Lowland Scottish songs and ballads which were printed in England and sold in Ireland, such as Lord Baker, Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship and Barbara Allen, together with political ballads of Irish origin. After the Famine and with the loss of Irish speakers, such songs became dominant.[8]
The interactive relationship between Irish and English is evident in the songs composed in English by Irish-speaking hedge school masters from the late 18th century on. These songs (some of which were parodies) often had a Latinate vocabulary. It has been said that they had a style "which, while capable of descending to the ridiculous, could also rise to the sublime".[9] These songs and others often reproduced the metre and internal rhymes of songs in Irish:
Now to end my lamentation we are all in consternation
For want of education, I now must end my song,
Since without hesitation we are charged with combination
And sent for transportation from the hills of Mullaghbawn.[9]
Antoine Ó Raifteiri (Anthony Raftery) (1784–1835) is a recognized Irish-language folk poet of the pre-Famine period. But the tradition of literate composition persisted. The Kerry poet Tomás Rua Ó Súilleabháin (1785-1848) was a schoolmaster and dancing master; the Cork poet Mícheál Óg Ó Longáin (1766-1837) was a well-known copier of manuscripts.
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.
The best-known Irish poet to draw upon Irish themes in the first half of the 19th century was probably Thomas Moore (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 readers. They contain stereotyped images but helped in the development of a distinctive English-language poetic tradition in Ireland.
In 1842,
Another poet who supported the Young Irelanders, although not directly connected with them, was Samuel Ferguson (1810–1886). Ferguson once wrote that his ambition was "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.
Ferguson's research opened the way for many of the achievements of the Celtic Revival, especially those of W. B. Yeats (1865–1939) and Douglas Hyde (1860–1949), 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 Henry (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.
The Celtic revival
Probably the most significant poetic movement of the second half of the 19th century was French
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 Hyde, later the first President of Ireland, whose Love Songs of Connacht was widely admired.
The 20th century
Yeats and modernism
In the 1910s, Yeats became acquainted with the work of James Joyce, and worked closely with Ezra Pound, who served as his personal secretary for a time. Through Pound, Yeats also became familiar with the work of a range of prominent modernist poets. From his 1916 book Responsibilities and Other Poems onwards his work, while not entirely meriting the label modernist, became much more hard-edged than it had been.
Modernism, with its emphasis on technical and intellectual innovation, was to influence early 20th-century Irish poets writing both in English and Irish. Among them were those associated with the
An individual from these groups is the
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 Pádraic Colum (1881–1972), F. R. Higgins (1896–1941), and Austin Clarke (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 Beckett (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 of Modernist Irish poets who first published in the 1920s and 1930s include Brian Coffey (1905–1995), Denis Devlin (1908–1959), Thomas MacGreevy (1893–1967), Blanaid Salkeld (1880–1959), and Mary Devenport O'Neill (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.
It has been remarked that the work of Beckett, Devlin and MacGreevy displays the prime characteristics of the avant-garde: the problem of a disintegrating subjectivity; a lack of unity between the self and the society; and self-conscious literary pastiche.[11]
It has been said that the notion of an "Irish modernism" is challenged by the number of Irish writers who did not fully engage with modernist experiments, an apathy noted by Irish, continental and Anglo-American critics. There were still key experimental writers in Ireland during the 1930s (Kate O’Brien, Elizabeth Bowen and others) whose work was marked by aesthetic self-consciousness and self-reflexiveness, but it could also be argued that much Irish writing was part of an international reaction against modernism.[11]
While Yeats and his followers wrote about an essentially aristocratic Gaelic Ireland, the reality was that the actual Ireland of the 1930s and 1940s was a society of small farmers and shopkeepers. From this environment emerged poets who rebelled against the example of Yeats, but who were not Modernist by inclination. Patrick Kavanagh (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 poetry in Northern Ireland 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 MacNeice (1907–1963), another poet from Northern Ireland, was associated with the left-wing politics of Michael Roberts's anthology New Signatures but was much less political a poet than W. H. Auden or Stephen Spender, for example. MacNeice's poetry was informed by his immediate interests and surroundings and is more social than political.
