IRISH LITERATURE 



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IRKUTSK 



No more to chiefs and ladies bright 



The harp of Tara swells : 

 The chord alone, that breaks at night, 



Its tale of ruin tells. 

 Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, 



The only throb she gives 

 Is when some heart indignant breaks, 



To show that still she lives. 



Irish poets have always possessed the peculiar 

 Irish qualities of imagination and fire, and 

 much of their verse has had as its distinct 

 object the awakening of national passion and 

 the expression of patriotism. The first Irish 

 prose-writer of note was Maria Edgeworth, and 

 she was followed by Samuel Lover and Charles 

 Lever, with their typically Irish tales both 

 novelists of whom any literature rnight well be 

 proud. 



For a time literary effort ceased, and Ireland 

 seemed to have lost the creative spirit, but 

 late in the nineteenth century there came into 

 notice a movement known as the Irish Literary 

 Revival, which brought to the fore a number 

 of writers of acknowledged power. Perhaps the 

 chief of these was William Butler Yeats (which 

 see), whose plays and poems breathe the very 

 spirit of Irish romance. Dramatic literature 

 was one of the branches which profited most 

 by this revival, and some of the plays of Lady 

 Gregory, Yeats and John Millington Synge, as 

 set forth by the Irish Players, attracted the 

 attention of the entire theater-going world. Of 

 the poetry of Ireland in this late era, with its 

 simplicity, its beauty and its love for Irish 

 soil, the Lake Isle of Innisfree, by Yeats, will 

 give an idea: 



I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, 

 And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles 



made ; 

 Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the 



honey-bee, 

 And live alone in the bee-loud glade. 



And I shall have some peace there, for peace 



comes dropping slow, 

 Dropping from the veils of morning to where the 



cricket sings ; 

 There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple 



glow, 

 And evening full of the linnet's wings. 



I will arise and go now, for always night and day 

 I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the 



shore ; 



While I stand on the roadway, or on the pave- 

 ments gray, 

 I heart it in the deep heart's core. 



This brief sketch does not include the names 

 of all the distinguished Irish writers. There 

 have been, for instance, Swift, Goldsmith, 



Lecky, Oscar Wilde and G. Bernard Shaw; but 

 they are not in their writings typically Irish. 

 Practically everything they wrote might have 

 been just the same had they been born on the 

 other side of the Irish Sea, but in the works 

 of the authors discussed above nationality has 

 been a dominating factor. Each writer of note 

 named above is described in alphabetical order 

 in these volumes. E.M.T. 



Consult Krans' Irish Life in Irish Fiction; 

 Yeats' (editor) A Book of Irish Verse. 



IRISH MOSS, or CARRAGHEEN, kar'a 

 geen, is the name applied to several species of 

 seaweed which abound in the rocky districts of 

 Great Britain and Ireland and on the east 

 coast of North America. The Irish moss of 



IRISH MOSS 



commerce has a thick, forked, somewhat fan- 

 shaped frond, usually green or purple. It is 

 gathered from the rocks, and is washed, sun- 

 bleached and dried. It is nutritious and may 

 replace animal jelly as the basis of soups and 

 desserts, and is used by painters as the founda- 

 tion of size. It is also of value in the treat- 

 ment of lung troubles, when prepared medici- 

 nally in connection with other drugs. 



IRISH SEA, a small sea which separates 

 Ireland from Great Britain. From Saint 

 George's Channel, at the south, to the North 

 Channel, both opening into the Atlantic Ocean, 

 the distance is abput 130 miles. The greatest 

 width of the sea is 140 miles. In the north 

 is the Isle of Man, and in the southeast the 

 island of Anglesey. 



IRKUTSK, irkootsk', the largest town in 

 Siberia and the capital of the province of Ir- 

 kutsk, is situated on the Angara River and on 

 the Trans-Siberian Railroad, about forty miles 

 from the southern extremity of Lake Baikal. 

 After a destructive fire in 1879 the place was 

 almost entirely rebuilt, and now it presents all 

 the features of a beautiful, modern city. It is 

 well laid out, and has wide, well-paved streets, 

 many public buildings, a theater, a library, a 

 museum and a branch of the Imperial Geo- 



