On a June morning in 1844, at Dowth Castle near the banks of the River Boyne in County Meath, Ireland, a boy was born into a world of contradictions—a world of ancient Celtic splendour and modern British subjugation, of rich oral tradition and stony colonial reality. That boy, John Boyle O'Reilly, would grow to embody those contradictions more fully than perhaps any Irish-American figure of the nineteenth century: so…
“The right of revolution is sacred. It is the right of self-defence against tyranny.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Irish Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Sorrow
2 live poems · Irish Gaelic
Antoine Ó Raifteirí, more commonly known in English as Anthony Raftery, was born around 30 March 1779 at Killedan, near Kiltimagh in County Mayo, and died on 25 December 1835 at Killeeneen, near Craughwell in County Galway. He occupies a singular place in Irish literary history: he was a blind, impoverished, itinerant poet who belonged to the living oral culture of Irish-speaking rural Ireland, yet he has also become…
“I am a poet seeking shelter.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Irish Poets, Poet-Musicians
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
