¹ I should like to thank Dr Brendan Bradshaw of Queens’ college for much valuable advice, encouragement and criticism, and Dr Sheila Lawlor of Sidney Sussex college for reading and commenting on the manuscript.

² E.g. Thompson, W. I., The imagination of an insurrection(New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Loftus, R. J., Nationalism in modern Anglo-Irish poetry(Madison and Milwaukee, 1964)Google Scholar; Nicholas, Mansergh, The Irish question 1840–1921(London, 1965), ch. viGoogle Scholar; Lyons, F. S. L., Ireland since the famine(London, 1973 edn), pp. 329–39Google Scholar; Lyons, F. S. L., Culture and anarchy in Ireland 1980–1939(Oxford, 1979), ch. iv.Google Scholar

³ For example the Aisling tradition, depicting Ireland as a beautiful woman mourning past glories, was developed by eighteenth-century Irish poets and recurs frequently right up to 1916. See Daniel, Corkery, The hidden Ireland(Dublin, 1925).Google Scholar

⁴ For a summary of the saga and critical comments see Douglas, Hyde, Literary history of Ireland(London, 1899), ch. xiiiGoogle Scholar; Gerard, Murphy, Saga and myth in ancient Ireland(Dublin, 1961).Google Scholar

⁵ Hyde, Literary history, p. 293.

⁶ Hyde, Ibid., ch. xiv; Blacam, Aodh de, Gaelic literature surveyed(Dublin, 1973 edn), ch. ii.Google Scholar

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⁸ de Blacam, Gaelic literature, p. 36.

⁹ For the Fenians, see Hyde, Literary history, ch. xxix; de Blacam, Gaelic literature, ch. iii; Gerard, Murphy, Ossianic lore(Cork, 1955)Google Scholar. For a full translation, Duanaire Firm(2 vols., London, 1908 and 1933), tr. Eoin MacNeill (I) and Gerard Murphy (II).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Gerard, Murphy, Duanaire Finn(Dublin, 1953), introduction.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cuchulain goes over to Scathach, a warrior queen in Scotland, to learn the art of warfare, and another Scottish queen, Aoife, bears his son; in neither case is a serious distinction made between Scottish and Irish.

¹² Augusta, Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemru(Gerrards Cross, 1970), dedication.Google Scholar

¹³ According to Douglas Hyde writing in the 1890s, when the subject ‘Deirdre’ was set for the vice chancellor's prize in Trinity college Dublin ‘a few years ago’, the students did not know who or what Deirdre was. Hyde, Literary history, p. 303, footnote.

¹⁴ O’Grady, S. J., History of Ireland(2 vols., London, 1878 and 1880).Google Scholar

¹⁵ There were sporadic signs before O’Grady that popular interest in the myths was reviving slightly. From 1858 the Fenian movement looked back in its title to the conception of the Fianna as the national militia. In 1865 Sir Samuel Ferguson published Lays of the western Gael, including poems on the death of Diarmuid, the lament of Deirdre and the abdication of Fergus Mac Roy; in 1877 R. D. Joyce's Deirdrecame out in Boston. But these were isolated developments which had little impact in Ireland. Those Fenians interested in ancient Irish were almost all based in America-R. D. Joyce, for example. Irish Fenians concentrated on violent revolution. And Ferguson's work, though ultimately seen as a significant precursor of the Literary Revival, never achieved wide popular acclaim, being scholarly and in somewhat pedantic verse.

¹⁶ Related in Ernest, Boyd, Ireland's literary renaissance(Dublin, 1916), p. 27.Google Scholar

¹⁷ O’Grady, History,1, 23.

¹⁸ Ibid. 11, 267.

¹⁹ Ibid. 1, xiv (introduction).

²⁰ Tain,(above note 7), p. 144.

²¹ Ibid. p. 144.

²² O’Grady, History, 1,148–9

²³ AE (George, Russell), Some Irish essays(Dublin, 1906), p. 21.Google Scholar

²⁴ E.g. Eleanor, Hull, The Cuchulain saga in Irish literature(London, 1898)Google Scholar, and Cuchulain the hound of Ulster(London, 1909), quoted passages verbatim from O’Grady's work.Google Scholar

²⁵ O’Grady, S. J., Cuchulain: an epic(London, 1892)Google Scholar; The coming of Cuchulain(London, 1894)Google Scholar; Finn and his companions(London, 1894)Google Scholar; In the gates of the north(London, 1901).Google Scholar

²⁶ Augusta, Gregory, Cuchulain of Muirthemne(Dublin, 1902)Google Scholar; Gods and fighting men(Dublin, 1904).Google Scholar

