Irish literature
Irish literature is literature written in the Irish, Latin, English and 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 is a large surviving body of Irish mythological writing, including tales such as Táin Bó Cúailnge and Buile Shuibhne.
History
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 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 a new energy, marked by the Gaelic Revival 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, Mary Barber and Thomas Dermody.
The descendants of Scottish settlers in Ulster maintained an Ulster-Scots writing tradition, having an especially strong tradition of rhyming poetry.
Notable writers
At 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 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 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 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. Liam O'Flaherty, who gained fame as a writer in English, also published a book of short stories in Irish. 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 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 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.
The Middle Ages: 500–1500
Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in western Europe.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 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 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 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. Ferdomnach wrote the first part of the book in 807 or 808, for Patrick's heir Torbach. It was one of the symbols of the office for the Archbishop of Armagh.
The Annals of Ulster 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 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 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 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, was a sophisticated medium with elaborate verse forms, and was taught in bardic schools 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 a personal nature. Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh, Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn and Eochaidh Ó hEoghusa 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 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 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, a class of onomastic texts recounting the origins of place-names and traditions concerning events and characters associated with 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.