Irish Literary Classics: Index

Irish Literary Classics

Literary Texts
Irish Literary Classics	Various Irish Writers
Celtic Texts & Criticism

Return to General Index

Classic Irish Authors


Wiliam Allingham to George Farquhar
William Allingham Samuel Beckett George Berkeley	George Birmingham Edmund Burke William Carleton	T. Crofton Croker Michael Doheny Maria Edgeworth	John Eglinton L. Winifrid Faraday George Farquhar
Samuel Ferguson to Le S. Fanu
Samuel Ferguson Augusta Gregory Oliver Goldsmith	Gerald Griffin Douglas Hyde James Joyce	Patrick Kavanagh Geoffrey Keating Charles Kickham	Benedict Kiely J. S. Le Fanu
Thomas MacCarthy to Sean O’Casey
Thomas McCarthy Charles McGlinchey Louis MacNeice	Charles Macklin C. R. Maturin J. C. Mangan	John Mitchel George Moore Thomas Moore	Flann O’Brien Kate O’Brien O’Casey, Sean
Liam O’Flaherty to Richard Stanihurst [Stanyhurst]
Liam O’Flaherty Sylvester O’Halloran Seamus O’Kelly	Sydney Owenson Walter Pater St. Patrick	George Russell G. B. Shaw Somerville & Ross	Edmund Spenser Henry de Stacpoole Richard Stanihurst
James Stephens (b.1882) to William Butler Yeats
James Stephens Bram Stoker	Jonathan Swift J. M. Synge	Th. Wolfe Tone Oscar Wilde	W. B. Yeats
[ Texts and extracts from numerous authors of lesser weight than those listed as Classics in RICORSO are given in the adjacent “Irish Writers” index - as infra. Several several English writers of significant influence and importance for major Irish authors and their context are included in the listing on this page largely on account of scale. Online links to internet version of texts by Irish authors are to be found on those writers’ pages under Authors A-Z and are occasionally collated at RICORSO Gateway > “Individual Authors” too - supra. ]

Major Authors
W. B. Yeats	Poems, Plays, Fiction, and Critical Writings
James Joyce	Fiction, Poetry and Critical Writings

Table of Contents

William Allingham

Sixteen Poems Selected by W. B. Yeats (1905)

Samuel Beckett

Plays

Waiting for Godot (1955) - in two .htm files

Waiting for Godot (1955) - as a single .pdf.

Endgame (1958)

Not I (1972)

Worstword Ho (1983)

Novels

[ to be added ]

Miscellaneous

“The Capital of the Ruins” (1946)

[ Note: Extensive extracts from the novels are to be found in Authors > Beckett > Quotations - supra. ]

George Berkeley

A Word to the Wise; or, an exhortation to the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland [...] (1749)

George Birmingham

Barrington’s Recollections (1918 Edn.) - Introduction

Spanish Gold(1908)

Edmund Burke

Speeches

“Address to the British Colonists in North America” (1777)

Mr. Burke’s Speech at the Guildhall, in Bristol (1780)

Letters

Public letter(s)

“Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe on [...] Catholics of Ireland” (1792)

Private Letters

Letter to the Duke of Portland, September 14, 1794

Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hussey, February 4, 1795

Letter to Rev. Dr. Hussey, May 18, 1795

Letter to Thomas Keogh, Esq., November 17, 1796

Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hussey, Dec. 1796

Letter to the Right Hon. Wm. Windham, March 30, 1796

Letter to Dr. Laurence June 5, 1797

Major works

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Letters, Speeches, and Tracts on Irish Affairs, ed. M. Arnold (1881)

Preface by Matthew Arnold & Table of Contents

Tracts Relative to the Laws Against Popery (1763)

William Carleton

— from Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1830, & edns.)*
	Introduction (1843 Edn.) “Ned M’Keown” “The Three Tasks” “Shan Fadh’s Wedding”	“The Battle of the Factions” “Lough Derg Pilgrim” “The Hedgeschool” “Wildgoose Lodge”
*chiefly taken from Colliers 1881 Edn. (NY 1881) - via Gutenberg.
Various collections
	“Death of a Devotee” “Condy Cullen and the Gauger”	“The Fate of Frank M’Kenna”
Novels
Fardorougha the Miser; or, The Convicts of Lishnamona (1839)
A copy of Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1834 Dublin Edition) is available here in a separate window in pdf.
Note: Several prefaces of other works and longer extracts from the Autobiography, &c., are to be found under Carleton in the “Authors” region of this website.

