Irish literary renaissance, flowering of Irish literary talent at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century that was closely allied with a strong political nationalism and a revival of interest in Ireland’s Gaelic literary heritage. The renaissance was inspired by the nationalistic pride of the Gaelic revival; by the retelling of ancient heroic legends in books such as the History of Ireland (1880) by Standish O’Grady and A Literary History of Ireland (1899) by Douglas Hyde; and by the Gaelic League, which was formed in 1893 to revive the Irish language and culture. The early leaders of the renaissance wrote rich and passionate verse, filled with the grandeur of Ireland’s past and the music and mysticism of Gaelic poetry. They were mainly members of the privileged class and were adept at English verse forms and familiar with lyric poetry that extolled the simple dignity of the Irish peasant and the natural beauty of Ireland.
The movement developed into a vigorous literary force centred on the poet and playwright William Butler Yeats. Though he contributed to the foundation of the Abbey Theatre, the first Irish national theatre, he wrote only a few plays, which were beautiful but difficult to stage. His chief colleague was Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory, who took a leading part in the Abbey’s management and wrote many plays. The Irish Literary Theatre, established in 1898, also excelled in the production of peasant plays. The greatest dramatist of the movement was John Millington Synge, who wrote plays of great beauty and power in a stylized peasant dialect. Later, the theatre turned toward realism, mostly rural realism. Lennox Robinson, best known for his political play, The Lost Leader (1918), and his comedy, The Whiteheaded Boy (1916), and T.C. Murray, author of The Briary Gap (1917), were among the early realists. In reaction to peasant realism, Sean O’Casey wrote three great dramas of the Dublin slums: The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924), and The Plough and the Stars (1926).
In poetry, in addition to Yeats, the mystic George Russell (pseudonym AE) composed works of enduring interest. Notable among their younger contemporaries were Padraic Colum, Austin Clarke, Seumas O’Sullivan (James Sullivan Starkey), F.R. Higgins, and Oliver St. John Gogarty. The Irish Republican movement had its poets in Patrick Henry Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett, all executed in 1916 for their part in the Easter Rising.
The noteworthy prose fiction of the renaissance includes the historical tales of Emily Lawless and Standish James O’Grady and, somewhat at a remove, the realist novels of George Moore. James Stephens also wrote stories and poetry.