Irish Poems is a treasury of poetry from the Emerald Isle, stretching back fourteen centuries.
From the romantic ballad to the rebel song, from devotional Christian verse to revivals of ancient Celtic myth, poetry has long been Ireland's most eloquent response to its turbulent and colorful history. Irish Poems gives us a dazzling selection from a long and distinguished poetic tradition, ranging from the earliest Gaelic bards up to the present. Organized around such themes as politics, religion, Gaelic culture, the Irish landscape, and matters of the heart, the poems collected here come from a wide range of writers old and new, including such literary giants as Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Louis MacNeice, Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Muldoon, Evan Boland, Seamus Heaney, and many more.

Matthew McGuire was born in Belfast and is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. He has published widely on both Irish and Scottish literature.

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

St Columbanus   A Boat Song
Anon.   Monastic Poem
Anon.   Hermit’s Song
Anon.   Saint Patrick’s Breastplate
Austin Clarke   Penal Law
Denis Devlin   Ank’hor Vat
W. R. Rodgers   Lent
Tom Paulin   Desertmartin
Peter Fallon   The Herd
John Hewitt   from Freehold: from The Lonely Heart
 

GAELIC MATTERS

Fear Flatha Ó Gnimh   from The Passing of the Poets
Mathghamlain Ó Hifearnáin   My Son, Forsake Your Art                     
Dàibhí Ó Bruadair   For the Family of Cúchonnacht Ó Dálaigh 
Aogán Ó Rathaille   The Brightest of the Bright                 
Brian Merriman   from The Midnight Court     
Antoine Raifterirí  ‘I am Raifeirí, the poet’
Sir Samuel Ferguson   Deirdre’s Lament for the Sons of Usnach
William Allingham   The Fairies
W. B. Yeats   Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea
Seàn Ó Ríordáin   Claustrophobia
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill   Miraculous Grass                                      
 
 
POLITICAL MATTERS

Fearghal Óg MacWard   from The Flight of the Earls, 1607
Anon.   The Croppy Boy
Anon.   The Shan Van Vocht
Anon.   The Orange Lily
James Clarence Mangan   Kathaleen Ny-Houlahan          
Thomas Davis   Lament for the Death of Eoghan Ruadh O’Neill
Thomas Davis   A Nation Once Again
Robert Dwyer Joyce   The Wind that Shakes the Barley
W. B. Yeats   September 1913
W. B. Yeats   The Wild Swans at Coole
Seamus Heaney   Requiem for the Croppies
Seamus Heaney   Punishment
Seamus Heaney   from Whatever You Say Say Nothing
Seamus Heaney   from The Cure at Troy
Derek Mahon   A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanàn   Deaths and Engines
Paul Muldoon   Lunch with Pancho Villa 
Paul Muldoon   Anseo
Paul Muldoon   Cuba
Alan Gillis   Progress
Macdara Woods   Seconds Out
PLACE MATTERS 
Jonathan Swift   Holyhead. Sept. 25, 1727
Oliver Goldsmith   from The Deserted Village
Thomas Moore   ‘Dear Harp of my Country!’
W. B. Yeats   The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Patrick Kavanagh   Epic
Louis MacNeice   Belfast
Louis MacNeice   Dublin
Peter St John   The Fields of Athenry
Seamus Heaney   Anahorish
Michael Longley   The Linen Industry
Derek Mahon   Glengormley
Thomas McCarthy   The Standing Trains
Ciaran Carson   Belfast Confetti
 
 
EXPERIENCE MATTERS

Samuel Thompson   To a Hedgehog
James Orr   from The Irish Cottier’s Death and Burial
Thomas Moore   ‘’Tis the last rose of summer’
James Clarence Mangan   Dark Rosaleen
James Clarence Mangan   The Nameless One
James Clarence Mangan   Good Counsel             
Oscar Wilde   from The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Francis Ledwidge   June
W. B. Yeats   The Stolen Child
W. B. Yeats   Down by the Salley Gardens
W. B. Yeats   To a Wealthy Man Who Promised a Second 
                      Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if It 
                      were Proved the People Wanted Pictures
W. B. Yeats   An Irish Airman Forsees His Death
W. B. Yeats   The Second Coming
W. B. Yeats   Sailing to Byzantium
James Joyce  Ecce Puer
Patrick Kavanagh  Memory of My Father
Patrick Kavanagh  Prelude
Samuel Beckett   Gnome
Thomas Kinsella   Chrysalides
John Montague   ‘Like dolmens round my childhood, the old people’
John Montague   11 rue Daguerre
Michael Hartnet   There Will be a Talking
Richard Murphy   Seals at High Island
Louis MacNeice   Snow
Louis MacNeice   Wolves
Michael Longley   In Memoriam
Seamus Heaney   Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney   from Clearances 
Seamus Heaney   The Underground
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanàn   London
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanàn   So She Looked, in that Company
Eavan Boland   In Her Own Image
Eavan Boland   Night Feed
Eavan Boland   Nocturne
Ciaran Carson   Turn Again
Ciaran Carson   The Exiles’ Club
Medbh McGuckian   The ‘Singer’
Medbh McGuckian   The Flower Master
Medbh McGuckian   The Sitting
Paul Muldoon   Quoof
Paul Muldoon   Symposium
Colette Bryce   The Full Indian Rope Trick
Alan Gillis   The Ulster Way
Nick Laird   Poetry
 
 
LOVE MATTERS

J. M. Synge   ‘Is it a month’
W. B. Yeats   He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
W. B. Yeats   No Second Troy
Padraic Colum   She Moved Through the Fair
Patrick Kavanagh   On Raglan Road
James Simmons   The Archaeologist
Paul Durcan   The Haulier’s Wife Meets Jesus on the Road Near Moone
Louis MacNeice   Mayfly
Medbh McGuckian   On Not Being Your Lover
Sinead Morrissey   & Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Leontia Flynn   Come Live with Me
Index of First Lines
Acknowledgments