Irish Literature

B

1

Patriotic and Lyric Poetry

To the patriots, the need to arouse in the Irish people a sense of nationalism was stronger than the impulse to write poetry distinguished for its formal or aesthetic perfection. The work of these poets was characterized by flamboyant diction and fiery emotion and was important for its political effect. Many of them contributed poems to the Nation (founded 1842), a journal devoted to the promotion of the cause of Irish nationalism. They include Thomas Osborne Davis, who wrote “Lament of Owen Roe O'Neill”; Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who also wrote novels (see below); Denis Florence MacCarthy, who wrote The Bell-Founder (1857); Jane Francesca Elgee, Lady Wilde, who wrote under the name of Speranza; and Thomas D'Arcy McGee. The most outstanding of the lyrical poets, listed chronologically, are Jeremiah Joseph Callanan; James Clarence Mangan, author of “Dark Rosaleen”; Edward Walsh; Sir Samuel Ferguson, author of Lays of the Western Gael (1865); Aubrey Thomas de Vere, author of The Foray of Queen Maeve and Other Legends of Ireland's Heroic Age (1882); and William Allingham, who wrote Irish Songs and Poems (1887).

B

2

Protestant and Roman Catholic Fiction

Much distinguished fiction was written in the 19th century by Irish authors writing in English. Protestants treated Irish life from the point of view of the Anglo-Irish upper classes or gentry, and Roman Catholic writers, mainly of Celtic ancestry, dealt principally with the lives of the Irish Roman Catholic peasantry.

Among the important Protestant writers were Maria Edgeworth, whose Castle Rackrent (1800) was one of the first regional novels in English; it gives a realistic picture of social conditions, tempered with understanding and ironic humour. Later writers included Lady Sydney Morgan, author of The Wild Irish Girl (1806); William Hamilton Maxwell, writer of tales of military life, including Stories of Waterloo (1834); Samuel Lover, whose Rory O'Moore, a National Romance (1837) and Handy Andy (1842) were stories of the Irish peasantry; and Charles James Lever, writer of the picaresque novels The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer (1837) and Jack Hinton (1843).

Among the Roman Catholic fiction writers were two brothers, John Banim and Michael Banim, noted for their stories depicting the life of the poverty-stricken Irish peasant, as in Tales of the O'Hara Family (6 vols., 1825-1826); Gerald Griffin, The Collegians (1829), a tale of middle-class Irish life; and William Carleton, author of Fardorougha the Miser (1839).

Other eminent Irish novelists of the 19th century were Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who wrote Uncle Silas (1864); Charles J. Kickham, the author of Sally Cavanagh (1869); and Emily Lawless, the author of Hurrish (1886).

III

Irish Literary Revival

A remarkable revival in Irish literature written either in Gaelic or in English began in the last decade of the 19th century. In contrast to earlier fiction and poetry, the mood now was one of conscious dedication to the national cause.

A

Turn of the Century

The principal Irish writers in English who are identified with this so-called Irish Renaissance are the poets William Butler Yeats, Æ (George William Russell), and Padraic Colum; the playwrights Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory, John Millington Synge, and Sean O'Casey; the novelist and playwright George Moore; and the poet and fiction writer James Stephens. For further discussions of their work, see Abbey Theatre; and articles under the names of the individual writers.

Notable translations of Gaelic epic material were made by Lady Gregory in Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) and Gods and Fighting Men (1904); by Thomas William Rolleston in Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race (1911); and by Douglas Hyde in Legends of Saints and Sinners from the Irish (1915).

Among representative fiction writers of the period are Standish James O'Grady, author of historical romances; James Owen Hannay, who, under the pen name of George A. Birmingham, wrote such novels as The Seething Pot (1905) and Wild Justice (1930); and Edith Anna Oenone Somerville and Violet Florence Martin. Somerville and Martin were cousins who, under the joint pen name Somerville and Ross, wrote travel books, books for children, and other works. Two of their best-known collaborations were the humorous Some Experiences of an Irish R. M. (1899), observations of Irish country life by a bemused Englishman who has been appointed a resident magistrate; and The Real Charlotte (1894), a novel of upper-class society in late Victorian Ireland.

B

20th-Century Literature

The Irish literary revival extended far into the 20th century. By 1940 the excitement generated in the earlier years had largely subsided, but many writers continued to produce distinguished works. Notable among them was the playwright Sean O'Casey, author of such plays as Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924), and The Plough and the Stars (1926), realistic pictures of Dublin slum life. He also wrote six books about his life that, combined under the title Mirror in My House (2 vols., 1956), represent a major contribution to Irish literary history. Other significant historical and personal recollections were written by the critic and short-story writer Mary Colum, whose Life and the Dream (1947) recalls the personages and concerns of the literary revival; and by the playwright and manager-director of the Abbey Theatre, Lennox Robinson, in Ireland's Abbey Theatre 1899-1950 (1951) and I Sometimes Think (1957).