Recommended Reading
Avid poetry fan, or just dipping your toe in? Here's our list of must-read titles.
Anthologies of Irish Poetry
Chris Agee The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland (Wake Forest University Press and Salt Publishing)
Simon Armitage & Robert Crawford The Penguin Book of Poetry from Britain and Ireland since 1945 (Penguin)
Neil Astley Poetry with an Edge (Bloodaxe)
Neil Astley Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (Bloodaxe)
Sebastian Barry The Inherited Boundaries: Younger Poets of the Republic of Ireland (Dolmen)
Louis Bell Remembered Kisses: An Illustrated Anthology of Irish Love Poetry (Gill & Macmillan)
Dermot Bolger An Tonn Gheal: The Bright Wave (Raven Arts)
Eva Bourke and Borbála Faragó Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland (Dedalus Press)
Eva Bourke & Vincent Woods Fermata: Writings Inspired by Music
Anthony Bradley Contemporary Irish Poetry (California Press)
John Brown Magnetic North: The Emerging Poets (Lagan Press)
Seamus Cashman and Bridie Quinn The Wolfhound Book of Irish Poems for Young People (Wolfhound)
Lucy Collins Poetry by Women in Ireland 1870-1970: A Critical Anthology (Liverpool University Press)
Patrick Crotty The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry (Penguin)
Patrick Crotty Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology (Blackstaff Press)
Peter Davidson Poetry and Revolution: An Anthology of British and Irish Verse (Oxford University Press)
Wes Davis An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry (Harvard University Press)
Michael Davitt and Iain MacDhòmhnaill Sruth na Maoile: Modern Gaelic poetry from Scotland and Ireland (Coiscéim)
Gerald Dawe The Younger Irish Poets (Blackstaff Press)
Gerald Dawe The New Younger Irish Poets (Blackstaff Press)
John F. Deane Dedalus Irish Poets (Dedalus)
John F. Deane Irish Poetry of Faith and Doubt: The Cold Heaven (Wolfhound)
Seamus Deane The Field Day Anthology (W.W. Norton)
Irene De Angelis & Joseph Woods Our Shared Japan (Dedalus)
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne Voices on the Wind: Women Poets of the Celtic Twilight (New Island)
Kate Donovan, A. Norman Jeffares and Brendan Kennelly Ireland's Women: Writings Past and Present (Gill & Macmillan)
Theo Dorgan and Noel Duffy Watching the River Flow (Poetry Ireland)
Séan Dunne The Cork Anthology (Cork University)
Séan Dunne The Ireland Anthology (Gill & Macmillan)
Séan Dunne Poets of Munster: An Anthology (Midpoint)
Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi & Pat Boran Writing Home: The 'New Irish' Poets (Dedalus Press)
Peter Fallon and Sean Golden Soft Day: A Miscellany of Contemporary Irish Writing (Wolfhound)
Peter Fallon & Derek Mahon The Penguin Book of Irish Contemporary Poetry (Penguin)
Gabriel Fitzmaurice Irish Poetry Now: Other Voices (Wolfhound)
Davin Garrity The New Mentor Book of Irish Poetry Ireland (Mentor)
Selina Guinness The New Irish Poets (Bloodaxe)
Maurice Harmon Irish Poetry after Yeats (Wolfhound)
Marie Heaney Heart Mysteries: 50 Poems from Ireland to Touch Soul (TownHouse Dublin)
Kathleen Hoagland 1000 Years of Irish Poetry (Welcome Rain)
Alannah Hopkin On the Banks: Cork City in Poems and Songs (The Collins Press)
AA Kelly Pillars of the House: An Anthology of Verse by Irish Women From 1690 to the Present (Wolfhound)
Jim Kemmy The Limerick Anthology (Gill & Macmillan)
Brendan Kennelly Between Innocence and Peace: Favourite Poems of Ireland (Mercier)
Brendan Kennelly The Penguin Book of Irish Verse (Penguin)
Declan Kiberd and Gabriel Fitzmaurice An Crann Faoi Bhláth: The Flowering Tree (Wolfhound)
Thomas Kinsella New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (Oxford)
