Above : Medusa, Irish Literature Still Got Influence From Greek Mythology

Many of the eighteenth century poets were schoolmasters teaching in the hedge-schools ; most of them wandered from place to place; and the lives of some were not very edifying. Their themes are often political, deploring the downfall of the Gael, and hoping for the return of the Stuarts and the exiled chiefs. Ireland is frequently personified under poetic names—” Roisin Dubh,” ” Caitlin Ni Uallachain,” etc.—and frequently the beauteous maiden who appears to the poet in an “aisling” or vision, reveals herself as “the maid Eire”. The Saxon churls and ” bodachs ” who have taken the places of the courteous and liberal Irish gentry are bitterly satirised. Ardent love-songs and praises of the tavern are varied with humorous verses and with pieces descriptive of local scenes and local events. All these subjects are dealt with in the new verse forms which were brought by the poets of this period to the highest perfection of melody.

The poetry which was produced in the Penal days, and which has only recently been saved from complete disappearance, possesses an interest distinct from the purely literary one. It portrays the social life and mental outlook of the people in a manner very different from that of the writers of English or the orators of the Irish Parliament, and indicates the existence of a national consciousness separate and distinct, and common to south, north and west. The frequent allusions to the characters of Greek mythology and Latin literature show that the traditions of the old scholarship were still, to some extent, retained in the so-called ” hedge-schools”. That the classical Gaelic literature was also cultivated is shown by the numerous references to the ancient mythology, legends, and history, references which continuously assume that they will be immediately understood by their hearers. These literary and historical allusions are so woven into the poems—the characters and events of legend and history, the native names of territories and districts, the famous ancestors of the great families are all dealt with so intimately, that these, the last of the ” natural ” writers of Irish, cannot be intelligently appreciated without a knowledge of the earlier literature and history of the country.