Dab solver - Literature of Northern Ireland

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== Literature in Ulster Scots ==

[[Scottish people|Scots]], mainly [[Middle Irish|Gaelic]]-speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 15th century, but large numbers of [[Scots language|Scots]]-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 [[Plantation of Ulster|Plantation]], with the peak reached during the 1690s.^ref In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.^ref

Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland.^ref W G Lyttle, writing in Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco, uses the typically Scots forms kent and begood, now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream  forms knew, knowed or knawed and begun. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Mid Ulster English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct [[Language contact|contact]] with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}70 lines hidden (14183 characters)
== Derry literature ==

The city of [[Derry]] and surrounding countryside of [[County Londonderry]] have become well known for their literary legacy, including the [[Restoration literature|Restoration]] dramatist [[George Farquhar]], poet [[Seamus Heaney]],^ref poet [[Seamus Deane]], playwright [[Brian Friel]],^ref and writer and music critic [[Nik Cohn]], authors [[Joyce Cary]], [[Jennifer Johnston]] and others.

== Writers from Northern Ireland ==

* [[Ciarán Carson]]
* [[Mairtín Crawford]]
* [[Brian Friel]]
* [[Seamus Heaney]]
* [[John Hewitt (poet)|]]
* [[C. S. Lewis]]
* [[Bernard MacLaverty]]
* [[Louis MacNeice]]
* [[Ian McDonald (author)|]]
* [[Medbh McGuckian]]
* [[Gerard McKeown]]
* [[Paul Muldoon]]
* [[Flann O'Brien]]
* [[Frank Ormsby]]
* [[Tom Paulin]]
* [[Richard Rowley]]
* [[Bob Shaw]]
* 

== See also ==

*[[Irish poetry]]
*[[Irish Pages]]
*[[List of writers of Northern Ireland]]
*[[The Troubles in popular culture]]

== References ==

<references/>

[[...| ]]

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[[File:Writers Square, Belfast, January 2011 (01).JPG|thumb|Artworks in Writers' Square, Belfast, celebrate the literary traditions of Northern Ireland]]
Literature of Northern Ireland may include literature written in [[Northern Ireland]] and in that part of Ireland before the [[Partition of Ireland|partition of the island of Ireland]] and literature written by [[List of writers of Northern Ireland|writers from Northern Ireland]]. It includes literature in [[English language|English]], [[Irish language|Irish]] and [[Ulster Scots dialects|Ulster Scots]].

The impact of [[Irish nationalism]] that led to the partition of the island of Ireland in 1921 means that literature of the [[Republic of Ireland]] is not considered to be British - although the identity of literature from Northern Ireland, as part of the literature of the United Kingdom, may fall within the overlapping identities of [[Irish literature|Irish]] and [[British literature]] where "the naming of the territory has always been, in literary, geographical or historical contexts, a politically charged activity".<ref name=Deane>{{cite book|last=Deane|first=Seamus|title=A Short History of Irish Literature|year=1986|publisher=Hutchinson|location=London|isbn=0091613612}}</ref> Writing from Northern Ireland has been described as existing in a "double [[Postcolonial literature|post-colonial]] condition"<ref name="Ferguson 2008">''Ulster-Scots Writing'', ed. Ferguson, Dublin 2008 ISBN 9781846820748</ref> being viewed as not British enough, not Irish enough, and (for writings in Scots) not Scottish enough to be included in consideration within the various national canons.

The identity of literature of Northern Ireland is as contested as the identity of Northern Ireland itself, but Northern Ireland writers have contributed to Irish, British and other literatures as well as reflecting the changing character of Northern Ireland society. As [[Tom Paulin]] put it, it should be possible "to found a national literature on this [[scutching]] vernacular".<ref>{{cite web|last=Paulin|first=Tom|title=The vernacular city|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/feb/23/books.guardianreview?INTCMP=SRCH|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=19 January 2013}}</ref>

==History==

[[Irish language]] literature was the predominant literature in the pre-Plantation period. The [[Ulster Cycle]] is pertinent to the history of literature in the territory of present-day Northern Ireland. Ulster Scots literature first followed models from Scotland, with the ''rhyming weavers'', such as [[James Orr (poet)|James Orr]], developing an indigenous tradition of [[vernacular literature]]. Writers in the counties which now form Northern Ireland participated in the [[Gaelic Revival]].