T. Crofton Croker

Researches in the South of Ireland (1824)

Adventures of Barney Mahoney [actually by Mrs. Croker] (1832)

Notes on Letters of Thomas Moore to ... James Power (1854)

Michael Doheny

The Felon’s Track (1849)

.pdf & .doc

Maria Edgeworth

Castle Rackrent (1800)

“The Limerick Gloves” (in Popular Tales, 1804)

John Eglinton

Irish Literary Portraits (1935)

pdf & .docx

L. Winifred Faraday

The Cattle Raid of Cooley [Tain Bo Cuailgne] (1904)

George Farquhar

The Beaux-Stratagem (1707)

Samuel Ferguson

“Head and Heart of an Irish Protestant” (DUM 1833)

Lady Gregory

See separate index.

Gerald Griffin

The Collegians, or A Tale of Garryowen (1829; 1918 Edn.)

Oliver Goldsmith

“The Deserted Village” (1770)

The Vicar of Wakefield (1776)

Seamus Heaney

A Selection of the Poems (1/2)
A Selection of the Poems (2/2)

Douglas Hyde

“The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland” (1892)

James Joyce

See separate index

Patrick Kavanagh

Poetry	Prose
The Great Hunger (1942)	Self-Portrait (1962)

Geoffrey Keating

A full-text copy of Keating’s History of Ireland is available in sections at RICORSO
1. David Comyn’s Preface & Geoffrey Keating’s Introduction - as .doc or .pdf or .htm.		2. Keating’s Foras Feasa na hEireann/History of Ireland - as .doc or .pdf or .htm.
3. *Notes to Comyn’s Introduction and Keating’s History of Ireland* - as** .doc or .pdf or .htm.		4. Irish Genealogies and compiled by Geoffrey Keating - as .doc or .pdf or .htm.
“People and Places” - an explanatory index of the text and its contents (compiled P. S. Dinneen) - as .doc or .pdf or .htm.

A second set of copies of Keating's History (ed. Comyn) and related articles on him aiso also available
*Introduction to History of Ireland, trans. David Comyn* (ITS 1902), pp.4-95	.pdf & .doc
History of Ireland, trans. David Comyn (ITS 1902-14) - the text	.pdf & .doc
William Holliday, ‘Memoir of Keating’, in A Complete History of Ireland (London 1811)	.pdf & .doc
Michael Doheny, ‘Memoir of Keating’, in The History of Ireland, ed. O’Mahony (NY 1857)	.pdf & .doc
David Comyn, Editor’s Preface to Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (London: ITS 1902-14)	.pdf & .doc

Charles Kickham

Knocknagow; or, The Homes of Tipperary (1873; 1977 edn.

.pdf; & .doc.

Benedict Kiely

Drink to the Bird (1991)

J. S. Le Fanu

Carmilla (1857)	“Madam Crowl’s Ghost” (1870)
Uncle Silas (1864)	“Green Tea” (1871)

Thomas McCarthy

Poems
	“The Dying Synagogue at South Terrace”, and “Moonlight Cooler, 1948”
	“State Funeral”,“Mr Nabokov’s Memory” and “Persephone, 1978”
Prose
	‘Why I Write’

John McGahern

Amongst Women (1990)

Charles McGlinchey

“The Fair at Pollan” by Denis O’Donnell, in The Last of the Name (1986) [Chap. 7]

Louis MacNeice

A selection of poems ..

“Bagpipe Music”	“Birmingham”	“The Brandy Glass”	“British Museum RR”
“Carrickfergus”	“The Drunkard”	“Entirely”	“I Am That I Am”
“Perseus”	“Prayer Before Birth”	“Prospect”	“Refugees”
“The Strand”	“Snow”	“Stylite”	“Thalassa”
“Sunday Morning”	“Sunlight in the Garden”	“ylphides”	“Valediction”

... more poems

‘Three Poems’	[“The Streets of Laredo”, “Slum Song” and “Carrick Revisited”]
‘Two Poems’	[“Schizophrene”, “Prayer Before Birth”]
‘War Poems’	[“Brother Fire”, “Whit Monday”, “Neutrality”, “Nostalgia”, “The Springboard”]

Note: The three sets of poems given above are copied from various issues of The Penguin New Writing, ed. John Lehmann (1942, 1944 & 1946).