²⁷ Yeats, W. B., Autobiographies(London, 1961 edn), p. 220Google Scholar; AE, The living torch(London, 1938), p. 145; Boyd, Literary renaissance, p. 51.Google Scholar

²⁸ For examples of Young Ireland and Fenian poetry, see Casey, J. K., The rising of the moon(Glasgow, 1869)Google Scholar; James, Clarence Mangan, Poems(Dublin, 1903 edn)Google Scholar; Kelly, Mary E., Poems of ‘ Eva of the Nation’(Dublin, 1909).Google Scholar

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³⁰ E.g. Fahy, F. A., Irish songs and poems(Dublin, 1887)Google Scholar; Sullivan, T. D., Selected poems(Dublin, 1899)Google Scholar; Martin, MacDermott (ed.), Poems and ballads of Young Ireland(Dublin, 1896).Google Scholar

³¹ Alice, Milligan, Hero lays(Dublin, 1908).Google Scholar

³² Thomas, Boyd, Poems(Dublin, 1908).Google Scholar

³³ Augusta, Gregory (ed.), Ideals in Ireland(London, 1901), p. 25.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid. p. 39.

³⁵ Lyons, Culture,(above note 2). Lyons observes that many protestant, Trinity-educated men were in the forefront of cultural revivalism - notably Ferguson, Davis, and later Douglas Hyde. The Anglo-Irish initiative brought them close to the native Irish view of themselves as a great and heroic people. Thus the two sides could temporarily co-operate in seeking a distinctive national culture.

³⁶ Yeats, , AE, , Larminie, , John, Eglinton, Literary ideals in Ireland(London, 1899), p. 87.Google Scholar

³⁷ Gregory, Ideals, p. 16.

³⁸ For good examples of religious mysticism, see Darrell, Figgis, A vision of life(London, 1909)Google Scholar; The crucible qftime(London, 1911)Google Scholar; The mount of transfiguration(Dublin, 1915). For Young Ireland, above notes 28 and 30.Google Scholar

³⁹ Katharine, Tynan, Louise de la Valliere(London, 1885), ‘Waiting’.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Milligan, Lays,‘The Horsemen of Aileach’.

⁴¹ Ella, Young, Poems(Dublin, 1906).Google Scholar

⁴² Seumas, O’Sullivan, The twilight people(Dublin, 1905).Google Scholar

⁴³ Shane, Leslie, Songs of Oriel(Dublin, 1908), ‘Ireland today’.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Lionel, Johnson, Poems(London, 1895), ‘Ways of war’.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Joseph, Campbell, The rushlight(Dublin, 1906), ‘The beggar's wake’.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ McEntee, J. F., Poems(London and Dublin, 1917), ‘Shadows of song’.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ William, Larminie, Fand(Dublin, 1892), ‘Moytura’.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Terence, MacSwiney, Despite fools laughter(Dublin, 1944), ‘The prophecy of Fionn’.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Seumas, MacManus, Ballads of a country boy(Dublin, 1905), ‘Tyrconnel’.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Cousins, James H., Collected poems(Madras, 1940).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Seumas, O’Sullivan, The earth lover(Dublin, 1909), ‘At sunset’.Google Scholar

⁵² Edward, Martyn, Maeve(London, 1899).Google Scholar

⁵³ Among the versions were Douglas, Hyde, The three sorrows of story telling(Dublin, 1895)Google Scholar; John, Todhunter, Three Irish bardic tales(London, 1896)Google Scholar; AE, , Deirdre(Dublin, 1906)Google Scholar; Yeats, W. B., Deirdre(in Collected Plays(London, 1956))Google Scholar; Synge, J. M., Deirdre of the sorrows(in Collected Works(4 vols., London, 1968), iv).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Synge, Deirdre, p. 237.

⁵⁵ Eva, Gore-Booth, Unseen kings(London, 1904).Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ O’Sullivan, Earth lover,(above note 51).

⁵⁸ Ethna, Carberry, The four winds of Eirinn(Dublin, 1902)Google Scholar, ‘The shadow house of Lugh.’

⁵⁹ Lionel, Johnson, Ireland and other poems(London, 1897).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Dora, Sigerson Shorter, Love of Ireland(Dublin, 1916).Google Scholar

⁶¹ William, Larminie, Glanlua(London, 1899), ‘The return of the gods.’Google Scholar

⁶² Pearse, P. H., The story of a success, ed. Desmond, Ryan, (Dublin, 1917), p. 7.Google Scholar

⁶³ Desmond, Ryan (ed.), The 1916 poets(Dublin, 1963), p. 196.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Boyd, Poems, and Gore-Booth, Kings.

