Introduction: the position of Irish in contemporary Irish poetry

Irish literature has historically possessed what Thomas Kinsella calls a 'dual tradition', and continues to be written in the country's majority and minority languages, English and Irish, respectively. As the two languages keep up what Kinsella terms their 'dynamic interaction', many Irish readers have increasingly turned at least one of their two ears to Irish language literature, in the original, in translation, and via critiques that take into account both languages for a more comprehensive representation and understanding of Ireland's art and eras. Therefore, whereas in some quarters a narrow, monoglot view of Ireland's poetry still exists, recent critical studies of contemporary work recognise the need to account for the polyphony of voices which make up what Sean O Riordain called the 'fuaim na habhann' / riversound of the living stream of Irish writing.