$Unique_ID{COW01839} $Pretitle{423} $Title{Ireland Literature} $Subtitle{} $Author{Embassy of Ireland, Washington DC} $Affiliation{Embassy of Ireland, Washington DC} $Subject{irish literature period century ireland tradition early literary modern english} $Date{1990} $Log{} Country: Ireland Book: Facts About Ireland. 1990 Author: Embassy of Ireland, Washington DC Affiliation: Embassy of Ireland, Washington DC Date: 1990 Literature Literature in Irish The Early Period The earliest extant literature in Irish dates from the 6th century AD. It consists of poems of praise, satires, and laments in Irish by professional literary men who were heirs to the pre Christian druids. This material was first recorded in manuscripts by the early Irish monks who themselves produced lyric poetry of a high quality. Their verse displays an acute feeling for language and an impressionistic treatment of their themes, reminiscent of certain eastern literatures. In this they were, however, continuing rather than creating a tradition as recent scholarship has demonstrated that some examples of the genre belong to the 6th century and are pre-Christian in reference. The monks' compilations of orally-transmitted literature contain much from the pre-Christian culture of Ireland. They include the heroic and mythological sagas such as Tain Bo Cuailgne (The Cattle-raid of Cuailgne), a work which is of particular value for the light it throws on early Irish society. The saga Cath Maige Tured (The Battle of Mag Tured), provides valuable information on Irish mythology. Irish literature of the period was not without influence on later European literature. The theme of tragic love, as illustrated in the legend of Tristan and Isolde, is thought to derive ultimately from Irish sources, such as the tales of Deirdre and Naoise, Liadan and Cuirithir, and Grainne and Diarmaid. A genre of adventure stores was the ultimate source of the Arthurian legends, while accounts of fantastic voyages, such as Immram Curaig Maile Duin (The Voyage of Mail Duin's Boat) and the Latin Navigatio Brendani (The Voyage of Brendan), captured the imagination of medieval Europe. The Middle Irish Period The period of the Viking incursions and settlements, when political strife was endemic, is frequently regarded as a time of literary stagnation; this is the Middle Irish period. Certainly, it lacks the freshness and vitality of the Old Irish period but it produced, nevertheless, a substantial body of literature. This includes the long sequence of 150 cantos on biblical themes called Saltair na Rann (The Psalter of Verses), a work believed to have been completed in 988 by Aibertach Mac Coillte Dobrain, though this is disputed by some scholars; the historical poems of Flann Mainistrech (c 1000 - 1056); the massive verse and prose compilations of legend and speculation about famous places, called collectively Dinnsenchas (Place - lore); adaptations to the form of Irish prose sagas of Latin epics such as Vergil's Aeneid, and Lucan's Bellum Civile. To the end of the period belongs the powerful satire on monks and literary men, Aislinge Meic Conglinne (The Dream of Mac Conglinne). The Early Modern Period Following the social and political changes brought about by the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in 1169, there begins what is classified as the Early Modern, or Classical Modern, period in Irish language and literature. It lasted until the 17th century. It is characterized primarily by a new more modern standard literary language associated principally with the secular schools of language and literature which were maintained by professional poets or scholars, called filidh in Irish and frequently bards in English. Verse compositions by these professional poets form a substantial part of the literature which is extant from the period. Encomiastic addresses to their patrons among the aristocracy, as that was the poets' chief function, predominate; but the extant material includes much religious and personal poetry also. Among the more eminent of the class were: Donnchadh Mor O Dalaigh (1175-1244); Muireadhach Albanach O Dalaigh (1180-1250); Gofraidh Fionn O Dalaigh (1320-1387), who was regarded by members of the profession who came after his as the finest exponent of their craft; Tadhg Og O Huiginn (d 1448); Tadhg Dall O Huiginn (1550-1591); Eochaidh O hEoghusa (1567-1617); and, one of the last in the tradition, Fearflatha O Gnimh (1602-1640). One may deduce, even from this much abbreviated list, that the profession was largely hereditary. The Early Modern period produced the earliest examples of Fionn or Ossianic literature. Fionn was the legendary leader of a warrior band, the Fianna; his son was Oisin. The earliest reference to Fionn is in a text which belongs to the 8th or 9th centuries, but the first full treatment of the Fionn theme in extent literature is the very comprehensive Agallamh na Seanorach (The Conversation of the Old Men), which belongs to the end of the 12th century. It is a compilation of prose tales and narrative and lyrical