Irish books

Sorry, we get so many bait threads and we have been constantly raided by /r9k/ for the last few months, and before that /pol/ used to raid us.

Joyce is essential, he's one of the greatest writers of all time and he's quintessentially Irish. Samuel Beckett is another great though his work is as much French as Irish. Brian O Nolan's three novels under the pen-name Flann O Brian are outstanding, and offer as deep an insight into the psyche of rural Ireland as Joyce does into Dublin. Gulliver's travels and Tristram Shandy are classics well worth reading. WB Yeats, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Seamus Heaney are all worthwhile and there are many more.

If you want irish language literature Cúirt an Mean Óiche and Cré na Cille are essential and both exist in translation. There is a huge wealth of both bardic and vernacular poetry which has been translated into English.

Táin Bó Cuailnge is the national epic of Ireland if you're looking for mythology. Irish mythology is well documented so there is plenty more if you are interested. I'd recommend Agallamh na Seanórach and Buile Suibhne.

The most acclaimed non-fiction writers I can think of atm are Edmund Burke and Robert Boyle, though I've read neither. I don't know many Irish history books besides primary sources such as the annals of the four masters.

Advanced memery: the post.

Thank you, this has helped a lot.

Patrick Kavanagh
- The Great Hunger
-The Green Fool
Yeats
Autobiographies
Francis Stuart
-Black List, Section H

>The most acclaimed non-fiction writers I can think of atm are Edmund Burke and Robert Boyle
William Hamilton needs more love. Revolutionised mathematics.

And don't forget all the Latin fiction either.

...

This is like core early irish shit

Castle Rackrent
- Maria Edgeworth
>Historical Novel (maybe the first) about Irish Landowners and their estate. Funny but you need to get a version with a good intro to understand the historical Irony

Tristram Shandy
- Laurence Sterne
>Postmodern before Modernism, funny and quite challenging

Jonathan Swift
>You know who he is, master satririst. Read Gulliver's Travels, pamphlets and A Tale of a Tub

The Vicar of Wakefield
- Oliver Goldsmith
>Insanely popular at the time, Book of Job style comedy that works as outstanding satire of its genre

The Reform'd Coquet
- Mary Davys
>Important work as it's a very early novel, The Accomplished Rake is her better work though

In short the Irish/English in Ireland were very important to the novel and were also excellent comedic writers.

The Voyage of St Brendan

>OP asks for Irish Veeky Forums
>posts Scottish Veeky Forums
are you guys lying or just stupid?

...

trinity by leon uris

This is why I still come to Veeky Forums Thank you for being such a great user.

Peig

Tomás O'Crohan - The Islandman

Last Nights's Fun is a book of essays by Ciaran Carson, a collection of very well written stories from a Traditional musician about smokey backrooms of pubs, his perfect breakfast and all night sessions.

Great insight in the mindset

The desperation duo

>Táin Bó Cuailnge is the national epic of Ireland if you're looking for mythology.

Ireland doesn't have a national epic, Joyce said so himself. Stop pushing that piece of shit.

>Ireland doesn't have a national epic, Joyce said so himself. Stop pushing that piece of shit.
If anyone non-autistic is wondering, TBC is usually considered the national epic of Ireland.

>Stop pushing that piece of shit.
If you want myths, just quickly read the stories of the Children of Lir and then Tir na nOg.

I know no one who has read the Tain Bo Cuailnge or the Ulster Cycle for that matter

>I know no one who has read the Tain Bo Cuailnge or the Ulster Cycle for that matter
If you know no-one who has read TBC then you probably know no-one who has read Children of Lir or Oisín in Tír na nÓg either, at least since national school. It's the first thing they will give you if you take a class on early Irish literature, and it was considered the most important work of Irish literature by the people of medieval Ireland themselves. Children of Lir is more of a folk tale than an actual work of literature, and Oisín in Tír na nÓg is basically just a prologue to Agallamh na Seanórach

What an ugly fucking language. Thank god the British beat it out of you.

Edna O'Brien

I don't think Laurence stern was all that Irish, born there but moved away not long after if memory serves me.

I'm saying that none of the mythical stuff is relevant, if you were to reccomend 50 pieces of Irish lit you shouldn't have any. The groundwork is those two fairy tales if you're interested in myths

>if you take a class on early Irish literature
Which is obviously incredibly specialised. Don't offer it as an introduction to Irish lit

Why be like that? Is it fun for you?

Yep.

>Enjoying a statelet that contains Larne

>Enjoying a shithole that contains the Irish

Well I'll try to expand the conversation

Which pieces of work encapsulates the North?

plz don't say the Ulster Covenant, or the Bible

>Which is obviously incredibly specialised
Not really. I grew up hearing a version of the Oisin as a bedtime story. And quite a lot of the more recent lit makes at least passing reference to something or other from the old stories. Plus they're easy to follow good stories, unlike some other folk story traditions.

>I'm saying that none of the mythical stuff is relevant, if you were to reccomend 50 pieces of Irish lit you shouldn't have any.
What makes you say that? Irish mythology is inextricable from the literary history of Ireland and is constantly referenced by writers like Yeats, Joyce, Flann O' Brien and more. It stands as one of the cornerstones of the Irish literary tradition and it's essential to anyone who wants to get a complete picture of that tradition. If you don't like mythology fair enough, but that doesn't change it's importance. Either way, the guy you responded to was talking about TBC so I don't get where your objection is.

