“It is a rare anthology that offers no surprising blooms in its gathering, and this commodious handbook to the Irish Revival by two distinguished scholars, with extracts from creative, critical and political writings, is no exception.” —James Joyce Quarterly

"This book is indispensable for an understanding of the cultural revolution that preceded and in key ways helped shape the political revolution in twentieth-century Ireland. For anyone interested in Irish culture, history, literature, and art, I can think of no better place to start than here. Highly recommended." —Christopher B. Fox, professor of English and director of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame

"My hope is that in reading these pieces readers will be encouraged to go on to engage with the writers involved in more depth. What the editors have done is to have saved for us the evidence of some of the most sensitive, idealistic, often combative people of an extraordinary set of decades that ended a century of devastation and began a new century that presented both a promise and a set of conflicts whose consequences would endure into our own times." —Michael D. Higgins, The President of Ireland, from the book

Declan Kiberd is the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies and professor of English and Irish language and literature at the University of Notre Dame.

P. J. Mathews is associate professor in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin.

Chronology

Acknowledgements

Permissions

Publisher’s Introduction

Introduction

Part 1. A COUNTRY IN PARALYSIS?

• J.M. Synge, ‘A Landlord’s Garden in County Wicklow’
• Emily Lawless—from: ‘Famine Roads and Famine Memories’
• Peig Sayers, A Battle That Never Happened
• Douglas Hyde—from: ‘The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland’
• D.P. Moran—from: ‘The Future of the Irish Nation’
• James Joyce—from: ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’
• Augusta Gregory—from: ‘Ireland Real, and Ideal’
• Michael Davitt—from: The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland

Part 2. A THOUGHT REVIVAL

• Standish O’Grady—from: ‘A Wet Day’
• Standish O’Grady—from: ‘The Great Enchantment’
• W.B. Yeats, O’Grady as Elegist for Anglo-Ireland
• Alice Milligan, ‘When I Was a Little Girl’
• J.M. Synge, ‘The Irish Intellectual Movement’
• John Eglinton—from: A Thought Revival
• George Russell (AE)—from: ‘Village Libraries’
• Constance Markiewicz—from: ‘Women, Ideals and the Nation’
• Mary Colum—from: Life and the Dream

Part 3. MOVEMENTS AND MANIFESTOS

• Michael Cusack, ‘A Word about Irish Athletics’
• Objects of the Irish National Literary Society from: The Gaelic League Annual Report
• Horace Plunkett, The Aims of the Co-operative Movement
• Opening Statement of the Irish Literary Theatre
• Objects of Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland)
• from: Manifesto of the Ulster Literary Theatre
• from: Report on the Inaugural Feis na nGleann
• Sinn Féin Resolutions
• from: Pearse’s letter to Eoin MacNeill on the founding of St. Enda’s School
• Ellice Pilkington—from: ‘The United Irishwomen: Their Work’
• ‘Ulster’s Solemn League and Covenant’
• The Constitution of the Irish Citizen Army
• Constitution of The Irish Volunteers
• Cumann na mBan (Irish Women’s Council)
• Poblacht Na hÉireann (Proclamation of the Irish Republic)
• The Democratic Programme of the First Dáil Éireann from: The Anglo-Irish Treaty

Part 4. LANGUAGE REVIVAL

• Eugene O’Growney—from: Preface to Simple Lessons in Irish
• Louis Paul-Dubois—from: Contemporary Ireland
• Robert Atkinson—from: ‘The Irish Language and Irish Intermediate Education’
• W.B. Yeats—from: ‘The Academic Class and the Agrarian Revolution’
• George Moore—from: ‘Literature and the Irish Language’
• An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire—from: My Own Story
• Frederick Ryan—from: ‘Is the Gaelic League a Progressive Force?’
• Stephen Gwynn—from: ‘In Praise of the Gaelic League’
• J.M. Synge, ‘Can We Go Back Into Our Mother’s Womb?’
• Patrick Pearse, A Gaelic Modernism?

Part 5. AN IRISH LITERATURE IN ENGLISH?

