Ireland 1691-1801: Encyclopedia II - Ireland 1691-1801 - Culture

Ireland 1691-1801 - Culture

Some historians argue that there were two cultures existing side by side in eighteenth century Ireland, which had little contact with each other. One was Catholic and Gaelic, the other Anglo-Irish and Protestant. In this period, there continued to be a vibrant Irish language literature, exemplified by the Aisling genre of Irish poetry. These were dream poems, typically featuring a woman representing Ireland who pleaded with the young men of Ireland to save her from slavery and oppression. Many Irish language poets clung to a romantic attachment to the Jacobite cause, although some wrote in praise of the United Irishmen in the 1790s. Other, non political poetry could be quite sexually explicit, for example the poem Cuirt an Mean Oiche (the Midnight Court). Gaelic poets of this era include Aogán Ó Rathaille and Brian Merriman.

Anglo-Irish writers were also prolific in this period, notably Jonathan Swift author of Gulliver's Travels and the liberal political thinker Edmund Burke. One intellectual who crossed the cultural divide was John Toland, an Irish speaking Catholic from Donegal, who converted to Protestantism and became a leading philosopher in intellectual circles in Scotland, England, Germany and Bohemia.

Much of Ireland's finest urban architecture also stems from this era, in particular Georgian Dublin.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Culture", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki