62-513: The Shamrock is a 1777 Irish play or pasticcio opera by John O'Keeffe . It was first staged on 15 April 1777 at Crow Street Theatre in Dublin . According to White (1983), it is unsure whether the work was performed as a straight play or as a pasticcio opera to music by William Shield , as in its altered version as an afterpiece for the London stage, The Poor Soldier (1783). This article on
124-460: A greater understanding of sexual difference – several of her books include positive gay/lesbian characters —, make her a pioneer in queer literary representation. O'Brien was herself lesbian, and had a number of relationships with women, including the novelist E.M. Delafield , and the artist Mary O'Neill, who has been described as her 'life partner'. She was very critical of conservatism in Ireland, and
186-451: A large amount of prose fiction, wrote a number of important plays, including Waiting for Godot . Several Irish writers have excelled at short story writing, in particular Edna O'Brien , Frank O'Connor , Lord Dunsany and William Trevor . Other notable Irish writers from the twentieth century include poets Eavan Boland and Patrick Kavanagh , dramatists Tom Murphy and Brian Friel , and novelists Edna O'Brien and John McGahern . In
248-467: A less ambiguous foundation for an Anglo-Irish literary tradition. Though not of Irish birth, she came to live there when young and closely identified with Ireland. She was a pioneer in the realist novel . Other Irish novelists to emerge during the 19th century include John Banim , Gerald Griffin , Charles Kickham and William Carleton . Their works tended to reflect the views of the middle class or gentry and they wrote what came to be termed "novels of
310-614: A major twentieth-century Irish writer. The Glucksman Library at the University of Limerick holds an important collection of O'Brien's writings. In August 2005, Penguin reissued her final novel, As Music and Splendour (1958), which had been out of print for decades. The Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate O’Brien (formerly the Kate O'Brien Weekend), takes place in Limerick every year, attracting academic and non-academic audiences. In
372-1364: A new energy, marked by the Gaelic Revival (which encouraged a modern literature in Irish) and more generally by the Irish Literary Revival . What is often termed the Anglo-Irish literary tradition although many if not most of these authors are of Irish ethnicity, not English, in some cases they have both ancestries such as Sheridan. Irish-English literature found its first great exponents in Richard Head and Jonathan Swift , followed by Laurence Sterne , Oliver Goldsmith , and Richard Brinsley Sheridan . Other Irish writers in English include Mary Tighe , Thady Connellan , Arthur Murphy , John O'Keeffe , Nicholas Brady , Sydney, Lady Morgan , Edmond Malone , Hugh Kelly , Matthew Concanen , Anne Donnellan , Samuel Madden , Henry Brooke (writer) , Mary Barber (poet) and Thomas Dermody . The descendants of Scottish settlers in Ulster maintained an Ulster-Scots writing tradition, having an especially strong tradition of rhyming poetry. At
434-1113: A part of. It is thus not unusual to find poetry from the Old Irish period in a tale written in Middle Irish. While these four cycles are common to readers today they are the invention of modern scholars. There are several tales which do not fit neatly into one category, or not into any category at all. Early Irish writers though of tales in terms of genre's such as Aided (Death-tales), Aislinge (Visions), Cath (Battle-tales), Echtra (Adventures), Immram (Voyages), Táin Bó (Cattle Raids), Tochmarc (Wooings) and Togail (Destructions). As well as Irish mythology there were also adaptations into Middle Irish of Classical mythological tales such as Togail Troí (The Destruction of Troy , adapted from Daretis Phrygii de excidio Trojae historia , purportedly by Dares Phrygius ), Togail na Tebe (The Destruction of Thebes , from Statius ' Thebaid ) and Imtheachta Æniasa (from Virgil 's Aeneid ). The 17th century saw
496-601: A particular affinity with Spain—while her experiences in the Basque Country inspired Mary Lavelle , she also wrote a life of the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila, and she used the relationship between the Spanish king Philip II and Maria de Mendoza to write the anti-fascist novel That Lady . Even though Kate O'Brien lived outside of Ireland for most of her adult life, the country played a crucial role in her creative output. Many of her novels are set in Ireland, in 'Mellick' which
558-427: A personal nature. Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh (14th century), Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn (15th century) and Eochaidh Ó hEoghusa (16th century) were among the most distinguished of these poets. Every noble family possessed a body of manuscripts containing genealogical and other material, and the work of the best poets was used for teaching purposes in the bardic schools. In this hierarchical society, fully trained poets belonged to
