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News: We have just added the full text for Samuel Beckett's Whoroscope online We will also be adding some YouTube clips from Samuel Beckett Productions: Modern Irish literature is informed and motivated by two equal yet opposite themes: the need to generate income from literary endeavors and the need to outline, or as Joyce said 'forge', a distinct position on Irish society the better to distinguish their work from their literary rivals. Irish literature is rewarding to those beyond their ability solely because their work reflects the necessary zeitgeist. It gives credence to books that promote and nurture popular media opinions of both urban and rural life. Ireland and its long extended history of legends and poetry, oral and manuscript, has made a massive global contribution to both modern and historic literature. This site, based in Dublin Ireland, hopes to provide relevant and expert information about Irish literature, in general and with regard to specific books and Irish authors.Some of the Irish writers that will feature in this site are listed below by the county of their birth:If the author or book does not seem to be listed please check our sitemap |
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Writers from Ulster Antrim: Sam Millar, William Hamilton Drummond, Alexander Irvine, Sam Burnside, Paula Clamp, Gréagóir Ó Dúill Armagh: William Drennan, Louis MacNeice, Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon, Medbh McGuckian, Brian Keenan, Ray Givans, Jarlath Gregory Cavan: Cathair Mac Cabe, Thomas Sheridan, Henry Brooke, Philip Connell, Mary-Anne Madden Sadlier, Agnes O'Farrelly, Shane Connaughton Derry: Seamus Heaney, James Simmons, Joyce Cary, George Farquhar, Antonia Logue Donegal: William Allingham, Patrick MacGill, Frank McGuinness, Brian Friel, Francis Harvey, Patrick McGill, Charles McGlinchy, Peadar O'Donnell, Cathal Ó Searcaigh Down: Martin Waddell, Maurice Hayes, MJ Murphy Fermanagh: Frank Ormsby, Shane Connaughton, Carlo Gébler, John Kelly, Eugene McCabe, Blánaid McKinney, Nigel McLoughlin, Mary Montague Monaghan: Patrick Kavanagh, Patrick McCabe Tyrone: William Carleton, Brian Friel, Benedict Kiely, John Montague Writers from Connaught Galway: Augusta Gregory, Liam O'Flaherty, Desmond Hogan, John Arden, Nora Barnacle, Ken Bruen, Eilís Dillon, Frank Harris, Rita Ann Higgins, Fred Johnston, Walter Macken, Edward Martin, MJ Molloy, Tom Murphy, Padraic O'Conaire, Máirtín Ó Díreáin, Brendan O'hEithir, Mary O'Malley, Joe Steve O'Neachtain Leitrim: Brian Leyden, Vincent Woods Mayo: George Moore, John F Deane, John Healy, Mike McCormack, Michael Mullen, Pat O'Brien Roscommon: Douglas Hyde, Percy French, John Waters, Patrick Chapman Sligo: William Butler Yeats, Leland Bardwell, Dermot Healy, Neil Jordan, Joe McGowan, Eoin McNamara |
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Writers from Leinster Carlow: William Francis Maher MacNevin, Michael Farrell, Deirdre Brennan, Pádraig Ó Snodaigh Dublin: Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce Brendan Behan, George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, James Clarence Mangan Roddy Doyle, Flann O'Brien, John McGahern, Sean O'Casey, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Katharine Tynan, Alfred Perceval Graves, Bram Stoker, Edmund John Armstrong, Charles James Lever, Anna Maria Fielding, Samuel Lover, John Millington Synge, Padraig Pearse, Oliver St.John Gogarty, Roger Casement, Eavon Boland, Emma Donoghue, Niall Williams, Sebastian Barry, Ciaran Carson, Declan Kiberd, Hugh Leonard Kildare: Aidan Higgins, Desmond Egan, Rita Kelly, John MacKenna, Ernest Shackleton, Mary Tansey Kilkenny: John Banim, Kerry Hardie, Sean Hardie, Francis McManus, Mark Roper, Maura Treacy Laois: Tom Phelan, Pat Doran, Patrick F Meehan, Liam Miller Longford: Oliver Goldsmith, Padraig Colum, Maria Edgeworth, Vona Groarke Louth: Victo M Buckley, John O'Reilly, Susan Connolly, Katherine Duffy, Conor O'Callaghan, Dermot Somers, Joseph Woods Meath: Francis Edward Ledwidge, Lord Dunsany, Peter Fallon, Mary Lavin Offaly: Vivian Mercier, William O'Connor Morris Westmeath: Dermot Healy, Leo Daly, Brinsley McNamara Wexford: John Banville, Colm Toibin, Vincent Banville, Philip Casey, Anthony Cronin, Eamonn Wall Wicklow: Biddy Jenkinson, Erskine Childers, Anne McCaffrey, Alan Warner Writers from Munster Clare: Aodh Buidhe MacCruitín, Thomas Dermody, Edna O'Brien Cork: William Trevor, Frank O'Connor, Thomas Osborne Davis, Sean O'Faolain, Justin McCarthy, Fitz-James O'Brien, Daibhidh O'Bruadair, Lennox Robinson Kerry: Alfred O'Rahilly Limerick: Aubrey de Vere, Gerald Griffin, Michael Curtain, Frank McCourt, Tom Nestor, Kate O'Brien, Christoir O'Flynn, Desmond O'Grady Tipperary: Laurence Sterne, Julia Kavanagh, Charles Kickham Waterford: Robert Boyle If you feel there is an author missing from the above list or you would like to corect the listing above, please feel free to contact us here at Ireland Literature Guide and we will quickly update the listing, Contact Us For a historical perspective on Irish Literature you can read about it here: Irish Literature History |