In 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.
The Northern School
With large Protestant minority and enduring political links to Great Britain, some believe that the culture of Northern Ireland differs form that on the rest of the island and this has had an effect on its literature.
In addition to John Hewitt, mentioned above, other important poets from Northern Ireland include Robert Greacen (1920–2008) who, with 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, 1960s and 1970s. 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. Padraic Fiacc (born 1924), was born in Belfast, but lived in America during his youth. In the 1960s, and coincident with the rise of the Troubles in the province, a number of Ulster poets began to receive critical and public notice. Prominent amongst these were John Montague (born 1929), Michael Longley (born 1939), Derek Mahon (born 1941), Séamus Heaney (1939-2013) and Paul Muldoon (born 1951).
Heaney was probably the best-known of these poets. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, and served as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory and Emerson Poet in Residence at Harvard, and as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
Derek Mahon was born in Belfast and worked as a journalist, editor, and screenwriter while publishing his first books. He published comparatively little.
Muldoon is Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. In 1999 he was also elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.
Experiment
In the late 1960s, two young Irish poets, Michael Smith (born 1942) and Trevor Joyce (born 1947) founded in Dublin the New Writers Press publishing house and a journal called The Lace Curtain. Initially this was to publish their own work and that of some like-minded friends (including Paul Durcan, Michael Hartnett and Gerry Smyth), and later to promote the work of neglected Irish modernists like Brian Coffey and Denis 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 Squires (born 1942), whose early work was influenced by Charles Olson, and Augustus Young (born 1943), who admired Pound and who has translated older Irish poetry, as well as work from Latin America and poems by Bertolt Brecht. Younger poets who write what might be called experimental poetry include Maurice Scully (born 1952), William Wall (born 1955) and Randolph Healy (born 1956). Many of these poets, along with younger experimentalists, have performed their work at the annual SoundEye Festival in Cork.[12]
Some of the Irish poets develop the
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. These include Thomas Kinsella (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 imagery but is deeply personal in manner and matter.
John Jordan (1930–1988) was an Irish poet born in Dublin on 8 April 1930. 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. Jordan was also a short-story writer, literary editor, poet and broadcaster. His poetry collections include "Patrician Stations", "A Raft from Flotsam", "With Whom Did I Share the Crystal", "Collected Poems", and "Selected Poems".
Basil Payne (1923) was born in Dublin on June 23, 1923. His published work amounts to three slim volumes, and numerous inclusions in anthologies of Irish poetry.
Hugh McFadden (1942–) worked for many years as a newspaper journalist and book reviewer. His own collections of poems include Cities of Mirrors, Pieces of Time, Elegies & Epiphanies, and Empire of Shadows.
Women poets (in English)
The second half of the century also saw the emergence of a number of women poets including Eavan Boland (born 1944), Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (born 1942), Vona Groarke, Kerry Hardie, Kate Newmann, Medbh McGuckian, Paula Meehan, and Rita Ann Higgins. Boland has written widely on specifically feminist themes and on the difficulties faced by women poets in a male-dominated literary world. Ní Chuilleanáin's poetry 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. Higgins is an unconventional poet whose work confronts social injustices.