• Stopford A. Brooke—from: ‘The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue’
• Douglas Hyde—from: ‘The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland’
• Douglas Hyde—from: ‘A Óganaigh an Chúil Cheangailte\Ringleted Youth of My Love’
• Mary Colum—from: Life and the Dream
• Patrick Pearse, Letter to the Editor, An Claidheamh Soluis
• D.P. Moran—from: ‘The Battle of Two Civilisations’
• W.B. Yeats—from: ‘The Literary Movement in Ireland’
• W.B. Yeats, Hiberno-English
• William Rooney, ‘Is there an Anglo-Irish Literature?’
• Ethna Carbery, ‘Mo Bhuachaill Cael-Dubh\My Black Slender Boy’
• Thomas MacDonagh—from: Literature in Ireland ‘The Irish Note’

Part 6. THEATRE MATTERS

• Augusta Gregory—from: Our Irish Theatre
• Harry Phibbs, ‘Irish National Clubs 1900-1907’
• Alice Milligan—from: ‘Staging and Costume in Irish Drama’
• John Eglinton, ‘What Should be the Subjects of a National Drama?’
• James Joyce—from: ‘The Day of the Rabblement’
• Frank J. Fay—from: ‘The Irish Literary Theatre’
• Augusta Gregory and W.B. Yeats—from: Cathleen Ní Houlihan
• Thomas Keohler—from: ‘The Irish National Theatre’
• W.B. Yeats—from: ‘Opening Speech at the Abbey Theatre Playboy Debate’
• Eugene O’Neill—interview: ‘On the Irish Players’
• Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh—from: The Splendid Years
• W.B. Yeats—from: ‘The Irish Dramatic Movement’
• W.B. Yeats—interview: ‘State Endowment for the Abbey Theatre’
• Sean O’Casey—from: The Plough and the Stars

Part 7. THE NATURAL WORLD

• W.B. Yeats, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’
• J.M. Synge—from: ‘Autobiography’
• Emily Lawless—from: ‘North Clare: Leaves from a Diary’
• William Rooney—from: ‘Irish Topography’
• Agnes O’Farrelly (Úna Ní Fhaircheallaigh)—from: Smaointe ar Árainn
• Eva Gore-Booth, ‘Women’s Rights’
• William Bulfin—from: Rambles in Éirinn
• George Bernard Shaw—from: ‘A Visit to Skellig Michael’
• George Moore—from: Salve
• Robert Lloyd Praeger—from: ‘The Fauna and Flora of Ireland’

Part 8. MIND, EMOTION AND SPIRIT

• W.B. Yeats, ‘Irish Fairies’
• George Sigerson—from: ‘Fand and Cuchulain’
• Mary Battle, Prophecies
• W.B. Yeats, ‘The Valley of the Black Pig’
• Eoin MacNeill—from: Phases of Irish History
• Kuno Meyer—from: ‘Ancient Irish Poetry’
• J.M. Synge, ‘The Oppression of the Hills’

Part 9. RELIGION

• W.B. Yeats, ‘The Secret Rose’
• Joseph Mary Plunkett, ‘The Little Black Rose Shall Be Red at Last’
• James and Margaret Cousins, Worlds Within Worlds
• Patrick Pearse, ‘Fornocht Do Chonac Thú\Naked I Saw Thee’
• Frederick Ryan—from: ‘Church Disestablishment in France and Ireland’
• Father Michael O’Riordan—from: Catholicity and Progress in Ireland
• Elizabeth Burke-Plunkett—from: Seventy Years Young: Memories of Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall
• John Eglinton—from: ‘The Weak Point of the Celtic Movement’

Part 10. THE WIDER WORLD

• Maud Gonne and the Boer War
• W.B. Yeats in America—interview: ‘We Are Unlike the English in All Except Language’
• John Eglinton, Letter to Sir Horace Plunkett
• Sir Horace Plunkett, Letter to John Eglinton
• Arthur Griffith—from: ‘The Resurrection of Hungary’
• Patrick Pearse—from: ‘Belgium and its Schools’
• Rabindranath Tagore—from: The Post Office
• Roger Casement, Human Rights
• Eoin MacNeill, Imperialism

Part 11. EDUCATION, AND POPULAR CULTURE

• Mary E.L. Butler—from: ‘Irish Women’s Education’
• Maud Gonne, Children’s Treats
• Percy French, ‘The Queen’s After-Dinner Speech’
• Augusta Gregory, ‘The Boy-Deeds of Cuchulain’
• Patrick Pearse—from: ‘The Murder Machine’
• John E. Kennedy, ‘The Debate on National Dress’
• Douglas Hyde, Irish Clothing
• J.M. Synge—from: The Aran Islands from: The Dun Emer Industries Prospectus
• ‘An Feis Ceoil/An tOireachtas’
• Patrick Pearse, ‘Óro ’Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile’
• Jack Judge, ‘It’s A Long Way to Tipperary’
• Percy French, ‘The Mountains of Mourne’
• J. M. Synge, The Grief of the Keen
• Dermot O’Byrne/Arnold Bax, Music in Ireland
• W.B. Yeats, An Abbey School of Ballet

