THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF
IRISH LITERATURE

VOLUME 1
TO 1890

This is the first comprehensive history of Irish literature in both its major languages, Irish and English. The twenty-nine chapters in this two-volume history provide an authoritative chronological survey of the Irish literary tradition. Spanning fifteen centuries of literary achievement, the two volumes range from the earliest Hiberno-Latin texts to the literature of the late twentieth century. The contributors, drawn from a range of Irish, British and North American universities, are internationally renowned experts in their fields. The Cambridge History of Irish Literature comprises an unprecedented synthesis of research and information, a detailed narrative of one of the world’s richest literary traditions, and innovative and challenging new readings. No critical work of this scale and authority has been attempted for Irish literature before. Featuring a detailed chronology and guides to further reading for each chapter, this magisterial project will remain the key reference book for literature in Ireland for generations to come.

   This first volume covers early to late medieval texts in Latin and Norman French as well as Irish, the literature of English settlement in the early modern period, and the developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

MARGARET KELLEHER is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. She has previously held the John J. Burns Visiting Chair in Irish Studies at Boston College. She is the author of The Feminization of Famine (1997), editor of Making It New (2000) and co-editor of Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Guide to Recent Research (2005).

PHILIP O’LEARY is Associate Professor of Irish Studies at Boston College. He is the author of Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival 1881–1921: Ideology and Innovation (1994), which won the ACIS First Book Prize, Déirc an Dóchais: Léamh ar Shaothar Phádhraic Óig Uí Chonaire (1995) and Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State, 1922–1939 (2004), which won the Michael J. Durkan Prize.

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF

IRISH LITERATURE

VOLUME 1
TO 1890

Edited by
MARGARET KELLEHER
and
PHILIP O’LEARY

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521822244

© Cambridge University Press 2006

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
The Cambridge history of Irish literature / edited by Margaret Kelleher and Philip O'Leary.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-521-82224-6 (2-vol. hardback set)
1. Irish literature – History and criticism. 2. English literature – Irish authors – History and criticism. 3. Northern Ireland – Intellectual life. 4. Northern Ireland – In literature. 5. Ireland – Intellectual life. 6. Ireland – In literature. I. Kelleher, Margaret, 1964–. II. O'Leary, Philip, 1948– III. Title.
PB1306.C36 2006
820.9′9417 – dc22 2005006448

Volume I 0-521-82222-x
Only available as a two-volume set
ISBN-13 978-0-521-82224-4
ISBN-10 0-521-82224-6

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Contributors

NEIL BUTTIMER University College Cork
MARC CABALL Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
MATTHEW CAMPBELL University of Sheffield
ANDREW CARPENTER University College Dublin
CLAIRE CONNOLLY Cardiff University
GEARÓID DENVIR National University of Ireland, Galway
ANNE FOGARTY University College Dublin
KAARINA HOLLO University of Sheffield
MARGARET KELLEHER National University of Ireland, Maynooth
MÍCHEÁL MAC CRAITH National University of Ireland, Galway
CHRISTOPHER MORASH National University of Ireland, Maynooth
MÁIRE NÍ MHAONAIGH St John’s College, Cambridge
TOMÁS Ó CATHASAIGH Harvard University
CLARE O’HALLORAN University College Cork
PHILIP O’LEARY Boston College
IAN CAMPBELL ROSS Trinity College, Dublin
DONNA WONG University of California, Berkeley

Acknowledgements

Firstly, our thanks to all of our contributors: the excellence of their scholarship was the mainstay of our work throughout. We acknowledge with gratitude our editor, Dr Ray Ryan, Cambridge University Press, who first conceived of this project and who encouraged us to the finish. Our thanks also to the anonymous readers of our initial prospectus who offered very useful suggestions, and to the Syndicate of Cambridge University Press for their support. We gratefully acknowledge the expert assistance of Alison Powell, Carol Fellingham Webb, David Watson and Maartje Scheltens of Cambridge University Press in the preparation of these volumes for publication.

