Mid-century
Modernists, the shadow of Yeats, and the remaking of poetry in Irish.
The generation after Yeats had to find a way out from under him. Austin Clarke adapted the assonantal music of Irish-language verse into English, then turned savagely on clerical Ireland. Patrick Kavanagh wrote The Great Hunger (1942) against the romanticised rural Ireland of the Revival, and argued later that the parish, not the metropolis, was where a writer's material was.
A parallel line runs through Thomas MacGreevy, Brian Coffey, Denis Devlin and Beckett — European, modernist, and largely ignored by Irish anthologies for fifty years. Louis MacNeice, claimed by both England and Ireland, wrote Autumn Journal and was decisively reclaimed by the Northern poets of the 1960s.
In Irish this is the period of the remaking: Máirtín Ó Direáin, Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máire Mhac an tSaoi between them made a modern literary poetry in a language that had become largely oral.
94 poets, earliest first.
- Pádraig de Brún 1889–1960
- Thomas MacGreevy 1893–1967
- Austin Clarke 1896–1974
- Geoffrey Phibbs 1900–1956
- Eileen Shanahan 1901–1979
- John Lyle Donaghy 1902–1949
- Patrick MacDonogh 1902–1961
- Ethna MacCarthy 1903–1959
- Ewart Milne 1903–1987
- Rhoda Coghill 1903–2000
- Cecil Day-Lewis 1904–1972
- Patrick Kavanagh 1904–1967
- Brian Coffey 1905–1995
- Padraic Fallon 1905–1974
- Máirín Ní Mhuiríosa 1906–1982
- Samuel Beckett 1906–1989
- Sheila Wingfield (Viscountess Powerscourt) 1906–1992
- Áine Ní Cheanainn 1907–1999
- Cosslett Ó Cuinn 1907–1995
- Freda Laughton 1907–1995
- George Reavey 1907–1976
- John Hewitt 1907–1987
- Louis MacNeice 1907–1963
- Denis Devlin 1908–1959
- Patrick Barrington, 11th Viscount Barrington 1908–1990
- Stanislaus Lynch 1908–1983
- Robert Farren 1909–1984
- W.R. Rodgers 1909–1969
- Máirtín Ó Direáin 1910–1988
- Brother Stephen Russell 1911–1975
- Michael Sayers 1911–2010
- Niall Sheridan 1912–1998
- Sigerson Clifford 1913–1985
- Charles Donnelly 1914–1937
- Nick Nicholls (painter) 1914–1991
- Niall Montgomery 1915–1987
- Séamus P. Ó Mórdha 1915–2005
- Seán Ó Ríordáin 1916–1977
- Annraoi Ó Liatháin 1917–1981
- Liam MacGabhann b. 1917
- Valentin Iremonger 1918–1991
- Eoghan Ó Tuairisc (Eugene Watters) 1919–1982
- Terence O'Gorman 1919–2003
- Kevin Faller 1920–1983
- Robert Greacen 1920–2008
- Deasún Breatnach 1921–2007
- Paddy Tunney 1921–2002
- Roy McFadden 1921–1999
- Freddie Anderson 1922–2001
- Leland Bardwell 1922–2016
- Máire Mhac an tSaoi 1922–2021
- Basil Payne 1923–2012
- Brendan Behan 1923–1964
- Eithne Strong 1923–1999
- Geraldine Clinton Little 1923–1997
- Padraic Fiacc (Patrick Joseph O'Connor) 1924–2019
- Jerome Kiely 1925–2019
- Juanita Casey 1925–2012
- Patricia Burke Brogan 1926–2022
- Seán Ó Tuama 1926–2006
- Críostóir Ó Floinn 1927–2023
- Pádraig Ó Fiannachta 1927–2016
- Patrick Galvin 1927–2011
- Pearse Hutchinson 1927–2012
- Richard Kell 1927–2022
- Richard Murphy 1927–2018
- Anthony Cronin 1928–2016
- Thomas Kinsella 1928–2021
- John Montague 1929–2016
- John Jordan 1930–1988
- Maeve Kelly 1930–2025
- Maureen Charlton 1930–2007
- Seán Ó Coisdealbha 1930–2006
- Helen Curtin Moskey 1931–2003
- Joan Keefe 1931–2013
- Seán Lucy 1931–2001
- Tom MacIntyre 1931–2019
- Breandán Ó Madagáin 1932–2020
- Christy Brown 1932–1981
- Eileen Lynn Kato 1932–2008
- Richard Weber 1932–2020
- James McKenna (artist) 1933–2000
- James Simmons 1933–2001
- James Liddy 1934–2008
- Desmond O'Grady 1935–2014
- Jim Craven 1935–1980
- Johnny Byrne 1935–2008
- Pádraig Ó Snodaigh 1935–2025
- Anne Cluysenaar 1936–2014
- Breandán Ó Buachalla 1936–2010
- Brendan Kennelly 1936–2021
- Desmond Egan b. 1936
- Tomás Mac Síomóin 1938–2022
- Caitlín Maude 1941–1982
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