The year 1922 marked a significant change in the relationship between [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] and Ireland, with the setting up of the [[Irish Free State]] in the predominantly Catholic South, while the predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom. The outbreak of [[The Troubles]] in the 1960s provided a theme for writers; some were engaged in the social and political background, others reacted against the tensions by looking at nature.

==Literature in Irish==
[[File:Plaque poetry Writers Square Belfast Robert McAdam.jpg|thumb|Poetry in Irish by [[Robert McAdam]] (1808-1895) in paving, Writers' Square, Belfast]]
"The Blackbird of [[Belfast Lough]]", a fragment of syllabic verse probably dating from the 9th century, has inspired reinterpretations and translations in modern times.<ref>{{cite web|last=Sansom|first=Ian|title=The Blackbird of Belfast Lough keeps singing|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/nov/19/seamus-heaney-poetry-blackbird?INTCMP=SRCH|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=19 January 2013}}</ref> The blackbird serves as symbol for the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at [[Queen's University, Belfast]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry|url=http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SeamusHeaneyCentreforPoetry/|accessdate=19 January 2013}}</ref>

The [[Ulster Cycle]] written in the 12th century, is a body of medieval Irish heroic legends and sagas of the traditional heroes of the [[Ulaid]] in what is now eastern [[Ulster]] and northern [[Leinster]], particularly counties [[County Armagh|Armagh]], [[County Down|Down]] and [[County Louth|Louth]]. The stories are written in [[Old Irish|Old]] and [[Middle Irish]], mostly in prose, interspersed with occasional verse passages. The language of the earliest stories is dateable to the 8th century, and events and characters are referred to in poems dating to the 7th.<ref>Garret Olmsted, "The Earliest Narrative Version of the ''Táin'': Seventh-century poetic references to ''Táin bó Cúailnge''", Emania 10, 1992, pp. 5–17</ref>

==Literature in Ulster Scots==

[[Scottish people|Scots]], mainly [[Middle Irish|Gaelic]]-speaking, had been settling in Ulster since the 15th century, but large numbers of [[Scots language|Scots]]-speaking Lowlanders, some 200,000, arrived during the 17th century following the 1610 [[Plantation of Ulster|Plantation]], with the peak reached during the 1690s.<ref name="Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 585">Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 585</ref> In the core areas of Scots settlement, Scots outnumbered English settlers by five or six to one.<ref>Adams 1977: 57</ref>

Literature from shortly before the end of the unselfconscious tradition at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost identical with contemporary writing from Scotland.<ref name="Montgomery & Gregg 1997: 585"/> W G Lyttle, writing in ''Paddy McQuillan's Trip Tae Glesco'', uses the typically Scots forms ''kent'' and ''begood'', now replaced in Ulster by the more mainstream <<link:0>> forms ''knew'', ''knowed'' or ''knawed'' and ''begun''. Many of the modest contemporary differences between Scots as spoken in Scotland and Ulster may be due to dialect levelling and influence from Mid Ulster English brought about through relatively recent demographic change rather than direct [[Language contact|contact]] with Irish, retention of older features or separate development.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}

The earliest identified writing in Scots in Ulster dates from 1571: a letter from Agnes Campbell of County Tyrone to [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]] on behalf of Turlough O'Neil, her husband. Although documents dating from the Plantation period show conservative Scots features, English forms started to predominate from the 1620s as Scots declined as a written medium.<ref name="Scots 2003">''The Edinburgh Companion to Scots'', ed. Corbett, McClure, Stuart-Smith, Edinburgh 2003, ISBN 0-7486-1596-2</ref>

In Ulster Scots-speaking areas there was traditionally a considerable demand for the work of Scottish poets, often in locally printed editions. [[Alexander Montgomerie]]'s ''The Cherrie and the Slae'' in 1700, shortly over a decade later an edition of poems by [[Sir David Lindsay]], nine printings of [[Allan Ramsay (1686-1758)|Allan Ramsay]]'s ''The Gentle shepherd'' between 1743 and 1793, and an edition of [[Robert Burns]]' poetry in 1787, the same year as the Edinburgh edition, followed by reprints in 1789, 1793 and 1800. Among other Scottish poets published in Ulster were [[James Hogg]] and [[Robert Tannahill]].