Thomas Kinsella and Sean Ó Tuama An Duanaire 1600-1900: Poems of the Dispossessed (Irish Books)
Jessie Lendennie Even the Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry (Salmon Poetry)
Edna Longley The Bloodaxe Book of 20th Century Poetry (Bloodaxe)
Michael Longley 20th Century Irish Poems (Faber)
Niall MacMonagle Slow Time:100 Poems To Take You There (Marino)
Niall MacMonagle Real Cool: Poems to Grow Up With (Marino)
Niall MacMonagle Off the Wall (Marino)
Niall MacMonagle Lifelines (Penguin)
Niall MacMonagle Lifelines 2: Letters from Famous People (Town House)
John Mcnamee Out to Lunch (BOI Arts Centre)
Joan McBreen The White Page / An Bhileog Bhan: Twentieth-Century Irish Women Poets (Salmon)
Joan McBreen The Watchful Heart: A New Generation of Irish Poets (Salmon)
WJ McCormack Ferocious Humanism Anthology of Irish Poetry from before Swift to Yeats and After (Dent)
Niall McLoughlin & Matthew Fluharty Breaking the Skin: 21st Century Irish Writing (Volume 2) (Black Mountain)
Séan McMahon 1000 Years of Poetry: A Millenial Anthology (Marino)
Séan McMahon The Derry Anthology (Blackstaff Press)
John Montague Faber Book of Irish Verse (Faber)
John Montague Bitter Harvest: An Anthology of Irish Poetry (Scribners)
Andrew Motion & Blake Morrison Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry (Penguin)
Sineád Morrissey & Stephen Connolly The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland (Blackstaff Press)
Paul Muldoon Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (Faber)
Peggy O'Brien Wake Forest Book of Irish Women Poetry 1967-2000 (Wake Forest)
Sean O'Brien The Firebox: Poetry in Britain and Ireland after 1945 (Picador)
Gréagóir Ó Dúill Fearann Pinn: Filiocht 1900 -1999 (Coisceim)
Frank Ormsby A Rage for Order: Poetry of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Blackstaff Press)
Frank Ormsby Poets from the North Of Ireland (Blackstaff Press)
Frank Ormsby The Hip Flask: Short Poems from Ireland (Blackstaff Press)
Adrian Rice Signals: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (Abbey Press)
Adrian Rice and Angela Reid A Conversation Piece (Abbey Press)
James Simmons Soundings (Blackstaff Press)
Ailbhe Smyth Wildish Things: Anthology of Women's Poems (Attic)
Mark Storey Poetry and Ireland Since 1800: A Source Book (Routledge)
Todd Swift and Martin Mooney Map Makers' Colours: New Poets of Northern Ireland (Nu-Age)
Colm Tóibín Irish Times Book of Favourite Irish Poems (Irish Times Books)
Shaun Traynor The Poolbeg Book of Irish Poetry for Children (Poolbeg)
Keith Tuma Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry (Oxford University Press)
Rebecca E. Wilson and Gillian Somerville-Arjat Sleeping with Monsters: Conversations with Scottish and Irish Women Poets (Wolfhound)
W.B. Yeats A Book of Irish Verse from Modern Writers (Methuen)
W.B. Yeats The Oxford of Modern Verse (Claredon)
Prose on Irish Poetry
Elmer Andrews (editor) Contemporary Irish Poetry: A Collection of Critical Essays (Macmillan, 1992)
Eavan Boland A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet (Carcanet, 2011)
Eavan Boland Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time (Carcanet, 1995)
Terence Brown Ireland's Literature: Selected Essays (Lilliput Press, 1988)
Terence Brown and Nicholas Grene (editors) Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Irish Poetry (Macmillan, 1989)
Lucy Collins Contemporary Irish Women Poets: Memory and Estrangement (2015)
Lucy Collins Aberration in Modern Poetry (2011)
Neil Corcoran The Chose Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern Ireland (Seren Books, 1992)
Neil Corcoran Poets of Modern Ireland (University of Wales Press, 1999)