620-509: A play from the 18th century is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Literature of Ireland Irish literature is literature written in the Irish , Latin , English and Scots ( Ulster Scots ) languages on the island of Ireland . The earliest recorded Irish writing dates from back in the 7th century and was produced by monks writing in both Latin and Early Irish, including religious texts, poetry and mythological tales. There
682-524: A teacher for a year. In 1922–23, she worked as a governess in Bilbao , Basque Country , in the north of Spain , where she began to write fiction. Upon her return to England, O'Brien worked at the Manchester Guardian . She married Dutch journalist Gustaff Reiner in 1922 but the marriage ended within a year. After the success of her play Distinguished Villa in 1926, she took to full-time writing and
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#1732854795501744-490: A writer in English, also published a book of short stories in Irish ( Dúil ). Irish-language literature has maintained its vitality into the 21st century. Most attention has been given to Irish writers who wrote in English and who were at the forefront of the modernist movement, notably James Joyce , whose novel Ulysses is considered one of the most influential works of the century. The playwright Samuel Beckett , in addition to
806-462: Is Cúirt an Mheán Oíche (The Midnight Court), a vigorous and inventive satire by Brian Merriman from County Clare . The copying of manuscripts continued unabated. One such collection was in the possession of Amhlaoibh Ó Súilleabháin , a teacher and linen draper of County Kilkenny who kept a unique diary in vernacular Irish from 1827 to 1835 covering local and international events, with a wealth of information about daily life. The Great Famine of
868-504: Is a 9th-century illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin, containing early texts relating to St Patrick and some of the oldest surviving specimens of Old Irish . It is one of the earliest manuscripts produced by an insular church to contain a near complete copy of the New Testament. The manuscript was the work of a scribe named Ferdomnach of Armagh (died 845 or 846). Ferdomnach wrote
930-451: Is a large surviving body of Irish mythological writing , including tales such as The Táin and Mad King Sweeny . The English language was introduced to Ireland in the 13th century, following the Norman invasion of Ireland . The 16th and 17th centuries saw a major expansion of English power across Ireland, further expanding the presence of early Modern English speakers. One theory is that in
992-669: Is her fictional name for Limerick. She lived in Roundstone in Connemara for a period in the 1950s. She wrote a regular newspaper column for the Irish Times entitled From a Distance which captured the ambivalent relationship she had with Ireland. In her novels after 1936, she is outspokenly critical of the conservatism of the new Irish State, particularly during the De Valera years. Her work promoted European identity, which she saw as being rooted in
1054-526: Is the Historical Cycle , or Cycle of the Kings. The Historical Cycle ranges from the almost entirely mythological Labraid Loingsech , who allegedly became High King of Ireland around 431 BC, to the entirely historical Brian Boru , who reigned as High King of Ireland in the eleventh century AD. The Historical Cycle includes the late medieval tale Buile Shuibhne ( The Frenzy of Sweeney ), which has influenced
1116-549: The Gael ,". Other recurring characters include Cú Chulainn , a figure comparable to the Greek hero Achilles , known for his terrifying battle frenzy, or ríastrad , Fergus and Conall Cernach . Emain Macha and Cruachan are the chief locations. The cycle is set around the end of the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD, with the death of Conchobar being set at the same day as
1178-452: The Hill of Tara is a common location. Unusually among European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prosimetrum , i.e. prose, with verse interpolations expressing heightened emotion. Although usually found in manuscripts of later periods, many of these works contain language that predates the surviving records, and some of the poetry is significantly older than the complete tales they form
1240-456: The rhyming weavers were James Campbell (1758–1818), James Orr (1770–1816), Thomas Beggs (1749–1847). In the 19th century English was well on the way to becoming the dominant vernacular. Down until the Great Famine of the 1840s, however, and even later, Irish was still used over large areas of the south-west, the west and the north-west. A famous long poem from the beginning of the century