Contemporary poetry in Irish
During the
One of the most talented 20th-century Irish-language poets and folklore collectors in the
In the O'Sullivan Collection in the Butte-Silver Bow Archives, Ó Súilleabháin is also revealed to have been a highly talented poet who drew inspiration from poets such as Diarmuid Ó Sé, Máire Bhuidhe Ní Laoghaire, and Pádraig Phiarais Cúndún, who adapted the Jacobite tradition of Aisling poetry to more recent political struggles. For this reason, Ó Súilleabháin's surviving Aisling poems are inspired by the events of the Easter Rising and the Irish War of Independence; such as Cois na Tuinne, Bánta Mín Éirinn Glas Óg, and the highly popular 1919 poem Dáil Éireann. According to the poet's son, Fr. John Patrick Sarsfield O'Sullivan ("Fr. Sars"), his father recited Dáil Éireann aloud during Éamon de Valera's 1919 visit to Butte. The future Taoiseach of the Irish Republic was reportedly so impressed that he urged Ó Súilleabháin to submit the poem to Féile Craobh Uí Gramnaigh ("O'Growney's Irish Language Competition") in San Francisco. Ó Súilleabháin took de Valera's advice and won both first prize and the Gold Medal for the poem.[16]
Seán Ó Súilleabháin's papers also include transcriptions of the verse of other local Irish-language poets. One prominent example is the poem Amhrán na Mianach ("The Song of the Mining"), which, "lays bare the hardships of a miner's life", was composed in Butte by Séamus Feiritéar (1897-1919), his brother Mícheál, and their childhood friend Seán Ruiséal. Other song transcribed in Ó Súilleabháin's papers was composed in 1910 by Séamus Ó Muircheartaigh, a Butte mine worker from
With the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1923, it became official government policy to promote and protect the Irish language. Despite its failures, this policy did further the revival in Irish-language literature which had started around 1900. In particular, the establishment in 1925[18] of An Gúm ("The Project"), a Government-sponsored publisher, created an outlet both for original works in Irish and for translations into the language.
The most important poet of the era between the death of Pearse and the literary revolution of the late 1940s was
After refusing to take an
Unlike most other Irish language poets, who choose to compose in particular regional dialects, Gógan believed that a standard
Poetry in Irish saw a revolution beginning in the end of the 1940s with the poetry of Máirtín Ó Direáin (1910-1988), Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916-1977) and Máire Mhac an tSaoi (1922-2021). Their poetry, though retaining a sense of the tradition, continued the legacy of Pearse by introducing Modernist poetry into the Irish language.
According to
Also of that generation was
Like Diarmaid Ó Súilleabháin, Ó Tuairisc and other writers of their generation, "challenged the critical orthodoxy by openly proclaiming that their standards could not be those of the Gaeltacht and by demanding a creative freedom that would acknowledge hybridity and reject the strictures of the linguistic purists."[24]
In his
According to
Mac an Tsaoi, Ó Direáin, and Ó Tuairisc were the precursors of an even more radical group of poets, including Liam Ó Muirthile (1950-2018), Gabriel Rosenstock and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, whose poetry, first published in the 1970s and 1980s, reflected contemporary international influences. The poet and sean-nós singer Caitlín Maude (1941-1982) also belonged to that group.[27][28] Other younger poets of note were Louis de Paor and Cathal Ó Searcaigh.
Other poets include Derry O'Sullivan, who, though long resident in Paris, has continued to publish in Irish. This is also true of Tomás Mac Síomóin, an Irish writer resident in Spain. Another published poet is Pádraig Mac Fhearghusa, for a long time the editor of Feasta.
Modern Irish-language poetry is notable for the growing number of women poets. They include Rita Kelly (widow of Eoghan Ó Tuairisc), Biddy Jenkinson (a nom de plume), Áine Ní Ghlinn and Bríd Ní Mhóráin, and younger writers such as Ciara Ní É, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh.
It has been argued that, since the Irish language depends for its continued existence on government patronage and the efforts of cultural activists, all poetry in the language is political to a certain extent: "It is an assertion of pride, an appeal for identity, a staking out of cultural territory".[29]
Bilingualism has been a consistent feature of contemporary Irish poetic practice. Among the more notable examples was Michael Hartnett (1941–1999), who was fluent in both Irish and English. He won praise for his work in English, but in his 1975 book A Farewell to English he declared his intention to write only in Irish. A number of volumes in Irish followed but in 1989 he returned to English. Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, also bilingual, made no formal renunciation of either language but published in both in several genres.