Part 12. SOCIAL CONDITIONS

• Maud Gonne—from: The Distress in the West
• J.M. Synge—from: ‘The Inner Lands of Mayo’
• Irish Homestead Competition
• James Connolly—from: ‘The Language Movement’
• Sean O’Casey—from: Drums Under the Windows from: ‘The Great Revival: A Wave of Temperance’
• Susanne R. Day—from: ‘The Workhouse Child’
• James Larkin—from: ‘Larkin’s Scathing Indictment of Dublin Sweaters’
• James Joyce—from: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Padraic Colum—from: The Road Round Ireland

Part 13. WOMEN AND CITIZENSHIP

• Anna Parnell, ‘The Journey’
• Mary Hayden—from: ‘Women Citizens—Their Duties and Their Training’
• James Connolly—from: ‘The Reconquest of Ireland’
• Hanna Sheehy Skeffington: ‘Sinn Féin and Irishwomen’
• Mary McSwiney—from: ‘Suffragists and Home Rule: A Plea for Common Sense’
• Constance Markiewicz, ‘Experiences of a Woman Patrol’
• Constance Markiewicz—from: ‘The Woman With a Garden’

Part 14. A SOVEREIGN PEOPLE

• William Rooney—from: ‘The Development of the National Ideal’
• Maud Gonne, ‘The Famine Queen’
• W.B. Yeats—from: ‘Noble and Ignoble Loyalties’
• J.M. Synge—from: ‘Possible Remedies’
• James Joyce—from: ‘Home Rule Comes of Age’
• John Redmond—from: ‘Speech at Woodenbridge’
• Patrick Pearse—from: ‘The Separatist Idea’
• James Connolly, ‘The Irish Flag’
• Sean O’Casey—from: The Story of Thomas Ashe

Section 15. MILITARISM/MODERNISM

• James Connolly—from: ‘Erin’s Hope’
• Helena Molony—from: ‘National Activities’
• Peadar Kearney—from: ‘The Soldiers’ Song’/‘Amhrán na bhFiann’
• George Russell—from: ‘Physical Force in Literature’
• John Frederick MacNeice, ‘On Refusing to Sign the Ulster Covenant’
• Eoin MacNeill—from: ‘The North Began’
• Francis Sheehy Skeffington, ‘The Writing on the Wall’
• Diarmuid Coffey, The Ousting of Douglas Hyde from the Presidency of the Gaelic League, Dundalk
• Patrick Pearse, Speech at the Grave of O’Donovan Rossa
• Francis Sheehy Skeffington—from: ‘Ireland and the War’
• Augustine Birrell—from: Things Past Redress
• Sean (Joe) Keegan, The Countermanding Order
• James Stephens—from: The Insurrection in Dublin
• Louise Gavan Duffy, Kitchen Duty in the Post Office, Easter Week 1916
• Father Aloysius Travers—from: Diary of Easter Week 1916
• Monk Gibbon—from: Inglorious Soldier
• W.B. Yeats: ‘Easter 1916’
• Maud Gonne, Letter to W.B. Yeats, November 1916
• Francis Ledwidge, ‘Lament for Thomas MacDonagh’
• V.I. Lenin, Lessons from the Irish Rebellion
• Joseph Mary Plunkett, ‘I See His Blood Upon the Rose’
• Roger Casement—from: ‘Speech from the Dock’
• C.S. Lewis, Trench War
• George Russell, ‘To The Memory of Some I Knew Who Are Dead and Who Loved Ireland’
• Canon Charles O’Neill, ‘The Foggy Dew’
• George Russell, Two Comments

Part 16. AFTER THE REVOLUTION

• Colm Ó Gaora—from: Mise
• Cumann na mBan Petition to President Wilson
• Ernie O’Malley—from: On Another Man’s Wound from: ‘The Strike at Limerick’
• Henry Nevinson—from: ‘Ireland: The One Solution’
• Edward Carson, ‘Sinn Féin Has Beaten You’
• Elizabeth Burke-Plunkett, Into the Free State
• Piaras Beaslaí, The Shooting of Michael Collins
• Thomas Bodkin, ‘Modern Irish Art’
• George Russell, ‘Reaction in Literature’
• Elizabeth Burke-Plunkett, The Burning Party
• Éamon de Valera, ‘Legion of the Rearguard’
• George Bernard Shaw, ‘Safe Holidays in Ireland’
• ‘The Civic Guard and the Pioneer Movement’
• George Bernard Shaw—from: The Irish Statesman

Afterword by President Michael D. Higgins

Select Bibliography