verse, unified by the device of supposing that Oisin, or a fellow-warrior Caoilte, survived to meet St Patrick, travel the country with him and recount to him the exploits and experiences which linked Fionn and his Fianna to the places they visited. Thus, like many other compositions in the traditional literature, it reflects the persistent influence of the Dinnsenchas. The Fionn themes continued until the 18th century to inspire verse and prose compositions; in 1750 Micheal Coimin composed his Laoi Oisiin ar Thir na nOg (Oisin's Song about the Land of Youth), which is probably the last literary composition in the cycle. The Fionn themes were also extremely popular in the oral story-telling tradition and survived in that medium until the 20th century. The Fionn literature first became known internationally through the Ossianic poems of James McPherson (1736-96), whose work was inspired by contact with the oral tradition in Gaelic Scotland. The Early Modern period also saw the adaptation of much narrative and pious matter from external sources, mainly French and English, and love poetry in the amour courtoil genre was very successfully practised by professional poets and members of the aristocracy. Noblemen, some of whose compositions survive, are: the third Earl of Desmond, Gearoid Mac Gearailt (1335-1398); Lord of Tyrconnell, Maghnus O Domhnaill (1500-1563); and Sir Piaras Feiriteir (1610-1653). The Post-Classical Period The Early Modern period came rapidly to an end following the overthrow of the Gaelic order in the 17th century. The transition is marked in prose by compilations intended to conserve the record of Gaelic civilisation, such as the great synthesis Annala Rioghachta Eireann (Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland) written in 1632-1636 under the supervision of Micheal O Cleirigh (1575-1645), or Seathrun Ceitinn's narrative history Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (Basic Knowledge about Ireland). Seathrun Ceitinn (1570-1645) was deprecated as an amateur by professional historians of the native tradition, but he was a great master of prose and his work remained extremely popular until recent times; it still exerts some influence on Irish prose style. As for verse, the transition was marked by an abrupt decline of patronage for poets and by the replacement of the classical syllable-count metres by stress-count metres called amhran. The amhran metres appear fully fledged, in various patterns and frequently in conjunction with an arcane style. They can hardly, therefore, represent the development of a more simple medium for a less sophisticated audience, as has sometimes been suggested, and their provenance is still a matter of controversy. The most prominent poets of the period were Seathrun Ceitinn, Padraigin Haicead (1600-1654), a quarrelsome Dominican who was much involved in the politics of his day, and Daibhi O Bruadair (1625-1698), who strove in vain to maintain the traditional status of the professional poet and wrote bitterly about the changes which were occurring in Irish society. Aogan O Rathaille (1670-1728), regarded as one of the greatest poets in the Irish canon, was one of the last to receive some patronage for his work, but it scarcely amounted to more than charity. Indeed his unfortunate benefactors, whatever their attitude to his compositions may have been, were hardly in a position to provide him with the estates and fees which the professional poets of the Early Modern period would have received without question. The 18th and 19th Centuries Even after literary patronage had totally ceased in the 18th century, Irish literature continued to be cultivated by members of the clergy, farmers, artisans, and travelling schoolmasters. Such people diligently maintained the manuscript tradition and composed topical and personal verse, sermons and pious material, and some prose narrative. They included Sean O Neachtain (1655-1728) and his son Tadhg (c 1680-c 1750); Eoghan O Caoimh (1656-1726); Sean O Murchadha (1700-1762); and, perhaps most prolific of all, Michael Og O Longain (1766-1837). Industrious scribes and sober hardworking people, who devoted what energy they could in adverse times to the preservation and cultivation of Irish literature, they were overshadowed in the popular imagination by the more rakish and more talented characters who for many typify the period. Such were: Peadar O Doirnin (1704-1768); Aindrias Mac Craith (1708-1795); Donnchadh Rua Mac Conmara (1715-1810); Eoghan Rua O Suilleabhain (1748-1784); and pre-eminently, the mathematics master Brian Merriman (1747-1805), who wrote the long poem Cuirtan Mhean Oiche (The Midnight Court) which has attracted more numerous and illustrious translators than perhaps any other composition in Irish. Merriman and Raftery (Antoine O Reachtabhra, 1784-1835), or indeed others of earlier date, have been described as the last representatives of the tradition. By 'tradition' in this context is meant the concept of literature and the themes and styles of versification which had