It was only with John Hewitt's research into the rural bards of Ulster during the middle decades of the twentieth century that any serious retrospective assessment of James Orr's poetry began to be undertaken. A few articles about him appeared in journals during the nineteenth century and allusions to his experiences were made in local histories; these will be considered in later chapters which reconstruct Orr's life. While it is clear that Orr the poet was affectionately remembered, even venerated, for some time after his death, one must ask if there is any evidence that his reputation extended beyond Belfast and its heavily Scots-settled hinterland where he had acquired his audience. Apparently this was indeed the case. Research for the present study has uncovered an article that dates from 1829, two years before his monument was raised at Ballycarry. The Irish Shield and Monthly Milesian, an American journal aimed at Irish migrants and their descendants, presented to its readers an apocryphal account of his life along with a selection of his poetry.

In Ireland, Orr was sufficiently well-regarded to merit a place in several important Irish anthologies, including The Literary Remains of the United Irishmen(1887), compiled by R. R. Madden (1798–1886) and The Cabinet of Irish Literature (1879–80), the great compendium edited by Charles Read (1841–78).