Irish Writers

Irish Writers I like

James Joyce (1882-1941 born in Dublin)

‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ (novel)

‘Dubliners’ (short stories)

some poems such as ‘Alone’

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900 born in Dublin)

‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (novel)

some plays such as ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’

some stories for children such as ‘The Selfish Giant’ ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’

Seán O’Casey (1880-1964 born in Dublin)

his plays such as ‘The Shadow of a Gunman’

his autobiography

John Millington Synge (1897-1909 born in Dublin)

‘The Aran Islands’ (prose)

some plays such as ‘The Playboy of the Western World’

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939 born in Sandymount, Dublin)

‘Irish Fairy & Folk Tales’ (collection)

also poems, plays, essays - Nobel Prize of Literature

Frank O’Connor (1903-66 born in Cork)

Day Dreams and other stories (short stories)

John B. Keane (1928-2002 born in County Kerry)

short stories, also wrote plays such as ‘The Field’

Liam O’Flaherty (1896-1984 born on Inishmore, Aran Islands, Co. Galway)

‘The Informer’

Flann O’Brien / Brian O’Nolan (1911-66 born in Strabane, Co. Tyrone)

 ‘The Third Policeman’

Also very renowned:

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950 born in Dublin)

plays such as ‘Saint Joan’ and other works, such as ‘The Unsocial Socialist’- Nobel Prize of Literature

Samuel Beckett (1906-89 born in Foxrock, Dublin)

plays such as ‘Waiting for Godot’ (written originally in French) – Nobel Prize of Literature

Seamus Heaney (1939-2013 born in Co. Derry)

poetry such as ‘Death of a Naturalist’ and plays - Nobel Prize of Literature

Edna O’Brien (born in County Clare in 1930)

‘The Country Girls’ (novel)

Roddy Doyle (born in Dublin in 1958)

novels for adults and children (some are very amusing, such as the Rover Adventures series)

Best books I read about Ireland:

‘The Year of the French’ and 'The Tenants of Time’ (historical novels set in Ireland) by Thomas Flanagan (1923-2002 American, his 4 grandparents were from County Fermanagh)

Also very interesting and personal account: ‘Tales from the Blue Stacks’ by Robert Bernen (American scholar who went to live as a sheep farmer in County Donegal in the 1970s)

Special mention: the lovely picture books for young children by Martin Waddell (born in Belfast in 1941) such as the Little Bear series.

- I have only included authors and works I have actually read.

Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

Confident that we have built our wall.

Seamus Heaney

(1939-2013)

“Stephen Dedalus

Class of Elements

Clongowes Wood College

Sallins

County Kildare

Ireland

Europe

The World

The Universe”

James Joyce 
(A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
(1916)

Glass falling
The glass is going down. The sun
Is going down. The forecast say
It will be warm, with frequent showers,
We ramble down the showery hours
And amble up and down the day.
Mary will wear her black goloshes
And splash the puddles on the town;
And soon on fleets of macintoshes
The rain is coming down, the frown
Is coming down of heaven showing
A wet night coming, the glass is going
Down, the sun is going down.

Louis MacNeice

(1907-1963)

“It will be said that the Irish are too poor to pay for pleasure, but they are not too poor to spend fifteen millions on religion.” George Moore (1852-1933)

“I hate being a woman. Vain and shallow and superficial. Tell a woman that you love her and she’ll ask you to write it down, so that she can show it to her friends.” Edna O’Brien (The Country Girls) (1960)

“we are apt to sink too much under unreasonable fears, so we are too soon inclined to be raised by groundless hopes.” Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

“If you confess your real thoughts only under torture, who can resist the temptation to torture you?” George Bernard Shaw (An Unsocial Socialist) (1884)