[[Image:Plaque poetry Writers Square Belfast Robert Huddlestone.jpg|thumb|Poetry in Ulster Scots by [[Robert Huddlestone]] (1814–1887) inscribed in paving in Writers' Square, Belfast]]
That was complemented by a poetry revival and nascent prose genre in Ulster, which started around 1720.<ref name="Robinson 2003">''The historical presence of Ulster-Scots in Ireland'', Robinson, in ''The Languages of Ireland'', ed. Cronin and Ó Cuilleanáin, Dublin 2003 ISBN 1-85182-698-X</ref> The most prominent being the ''''[[Weaver Poets|rhyming weaver]]'''' poetry, of which, some 60 to 70 volumes were published between 1750 and 1850, the peak being in the decades 1810 to 1840, although the first printed poetry (in the [[Burns stanza|Habbie stanza]] form) by an Ulster Scots writer was published in a [[broadsheet]] in [[Strabane]] in 1735.<ref>''Rhyming Weavers'', Hewitt, 1974</ref> These weaver poets looked to Scotland for their cultural and literary models and were not simple imitators but clearly inheritors of the same literary tradition following the same poetic and orthographic practices; it is not always immediately possible to distinguish traditional Scots writing from Scotland and Ulster. Among the ''rhyming weavers'' were [[James Campbell (poet)|James Campbell]] (1758–1818), [[James Orr (poet)|James Orr]] (1770–1816), [[Thomas Beggs]] (1749–1847), [[David Herbison]] (1800–1880), [[Hugh Porter (poet)|Hugh Porter]] (1780–1839) and [[Andrew McKenzie]] (1780–1839).

Scots was also used in the narrative by novelists such as [[W. G. Lyttle]] (1844–1896) and [[Archibald McIlroy]] (1860–1915). By the middle of the 19th century the ''[[Kailyard school]]'' of prose had become the dominant literary genre, overtaking poetry. This was a tradition shared with Scotland which continued into the early 20th century.<ref name="Robinson 2003"/> Scots also regularly appeared in newspaper columns, especially in Antrim and Down, in the form of pseudonymous social commentary employing a folksy first-person style.<ref name="Scots 2003"/> The pseudonymous Bab M'Keen (probably successive members of the Weir family: John Weir, William Weir, and Jack Weir) provided comic commentaries in the ''Ballymena Observer and County Antrim Advertiser'' for over a hundred years from the 1880s.<ref name="Ferguson 2008"/>

A somewhat diminished tradition of vernacular poetry survived into the 20th century in the work of poets such as Adam Lynn, author of the 1911 collection ''Random Rhymes frae Cullybackey'', John Stevenson (died 1932), writing as "Pat M'Carty", and John Clifford (1900–1983) from East Antrim.<ref>Ferguson (ed.) 2008, ''Ulster-Scots Writing'', Dublin, p. 21 ISBN 978-1-84682-074-8</ref>

The polarising effects of the politics of the use of English and Irish language traditions limited academic and public interest until the studies of [[John Hewitt (poet)|John Hewitt]] from the 1950s onwards. Further impetus was given by more generalised exploration of non-"Irish" and non-"English" cultural identities in the latter decades of the 20th Century.

Philip Robinson's (born 1946) writing has been described as verging on "[[Postmodern literature|post-modern]] kailyard".<ref name="Ferguson 2008">''Ulster-Scots Writing'', ed. Ferguson, Dublin 2008 ISBN 978-1-84682-074-8</ref> He has produced a trilogy of novels ''Wake the Tribe o Dan'' (1998), ''The Back Streets o the Claw'' (2000) and ''The Man frae the Ministry'' (2005), as well as story books for children ''Esther, Quaen o tha Ulidian Pechts'' and ''Fergus an tha Stane o Destinie'', and two volumes of poetry ''Alang the Shore'' (2005) and ''Oul Licht, New Licht'' (2009).<ref>http://www.ulsterscotslanguage.com/en/texts/biography/philip-robinson/</ref>

A team in Belfast has begun translating portions of the Bible into Ulster Scots. The Gospel of Luke was published in 2009 by The Ullans Press.

==Literature in English==
{{expand section|date=January 2013}}
[[File:ONolan plaque, Strabane (02), January 2010.JPG|thumb|right|Blue plaque for [[Brian O'Nolan]]]]
A prolific writer and poet, [[W. F. Marshall]] (8 May 1888 &ndash; January 1959) was known as "The Bard of [[County Tyrone|Tyrone]]", Marshall composed poems such as ''[[Hi Uncle Sam]]'', ''Me an' me Da'' (subtitled ''Livin' in Drumlister''), ''Sarah Ann'' and ''Our Son''. He was a leading authority on [[Mid Ulster English]] (the predominant dialect of Ulster).