predominated, at least since the end of the Early Modern period. The reality is not quite so clear-cut. Though the 19th century was a period of disruption and decay for the Irish language, Irish writing in the traditional mode was not abruptly abandoned. Micheal Og O Longain, for instance, lived until 1837. Besides him, at least the following deserve mention: Sean O Coileain (1754-1817), a somewhat pedantic poet who is said to have been inspired by Gray's 'Elegy' to write his best-known poem Macnhamh an Duine Dhoiliosaigh (The Thoughts of a Dejected Person); Amhlaoibh O Suilleabhain (1780-1837), whose diary for the years 1827-1835 is the sole surviving example of the genre in Irish literature; Tomas Rua O Suilleabhain (1785-1848), a great supporter in his verse of Daniel O' Connell; Art Mac Bionaid (1793-1879), a stonemason who in his day enjoyed a high reputation as a scribe and scholar; Aodh Mac Donaill (1802-1867) who, in addition to verse, wrote a treatise on natural history; Niocalas O Cearnaigh (1829-74), an industrious writer and collector who, however, left some confusion in his wake by ascribing to earlier authors many of his own compositions: indeed, in the 20th century Micheal O Gaoithin (1904-1974) is best regarded as a late exponent of the same tradition. Raftery, in fact, did not so much belong to this strand of the tradition as to that of folk-poetry which was probably alive in all periods. However, folk-poets of the late 18th and 19th centuries were chronologically well-placed to ensure that their compositions came to the attention of the folklorists of the Irish revival. Raftery (1784-1835) owes his renown to the rather sentimental edition of his verse, Songs Ascribed to Raftery, published in 1903 by Douglas Hyde who gathered the material from the oral tradition. Other equally commendable exponents of the folk-verse tradition during the same period were: Diarmaid O Suilleabhain (1760-1847); Maire Bhui Ni Laoghaire (1770-1830); Sean O Duinnle (d. 1897); Micheal Ruiseal (d. 1928). To this category of primarily oral literature must also be assigned Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire, Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill's (1748-1800) powerful lament for her husband Art O Laoghaire who was killed, a victim of the Penal Laws, in 1773. The formal caoineadh (lament) belonged entirely to the oral medium but this particularly, no doubt outstanding, example survived long enough in the folk memory to have been written down by 19th century collectors. No other complete example has been preserved. The Irish Revival and Aftermath As the Irish revival gathered momentum and a wider readership was cultivated, a new generation of Irish writers began to look contemporary European models. Peadar O Laoghaire (1839-1920), while not the most imaginative of writers, was a major influence in the development of a new literary diction. Padraic O Conaire (1882-1928) and Padraic Pearse (1879-1916) introduced the modern short story which became a very popular genre in Modern Irish. Among its more effective practitioners are: Liam O'Flaherty (1897-1984), who wrote mainly in English; Seosamh Mac Grianna (b. 1900), Mairtin O Cadhain (1907-1970); Donncha O Ceileachair (1918-1960); Sean Mac Mathuna (b. 1936) and Padraic Breathnach (b. 1942). The modern novel has not been as thoroughly cultivated. Peadar O Laoghaire wrote a folk-novel Seadna and a historical novel Niamh, the former being more successful than the latter. Seosamh O Grianna (1891-1969) wrote romantic novels which gained a wide popularity. More serious novelists are Mairtin O Cadhain, whose Cre na Cille contains arguably the best Irish prose written this century; others include Eoghan O Tuairisc (1919-1982); Padraig Ua Maoileoin (b. 1913); Donall MacAmhlaigh (1926-1989); and Breandan O hEithir (b. 1930), also an outstanding essayist. Drama also has its exponents; Micheal Mac Liammoir (1899-1978); Seamus O Neill (1910-1981); Eoghan O Tuairisc; Sean O Tuama (b. 1926); and Criostoir O Floinn (b. 1927). Modern poetry, which began with Padraic Pearse and his contemporaries, reached its full maturity in mid-century in the works of Mairtin O Direain (1910-1988); Sean O Riordain (1917-1977); and Maire Mhac as tSaoi (b. 1922). It continues to be the most viable genre in contemporary Irish literature and foremost among its present-day exponents are Tomas Mac Siomoin (b. 1938); Michael Davitt (b. 1950); Liam O Muirthile (b. 1950); Gabriel Rosenstock (b. 1949); Caithlin Maude (1941-1982); Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill (b. 1952); to whom should be added Micheal O hAirtneide (b. 1941) and Micheal O Siadhail (b. 1947), both of whom have also published in English. There is at present a new flowering of Irish literature. Non-fiction especially is in a very healthy state: superb biographers such as Leon O Broin (1902-1990) work beside such splendid essayist as Risteard O Glaisne (b. 1929) and historical and current affairs commentator Nollaig O Gadhra (b. 1943. For the present, therefore, the tradition which has lasted unbroken for more than fourteen centuries is far from ended. IRISH LITERATURE IN ENGLISH Irish writing in the English language is called Anglo-Irish Literature to distinguish it from classical English Literature on the one side and Irish Literature on the other. The sense of tension in the word Anglo-Irish reflects a question of national identity which has energised that literary tradition from William Molineux's Case of Ireland Stated (1698) to the Report of the New Ireland Forum of 1983, from Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) to Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds (1939). Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) was a contemporary of Aogan o Rathallle, last of Gaelic Ireland's dynastic poets. Though the two lived on the same island their worlds hardly touched, and there is irony in the fact that one tradition was born while the other expired. O Rathaille's theme was the decay of the old Gaelic Catholic order; Swift's theme was the humiliation of the Irish Protestant nation at the hands of the London parliament. Neither writer heard the other's voice. Yet the development of an Irish literary tradition was to involve the mutual discovery and interpenetration of these two nations, their languages, aspirations and culture. The first great development in the 18th century, colonial, period was almost totally Protestant, its temper classical, its perspectives cosmopolitan, its focus London with its clubs, theatres and town houses. It could be said that the English comedy of manners from the Restoration to the rise of Romanticism was the creation of brilliant Irishmen, George Farquhar, William Congreve, Charles Macklin, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The only sign of 'Irishness' in these writers was their affection for that comic personage - bibulous, irascible, generous, eloquent and sentimental - who came to be known as the 'stage Irishman'. These Irish writers were typically educated at Irish Protestant grammar schools and Trinity College Dublin. They gravitated to London, centre of the literary universe, and quickly became absorbed into that imperial consciousness. Swift, Steele, Burke and Sheridan were active in British politics. When Burke wrote about the miseries of Ireland it was in terms of a global responsibility that took in the French Revolution and the revolt of the American colonies. It was the duty of Augustan literature 'with extensive view to Survey Mankind, from China to Peru', and that perspective is reflected in the essays of Steele and the fiction and poetry of Goldsmith - though some critics have seen the withering of an Irish peasant community in his Deserted Village (1770). With Swift it was different. His appointment as Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, in 1714 at once marked the end of his hopes for high ecclesiastical office and the start of this passionate involvement in Irish politics. The problem of Anglo-Irish identity has seldom been better expressed than in his Drapier's Letters, where he attacked Westminster for imposing its will on the Dublin parliament: 'Am I a Free-man in England, and do I became a slave in six hours by crossing the Channel?.' The feeling of resentment against England was a theme for pamphlet, satire and ballad through the century until the granting of legislative independence to the Irish parliament in 1982. The new 'Patriot Parliament' brought not only a flowering of political thought and oratory - Grattan, Flood and Curran being the exemplary figures bu a surge of scholarly and poetic interest in that Gaelic Ireland that had seemed to be dying on its feet in the figure of AogO Rathaille at the beginning of the century. Charlotte Brooke's Reliques of Irish Poetry made available authentic Ossianic poems which had been only glimpsed in the famous forgeries of James MacPherson a generation previously. Edward Bunting published his Ancient Music of Ireland in 1796 and Thomas Moore was setting words to these airs in his famous Irish Melodies before the turn of the century. The spirit of the French Revolution and of the Romantic Movement in literature fuelled the patriotic balladry of the Irish rebellion in 1798. But the sense of optimism and creativity which characterised these last years of the century was crushed by the Act of Union (1800) which abolished the Irish parliament and reduced the level of cultural activity. The decades that followed were dominated by the 'regional novel'. Its pioneer was Maria Edgeworth whose powerful influence Scott acknowledged on his own regional fiction of the Scottish Highlands - daughter of an Irish Protestan landlord. In her Irish novels, most notably Castle Rackrent (1800) and The Absentee (1812) she addressed the vexed problem of Anglo-Irish identity, especially the role of the landlord divided between the lure of London and the responsibilities of his stewardship. Apart from their literary intentions these novels were directed at an English readership in an attempt to explain the condition of