In 2009, poet Muiris Sionóid published a complete translation of William Shakespeare's 154 sonnets into Connacht Irish under the title Rotha Mór an Ghrá ("The Great Wheel of Love").[30]
In an article about his translations, Sionóid wrote that Irish poetic forms are completely different from those of other languages and that both the sonnet form and the iambic pentameter line had long been considered "entirely unsuitable" for composing poetry in Irish. In his translations, Soinóid chose to closely reproduce Shakespeare's rhyme scheme and rhythms while rendering into Irish.[31]
In a copy that he gifted to the
In
Irish Poetry Reading Archive
The newly created Irish Poetry Reading Archive (IPRA) is building into a comprehensive web-based library of Irish poets. Hosted by UCD’s Digital Library, a part of the university's James Joyce Library, it has an archive of contemporary Irish poets. These include established and emerging poets in both the English and Irish languages, experimental and emigrant poets, as well as performance poets. It contains videos of poets reading their work, as well hand-written copies of the recorded poems, signed copies of their collections, and a growing collection of poets' archives.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c d Dillon, Myles, & Chadwick, Nora, The Celtic Realms. Cardinal, London, 1973: pp. 219-291.
- ^ a b Dillon, Myles, & Chadwick, Nora, The Celtic Realms. Cardinal, London, 1973: pp. 185-190.
- ^ a b c Bourke, Angela (ed.). The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Volume 4. NYU Press, 2002: pp. 395-405.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Williams, J.E. Caerwyn, & Ní Mhuiríosa, Máirín, Traidisiún Liteartha na nGael. An Clóchomhar Tta, 1979: pp. 273-304
- ISBN 0-85105-002-6.
- ^ Ó Tuama, Seán (ed.). Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire. An Clóchomhar Tta. 1979 (reprint).
- ^ Charles Jones, The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language p594ff (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997)
- ^
- ^ a b c Julie Henigan, "For Want of Education: The origins of the Hedge Schoolmaster songs," Ulster Folklife, No 40 (1994): pp 27-38: https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/hedg_sch.htm
- ^ "Ceó meala lá seaca," in de Brún, Pádraig; Ó Buachalla, Breandán; Ó Concheanainn, Tomás, Nua-Dhuanaire: Cuid 1, Institiúid Ardléinn Bhaile Átha Cliath 1975: p. 83
- ^ a b Francis Hutton-Williams, "Against Irish Modernism: Towards an Analysis of Experimental Irish Poetry," Irish University Review 46.1 (2016): 20–37: https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/iur.2016.0198
- ^ "Quotes from Bernstein, Perloff and Goldsmith", SoundEye
- ^ "Seeds of Gravity, an Anthology of Contemporary Surrealist Poetry from Ireland." Ed. by Anatoly Kudryavitsky. SurVision Books, 2020; pp. 5, 6.
- ^ Leabhar na hAthghabhála, Poems of Repossession, ed. by Louis de Paor (Bloodaxe Books). Pages 29-31.
- ^ Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle (2020), North American Gaels: Speech, Song, and Story in the Diaspora, McGill-Queen's University Press. Pages 228-249.
- ^ Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle (2020), North American Gaels: Speech, Song, and Story in the Diaspora, McGill-Queen's University Press. Pages 238-240.
- ^ Edited by Natasha Sumner and Aidan Doyle (2020), North American Gaels: Speech, Song, and Story in the Diaspora, McGill-Queen's University Press. Page 241.
- ^ Dáil Éireann - Volume 42 - 28 June, 1932, Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - An Gúm Archived 2012-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, Cuireadh "An Gúm" nó an Scéim Foillsiúcháin atá ar siubhal faoi Roinn an Oideachais, cuireadh sin ar bun go hoifigeamhail fá ughdarás na Roinne Airgid ar an 6adh lá de Mhárta, 1925., An Gúm, or the "Publication Scheme", was in progress under the Department of Education, founded officially under the authority of the Department of Finance on the 6th day of March, 1925.