Though the books of [[Forrest Reid]] (1875-1947) are not necessarily well known today, he has been labelled 'the first Ulster novelist of European stature', and comparisons have been drawn between his own [[Bildungsroman|coming of age novel]] of Protestant Belfast, ''Following Darkness'' (1912), and [[James Joyce]]'s seminal novel of growing up in [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[Dublin]], ''[[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]'' (1924). Reid's fiction, which often uses submerged narratives to explore male beauty and love, can be placed within the historical context of the emergence of a more explicit expression of homosexuality in English literature in the 20th century.<ref name="UE">{{cite web | title=Guide to Print Collections - Forrest Reid Collection | work=University of Exeter| url=http://library.exeter.ac.uk/special/guides/books/reid.html | accessdate=5 July 2009}}</ref>

[[Brian Moore (novelist)|Brian Moore]] ( 25 August 1921 &ndash; 11 January 1999) was a [[novelist]] and [[screenwriter]] from Northern Ireland<ref name="BBCObit">{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/253500.stm|title=Brian Moore: Forever influenced by loss of faith|publisher=''[[BBC Online]]''|date=12 January 1999|accessdate=23 September 2011}}</ref><ref name="Guardian">{{cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-brian-moore-1046881.html|title=Obituary: Shores of Exile|author=Cronin, John|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=13 January 1999|accessdate=23 September 2011}}</ref><ref name="Independent">{{cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1999/jan/13/fiction|title=Obituary: Brian Moore|author=Walsh, John|work=[[The Independent]]|date=14 January 1999|accessdate=31 August 2012}}</ref> who emigrated to Canada and later lived in the United States. He was acclaimed for the descriptions in his novels of life in Northern Ireland after the [[Second World War]], in particular his explorations of the inter-communal divisions of The Troubles. He was awarded the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] in 1975 and the inaugural [[Sunday Express Book of the Year]] award in 1987, and he was [[List of winners and shortlisted authors of the Booker Prize for Fiction|shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times (in 1976, 1987 and 1990)]]. His Belfast-set novel ''[[Judith Hearne]]'', remains among his most highly regarded.

''[[Cal (novel)|Cal]]'' is a [[1983 in literature|1983]] novel by [[Bernard MacLaverty]], detailing the experiences of a young [[Irish Catholic]] involved with the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army|IRA]].

''[[Ripley Bogle]]'' is the debut novel of [[Robert McLiam Wilson]], published in 1989 in the UK.<ref>[http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_R/ripley_bogle2.asp ReadingGroupGuides.com - Robert McLiam Wilson interview]</ref>Written when he was 26 it is arguably his most acclaimed,<ref>[http://www.biography.com/people/robert-mcliam-wilson-215185 Robert McLiam Wilson biography]</ref> winning the [[Rooney Prize]] and the [[Hughes Prize]] in 1989, and a [[Betty Trask Award]] and the [[Irish Book Awards]] the following year.<ref>http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/ripley-bogle/9780749394653</ref>

[[Colin Bateman]]'s ''[[Dan Starkey (series)|Dan Starkey]]'' novels are mostly set in Northern Ireland.

==Poetry after 1922==
[[John Hewitt (poet)|John Hewitt]] (1907&ndash;1987), whom many consider to be the founding father of Northern Irish poetry, also came from a rural background but lived in Belfast and was amongst the first Irish poets to write of the sense of alienation that many at this time felt from both their original rural and new urban homes.

[[Louis MacNeice]] (1907&ndash;1963) was associated with the left-wing politics of [[Michael Roberts (writer)|Michael Roberts]]'s anthology ''[[Michael_Roberts_(writer)#Poets_in_New_Signatures_.281932.29|New Signatures]]''. MacNeice's poetry was informed by his immediate interests and surroundings and is more social than political. As an urban Northerner, MacNeice could not idealize his native landscape as did John Hewitt, and with his Belfast Anglican background could not sympathize with a romantic view of Catholic Ireland. He felt estranged from [[Presbyterian Church in Ireland|Presbyterian Northern Ireland]] with its "voodoo of the [[Orange walk|Orange bands]]",<ref>{{cite book|last=MacNeice|first=Louis|title=Autumn Journal|year=1939}}</ref> but felt caught between British and Irish identities.<ref name=nonmetropolitan>{{cite book|title=Poetry in the British Isles: Non-Metropolitan Perspectives|year=1995|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=0708312667}}</ref>

