William Butler Yeats was the son of a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. He studied painting as a young man but quickly discovered he preferred poetry. Yeats became involved with the Celtic Revival, a movement against the cultural influences of English rule in Ireland during the Victorian period, which sought to promote the spirit of Ireland’s native heritage. His writing drew extensively from sources in Irish mythology and folklore. Also a potent influence on his poetry was the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, whom he met in 1889, a woman equally famous for her passionate nationalist politics and her beauty. Though she married another man in 1903 and grew apart from Yeats, she remained a powerful figure in his poetry
Thomas Crofton Croker [1798-1854] was an Irish antiquary who was born in Cork and devoted himself largely to the collection of ancient Irish poetry and Irish folklore. He and his wife's testimonies about funereal customs, particularly the tradition of keening the deceased are among the earliest and most significant contributions to the understanding of the Irish language lament and the accompanying traditions. His work Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland went to six editions, and was translated into German by the Brothers Grimm..jpg)
Ivor Ben McIvor may not actually be the real name of the writer of this beautiful little book but never mind it's a nice piece of Celtic history which needs to be preserved.
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886. London lawyer Utterson is driven to investigate Edward Hyde, the unlikely protege of his friend Dr Henry Jekyll, suspecting the relationship to be founded on blackmail. The truth is worse than he could have imagined. Jekyll's 'full statement of the case', the final chapter of the book, explores the idea of dual personality that led him to his experiments, and his inexorable and finally fatal descent into evil.
The Tinker's Wedding is a two-act play written by Irish playwright J. M. Synge. The author's only comedy, it is set on a roadside near a chapel in rural Ireland.