The distinguished translator and editor of The Poets and Poetry of Munster was born near Strabane, Co. Tyrone, in 1839. Much of his original work has appeared above his Irish pen-name “Erionnach”; and from first to last Dr Sigerson’s name is indissolubly associated with the wide-reaching Celtic Renascence in Ireland.
DR JOHN TODHUNTER.
[PAGE 170]
One of the foremost contemporary poets of Ireland, was born in Dublin in 1839, and, like so many of his literary compatriots, was educated at Trinity. He then pursued his medical studies in Paris and Vienna; returned to Dublin and practised awhile as a physician; succeeded Prof. Dowden as Professor of English Literature in Alexandria College; and, since 1875, has devoted himself exclusively to literature. Some of his lyrical pieces are known to all lovers of poetry—e.g. “The Banshee”; and for the rest he has won a distinctive place for himself by work at once varied in theme and beautiful in treatment. Though he has won deserved reputation as a playwright for the contemporary stage, as well as in the poetic drama, he seems to me to be at his best when most Celtic in feeling and expression. He is represented here, not by pieces so well known as “The Banshee” or any part of The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling, but by two typical Irish poems, and one lovely fragment (see p. 173) from Forest Songs. Personally, I consider the “Love Song” given at page 170 to be one of the finest compositions of its kind in modern Celtic literature. I have regretfully refrained from quoting two other poems by Dr Todhunter, one familiar to every Irishman, “The Shan Van Vocht of ’87,” beginning—
There’s a spirit in the air,
Says the Shan Van Vocht,
And her voice is everywhere,
Says the Shan Van Vocht;
Though her eyes be full of care,
Even as Hope’s, born of Despair,
Her sweet face looks young and fair,
Says the Shan Van Vocht.—
and the other, which I think the strongest of his short lyrical poems, “Aghadoe”—of which I may give the two concluding quatrains—
I walked to Mallow town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe;
Brought his head from the gaol’s gate to Aghadoe,
Then I covered him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn,
Like an Irish king he sleeps in Aghadoe.
Oh! to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!
There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe,
Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I,
Your own love, cold on your cairn, in Aghadoe.
KATHERINE TYNAN.
[PAGE 174]
The author of Louise de la Vallière (1885), Shamrocks (1887), Ballads and Lyrics (1891), and later volumes in prose as well as verse, is one of the best known representatives of the Irish poetic fellowship. Mrs Hinkson (though best known by her maiden name) is distinctively Irish rather than Celtic, and pre-eminently a Catholicist in the spirit of her work. She has a St Francis-like love of birds and all defenceless creatures and humble things, and has a most happy lyric faculty in dealing with aspects and objects which excite her rhythmic emotion. In lyric quality and in her all-pervading sense of colour, she is, however, characteristically Celtic. Miss Tynan was born in Dublin in 1861, but since her marriage a few years ago to Mr Hinkson (himself one of the Dublin University Young Ireland men) she has resided in or near London. Some of her work has a lyric ecstasy, of a kind which distinguishes it from the poetry of any other woman-writer of to-day.
CHARLES WEEKES.
[PAGE 179]
Mr Weekes is one of the small band of Irish poet-dreamers who may be particularly associated with Mr W. B. Yeats and Mr G. W. Russell (“A.E.”). His book, Reflections and Refractions, contains fine achievement as well as noteworthy promise.