Irish literature: Media

Videos

Take a look at George Bernard Shaw speaking on the marvels of Movietone
George Bernard Shaw speaking about the novelty of technology; excerpt from a Hearst...
Video: J. Fred MacDonald & Associates
Learn about The Great Book of Ireland, a book containing hundreds of Irish poems, music compositions, and drawings produced between 1989 and 1991
The Great Book of Ireland is a manuscript book containing hundreds of Irish...
Video: University College Cork, Ireland (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Watch a dramatization of The Well of the Saints by Irish literary renaissance poetic dramatist J.M. Synge
This 1975 dramatization of Irish playwright J.M. Synge's three-act play The Well...
Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Why has Dante's Inferno been important to Irish writers and artists?
Learn about the importance of Dante's Inferno to Irish writers and artists.
Video: University College Cork, Ireland (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Watch an excerpt from a production of Waiting for Godot
The characters Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot; from Samuel Beckett's play...
Video: A Co-Production of the University of Maryland at College Park Visual Press, Caméras Continentales, Société Française de Production, La SEPT-Drama Division Guillaume Gronier, FR3 Music & Drama Division Dominique Fournier,WGBH Boston, PBS, Radioteleviseo Portuguesa-EP; courtesy Smithsonian Institution Press Video
Hear about Austin Clarke's Mnemosyne Lay in Dust, a long poem recounting the poet's experience of mental disorder
Learn about Mnemosyne Lay in Dust (1966), a long poem by Irish writer Austin...
Video: University College Cork, Ireland (A Britannica Publishing Partner)

Images

Jonathan Swift
Satirist, novelist, and essayist Jonathan Swift, oil painting by Charles Jervas;...
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London
The Rival Managers
The Rival Managers, hand-colored etching, 1799. William Pitt the Younger...
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., British Cartoon Prints Collection (digital file no. 3c36042)
Don Dismallo Running the Literary Gantlet
Don Dismallo Running the Literary Gantlet, hand-colored etching, 1790. Edmund...
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., British Cartoon Prints Collection (digital file no. LC-DIG-ppmsca-05485)
Oliver Goldsmith
Poet and novelist Oliver Goldsmith.
The New York Public Library Digital Collection (EM13369)
Sublime and Beautiful Reflections on the French Revolution; or, The Man in the Moon at Large
Sublime and Beautiful Reflections on the French Revolution; or, The Man in the...
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., British Cartoon Prints Collection (digital file no. LC-DIG-ppmsca-05422)
Thomas Moore
Poet and composer Thomas Moore, oil painting by Sir Martin Archer Shee, 1818; in...
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Samuel Ferguson
Poet and antiquarian Samuel Ferguson.
Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his Day by Mary Catharine Guinness, W. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1896
Maria Edgeworth
Novelist Maria Edgeworth, detail of an engraving by Alonzo Chappel, 1873.
Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.
Population changes in Ireland from 1841 to 1851 as a result of the Great Famine
Map depicting population changes in Ireland from 1841 to 1851 as a result of the...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Charles Gavan Duffy
Journalist and Irish nationalist Charles Gavan Duffy.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (Digital File Number: cph 3b49967)
Thomas Osborne Davis
Writer and Irish nationalist Thomas Osborne Davis, detail of an engraving.
The Mansell Collection/Art Resource, New York
James Clarence Mangan
Poet James Clarence Mangan, bust by Oliver Sheppard; in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.
David M. Jensen http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
John Mitchel
Writer and Irish nationalist John Mitchel.
From The Life and Times of Aodh O'Neill, Prince of Ulster; called by the English, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone by John Mitchel, 1879
Edith Somerville
Novelist Edith Somerville.
From Wheel-Tracks by Edith Somerville and Martin Ross, 1923
Bram Stoker
Novelist Bram Stoker, c. 1890.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
George Bernard Shaw
Dramatist, literary critic, socialist propagandist, and Nobel Prize winner George...
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
poster for a WPA Federal Theatre project presentation of On the Rocks
Poster for a WPA Federal Theatre Project presentation of George Bernard Shaw's On...
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (digital file no. 3b49060)
Oscar Wilde
Playwright, novelist, and poet Oscar Wilde, 1882.
Cartoon of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde, cartoon in Punch, March 5, 1892.
From Punch, or The London Charivari, March 5, 1892
Douglas Hyde
Poet, philologist, and historian Douglas Hyde, a founder of the Gaelic League, c....
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
William Butler Yeats
Poet William Butler Yeats, 1923.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
John Millington Synge
Playwright John Millington Synge; from a drawing by James Paterson, 1906.
From The Works of John M. Synge, 1910
James Joyce
Novelist James Joyce, 1938.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Samuel Beckett
Playwright, critic, and narrative prose writer Samuel Beckett, 1965.
© Gisèle Freund
Ireland
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Sean O'Casey
Playwright Sean O'Casey.
J. Brown—Camera Press/Globe Photos
Brendan Behan
Playwright and novelist Brendan Behan.
BBC Hulton Picture Library
Elizabeth Bowen
Short-story writer Elizabeth Bowen.
Courtesy of Elizabeth Bowen; photograph, Jonathan Cape Ltd.
Edna O'Brien
Novelist Edna O'Brien, 2009.
Shutterstock.com
John Banville
Novelist John Banville, 2022.
© Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images
Seamus Heaney
Poet Seamus Heaney, 1995.
Times Newspapers/Shutterstock.com
Colm Tóibín
Novelist, essayist, and poet Colm Tóibín.
Guillem Lopez/age fotostock
Martin McDonagh
Playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh, 2018.
Jordan Strauss—Invision/AP/Shutterstock.com
Sally Rooney
Novelist Sally Rooney, 2020.
Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Interactives

Bloomsday map of Dublin, Ireland
An interactive map of James Joyce's Dublin from June 16, 1904, the date on which...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.