1302-519: The ' rhyming weaver ' poetry, publication of which began after 1750, though a broadsheet was published in Strabane in 1735. These weaver poets looked to Scotland for their cultural and literary models but were not simple imitators. They were inheritors of the same literary tradition and followed the same poetic and orthographic practices; it is not always immediately possible to distinguish between traditional Scots writing from Scotland and Ulster. Among
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#17328547955011364-620: The 17th century following the 1610 Plantation , with the peak reached during the 1690s. In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one. In Ulster Scots-speaking areas the work of Scottish poets, such as Allan Ramsay (1686–1758) and Robert Burns (1759–96), was very popular, often in locally printed editions. This was complemented by a poetry revival and nascent prose genre in Ulster, which started around 1720. A tradition of poetry and prose in Ulster Scots began around 1720. The most prominent being
1426-501: The 17th century. Medieval Irish writers also created an extensive literature in Latin: this Hiberno-Latin literature was notable for its learned vocabulary, including a greater use of loanwords from Greek and Hebrew than was common in medieval Latin elsewhere in Europe. The literary Irish language (known in English as Classical Irish), was a sophisticated medium with elaborate verse forms, and
1488-528: The 1840s hastened the retreat of the Irish language. Many of its speakers died of hunger or fever, and many more emigrated. The hedge schools of earlier decades which had helped maintain the native culture were now supplanted by a system of National Schools where English was given primacy. Literacy in Irish was restricted to a very few. A vigorous English-speaking middle class was now the dominant cultural force. A number of its members were influenced by political or cultural nationalism, and some took an interest in
1550-736: The Christian tradition—despite the fact that she was herself agnostic. O'Brien wrote a political travelogue, Farewell Spain , to gather support for the leftist cause in the Spanish Civil War, and it has been argued that she was close to anarchism in the 1930s. She also wrote a travelogue My Ireland (1962), where she offers a lively and engaging record of the places in Ireland that she loved (such as Connemara) or did not impress her (such as Dublin). A feminist, her novels promoted gender equality and were mostly protagonised by young women yearning for independence. Kate O'Brien's determination to encourage
1612-563: The Crucifixion. Third is a body of romance woven round Fionn Mac Cumhaill , his son Oisin , and his grandson Oscar , in the reigns of the High King of Ireland Cormac mac Airt , in the second and third centuries AD. This cycle of romance is usually called the Fenian cycle because it deals so largely with Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his fianna (militia). The Hill of Allen is often associated with
1674-548: The Fenian cycle. The chief tales of the Fenian cycle are Acallam na Senórach (often translated as Colloquy with the Ancients or Tales of the Elders of Ireland ) and Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne ( The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne ). While there are early tales regarding Fionn, the majority of the Fenian cycle appears to have been written later than the other cycles. Fourth
1736-683: The Irish pagan pantheon, the Tuatha Dé Danann . Recurring characters in these stories are Lug , The Dagda and Óengus , while many of the tales are set around the Brú na Bóinne . The principle tale of the Mythological cycle is Cath Maige Tuired ( The Battle of Moytura ), which shows how the Tuatha Dé Danann defeated the Fomorians . Later synthetic histories of Ireland placed this battle as occurring at
1798-451: The banning of her books highlighted the Irish censorship laws. Following a debate on the banning of The Land of Spices in the Irish senate, and a campaign supported by Seán Ó Faoláin and others, the censorship laws were somewhat reformed in 1946 by creating an Appeals Board. The Land of Spices which had been banned in 1941 was 'unbanned' in 1949, but Mary Lavelle was never officially 'unbanned'. In this way, O'Brien helped bring to an end
1860-647: The big house". Carleton was an exception, and his Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry showed life on the other side of the social divide. Bram Stoker , the author of Dracula , was outside both traditions, as was the early work of Lord Dunsany . One of the premier ghost story writers of the nineteenth century was Sheridan Le Fanu , whose works include Uncle Silas and Carmilla . The novels and stories, mostly humorous, of Edith Somerville and Violet Florence Martin (who wrote together as Martin Ross), are among
1922-467: The classics at local schools and schoolmasters by trade. Such writers produced polished work in popular metres for a local audience. This was particularly the case in Munster, in the south-west of Ireland, and notable names included Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin and Aogán Ó Rathaille of Sliabh Luachra . A certain number of local patrons were still to be found, even in the early 19th century, and especially among
