Gerald Griffin was born in Limerick on 12 December 1803 and died in Cork on 12 June 1840, before his thirty-seventh birthday. His life was brief, restless, and divided between two vocations that seemed, in his own mind, increasingly irreconcilable: literature and religious service. In less than two decades of serious writing, he became one of the most distinctive Irish novelists of the early nineteenth century, a poe…
“I often long to see her, that I often think of her with gratitude and affection, and that the longer I live the deeper do I value her early love and care.”
Neighbourhood:
Irish Poets, Romantic Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Tenderness, Wonder
Oliver Goldsmith, born probably on 10 November 1728 and dead on 4 April 1774, lived only forty-five years, yet he became one of the most various, humane, and enduring voices in eighteenth-century English literature. He was an Irishman who made his reputation in London, a clergyman’s son who never settled into a profession, a medical student who rarely practised medicine, a chronically indebted writer who produced som…
“Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.”
Neighbourhood:
Augustan Poets, Irish Poets, Light Verse Poets, Nature Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