Ireland. Her lead was followed by Lady Morgan, and by the Catholic novelists. Gerald Griffin, John and Michael Banim and the prolific William Carleton, born to Irish-speaking parents in Tyrone in 1794. His Traits and Stories of Irish the Peasantry provides the most authentic and vivid account of life among Ireland's rural poor anywhere available. Throughout the first half of the 19th century there was steady work in Gaelic manuscript study, folklore and translation by scholars like John O'Donovan, Eugene O'Curry and Sir Charles Petrie, and such poets as Jeremiah Joseph Callanan, Edward Walsh, Samuel Ferguson and James Clarence Mangan. Their activities centred largely on the Ordnance Survey of the 1830s the Dublin University Magazine and later the Nation newspaper; this had been founded in 1842 to renew the cause of Irish nationalism which had in a sense been shelved during O'Connell's campaign for Catholic Emancipation and later for Repeal of the Union. The Nation, addressing itself to an indigenous Irish readership and insisting on the concept of autonomous Irish nationhood, could be said to have heralded the end of 'regionalist' writing. The cultural dimensions of nationality had by now been adumbrated in a substantial body of Irish poetry based on native sources, historical, social and mythological. Therefore, when William Butler Yeats found himself at the head of an Irish literary renaissance in the last years of the century he claimed the Nation poets as his cultural ancestors: Know, that I would accounted be True brother of a company That sang to sweeten Ireland's wrong Ballad and story, rann and song Nor may I less be counted one With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson The two most arresting events of the Irish literary renaissance were, arguably, the performance of Yeats's Countess Cathleen and Edward Martyn's The Heather Field on a double bill in Dublin in 1899, and the publication of George Moore's The Untilled Field (1903). Both events involve the interpenetration of the two cultures, both have resonances well beyond Ireland, and both contain in embryo the essential features of the movement. Yeats's play, performed by an English company of actors, explored a traditional Irish theme; Martyn's brought Ibsen's social realism to bear on Irish rural life. Moore, on the other hand, had returned to Ireland having made himself a reputation for adapting Zola's naturalism to the English novel in Esther Waters. He was approached by the Gaelic League - recently founded by Douglas Hyde with the aim of reviving Irish as a spoken language - to write a number of simple stories which might be translated into Irish to act as models for its fledgeling writers. As he proceeded with the task he realised that he could do for Ireland what his friend, Turgenev - an exiled landlord like himself in Paris - had done for Russia in his Sportsman's Sketchbook. Moore remained in Ireland for the first decade of the century, long enough to write his finest novel. The Lake, and to compose his imaginative history of the literary revival, Ave, Salve, Vale, which began to appear in 1911. Meanwhile, the theatre movement prospered. It found a permanent home in the Abbey Theatre in 1904, and by then a body of distinguished playwrights had emerged under its auspices - John M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Padraic Colum and Yeats himself. Synge was the greatest and most controversial: his Playboy of the Western World caused a famous riot on its production in 1907. His death in 1909 ended the first great phase in the Abbey Theatre's history. In poetry Yeats moved from that early mode of the 'Celtic Twilight' which had reached its climax in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899) to the engaged, muscular and combative poetry of The Green Helmet and Responsibilities (1914), whose title betokens a strenuous involvement with social and political issues. His contemporary, George Russell ('A.E.'), continued in that vein of Celtic mysticism which he had shared with the early Yeats, though his 'first disciple', James Stephens, revealed a more adventurous and experimental spirit. In 1912 he published, side by side with his most mystical volume of poems, The Hill of Vision, his novel of the Dublin slums, The Charwoman's Daughter and his classic fantasy, The Crock of Gold. His experiments with prose fiction showed the way to a succession of Irish fantasists including Flann O'Brien, Mervyn Wall, Eimar O'Duffy, even Joyce himself, as in the Celtic grotesqueries of the Cyclops episode of Ulysses. Joyce chose the expatriate route towards his chosen territory, what his hero Stephen Dedalus had called 'silence, exile and cunning'. The route had already been taken by Boucicault whose witty Irish melodramas like The Colleen Bawn and The Shaughraun relied to a great extent on the stock figure of "the stage Irishman"; and by Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw who had dominated the London stage in the 1890s. After his dazzling success with The Importance of Being Earnest and The Portrait of Dorian Gray Wilde died tragically in the last year of the century. Shaw continued to entertain London with his plays, prefaces and conversation for another fifty years. Joyce's devious and precarious course took him to Trieste, Pola, Rome, Paris and Zurich while he created a body of prose fiction that was to transform the novel. