Irish literature is one of the great literatures of the world. This is well-known because of our Nobel Laureates in particular, Yeats and Shaw and Beckett and Heaney, but also because James Joyce and Swift and Oscar Wilde and others strut the world in their greatness. Contemporary Irish literature has also attained international acclaim with the novels or stories of John Banville, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright or the poetry of Paul Muldoon, Paul Durcan and Evan Boland amongst many others.
What is not often known, is that there is another Irish literature written in the Irish language, a literature which is little known and smally celebrated. The Irish language was the tongue spoken in Ireland for most of its history, and maybe all of its pre-history. It is not English spoken with a thickish brogue and wheeled out in plays and films to betoken authenticity. It is described as a Celtic language closely related to the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man, and more distantly to Welsh, Breton and Cornish. It is sometimes wrongly described as Gaelic which would be akin to calling the German language 'Dutch.'
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