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1984-557: The cultural restrictions of the 1930s and 40s in the country. She lived much of her life in England and died in Faversham, near Canterbury, in 1974. At the time of her death, she was poor and most of her books were out of print. In the 1980s, her work was recovered by feminist scholars and reprinted by feminist publishers such as Arlen House in Dublin and Virago in London. She is now considered to be
2046-459: The earliest stories is dateable to the 8th century, and events and characters are referred to in poems dating to the 7th. After the Old Irish period, there is a vast range of poetry from medieval and Renaissance times. By degrees the Irish created a classical tradition in their own language. Verse remained the main vehicle of literary expression, and by the 12th century questions of form and style had been essentially settled, with little change until
2108-411: The early 19th century, but the manuscript remained the most affordable means of transmission almost until the end of the century. Manuscripts were collected by literate individuals (schoolmasters, farmers and others) and were copied and recopied. They might include material several centuries old. Access to them was not confined to the literate, since the contents were read aloud at local gatherings. This
2170-492: The end of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century, Irish literature in English benefited from the work of such authors as Oscar Wilde , Bram Stoker , James Joyce , W. B. Yeats , Samuel Beckett , Elizabeth Bowen , C. S. Lewis , Kate O'Brien and George Bernard Shaw , not all of whom stayed in Ireland. Though English was the dominant Irish literary language in the 20th century, works of high quality were also produced in Irish . A pioneering modernist writer in Irish
2232-487: The few surviving families of the Gaelic aristocracy. Irish was still an urban language, and continued to be so well into the 19th century. In the first half of the 18th century Dublin was the home of an Irish-language literary circle connected to the Ó Neachtain (Naughton) family, a group with wide-ranging Continental connections. There is little evidence of female literacy for this period, but women were of great importance in
2294-504: The first part of the book in 807 or 808, for Patrick's heir ( comarba ) Torbach. It was one of the symbols of the office for the Archbishop of Armagh . The Annals of Ulster ( Irish : Annála Uladh ) cover years from AD 431 to AD 1540 and were compiled in the territory of what is now Northern Ireland : entries up to AD 1489 were compiled in the late 15th century by the scribe Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín, under his patron Cathal Óg Mac Maghnusa on
2356-533: The highest stratum; they were court officials but were thought to still possess ancient magical powers. Women were largely excluded from the official literature, though female aristocrats could be patrons in their own right. An example is the 15th century noblewoman Mairgréag Ní Cearbhaill, praised by the learned for her hospitality. At that level a certain number of women were literate, and some were contributors to an unofficial corpus of courtly love poetry known as dánta grádha . Prose continued to be cultivated in
2418-648: The introduction of printing to Ireland, works in Irish continued to be disseminated in manuscript form. The first printed book in Ireland was the Book of Common Prayer . Access to the printing press was hindered in the 1500s and 1600s by official caution, although an Irish version of the Bible (known as Bedell 's Bible after the Anglican clergyman who commissioned it) was published in the 17th century. A number of popular works in Irish, both devotional and secular, were available in print by
2480-515: The island of Belle Isle on Lough Erne . The Ulster Cycle written in the 12th century, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster and northern Leinster , particularly counties Armagh , Down and Louth . The stories are written in Old and Middle Irish , mostly in prose, interspersed with occasional verse passages. The language of
2542-974: The late twentieth century, Irish poets, especially those from Northern Ireland, came to prominence including Derek Mahon , Medbh McGuckian , John Montague , Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon . Influential works of writing continue to emerge in Northern Ireland with huge success such as Anna Burns , Sinéad Morrissey , and Lisa McGee . Well-known Irish writers in English in the twenty-first century include Edna O'Brien , Colum McCann , Anne Enright , Roddy Doyle , Moya Cannon , Sebastian Barry , Colm Toibín , and John Banville , all of whom have all won major awards. Younger writers include Sinéad Gleeson , Paul Murray , Anna Burns , Billy O'Callaghan , Kevin Barry , Emma Donoghue , Donal Ryan , Sally Rooney , William Wall , Marina Carr , and Martin McDonagh . Irish has one of
