We have seen that Goldsmith was removed from an Irish atmosphere at a tender age, and this is not the only instance of the frowning of fortune upon the native literature.  When the fame of the ancient bards of the Gael was noised from end to end of Europe, it was through the medium of Macpherson’s forgeries. Fingal caught the fleeting fancy of the moment in a manner never achieved by the true Ossianic lays of Ireland.  The Reliques of Irish Poetry, published by Miss Brooke by subscription in Dublin in 1789 to vindicate the antiquity of the literature of Erin, never went into a second edition.  And although some of the pieces contained in that volume have been reprinted in such undertakings of a learned character as the volumes of the Dublin Ossianic Society, J.F.  Campbell’s Leabhar na Feinne, and Cameron’s Reliquiae Celticae, they have aroused little interest amongst those ignorant of the Irish tongue.

During the nineteenth century, the number of poets who drew upon Ireland’s past for their themes increased considerably.  The most popular of all is unquestionably the author of the Irish Melodies.  But, here again, the poet owes little or nothing to vernacular poetry, the mould is English, the sentiments are those of the poet’s age.  Moore’s acquaintance with the native language can have been but of the slightest, and in the case of Mangan we are told that he had to rely upon literal versions of Irish pieces furnished him by O’Donovan or O’Curry.  Of the numerous attempts to reproduce the overelaboration of rhyme to which Irish verse has ever been prone, Father Prout’s Bells of Shandon is perhaps the only one that is at all widely known.  When the legendary lore of Ireland became accessible to men of letters, owing to the labors of O’Curry, O’Donovan, and Hennessy, and the publication of various ancient texts by the Irish Archaeological Society, it was to be expected that an attempt would be made by some poet of Erin to do for his native land what the Wizard of the North had accomplished for Scotland.  The task was undertaken by Sir Samuel Ferguson, who met with conspicuous success.  His most ambitious effort, Congal, deals in epic fashion with the story of the battle of Moyra.  Others in similar strain treat the story of Conaire Mor and Deirdre, whilst others such as the Tain-Quest are more in the nature of ballads.  Ferguson did more to introduce the English reading public to Irish story than would have been accomplished by any number of bald translations.  His diction is little affected by the originals, and he sometimes treats his materials with great freedom, but his achievement was a notable one, and he has not infrequently been acclaimed as the national poet.