Leabhar na hAthghabhála (Poems of Repossession), edited by Irish-language poet and scholar, Louis de Paor, is the first comprehensive and critical anthology of modern poetry in Irish with translations to English. It is a sequel to Seán Ó Tuama and Thomas Kinsella’s pioneering anthology, An Duanaire 1600-1900 (Poems of the Dispossessed). Leabhar Na hAthghabhála continues the 1981 anthology’s feat by featuring many more poems that cover the work of twenty-six poets from the past century.
In this new anthology, there are poems by Pádraig Mac Piarais and Liam S. Gógan from the revival period (1893-1939); a generous selection from the work of Máirtín Ó Direáin, Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máire Mhac an tSaoi who transformed writing in Irish in the decades following the Second World War; and the Innti poets – Michael Davitt, Liam Ó Muirthile, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Biddy Jenkinson—and others who developed new possibilities for poetry in Irish in the 1970s and 80s. More recent poetry in Irish is represented by the work of poets such as Colm Breathnach, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Micheál Ó Cuaig and Áine Ní Ghlinn. Translations to English complement the Irish, with some coming from Ireland’s most distinguished poets and translators including Valentine Iremonger, Michael Hartnett, Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Bernard O’Donoghue, Maurice Riordan, Peter Sirr, David Wheatley and Mary O’Donoghue.
Many translations of the poems—some commissioned for this ground-breaking anthology— have not previously been available in English, including Eoghan Ó Tuairisc’s anguished response to the bombing of Hiroshima, ‘Aifreann na Marbh’ (Mass for the Dead). Presenting a critical selection of the best poetry written in Irish since 1900, this anthology challenges the extent to which writing in Irish has been underrepresented in collections of modern and contemporary Irish poetry. In his introduction, Louis de Paor argues that Irish language poetry should be evaluated according to its own rigorous aesthetic rather than as a subsidiary of the dominant Anglophone tradition of Irish writing.