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Literature: 'The seas of literature are full of the wrecks of Irish anthologies", wrote W.B

Literature: 'The seas of literature are full of the wrecks of Irish anthologies", wrote W.B. Yeats in an introductory note to his own Book of Irish Verse in 1895.

Almost a century later it seemed as if the currents had become more treacherous than ever. Casual observers of Irish cultural debate will remember well the contentious arguments that surrounded the publication of anthologies of Irish writing in the late 1980s. At that time the sport of "canon-baiting" was especially popular here and reached a crescendo in the reactions to various collections of Irish poetry and to the first instalments of the Field Day Anthology.

In retrospect it might all appear like a storm in a teacup not unlike the teenage penchant for picking holes in other peoples' record collections. Nonetheless, with Yeats's words of warning ringing in his ears, Stephen Regan bravely sets sail to trawl for a representative sample of Irish writing in English from 1789-1939.

Regan's chronological parameters and editorial intentions are well justified in a lucid and informative introduction. Irish writing in the years between 1789 and 1939, he argues, "gathers a powerful sense of momentum and direction" as we move from the revolutionary consciousness of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen to the last years of the Irish Literary Revival and the final poems of W.B. Yeats. The aim, therefore, is not to provide a definitive canon of writing but "to observe an emerging body of writing with a familiar set of conventions and concerns". Not surprisingly we find included here sections on 'Political Writings and Speeches' side by side with more traditional sections on poetry, fiction and drama. This effectively allows the reader to recover the dialogue between political energies and literary sensibilities which characterised so much of the writing of the period in question.

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One can detect here an obvious intellectual debt to the work of Seamus Deane which is, of course, duly acknowledged.

For the most part the extracts are cleverly chosen and arranged to reveal illuminating connections and contrasts across the range of material. For example, Wolfe Tone's autobiography makes reference to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France which immediately precedes it in the anthology. Coming to the literary texts after reading the political writings also opens up many interesting interpretative possibilities: the writings of Tone may, to some degree, explain the Anglo-Irish fear of usurpation palpable in texts like Castle Rackrent and Melmoth the Wanderer.

Likewise, new horizons of interpretation might be brought to Thomas Moore's Emmet poems on reading the famous speech from the dock a few pages earlier.

The emphasis throughout is not exclusively on high culture. In an early section on 'Reflections on Irish Culture' we learn much about popular customs, practices and attitudes. In 1797, De La Tocnaye found Cork to be "The Land of Whim and Spleen"; almost a century later the novelist Emily Lawless could write that "The Burren is not - in all probability will never be - a tourist haunt". (The question of which observation has proven the most accurate would undoubtedly enliven many an Irish conversation today!)

Much of the social detail in writing by John Gamble (on Irish wakes) and others gives a vivid insight into the fictitious worlds created by William Carleton, Maria Edgeworth and Lady Morgan. Readers will also find here the literary origins of popular songs and ballads such as Boulavogue, The Croppy Boy, My Lagan Love and She Moved Through the Fair.

The second part of this collection deals with the period 1890-1939, this time juxtaposing 'Nationalist Writings' with fiction, memoirs, poetry and drama. One might quibble here with the narrowing of focus from "political" to "nationalist" writings. The inclusion of writing by some of the more imperially-minded Anglo-Irish figures, like J.P. Mahaffy (who bears many interesting points of comparison to Edmund Burke) might have given a fuller sense of the range of debate during the high revival period. The emphasis instead is very much on the 1916 Rising at the expense of seminal essays like Hyde's 'Necessity for de-Anglicising Ireland' and D.P. Moran's 'The Philosophy of Irish Ireland'. Nonetheless, extracts from Maud Gonne, Patrick Pearse, James Connolly and Constance Markiewicz are usefully included.

It is the words of Thomas MacDonagh, however, which most resonate throughout the latter part of the collection. "We are the children of a race", he wrote, "that through need or choice, turned from Irish to English". Rather than dwell on the negatives of that conversion, MacDonagh, instead, saw potential in the "freshness and power" with which Irish writers used their adopted language. Such insight is acknowledged by Yeats's tribute to his "daring and sweet" thought in the poem 'Easter 1916'. It is also borne out by the literary achievements of Synge, Joyce, O'Casey, Bowen and Beckett which are well represented in this anthology.

The closing pages of the collection give expression to a new mood of disillusionment in independent Ireland. The emergence of the dissident voices of Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O'Brien and Louis MacNeice marks the end of the Literary Revival and initiates a shake-up of the cultural certainties of the new Irish State. MacNeice has the last word. In the poem, 'Snow', he describes the pleasure of eating that most orange of fruits, the tangerine, and takes great delight in feeling "the drunkenness of things being various" in an Ireland which seemed soberly monochrome to him by 1939.

In the end, this anthology navigates a course of some intricacy, plotted by the editor with considerable delicacy and much insight to allow these writings to "enter into strange and unexpected constellations with each other". The excellent explanatory notes and biographical sketches make the passage even easier. No doubt this book will be much used by students and teachers of Irish Studies everywhere. It will also be of immense value to the general reader interested in Irish cultural matters. God bless all who sail in her.

• P.J. Mathews lectures in the Department of English, St Patrick's College, Dublin City University. His latest book, Revival: The Abbey Theatre, Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and the Co-operative Movement, is published by Cork University Press