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man dramatised the inner consciousness of the growing artist with a suppleness and intensity of style never matched before or since in the bildungsroman. Ulysses (1922) deployed the mythic outline of Homer's Odyssey to make its hero, a Dublin Jew named Leopold Bloom, the universal modern citizen and Dublin the archetypal metropolis of western civilisation. Joyce's relentless experiment with language and form went on to make Finnegan's Wake at once the most brilliant and impenetrable prose narrative in the history of literature. The short story continued to be a favourite vehicle for Irish writing. Daniel Corkery's first collection, A Munster Twilight (1916) affectionately explored the ethos of his native province. His Hounds of Banba celebrated the guerilla warfare of the War of Independence in which his fellow Corkmen, Frank O'Connor and Sean O Faolain, were actively involved. Their first volumes, O'Connor's Guests of the Nation and O Faolain's Midsummer Nights Madness in the early 1930s cast a colder eye on the armed struggle and on the quality of life in the new state. Beside them loomed the novelist and short story writer Liam O'Flaherty whose vision of elemental life on the Aran Islands brought a new lyricism to the form. Mary Lavin's Tales from Bective Bridge (1942), with its passionate contemplation of life in the Irish midlands, revived a sense of organic form which looked back to Joyce and forward to James Plunkett's evocations of Dublin in his collection, The Trusting and the Maimed (1959). The tradition of the 'Protestant Nation' which Somerville and Ross had inherited from Edgeworth, Lever and Lover and developed in their witty Irish R.M. series found its next great exponent in Elizabeth Bowen (1900-1973) whose Irish novels, A World of Love and The Last September, explore the life style of the Cork gentry in a changing social and political world. The line continued through the light satiric fiction of Christine Longford and W. J. White to the brilliant short novels of Jennifer Johnston and the Irish fiction of William Trevor, both of whom reflect the contemporary tragedy of Northern Ireland. The second great phase of the Irish theatre began with Sean O'Caseys 'three blazing masterpieces', The Shadow of a Gunman, The Plough and the Stars and Juno and the Paycock in the 1920s. In the same decade Denis Johnston effectively introduced the techniques of Expressionism in The Old Lady Says No. Other notable dramatists of the time were Lennox Robinson, T.C. Murray, Paul Vincent Farrell and a little later, Walter Macken and M. J. Molloy. The contemporary Irish theatre also displays both talent and vitality. Brian Friel who had already achieved an international reputation with Philadelphia, Here I Come (1964), reached new heights of excellence with Translations and The Faith Healer and Making History (1988). Thomas Murphy, who also had an early success with Whistle in the Dark (1961), scored a palpable hit with his brilliantly experimental Gigii Concert (1983). His Bailegangaire (1985) was given its premiere by Druid Theatre Co. with Siobhan McKenna. This was followed by Too Late for Logic in 1989. Hugh Leonard, one of the few to conquer London and New York at the same time has crowned his achievement with two brilliant sister plays, Da and A Life. (Da has now been filmed). Other notable contemporary playwrights are Frank McGuinness with Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme (1985) and Innocence (1986); Michael Harding with Strawboys (1987) and Una Pooka (1989); Dermot Bolger with The Lament for Arthur Clear (1989) and Blinded by the Light (1990). The most daring of experimental dramatists has been Tom Maclntyre whose theatrical rendering of Kavanagh's Great Hunger on the one hand, and of the inner workings of Swift's creative psyche in The Bearded Lady on the other have called forth the Abbey's full resources of dance, mime, music, geature, costume and decor. The work of Thomas Kilroy (Talbot's Box), J. B. Keane (The Field), Graham Reid (The Death of Humpty Dumpty) and Bernard Farrell (I do not Like Thee Doctor Fell) continue to sustain the liveliest period of Irish theatre since the death of Synge. After the death of Yeats the world of poetry was divided between Austin Clarke and Patrick Kavanagh. Austin Clarke (1896-1974) moved into his great period in 1938 with his volume of lyrics, Night and Morning. His poetry was especially notable for its range of prosodic resource and the intensity with which it rendered what he called 'the drama of racial conscience'. Kavanagh (1904-1967) is considered by many to have written the greatest long poem of contemporary Ireland in The Great