The Gaelic Revival has long fascinated scholars of political history, nationalism, literature, and theater history, yet studies of the period have neglected a significant dimension of Ireland's evolution into nationhood: the cultural crusades mounted by those who believed in the centrality of the Irish language to the emergent Irish state.

This book attempts to remedy that deficiency and to present the lively debates within the language movement in their full complexity, citing documents such as editorials, columns, speeches, letters, and literary works that were influential at the...

Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State, 1922-1939 is a continuation of Philip O'Leary's previous path-breaking book on the prose literature of the Gaelic Revival. The period following the War of Independence and Civil War saw an outpouring of book-length works in Irish from the state publishing agency An Gum. The frequency and production of new plays, both original and translated, have never been approached since. O'Leary has investigated all of these works, as well as journalism and manuscript material, and discusses them in a lively and often humorous manner. Several writers known...