3 Famous Irish Writers You May Not Know Were Irish

There is more than Guinness and whiskey in Irish Culture, like Irish Writers. 

Nowadays Ireland is associated with Guinness, potato memes on the internet, Irish whiskey, and lately with Brexit.

Since many are writing in English, many Irish writers are listed or thought of under English Literature, little known that many famous writers are Irish, not British! Irish literature consists of the authors like James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker. But, rich literature and storytelling are not new for the Irish. Since the days of Celtic tribes, storytelling and rich oral stories have been part of Irish culture. Often mistaken with English literature, Irish Literature is not limited to only the English language. Even today, many famous Irish artists are mistaken as British. It is a common struggle for the Irish not to be mistaken as British and for that reason let’s remember the great Irish writer who may be mistaken as English or British.

Oscar Wilde

You do not need to read books or be interested in literature to know who Oscar Wilde is, probably heard or seen his name somewhere in your life. That is how important and famous he is. Born in 1854, in Dublin, Wilde’s influence is still very much alive around the city. The house he was born in is now the academic center inside Trinity College Dublin, the university he attended.  There are also numerous museums about Oscar Wilde in Dublin.

Oscar Wilde Statue in Dublin

While he is mostly known for his The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde is also an incredible playwriter. The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most popular plays, both in his time and nowadays. Later, he moved to London and his plays became widely popular in London theatre.

It is shame that such an excellent artist and a gentleman faced imprisonment and exile because of the inhuman laws of the era. Oscar Wilde was accused of being in a relationship with same-sex, which was a crime at the time in the UK, and sentenced to imprisonment with maximum penalties.  After released he never returned to the British isles.

James Joyce

One of the pioneers of Irish literature is James Joyce.  Born in 1882 at Rathgar, Dublin, Ireland, Joyce started writing early. At age 9, he wrote a poem about the death of  Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish nationalist. His first major work Dubliners(1914) is a portrayal of the Irish middle-class at the time. It consists 15 short stories and many of the characters in Dubliners(1914) later appeared in small roles in his masterpiece.

On 16 June 1904, Joyce and his wife were in Dublin enjoying their outing, and the date that takes in his masterpiece novel Ulysses (1922).

James Joyce statue in Dublin

Joyce is one of the pioneers of the “stream of consciousness” technique that can be seen and observed in Ulysses (1922). It is a wonderful story of a day in Dublin City. This story and James Joyce are so valuable for Ireland and Irish literature that annually, it is celebrated in Ireland.

Bloomsday, coming from the protagonist of the novel Leopold Bloom, is an annual celebration of the novel. Every year on 16 June, people dressing up as the characters in the novel and Ulysses (1922) is being read all around the city of Dublin.

Joyce influenced the modernism in Irish literature and many other Irish writers and scholars such as  Samuel Beckett.

Samuel Beckett

1969 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Samuel Beckett is another pioneer in Irish literature.

Born in 1906, Beckett was also born and raised in Dublin and studied at Trinity College Dublin.

A little different than the other two, Beckett is a critical genius. One of his first works was actually a critical essay defending the work of James Joyce.  Beckett also wrote many of his works in French. That is why he is widely appreciated not only in Ireland but also in France.

A cunning critical writer and novelist, Beckett, on the contrary, is mostly known by his plays. Waiting for Godot became not only Beckett’s most famous work, but also a theatre phenomenon still known and played today. While the play deconstructed and can be viewed from different angles, it is a clear representation of the Irish perspective on mainland Britain.  A society that kept ignorant and passive by the ruling elite. An allegory of the treatment of the British towards the Irish for decades.

Samuel Beckett Bridge, Dublin

Honorable Mentions:

1. Bram Stoker
2. Edna O’Brien
3. W.B Yeats
4. George William Russell

Till today, a total of four Irish writers have won the Nobel Prize for Literature – W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney.

But many more have contributed to Irish Literature. It is important that Ireland has fought long and hard for its independence from Britain, and independence is not only about politics or borders but also about culture. Therefore, it is important to not mistaken Irish as British and respect the identity.

Sources:

Bair, Deirdre. Samuel Beckett. 1990.

Coakley, Davis. Oscar Wilde, the Importance of Being Irish. Town House, 1994

Nolan, Emer. James Joyce and Nationalism. Routledge. 2002

Pilling, J. Beckett before Godot. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. 2004.

Wikipedia Contributors. (2019, October 30). Charles Stewart Parnell. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stewart_Parnell

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