A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day

This study surveys literature produced by Irish-speaking communities from earliest times to the author's present, focusing on vernacular poetry, song, saga, and learned material while intentionally excluding Anglicized Irish writing. It emphasizes the predominance of anonymous, orally transmitted tradition shared across social ranks, documents the corpus of medieval and modern manuscripts and oral repertoires, and reproduces representative passages. It traces the nineteenth-century decline of native literary practice under social and educational change, assesses surviving resources, and urges further scholarly collection, preservation, and a more comprehensive future history.