Charles Macklin

The True-born Irishman; or, Irish Fine Lady (1762)

Deirdre Madden

One by One in the Darkness (1996)

J. C. Mangan

Selected Poems …

“A Vision of Connaught in the 13th Century”	“Gone in the Wind”
“My Dark Rosaleen”	“The Lover’s Farewell”
“The Nameless One”	“Siberia”
“Lament for the Prince of Tir-Owen and Tirconnell”	“The Woman of the Three Cows”
“Hussey’s Ode to the Maguire”	“And Then No More”

Also ...

Translations from the Gaelic, sel. by Louise Guiney (1897)

C. R. Maturin

Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)

“Leixlip Castle” (1825)

John Mitchel

Jail Journal [1854] (Dublin: Gill 1913)	.htm & .pdf & .doc.
The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps) [1861] (Edinburgh 1876)	.htm & .pdf & .doc
Note: The .htm/.html copies are unusually long and will take some moments to download.

George Moore

Confessions of a Young Man (1886)

Drama in Muslin (1886; as Muslin, 1915 Edn.)

Esther Waters (1899)

The Untilled Field (1903)

I.	In the Clay	VIII.	The Wedding-Gown
II.	Some Parishioners	IX.	The Clerk’s Quest
III.	The Exile	X.	”Alms-giving”
IV.	Home Sickness	XI.	So On He Fares
V.	A Letter To Rome	XII.	The Wild Goose
VI.	Julia Cahill’s Curse	XIII.	The Way Back
VII.	A Playhouse in the Waste

Thomas Moore

The Loves of Angels (1823)

Memoirs of Captain Rock (1824) - extracts

Flann O’Brien

At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)

The Third Policeman (1967)

Sean O’Casey

The Plough and the Stars (1926)

Kate O’Brien

The Ante Room(1934)

Liam O’Flaherty

Novels (longer extracts)

Skerrett (1934)

Famine (1937)

Short fiction

“The Sniper” (1923)

Sylvester O’Halloran

General History of Ireland (1778) - “Preliminary”

.html & .pdf & .doc

Seamus O’Kelly

“The Weaver’s Grave”

Sydney Owenson

The Wild Irish Girl (1806)

Walter Pater

Marius the Epicurean (1885)

Saint Patrick

“Confession of St. Patrick”

“Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus”

“The Life of St. Patrick” (by Muirchú)

“AE” Russell

[View on screen (.htm)]
“Nationality and Imperialism” (1901)	.htm
“Open Letter to the Masters of Dublin (1913)	.htm
The National Being (1916) [extracts]	.htm
[Download (.doc/docx)]
The National Being (1916)	.doc
Imagination and Reveries (1916)	.docx
Collected Poems (1926)	.docx
Letters from AE, ed. Denson (1962)	.docx

G. B. Shaw

John Bull’s Other Island (1904) [Preface & Sel. Text]

“What Protestants Think [about] Home Rule (1912)”

Somerville & Ross

The Silver Fox (1897)

Edmund Spenser

A View of the Present State of Ireland [1956]

Henry de Stacpoole

The Blue Lagoon (1908)

Richard Stanihurst

De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis (1584)

De Vita S. Patricii (1587)

James Stephens

The Crock of Gold (1912)	.htm & .pdf & .doc
The Charwoman’s Daughter (1912)	.htm & .pdf & .doc
Here Are Ladies (1913)	.htm & .pdf & .doc
Insurrection in Dublin (1916)	.htm & .pdf & .doc
Irish Fairy Tales (1920)	.htm & .pdf & .doc

Bram Stoker

Dracula (1897)

Jonathan Swift

Prose
An Argument [on] the Abolishing of Christianity (1708)	“The Art of Political Lying”, Examiner (9 Nov. 1710)
“Proposal for Correcting … the English Tongue” (1712)
The Drapier’s First Letter (1724) Gulliver’s Travel (1726) A Modest Proposal (1729)	The Drapier’s Fourth Letter (1725) Short View of the State of Ireland (1727
Poetry
“A Lady’s Dressing Room” (1732) “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” (1739)	“On Dreams: An Imitation of Petronius”