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…
“For all time to come, the freedom and purity of the press are the test of national virtue and independence. No writer for the press, however humble, is free from the burden of keeping his purpose high and his integrity white.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Irish Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Sorrow
In the pantheon of Irish literary figures who shaped the cultural renaissance of the early twentieth century, Joseph Campbell occupies a unique position as both a guardian of ancient Gaelic traditions and a modernizing force in Irish poetry. Born on July 15, 1879, in Belfast, and dying on June 6, 1944, Campbell lived through one of the most tumultuous and transformative periods in Irish history. His life spanned the…
“My heart goes out to the playing and singing folk, the folk who are forever on the roads.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets, Irish Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