Hunger with its tragic hero, a small farmer in Monaghan. Three outstanding poets emerged in the 1960s, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague and Richard Murphy. Kinsella's most ambitious poem is Nightwalker (1968), a painful examination of conscience, personal and national, after fifty years of independence. Richard Murphy wrote a major poem in The Battle of Aughri (1968) which explores the poet's own sense of racial identity - he had ancestors fighting on both sides - through the last great symbolic battle on Irish soil. In The Rough Field, John Montague dramatises the historic tensions that underlie the present conflict in Northern Ireland. A similar historic concern is found in Brendan Kennelly's epic comedy, Cromwell (1984) based on the Irish wars of the 17th century. Seamus Heaney (b. 1939), now Professor of Poetry at Oxford, is the most famous living Irish poet, noted for his lyric evocation of the Ulster countryside with its tragic deposit of history. Among his works are Field Work (1979) and Station Island (1984). The towering figure in fiction as well as drama after the death of Joyce was the Nobel Prize winner, Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) whose first novel, Murphy (1938), launched him on an exploration, at once bleak and hilarious, of humanity's absurdity sub specie aeternitatis, reaching its climax with the great trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. Other versions of the absurd were pursued by his contemporary, Flann O'Brien (1911-1966) in At Swim Two Birds and The Third Policeman and by Mervyn Wall (b. 1908) in his two Fursey books and Leaves for the Burning. Benedict Kiely and Brian Moore both began their writing careers in the fifties and have since kept step in the range and variety of their themes and their experiment with fictional form. In the sixties the appearance of The Barracks and The Dark singled John McGahern out as a remarkable novelist, while Aidan Higgins, in Langrishe, Go Down, returned memorably to the theme of the 'big house' in decay. Edna O'Brien with The Country Girls and The Lonely Girls handled the theme of female sexuality with startling candour and insight. The seventies saw Francis Stuart's crowning achievement in the novel, Black List, Section H, a psychological self-portrait of great intensity. It was also in this decade that John Banville published the first of his subtle, reflexive fictions, Long Lankin. He has since completed his trilogy, Doctor Copernicus, Kepler and The Newton Letter, in which he dramatises the birth of modernism in human consciousness. His recent novel The Book of Evidence was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1989. In 1987 Christopher Nolan won the prestigous Whitbread Biography Award with Under the Eye of the Clock. His play Torchlight and Laser Beams was subsequently staged at the Edinburgh International Festival. Publishing One of the most healthy developments of recent years has been the emergence of a thriving Irish book publishing industry. It is valued at about IR pounds 20 millions p.a. About half of this is educational publishing and the other half falls into the general sector. Being a bilingual country, with its literature in the Irish and English languages, Irish publishing is carried on in both languages. After the Second World War, there was very little Irish publishing in English. One of the pioneers was Dolmen Press led by Liam Miller in the early 1950s which published the works of the poets Thomas Kinsella, Richard Murphy and John Montague. Dolmen achieved very high standards of design and lay-out. The Irish University Press had been a large house and it was wound up in 1984, thereby liberating a lot of trained personnel onto the market. The effect of this closure on Irish publishing has been compared to a supernova explosion, giving rise to a number of new stars. The new houses founded in the 1970s and '80s included Poolbeg, Wolfhound, O'Brien, Blackstaff, Brandon and Lilliput. They are dedicated in particular to the publishing of literature. Throughout the 1980s they continued to grow. In 1988 there was published the study: "Developing Publishing in Ireland: Cothuna Foilsitheoireachta in Eirinn" in which the eminent British publisher, Charles Pick, reviewed the performance of a number of small Irish houses. The report found that there is considerable scope for growth in Irish publishing particularly if the potential of export is concentrated upon. Among the houses which Mr. Pick surveyued were the fast-growing women's publisher. Attic Press, and the Irish-language house Coisceim, as well as Wolfhound, Brandon and O'Brien. The Arts Council commissioned this study and along with Coras Trachtala (the Irish Export Board) and the Industrial Development Authority has provided grant-aid to assist the growth of publishing. In the 1990s a greater involvement by Irish houses in the British and European markets is expected to be a feature. In regard to Europe Irish publishers are particularly interested in the promotion of translations.