>The groundwork is those two fairy tales if you're interested in myths
They aren't the groundwork for anything though. TBC is the most important story of Irish mythology.

>Which is obviously incredibly specialised. Don't offer it as an introduction to Irish lit
I'm not saying the Táin is an introduction to Irish lit, I'm saying it's an introduction to Irish mythology.

It is old but it is beautiful, and its colours they are fine
It was worn at Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne.
My father wore it as a youth in bygone days of yore,
And on the Twelfth I love to wear the sash my father wore.

what ?

He's trying to force a meme because he's a super cool memester and not autistic.

>Children of Lir
Currently reading this, but I was under the impression they were Welsh? Is there a lot of overlap between Welsh and Irish myth?

No it's Irish. Welsh names would be completely unintelligible.

All the classics have already been listed but here's one I've never seen mentioned, I'd personally recommend.

They're all bog-trotters.

Fuck, I wish I could be that cool. Too bad I'm autistic and don't get memes.

Yeah there are a lot of consonants in each name. I was referring to this though: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion#Four_Branches_of_the_Mabinogi

Yeah, a Welsh name would be more like Ginllycrwyllnu

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion#Four_Branches_of_the_Mabinogi
Didn't know about this until now, so I'll read this page, but the Children of Lir is pre-Christian Irish, this is 11th century Welsh

Just read this a couple days ago and thought it was fantastic. Most people are familiar with Yeats's poetry, but his prose is just as strong as his verse.

Just noticed that as well, it seems the Mabinogion isn't so much a set of myths, but a collection of written literature pertaining to Irish myths, which were already in existence.

Haha, Medieval cultural appropriation.

>Currently reading this, but I was under the impression they were Welsh?
The Welsh Llyr and the Irish Ler (Lir is genitive) were probably originally the same figure, however Llyr's children who are the focus of the mabinogion are not the same as Ler's children in "Children of Lir".

Basically, in both Irish and Welsh mythology there is a figure associated with the sea called Llyr/Ler, (who has a son named Manawydan/Mannanán). The figure in Children of Lir is most likely the same, though there is no reflection of this in Welsh mythology

> Is there a lot of overlap between Welsh and Irish myth?
Yes, there are several tales which most likely come from the same source as well as shared characters, themes and motifs.

Contemporary stuff doesn't touch Joyce or Beckett but if you're curious:
Banville - The book of evidence/The Sea
McCann - Let the great world spin
Enright - The Gathering
McGahern - Amongst Women

They're all decent, Rob Doyle is sort of an Irish BEE (take that as you will), and Muldoon, Heaney and Kavanagh are all worthwhile poets.

If you're looking for twiddly-aye father ted shit, read John B. Keane.

I wonder if all the basic bitches called Aoife know they're named after an evil hoor

Only because he was trying to push ulyesess as the National Epic

>Rob Doyle is sort of an Irish BEE
Uh yeah, Pahlaniuk/BEE. But his stuff is better quality by quite a way.

I quite like Donleavy but I suppose his being a Brookynite by birth might not work for some.

I've met girls named Lilith.

>How cool your child's name is > history of it's meaning

I took a Modern Irish Literature Course and read these books; William Butler Yeats, Selected Poems and Four Plays (Scribner)
James Joyce, Dubliners (Dover Thrift)
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Classics)
Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (Dalkey Archive)
Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls (Grove)
as well as a bunch from Contemporary Irish Poetry, ed. Anthony Bradley (University of California Press) and Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama, ed. John Harrington (WW Norton).
In terms of Drama and poems you should check out; Gregory, “Spreading the News”; Synge, “Riders to the Sea”, J.M. Synge "Playboy of the Western World", Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats.

And for poetry, check the Yeats list attached. Other good poets are Eavan Boland, Nuala Ni Dhomnhaill, and Paul Muldoon.

>constantly raided by /r9k/ for the last few months, and before that /pol/ used to raid us
Why do people say this stuff?
Do you honestly believe that whenever you see an opinion you disagree with it automatically means there's some organized group of people "raiding" a board? There's such thing as a Veeky Forums archive. You're welcome to look through it and see for yourself there's no boogeyman out to change your favourite board, just people already here with dissenting opinions.

Boards raid each other all the time. It used to be /b/ mostly, but /pol/ now a lot too. /mlp/ also used to do a lot of raids (often along with /pol/ because quite large shared userbase).

Do you have any evidence of this?

>Do you honestly believe that whenever you see an opinion you disagree with it automatically means there's some organized group of people "raiding" a board?
When the board is taken up by pictures of frogs and questions like "suggest a book where chad and stacey get killed in the beta uprising" it's safe to assume it's not a Veeky Forumsposter. Don't be so naive, it's obvious when it happens.

"you just don't like people who disagree with you" is a shit argument. There isn't a single prevailing philosophy on Veeky Forums, there's practically nobody here who agrees with me on most things.

well considering Veeky Forums is an offshoot of /r9k/, it shouldn't be surprising there's still many dumb frogposters around