Irish poetry

The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. 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 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.

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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. The following verse from Caoine Cill Chais (The Lament for Kilcash) serves as an example. The old house of Cill Chais stands empty, its woods gone to serve the needs of the British navy:

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Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmad,

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tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár;

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níl trácht ar Chill Chais ná a teaghlach,

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is ní bainfear a cling go bráth;

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an áit úd ina gcónaíodh an deighbhean

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a fuair gradam is meidhir tar mhná,

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bhíodh iarlaí ag tarraing tar toinn ann,

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is an tAifreann binn á rá.

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(What shall we do from now on without timber?

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The last of the woods is gone.

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No more of Kilcash and its great house

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And the bells that will ring no more.

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The place where that great lady waited

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Who for grace put all women to shame

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When earls came by sea to meet her

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And the Mass was sweetly proclaimed)

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(Translation by for Wikipedia)

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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.

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Cúirt An Mheán Oíche

Cúirt An Mheán Oíche (The Midnight Court) by Brian Merriman (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 Clare and Limerick. Cúirt An Mheán Oíche, effectively his only poetic work, was written around 1780. The poem begins by using the conventions of the Aisling, 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.

Related Topics:
Brian Merriman - 1747 - 1805 - Clare - Limerick - Aisling

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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 infidelity 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 marriage completely and to replace it with a system of free love. 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.

Related Topics:
Infidelity - Marriage - Free love

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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 celibacy, Cúirt An Mheán Oíche is a unique document in the history of Irish poetry in either language.

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Swift and Goldsmith

In Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Irish literature in English found its first writer of real genius. 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 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.

Related Topics:
Jonathan Swift - 1667 - 1745 - Gulliver's Travels - A Tale of a Tub - Pope - Dryden

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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.

Related Topics:
Oliver Goldsmith - 1730 - 1774 - Hack writer - Samuel Johnson - Edmund Burke - Sir Joshua Reynolds - The Vicar of Wakefield - She Stoops to Conquer - The Traveller - The Deserted Village - Pastoral

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