William Allingham was born on 19 March 1824 in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, a small market town at the mouth of the River Erne, and died on 18 November 1889 at Hampstead in London. His literary reputation rests above all on a handful of extraordinarily durable lyrics: poems of rivers, birds, childhood, fairy lore, village life, and remembered Irish landscapes. Yet his career was broader and more complicated than the…
“I have been an Official all my life, without the least turn for it. I never could attain a true official manner, which is highly artificial and handles trifles with ludicrously disproportionate gravity.”
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Irish Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Sorrow, Fear
James Ballantine was born on 11 June 1806 in the West Port of Edinburgh, that atmospheric warren of narrow wynds and ancient tenements huddled beneath the towering shadow of Edinburgh Castle. The air there carried the mingled scents of brewing malt, woodsmoke, and the damp promise of the nearby Meadows, a place where history and everyday grit intertwined like threads in a tartan. His father, also named James, was a b…
Neighbourhood:
Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Joy