[[Richard Rowley]]'s early poems, in ''The City of Refuge'' (1917), were rhetorical celebrations of industry. His next volume, ''City Songs and Others'' (1918), included his most quoted poem ''The Islandmen'',<ref name="RR">{{cite web | title=Richard Rowley| work=Ulster History Society | url=http://www.ulsterhistory.co.uk/richardrowley.htm | accessdate=4 March 2009}}</ref> and is regarded as containing his most original work: [[Robert Browning|Browning]]-like monologues straight from the mouths of Belfast’s working-class.<ref>{{cite web | title=Richard Rowley| work=Culture Northern Ireland | url=http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?art_id=1003 | accessdate=4 March 2009}}</ref>

==Poetry after World War II==
[[Robert Greacen]] (1920–2008), along with Valentin Iremonger, edited an important anthology, ''Contemporary Irish Poetry'' in 1949. Greacen was born in [[Derry]], lived in Belfast in his youth and then in London during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. He won the Irish Times Prize for Poetry in 1995 for his ''Collected Poems'', after he returned to live in Dublin when he was elected a member of ''[[Aosdana]]''. Other poets of note from this time include [[Roy McFadden]] (1921–1999), a friend for many years of Greacen. Another Northern poet of note is [[Padraic Fiacc]] (1924- ), who was born in Belfast, but lived in America during his youth.

It was during [[Philip Larkin]]'s five years in Belfast that he reached maturity as a poet.<ref>Bradford 2005, p. 103.</ref> The bulk of his next published collection of poems ''[[The Less Deceived]]'' (1955) was written there, though eight of the twenty-nine poems included were from the late 1940s. This period also saw Larkin make his final attempts at writing prose fiction.

In the 1960s, and coincident with the rise of [[the Troubles]] in the province, a number of poets began to receive critical and public notice. Prominent amongst these were [[John Montague (poet)|John Montague]] (born 1929), [[Michael Longley]] (born 1939), [[Derek Mahon]] (born 1941), [[Seamus Heaney]] (born 1939), and [[Paul Muldoon]] (born 1951). Some critics find that these poets share some formal traits (including an interest in traditional poetic forms) as well as a willingness to engage with the difficult political situation in Northern Ireland. Others (such as the Dublin poet [[Thomas Kinsella]]) have found the whole idea of a Northern school to be more hype than reality, though this view is not widely held.

[[The Belfast Group]] was a poets' workshop which was organized by Philip Hobsbaum when he moved to Belfast in October 1963 to lecture in English at Queen's University. Seamus Heaney attended group meetings from the start. Heaney has said that the group "ratified the idea of writing". Michael Longley started attending after his return to Belfast in 1964. He has said that the group gave "an air of seriousness and electricity to the notion of writing", and that he was "surprised by the ferocity of Hobsbaum's attack". Other participants over the years included: James Simmons, Paul Muldoon, [[Ciarán Carson]], [[Stewart Parker]], [[Bernard MacLaverty]], Frank Ormsby and the critics Edna Longley and Michael Allen. Louis Muinzer, the translator and theatre director was also a member of the group. In 1965 and 1966, the Belfast Festival at Queen's published pamphlets by some of the members of the group, including Heaney, Longley, and this attracted a certain amount of publicity. After Hobsbaum's departure for Glasgow in 1966, the Group lapsed for a while, but then was reconstituted in 1968 by Michael Allen, Arthur Terry, and Heaney. Meetings were held at Seamus and Marie Heaney's house on Ashley Avenue. May 1968 saw the first issue of [[The Honest Ulsterman]], edited by James Simmons. The Belfast Group ceased to exist in 1972.

Heaney is probably the best-known of these poets. He won the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1995, and has served as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory and Emerson Poet in Residence at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], and as Professor of Poetry at [[University of Oxford|Oxford]]. Seamus Heaney in his verse translation of ''Beowulf'' (2000) uses words from his Ulster speech<ref>{{cite book|last=Heaney|first=Seamus|title=Beowulf|year=2000|publisher=W.W. Norton|location=New York|isbn=0393320979}}</ref> A Catholic from Northern Ireland, Heaney, however, rejected his British identity and lived in the Republic of Ireland for much of his later life.<ref>Sameer Rahim, "Interview with Seamus Heaney". ''The Telegraph'', 11 April 2009.</ref>

Derek Mahon was born in Belfast and worked as a journalist, editor, and screenwriter while publishing his first books. His slim output should not obscure the high quality of his work, which is influenced by modernist writers such as [[Samuel Beckett]].

