This chapter examines the extent to which the Gaelic literary tradition was in a state of transition during the period 1780–1830. It discusses the growing influence of the English language and contemporary English literature on the Gaelic tradition that led to new innovations in genre and style. In addition, contact with English influenced the manner in which creative material in the Irish language was treated. The confluence of languages also had implications for the orthographic system employed in manuscripts and methods of transmission, both manuscript and printed. A growing interest in Irish-language literature, manuscripts, and historical sources among non-native scholars drawn from the Anglo-Irish Protestant elite led to the preservation of much Gaelic material in English translation. These translations served another important purpose, however, as they provided new source material that would be drawn upon for inspiration by Anglo-Irish writers later in the nineteenth century.

The Irish poetry of the romantic age is dominated by its best-known figure, Thomas Moore. While Moore claimed that his songs were responsible for saving the national literary and musical culture, there were, of course, many other writers producing poetry in differing modes, languages, and registers. This chapter begins and ends with Moore’s considerable achievements, but it also deals with three issues that preoccupied Irish poetic and cultural debate in the period and after: translation, authenticity, and quality. The debate gains its first focus in the work of Charlotte Brooke, but continues through Moore’s contact with music in the collections of Edward Bunting. This period was also one of considerable historical moment, and the chapter also addresses poetry written out of the contact with French revolutionary ideas, the United Irishmen, 1798, and Union. Among poets considered are also William Drennan, Mary Tighe, James Orr, and Thomas Dermody, writing in English and Ulster Scots as well as in contact with the Irish-language tradition, mock-epic, and the oriental.