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2604-446: The latter part of the nineteenth century saw a rapid replacement of Irish by English in the greater part of the country, largely due to the Great Famine and the subsequent decimation of the Irish population by starvation and emigration. Another theory among modern scholars is that far from being a sudden cataclysmic event the language shift was well underway much earlier. At the end of the century, however, cultural nationalism displayed
2666-457: The literature of the Irish language. One such was a young Protestant scholar called Samuel Ferguson who studied the language privately and discovered its poetry, which he began to translate. He was preceded by James Hardiman , who in 1831 had published the first comprehensive attempt to collect popular poetry in Irish. These and other attempts supplied a bridge between the literatures of the two languages. Maria Edgeworth (1767–1849) furnished
2728-455: The medieval period in the form of tales. The Norman invasion of the 12th century introduced a new body of stories which influenced the Irish tradition, and in time translations were made from English. Irish poets also composed the Dindsenchas ("lore of places"), a class of onomastic texts recounting the origins of place-names and traditions concerning events and characters associated with
2790-510: The most accomplished products of Anglo-Irish literature, though written exclusively from the viewpoint of the "big house". In 1894 they published The Real Charlotte . George Moore spent much of his early career in Paris and was one of the first writers to use the techniques of the French realist novelists in English. Kate O%27Brien (novelist) Kate O'Brien (3 December 1897 – 13 August 1974)
2852-416: The oldest vernacular literatures in western Europe (after Greek and Latin ). The Irish became fully literate with the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century. Before that time a simple writing system known as “ ogham ” was used for inscriptions. These inscriptions are mostly simple "x son of y" statements. The introduction of Latin led to the adaptation of the Latin alphabet to the Irish language and
2914-399: The oral tradition. They were the main composers of traditional laments. The most famous of these is Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire , composed in the late 18th century by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill , one of the last of the Gaelic gentry of West Kerry. Compositions of this sort were not committed to writing until collected in the 19th century. Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age Well after
2976-459: The places in question. Since many of the legends related concern the acts of mythic and legendary figures, the dindsenchas is an important source for the study of Irish mythology. Early Irish literature is usually arranged in four epic cycles. These cycles are considered to contain a series of recurring characters and locations. The first of these is the Mythological Cycle , which concerns
3038-587: The poet Dáibhí Ó Bruadair and the anonymous authors of Pairliment Chloinne Tomáis , a prose satire on the aspirations of the lower classes. Prose of another sort was represented by the historical works of Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn) and the compilation known as the Annals of the Four Masters . The consequences of these changes were seen in the 18th century. Poetry was still the dominant literary medium and its practitioners were often poor scholars, educated in
3100-411: The rise of a small literate class, both clerical and lay. The earliest works of literature produced in Ireland are by Saint Patrick ; his Confessio and Epistola , both in Latin. The earliest literature in Irish consisted of lyric poetry and prose sagas set in the distant past. The earliest poetry, composed in the 6th century, illustrates a vivid religious faith or describes the world of nature, and
3162-730: The same time as the Trojan War . Second is the Ulster Cycle , mentioned above, also known as the Red Branch Cycle or the Heroic Cycle. This cycle contains tales of the conflicts between Ulster and Connacht during the legendary reigns of King Conchobar mac Nessa in Ulster and Medb and Ailill in Connacht. The chief saga of the Ulster cycle is Táin Bó Cúailnge , the so-called " Iliad of
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#17328547955013224-520: The status of an Irish patriot. Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774), born in County Longford, moved to London, where he became part of the literary establishment, though his poetry reflects his youth in Ireland. He is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770), and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