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The role of Irish Literature in Ireland From the outset, the nature and function of Irish literature has always been political or used for political ends. However, it is a mistake to bind Irish Literature to nationalism to the exclusion of Protestant culture, identity and politics. The role of art in irish culture, and in particular Irish literature, is best summed by by Joyce in the Scylla and Charybdis episode of Ulysses: "The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the essential wisdom, Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys". It is not just the voice of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy but the voice of the poor and dispossesed: "What was the pain I suffered, Johnny, bringing you into the world to carry you to the cradle to the pains I'll suffer carryin' you out o' the world to bring you to your grave! Mother o' God, Mother o' God, have pity on us all! Sacred Heart o' Jesus, take away our hearts o' stone, and give us hearts o' flesh! Take away this murdherin' hate an' give us Thine own eternal love!" - Juno and the Paycock - O'Casey. Yet the role of Irish Literature has not changed during its long history, as identified by Seamus Heaney, who outlined his understanding of literature in his 1988 The Government of the Tongue: "In one sense the efficacy of poetry is nil - no lyric ever stopped a tank. In another sense, it is unlimited. It is like the writing in the sand in the face of which accusers and the accused are left speechless and renewed". For more information on individual Irish writers: Samuel BeckettWaiting for Godot, Endgame, 2006 Centenary CelebrationsJames JoyceThe birth of Irish literature was in ancient religious texts. Not only Christian monastic texts but those born of mythology from the three main sagas: Mythological cycle which tells of Tuatha Dé Danaan, the Ulster cycle which tells of the Tain bo Cuailnge, the Fenian cycle which tells of Fionn mac Cumhaill, and the Historical cycle which tells of the Buile Shuibne. During the dark ages the literary output of the country declined due to invasion. Many believe that the apex of Irish Literature is to be found in Anglo-Irish Literature, begun in the 18th century and continues on today. However, there is also a rich oral tradition that has inspired and produced great works of literature, such as the oral tradition of the Blasket Islands off the west coast of Kerry: "The conversation of those ragged peasants, as soon as I learned to follow it, electrified me. It was as though Homer had come alive. Its vitality was inexhaustible, yet it was rhythmical, alliterative, formal, artificial, always on the point of bursting into poetry" - G Thomson, Island Home: The Blasket Heritage. Guides to Irish Literature: The International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, Ireland Literature Exchange Twentieth Century Anglo-Irish Literature CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts, Online Resource for Irish history, literature and politics Trinity College Dublin, The book of Kells Irish Writers who have won the Nobel Prize in Literature: 1923 William Butler Yeats, 1925 George Bernard Shaw, 1969 Samuel Beckett, 1995 Seamus Heaney Irish Literature for me is a form of writing rather than a similarity of themes and content. It appears in both works of fiction and nonfiction, both in the books deemed to be within the canon and those deemed to be without. It is a mode of expression generated by Ireland and Irish sentiment as is as distinguishable and recognisable as Irish light. It is for the most part the forgotten flagstone of Irish, modern Irish, Culture. Irish Writers who have won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction: 1973 James Gordon Farrell - 'The Siege of Krishnapur', 1978 Jean Iris Murdoch - 'The Sea, the Sea', 1993 Roddy Doyle - 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha', 2005 John Banville - 'The Sea', |
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There is in Ireland a long and rich tradition of Literature in the Irish language, and its influence in a postcolonial dialect can be noted in most of the important texts.
Literary Movements in Irish Literature: Postcolonialism, Magical Realism, Postmodernism, Surrealism, Modernism, Stream of consciousness, Realism, Romanticism, Celtic renaissance, Irish literary renaissance, Absurdism, Socialist realism, Deconstruction, Marxist, Poststructuralism, Gothic Nationalism defined the twentieth century Nationalism "an ideological movement for the attainment and maintenance of autonomy, unity, and identity on behalf of a population deemed by some of its members to constitute an actual or potential "nation"" Anthony D.Smith, The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism Literary Criticism Marxist literary criticism, Feminist literary criticism, Postcolonial literary criticism, New Criticism, Postimperial literary criticism, Poststructuralism, Deconstruction, Structuralism, New Historicism, Gender studies, Semiotics, Psychoanalytic Criticism, and Cultural Materialism. Mercier Press We have started hosting the press releases for the books launched by Mercier Press, which you can look at here The legacy of W.B. Yeats cast your mind on other days That we in coming days may be Still the indomitable Irishry Our nation's literary development has been inexticably bound with the career of W.B. Yeats. From the development of a national theatre, his involvement with Irish politics, and his instigation of procedure to catalogue, translate and distribute all surviving texts in Irish. His influence, above all other writers, remains the most lasting in Irish Literature; allowing the nation to forge a separate modern identity beyond that inherited from abroad He was an Irish writer above all in his constant reworking of his past work so that it seemed to constantly anticipate his present work with remarkable ease. Behind all of the lyrical finery, Yeats was fifty before he could have hoped to live off his poetry yet through out his life signed cheques as 'Yours Sincerely, W.B. Yeats'. he was one of the few whose history is the history of their own itme, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them - T.S. Eliot
"We are one of the great stocks of Europe. We are the people of Burke; we are the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the people of Parnell. We have created most of the modern literature of this country. We have created the best of its political intelligence." |