   To those who offered comments on specific chapters and assistance to individual contributors, sincere thanks; these include David Berman, Michael Clarke, Peter Denman, Aileen Douglas, Peter Garside, Raymond Gillespie, Nicholas Grene, the members of the Harvard Postgraduate Colloquium 2002–3, Siobhán Kilfeather, Carla King, David Latané Jr., Joep Leerssen, James H. Murphy, Jane Moody, Jane Moore, Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, Nollaig Ó Muraíle, Pádraig Ó Riain, Erich Poppe, John Valdimir Price, Paige Reynolds, Maria Luisa Ross, Diego Saglia and John Strachan. Our special thanks to Máire Ní Mhaonaigh who offered wise counsel throughout. We acknowledge with gratitude the work of Matthew Stout who provided the maps for this history. Amanda Bent, Denis Condon, Mike Cronin, Feargus Denman, Michael Kelleher, Niamh Lynch, Brian Ó Catháin and Andy Storey provided invaluable assistance in the production of these volumes. The views expressed, and any errors, are, of course, our responsibility.

   We are very grateful for the support provided by our colleagues in the Irish Studies Program, Boston College, and the English Department, National University of Ireland, Maynooth. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided through the granting of the John J. Burns Visiting Chair in Irish Studies, Boston College to Margaret Kelleher in the academic year 2002–3. Once again, we are indebted to the staff of the Burns Library and O’Neill Library, Boston College; the staff of Maynooth University Library; and the staff of the National Library, Dublin. Financial assistance towards this volume was received from the Publications Fund of the National University of Ireland and we gratefully acknowledge this assistance.

   To Joyce Flynn, the Kelleher family (Mallow, County Cork) and the O’Leary family (Worcester, MA) we owe personal thanks. We acknowledge with gratitude the warm and longstanding hospitality provided by friends in Ireland and the USA: Angela Bourke, Eleanor Byrne, Patrick Ford, Marie Kearney, Gemma Kelleher, Maeve Lewis, Tomás Mac Anna, Nollaig Mac Congáil, Deirdre McMahon, Mohsen Marefat, the Ní Mhaonaigh/Meiβner family, Brian Ó Conchubhair, the O’Shea/Curtin family, the O’Sullivan/Fleming family, Kathleen Rush, Mary Ann and Bud Smith, Leslie Swanson, Alan Titley, Terri Trafas, Maura Twomey and Unn Villius. Our work on this project is dedicated to the memory of two distinguished friends and mentors, Professor Adele M. Dalsimer, Boston College and Professor John Ⅴ. Kelleher, Harvard University.

   Ár mbeannachtaí leat, a scríbhinn . . .

Margaret Kelleher and Philip O’Leary
Dublin and South Yarmouth

Chronology

For a fuller chronology, to which this chronology is indebted, see T. W. Moody, F. X. Martin and F. J. Byrne, eds., A New History of Ireland, vol. Ⅷ: A Chronology of Irish History to 1976 (Oxford University Press, 1992). For a detailed comparative chronology of Irish and international literary history, 1800–2000, see Joseph Cleary and Claire Connolly, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Map 1: Map of Ireland.

Map 2: Irish speakers as percentage of total population, c. 1840 and 1911. The c. 1840 map of the Irish-speaking population is after Garret FitzGerald, ‘Irish-Speaking in the Pre-Famine Period: A Study Based on the 1911 Census Data for People Born before 1851 and Still Alive in 1911’, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 103 C, 5 (2003), pp 191–283, map 2. The 1911 map is after Brian Ó Cuív, ‘Irish Language and Literature, 1845–1921’, in W. E. Vaughan, ed. A New History of Ireland, vol. VI : Ireland under the Union, II, 1870–1921 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp 385–435, p. 399, map 3. Maps by Matthew Stout.