Muldoon is Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor in the Humanities at [[Princeton University]]. In 1999 he was also elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.

''[[Belfast Confetti (poem)|Belfast Confetti]]'' is a poem about the aftermath of a IRA bomb by Ciarán Carson. The poem won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry.

In the late 20th century the Ulster Scots poetic tradition was revived, albeit often replacing the traditional [[Modern Scots]] orthographic practice with a series of contradictory [[idiolect]]s.<ref name="abdn.ac.uk">[http://www.abdn.ac.uk/riiss/Reviews/Falconer_Frank%20Ferguson.shtml Gavin Falconer (2008)  review of "Frank Ferguson, Ulster-Scots Writing: an anthology"]</ref> [[James Fenton (Ulster-Scots poet)|James Fenton]]'s poetry, at times lively, contented, wistful, is written in contemporary Ulster Scots,<ref name="Robinson 2003"/> mostly using a blank verse form, but also occasionally the Habbie stanza.<ref name="Robinson 2003"/> He employs an orthography that presents the reader with the difficult combination of [[eye dialect]], dense Scots, and a greater variety of verse forms than employed hitherto.<ref name="abdn.ac.uk"/>

Michael Longley has experimented with Ulster Scots for the translation of Classical verse, as in his 1995 collection ''The Ghost Orchid''.<ref name="Ferguson 2008"/> Longley has spoken of his identity as a Northern Irish poet: "some of the time I feel British and some of the time I feel Irish. But most of the time I feel neither and the marvellous thing about the [[Good Friday agreement]] was that it allowed me to feel more of each if I wanted to."<ref>{{cite web|title=Middle man|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/aug/21/featuresreviews.guardianreview15?INTCMP=SRCH|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=19 January 2013}}</ref>  He was awarded the [[Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry]] in 2001.

==Belfast literature==
[[File:The Lion, the Witch . . . - geograph.org.uk - 317441.jpg|thumb|A sculpture in Belfast commemorating C. S. Lewis]]
Belfast has been home to a number of significant, novelists, poets and playwrights, besides the Belfast Group. [[C. S. Lewis]], author of [[The Chronicles of Narnia]], was born in [[Belfast]] as were [[Brian Moore (novelist)|Brian Moore]], [[Bernard MacLaverty]], [[Glenn Patterson]] and [[Robert McLiam Wilson]]. Poet [[Louis MacNeice]] was born in the city. Contemporary poets writing in and about Belfast include [[Leontia Flynn]], [[Medbh McGuckian]] and [[Sinéad Morrissey]].

==Derry literature==
The city of [[Derry]] and surrounding countryside of [[County Londonderry]] have become well known for their literary legacy, including the [[Restoration literature|Restoration]] dramatist [[George Farquhar]], poet [[Seamus Heaney]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html |title=Seamus Heaney - Biography |publisher=Nobelprize.org |date= |accessdate=2010-06-20}}</ref> poet [[Seamus Deane]], playwright [[Brian Friel]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Milestone-birthday-for-playwright-Brian.4859003.jp |title=Milestone birthday for playwright Brian Friel - Derry Today |publisher=Derryjournal.com |date= |accessdate=2010-06-20}}</ref> and writer and music critic [[Nik Cohn]], authors [[Joyce Cary]], [[Jennifer Johnston]] and others.

==Writers from Northern Ireland==
* [[Ciarán Carson]]
* [[Mairtín Crawford]]
* [[Brian Friel]]
* [[Seamus Heaney]]
* [[John Hewitt (poet)|John Hewitt]]
* [[C. S. Lewis]]
* [[Bernard MacLaverty]]
* [[Louis MacNeice]]
* [[Ian McDonald (author)|Ian McDonald]]
* [[Medbh McGuckian]]
* [[Gerard McKeown]]
* [[Paul Muldoon]]
* [[Flann O'Brien]]
* [[Frank Ormsby]]
* [[Tom Paulin]]
* [[Richard Rowley]]
* [[Bob Shaw]]
* <<link:1>>

==See also==
*[[Irish poetry]]
*[[Irish Pages]]
*[[List of writers of Northern Ireland]]
*[[The Troubles in popular culture]]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Literature of Northern Ireland| ]]

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