Chapter Three - The Anglo-Irish Literary Tradition
from Part I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
Summary
That is also the secret of the Irish Literary Movement in English. It gets its inspiration from Irish tradition, Irish convention, Irish speech, and even though it expresses itself in English it is an English which is half Irish. Its whole spirit is the spirit of an Ireland which is looking back to Eoghan Ruadh and Keating…
It takes all sorts to make a nation, the literary sort as well as the political sort.
In reacting adversely to plays thought unduly unfavourable to the nation, its language and people, nationalists found much that was offensive in the staged works of the Anglo-Irish literary tradition that, with the Gaelic League, inspired Ireland's cultural revival during a richly creative era in its history. Yet despite enjoying early successes like its Gaelic League counterpart, Ireland's literary revival was eyed with suspicion, even outright hostility by many cultural nationalists. Chief among them in his 1905 The Philosophy of Irish Ireland (a book consisting of articles fi rst appearing in the New Ireland Review during 1898–1900), D. P. Moran gave voice to that side of cultural nationalism, which saw Irish identity as exclusively Catholic and Gaelic. In his view, not only did the literary revival add nothing to Irish culture, but, more correctly, it represented the last expiratory gasp of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- P. S. O'Hegarty (1879–1955)Sinn Féin Fenian, pp. 43 - 58Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2010