Patricia Coughlan and Alex Davis (editors) Modernism and Ireland: The Poetry of the 1930s (Cork University Press, 1995)
Gerald Dawe Stray Dogs and Dark Horses: Selected Essays on Irish Writing and Criticism (Abbey Press, 2000)
Seamus Deane Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature (Faber, 1985)
Seamus Deane A Short History of Irish Literature (Hutchinson, 1986)
Dennis O' Driscoll Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (Faber, 2009)
Theo Dorgan (editor) Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh (Four Courts Press, 1996)
Douglas Dunn (editor) Two Decades of Irish Writing: A Critical Survey (Carcanet, 1975)
John Goodby Irish Poetry Since 1950 (Manchester University Press, 2000)
Robert Greacen Rooted in Ulster: Nine Northern Writers (Lagan Press, 2000)
Eamon Grennan Facing the Music: Irish Poetry in the Twentieth Century (Creighton University Press, 1999)
Patricia Boyle Haberstroh (editor) My Self, My Muse: Irish Women Poets Reflect on Life and Art (Syracuse University Press, 2001)
Maurice Harmon and Roger McHugh A Short History of Anglo-Irish Literature (Wolfhound Press, 1982)
Seamus Heaney Finders Keepers: Selected Prose (Faber, 2002)
Seamus Heaney The Place of Writing (Scholars Press, 1989)
Ben Howard The Pressed Melodeon: Essays on Modern Irish Writing (Story Line Press, 1996)
Dillon Johnston Irish Poetry After Joyce (Syracuse University Press, 1997)
Michael Kenneally (editor) Poetry in Contemporary Irish Literature (Colin Smythe, 1995)
Brendan Kennelly Journey into Joy: Selected Prose (Bloodaxe Books, 1994)
Declan Kiberd Irish Classics (Granta Books, 2000)
Thomas Kinsella The Dual Tradition: An Essay on Poetry and Politics in Ireland (Carcanet, 1995)
Edna Longley Poetry in the Wars (Bloodaxe Books, 1986)
Edna Longley The Living Stream: Literature and Revisionism in Ireland (Bloodaxe Books, 1994)
Edna Longley Poetry and Posterity (Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
Sean Lucy (editor) Irish Poets in English (Mercier Press, 1973)
Derek Mahon Journalism: Selected Prose (Gallery Press, 1996)
Christina Hunt Mahony Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition (St. Martin's Press, 1998)
Thomas McCarthy Gardens of Remembrance (New Island Books, 1998)
Peter McDonald Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press, 1997)
Paula Meehan Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them (UCD Press, 2016)
John Montague The Figure in the Cave (Lilliput Press, 1989)
Paul Muldoon To Ireland, I (Oxford University Press, 2000)
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin Instead of a Shrine (UCD Press, 2019)
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Cead Isteach/Entry Permitted (UCD Press, 2017)
Sean O'Brien The Deregulated Muse: Essays on Contemporary British and Irish Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 1998)
Dennis O'Driscoll Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams: Selected Prose Writings (Gallery Press, 2001)
Michael O'Loughlin After Kavanagh (Raven Arts Press, 1985)
Seán Ó Tuama Repossessions: Selected Essays on the Irish Literary Heritage (Cork University Press, 1995)
Robert Welch (editor) The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature (Oxford University Press, 1996)
Margaret Kelleher & Philip O'Leary (editors) The Cambridge History of Irish Literature: 2 Volume Set (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
Marjorie Elizabeth Howes Irish Literature in Transition, 1880 - 1940
Eve Patten Irish Literature in Transition, 1940 - 1980
Rhona Richman Kenneally & Lucy McDiarmid The Vibrant House: Irish Writing & Domestic Space
Geraldine Higgins (editor) Seamus Heaney in Context
Ailbhe McDaid The Poetics of Migration in Contemporary Irish Poetry (Palgrave McMillan)