PENWOMEN'S CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 150, 26 June 1937, Page 16

PENWOMEN'S CLUB.

RECENT IRISH POETS.

An address on recent Irish poets wafi given by Father Lavelle yesterday afternoon to the Penwomen's Club. •'The term Irish poetry is properly applied only to those poets born in Ireland who have written in the native Gaelic tongue. The others should be called Anglo-Irish poets." However, he intended to coneider as Irish poets those born in Ireland anil who had written under the impetus of their nationality in whatever tongue they pleased. Some people were inclined to regard Ireland as barren, from the literary point of view, until the beginning of the 19th century. This was because the great national literature of Ireland, with 2000 yeans' tradition, was entirely in the Gaelic tongue or the Latin tongue. The translations of the ancient Gaelic songs, poems and legends- published by George Sigerson and Dr. Douglas Hyde were seized upon by the young writers and gave to their English a new idiom and new rhythm. W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge were exponents of this school. Thomas Kettle and Francis Ledwidge were the Rupert Brookes of Ireland. The insurgent Irish poets of 1916 were the next great schol of poets. '"People who differ from them politically," said the speaker, "may question their wisdom, but nobody has ever questioned their sincerity." P. Pearse, T. McDonaph and J. M. Plunkett were representatives of this school who were executed after the rising had been put down. Extracts from several of these poets were read by Father Lavelle. The president, Mrs. H. Carr Rollett, presided. Earlier in the afternoon a discussion on the Pan-Pacific Conference was held.