3286-407: The tightening of English control over Ireland and the suppression of the traditional aristocracy. This meant that the literary class lost its patrons, since the new nobility were English speakers with little sympathy for the older culture. The elaborate classical metres lost their dominance and were largely replaced by more popular forms. This was an age of social and political tension, as expressed by
3348-508: The works of T.S. Eliot and Flann O'Brien , and Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib ( The War of the Irish with the Foreigners ), which tells of Brian Boru's wars against the Vikings. Unlike the other cycles there is not a consistent set of characters or locations in this cycle, as the stories settings span more than a thousand years; though many stories feature Conn Cétchathach or Niall Noígíallach and
3410-516: Was Máirtín Ó Cadhain , and prominent poets included Caitlín Maude , Máirtín Ó Direáin , Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máire Mhac an tSaoi . Prominent bilingual writers included Brendan Behan (who wrote poetry and a play in Irish) and Flann O'Brien . Two novels by O'Brien, At Swim Two Birds and The Third Policeman , are considered early examples of postmodern fiction, but he also wrote a satirical novel in Irish called An Béal Bocht (translated as The Poor Mouth ). Liam O'Flaherty , who gained fame as
3472-486: Was Pádraic Ó Conaire , and traditional life was given vigorous expression in a series of autobiographies by native Irish speakers from the west coast, exemplified by the work of Tomás Ó Criomhthain and Peig Sayers . Máiréad Ní Ghráda wrote numerous successful plays often influenced by Bertolt Brecht , as well as the first translation of Peter Pan , Tír na Deo , and Manannán , the first Irish language Science fiction book. The outstanding modernist prose writer in Irish
3534-514: Was an Irish novelist and playwright. Kathleen Mary Louise "Kate" O'Brien was born in Limerick City in 1897 to a middle-class family. Following the death of her mother when she was five, she joined her three older sisters as a boarder at Laurel Hill Convent becoming the youngest pupil at the school. She graduated in 1919 in English and French from the newly established University College, Dublin , and she then moved to London, where she worked as
3596-618: Was awarded both the 1931 James Tait Black Prize and the Hawthornden Prize for her debut novel Without My Cloak . Many of her books deal with issues of female agency and sexuality in ways that were new and radical at the time. Her 1936 novel, Mary Lavelle , was banned in Ireland and Spain, while The Land of Spices was banned in Ireland upon publication. In addition to novels, she wrote plays, film scripts, short stories, essays, copious journalism, two biographical studies, and two very personal travelogues. Throughout her life, O'Brien felt
3658-506: Was born in Dublin and came to serve in the House of Commons of Great Britain on behalf of the Whig Party, and establish a reputation in his oratory and published works for great philosophical clarity as well as a lucid literary style. Scots , mainly Gaelic -speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 15th century, but large numbers of Scots -speaking Lowlanders , some 200,000, arrived during
3720-405: Was sometimes written in the margins of illuminated manuscripts. "The Blackbird of Belfast Lough ", a fragment of syllabic verse probably dating from the 9th century, has inspired reinterpretations and translations in modern times by John Montague , John Hewitt , Seamus Heaney , Ciaran Carson , and Thomas Kinsella , as well as a version into modern Irish by Tomás Ó Floinn. The Book of Armagh
3782-736: Was still the case in the late 19th century in Irish-speaking districts. Manuscripts were often taken abroad, particularly to America . In the 19th century, many of these were collected by individuals or cultural institutions. Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), a powerful and versatile satirist, was Ireland's first earliest notable writer in English. Swift held positions of authority in both England and Ireland at different times. Many of Swift's works reflected support for Ireland during times of political turmoil with England, including Proposal for Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (1720), Drapier's Letters (1724), and A Modest Proposal (1729), and earned him
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#17328547955013844-405: Was taught in bardic schools (i.e. academies of higher learning) both in Ireland and Scotland. These produced historians, lawyers and a professional literary class which depended on the aristocracy for patronage. Much of the writing produced in this period was conventional in character, in praise of patrons and their families, but the best of it was of exceptionally high quality and included poetry of
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