- ^ Leabhar na hAthghabhála, Poems of Repossession, ed. by Louis de Paor (Bloodaxe Books). Page 17.
- ^ a b Leabhar na hAthghabhála, Poems of Repossession, ed. by Louis de Paor (Bloodaxe Books). Page 40.
- ^ Leabhar na hAthghabhála, Poems of Repossession, ed. by Louis de Paor (Bloodaxe Books). Page 502.
- ^ Eccentric poetry of Ireland's 'first civil servant' given new life at Imram festival The Journal, Oct 14th 2017.
- Louis De Paor (2016), Leabhar na hAthghabhála: Poems of Repossession: Irish-English Bilingual Edition, Bloodaxe Books. Page 23.
- ISBN 978-0-946755-38-7.
- Louis De Paor(2016), Leabhar na hAthgabhála: Poems of Repossession: Irish-English Bilingual Edition. Page 164.
- Louis De Paor(2016), Leabhar na hAthgabhála: Poems of Repossession: Irish-English Bilingual Edition. Pages 164–165.
- ^ Theo Dorgan, "Twentieth Century Irish-Language Poetry": archipelago (Vol. 3): http://www.archipelago.org/vol7-3/dorgan.htm
- ^ "By the early 1970s the new generation of poets were wide open to the world and experimenting with influences from across the Atlantic": David Cooke, Leabhar na hAthghabhála, Poems of Repossession, ed. by Louis de Paor (Bloodaxe Books)" (review), July 2016, The Manchester Review: http://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/?p=6607
- ^ Audrey Deng (2011), "A talkative corpse: the joys of writing poetry in Irish," Columbia Journal: http://columbiajournal.org/a-talkative-corpse-the-joys-of-writing-poetry-in-irish-3/
- ^ a b Shakespeare’s work has been translated into Irish - and it sounds amazing The Irish Post March 14, 2018.
- ^ Aistriú na Soinéad go Gaeilge: Saothar Grá! Translating the Sonnets to Irish: A Labour of Love by Muiris Sionóid.
Sources
- The Irish domain of poetryinternational.org Archived 23 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine A selection of many of the better contemporary practitioners
- Early poetry in Irish and English, ucc.ie.
- Swift, RPO.
- Cuirt an Mheán Oíche, showhouse.com.
- Goldsmith poems, RPO.
- More Goldsmith poems, theotherpages.org.
- Mangan, irishcultureandcustoms.com
- Moore, RPO.
- Ferguson, poetry-archive.com.
- Wilde, ucc.i.e.
- Plunkett, josephmaryplunkett.com
- SoundEye, soundeye.org.
- A checklist of New Writers' Press publications compiled by Trevor Joyce
- 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
- Irish Poetry Reading Archive, a comprehensive web-based library of Irish poets
- Wake Forest University Press, premier publisher of Irish poetry in North America
- Poetry Forum for Northern Ireland,
- SHOP contemporary poetry publishers
- Then Go Beyond the Reach of Road: An Evening with Poet Peter Fallon[permanent dead link] Poetry reading at Boston University, video, March 30, 2009
- http://bill.celt.dias.ie/vol4/browseatsources.php?letter=A#ATS7714
- http://www.podcasts.ie/featured-writers Archived 19 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- Windharp - a failed anthology, critical review of Windharp, Poems of Ireland since 1916, a 2016 Irish poetry anthology
- Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Collection of Irish Poetry: O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award Winners - Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.
- Interview with Irish Poet John F. Deane, by Patrick O'Donnell. John Deane was Founder of the National Poetry Society of Ireland and the 1998 Winner of the annual O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.
- Interview with Irish Poet Peter Sirr, by Patrick O'Donnell. Peter Sirr was the 1999 Winner of the annual O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.
- Interview with Irish Poet Louis de Paor, by Patrick O'Donnell. Louis de Paor was the 2000 Winner of the annual O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.
- Interview with Irish Poet Moya Canon, by Patrick O'Donnell. Moya Canon was the 2001 Winner of the annual O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.