⁶⁵ Nora, Hopper, Ballads in prose(London, 1894).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Joseph, Campbell, The mountainy singer(Dublin, 1909), ‘Fragment’.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Susan, Mitchell, The living chalice(Dublin and London, 1913), ‘The army of the voice.’Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Cousins, James H., Etain the beloved(Dublin, 1912), ‘A schoolboy plays Cuchulain.’Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Thomas, MacDonagh, Through the ivory gate(Dublin, 1903), ‘To Cuchulain.’Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Campbell, Singer,‘I am the Man Child.’

⁷¹ Yeats, Plays.

⁷² Joseph, Campbell, Irishry(Dublin, 1913), ‘The antiquary’.Google Scholar

⁷³ Carberry, Four winds,‘ For Lord Edward Fitzgerald’.

⁷⁴ Pearse, Success, p. 75.

⁷⁵ Ryan (ed.), Poets, p. 132, ‘Wishes for my son’.

⁷⁶ Graves, A. P., Irish poems(Dublin, 1908).Google Scholar

⁷⁷ ‘Clare's Dragoons’ is a good example of Davis's poetry: When on Ramillies’ bloody field The baffled French were forced to yield, The victor Saxon backward reeled Before the charge of Clare's dragoons. The flags we conquered in that fray Look lonely in Ypres’ choir they say, We’ll win them company today Or bravely die like Clare’s dragoons.

⁷⁸ ‘Did that play of mine send out/Certain men the English shot?’ Yeats, , Collected poems(London, 1961), ‘The man and the echo’.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ O’Sullivan, Earth lover,‘The onlooker’.

⁸⁰ For full analyses of Pearse's thought, see Thompson, , Imagination, Loftus, Nationalism, and also Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse-the triumph of failure(London, 1977)Google Scholar. We are still awaiting a satisfactory general outline and analysis of sanguinary themes in European literature just before the First World War. Clarke, I. F., Ancestral voices prophesying war 1783–1984(Oxford, 1966), has interesting details on the ‘realistic’ military writers.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Quoted in Martin, F. X. (ed.), The Irish Volunteers(Dublin, 1963), p. 129.Google Scholar

⁸² Ibid. pp. 81–2, 135.

⁸³ Ella, Young, Flowering dusk(London, 1947), p. 71.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Bulmer, Hobson, Ireland yesterday and tomorrow(Tralee, 1968), p. 1.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Pearse, Success, p. 90.

⁸⁶ See ‘Easter 1916’, ‘The rose tree’, ‘The O’Rahilly‘, ‘The statues’, in Yeats, Poems.

⁸⁷ AE, , Collected poems(London, 1926), ‘Michael’.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ James, Stephens, Collected poems(London, 1926), ‘Spring’.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Joseph, Campbell, Poems, ed. Austin, Clarke (Dublin, 1963), ‘Raven's rock’.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Seumas, O’Sullivan, Collected poems(Dublin, 1940), ‘Requiem’.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Maeve, Cavanagh, A voice of insurgency(Dublin, 1916), p. 22.Google Scholar

⁹² Padraic, Gregory, Complete collected ballads 1912–32(London, 1935), ‘Ave Hibernia! Morituri te salutant!’.Google Scholar

⁹³ Pearse, P. H., Collected works-plays, stories and poems(London and Dublin, 1917), introduction by P. Browne.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Clery, A. E. (ed.), Poets of the insurrection(Dublin, 1918), ‘P. H. Pearse’ by Cathaoir O Braonain, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Ibid. ‘J. M. Plunkett’, by P. McBrien, p. 26.

⁹⁶ McEntee, Poems,‘To R. C’.

⁹⁷ Cousins, Poems,‘In memory of Francis Sheehy Skeffington’, footnote.

⁹⁸ Cavanagh, A voice, p. 52.

⁹⁹ See Luing, Sean O, I die in a good cause(Tralee, 1970), ch. iv.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Ibid. Appendix i, p. 212.

¹⁰¹ See above, note 48.

¹⁰² MacSwiney, Despite fools,‘A prayer’. See also ‘The dawn’, ‘Strength’.

¹⁰³ Ernie, O’Malley, On another man's wound(London, 1936), p. 44.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Andrews, C. S., Dublin made me(Dublin and Cork, 1979), p. 109.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Ibid. p. 241.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid. p. 201.

¹⁰⁷ Dan, Breen, My fight for Irish freedom(Dublin, 1924), p. 153.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Frank, Gallagher (pseudonym David Logan), The four glorious years(Dublin, 1953).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Faolain, Sean O, Vive moi(London, 1965), p. 149.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ See above, note 65.