Famous Irish Poets: The Greatest Irish Poets In Order

The most famous Irish poets are W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, Ireland’s two Nobel-winning poets (1923 and 1995). But the story starts centuries earlier, with the bardic schools and great Irish-language poets like Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill and Raftery. It runs on through Kavanagh, MacNeice and Boland to living voices like Paul Muldoon. Here are the greatest, in order, with the poems to start with.

Believe me, it is not easy to pick the best Irish poets. Once you start looking, the list just goes on and on and on.

So I’ve kept to the poets who matter most, in the order they lived, Irish-language poets included. Where we have the poems on this site, I’ve linked them.

Poems by poets who died in the last 70 years are still in copyright. For those I give titles, not text. Buy the books. Poets need the money more than most.

Irish poets list: where to start

Poet	Dates	Start with	Why
Aogán Ó Rathaille	c.1670-1729	Gile na Gile	Master of the vision poem
Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill	c.1743-c.1800	Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire	The great lament of the 1700s
Brian Merriman	c.1749-1805	Cúirt an Mheán Oíche	A bawdy comic masterpiece
Antoine Ó Raifteirí	c.1779-1835	Cill Aodáin	The blind poet of the roads
Thomas Moore	1779-1852	The Last Rose of Summer	Took Irish airs to the world
James Clarence Mangan	1803-1849	Dark Rosaleen	Dublin’s tormented romantic
W.B. Yeats	1865-1939	The Lake Isle of Innisfree	Nobel 1923, the giant
Patrick Pearse	1879-1916	The Wayfarer	Poet and leader of the Rising
Francis Ledwidge	1887-1917	Lament for Thomas MacDonagh	Meath’s poet of the blackbird
Patrick Kavanagh	1904-1967	On Raglan Road	Made poetry of small fields
Louis MacNeice	1907-1963	Snow	Belfast wit, world view
Máirtín Ó Direáin	1910-1988	An tEarrach Thiar	Aran, and modern Irish verse
Seán Ó Ríordáin	1916-1977	Cúl an Tí	Top Irish-language voice of his era
Seamus Heaney	1939-2013	Digging	Nobel 1995, the most loved
Michael Longley	1939-2025	Ceasefire	Small poems, huge weight
Derek Mahon	1941-2020	A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford	A landmark of modern Irish verse
Eavan Boland	1944-2020	Night Feed	Put women’s lives at the centre
Paul Muldoon	born 1951	Incantata	Pulitzer-winning trickster
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill	born 1952	Ceist na Teangan	Folklore, wit and modern Irish
Paula Meehan	born 1955	The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks	Inner-city Dublin’s voice
Vona Groarke	born 1964	Infinity Pool (collection)	Ireland Professor of Poetry 2025 to 2028
Doireann Ní Ghríofa	contemporary	A Ghost in the Throat (prose)	Brings Eibhlín Dubh back to life

The early Irish and Gaelic poets

Ireland had poets long before it had towns. For centuries, poetry here was a profession, with ranks and real power.

Amergin: the first poem, in legend

Legend says the first poem spoken in Ireland was the Song of Amergin, poet of the mythical Milesians. Stepping onto the Kerry coast, he claimed to be the wind on the sea, a wave, a stag and more.

The earliest written version is in the eleventh-century Lebor Gabála Érenn, the Book of Invasions. Treat it as legend, not history.

The oldest Irish verse we can actually date comes from monks. A favourite is Pangur Bán, a scholar’s poem about his white cat, usually dated to the ninth century.

The bardic schools

The professional poets were the filí. Britannica says they kept the tales and family trees of the ruling class, in seven grades.

The top grade, the ollamh, took at least 12 years of study and hundreds of stories learned by heart. He wore a cloak of crimson bird feathers and carried a wand.

The bardic schools lasted into the 1600s, until English rule ruined their patrons. Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, who died in 1698, was one of the last trained in the old metres.

Aogán Ó Rathaille (c.1670 to 1729)

Ó Rathaille was probably born in Sliabh Luachra, Co. Kerry. His patrons, the MacCarthys and Brownes, were ruined after the Jacobite defeat of 1690 to 1691. He died poor.

Why he matters: he made the aisling, or vision poem, into high art. In an aisling, the poet meets a beautiful woman who turns out to be Ireland herself, waiting to be rescued.

Start with: Gile na Gile (Brightness of Brightness), his masterpiece.

You will see the lament Cill Chais credited to him, on this site too. In truth its author is uncertain, and some date it later.

Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (c.1743 to c.1800)

Eibhlín Dubh was born at Derrynane, Co. Kerry, one of 22 children. She was an aunt of Daniel O’Connell.

On 4 May 1773, her husband Art Ó Laoghaire was shot dead near Carriganimmy, outside Macroom. He was 26.

The feud began when Art refused to sell his horse to a magistrate, Abraham Morris, for £5. Under the penal laws, that was the most a Catholic could legally own a horse for.

Why she matters: her lament, Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, is one of the great poems in Irish. Peter Levi called it “the greatest poem written in these islands in the whole eighteenth century”.

It was taken down from a keening woman. The Dictionary of Irish Biography says several voices probably shaped it, and some scholars dispute that she wrote it.

Art lies at Kilcrea Friary in mid Cork, so this one is close to home for us Cork people.

Start with: the Caoineadh itself, in Irish and English. It opens “Mo ghrá go daingean tu!”, my steadfast love.

Brian Merriman (c.1749 to 1805)

Merriman came from Ennistymon, Co. Clare. He was a hedge-school teacher and farmer who later taught mathematics in Limerick.

Why he matters: Cúirt an Mheán Oíche (The Midnight Court), dated to 1780. In this comic dream poem, a court of women puts the men of Ireland on trial for not marrying.

It is bawdy, and that caused trouble. Frank O’Connor’s English translation was banned in 1946. The Irish original stayed legal, which tells you how many censors read Irish.

Start with: Cúirt an Mheán Oíche.

Antoine Ó Raifteirí (c.1779 to 1835)

Raftery was born at Killedan, near Kiltimagh, Co. Mayo. Smallpox blinded him as a child. He spent his life on the roads of south Galway as a poet and fiddler, and is buried at Killeeneen, near Craughwell.

Why he matters: he is the people’s poet. Douglas Hyde collected his poems, and in 1900 Hyde, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn put a slab on his grave.

Start with: Cill Aodáin, with its famous opening, “Anois teacht an Earraigh, beidh an lá dul chun síneadh”. Now with spring coming, the days will be stretching. Our version is here in Irish and English.

One warning. Mise Raifteirí an File was long credited to him. The Dictionary of Irish Biography says it may have been pieced together from folklore in 1882 by Seán Ó Ceallaigh, a Loughrea man in New York State.

Moore, Mangan and the 1800s

Thomas Moore (1779 to 1852)

Moore was born at 12 Aungier Street, Dublin, the son of a Catholic wine merchant.

Why he matters: his Irish Melodies, published in ten parts from 1808 to 1834. He wrote 130 poems to old Irish airs, and they earned him £500 a year.

Start with: The Last Rose of Summer, The Meeting of the Waters and Oft in the Stilly Night.

James Clarence Mangan (1803 to 1849)

Mangan was probably born on Fishamble Street, Dublin, a grocer’s son.

Why he matters: his life was hard, and it shows in the poems. Many of his “translations” were free versions, and some were entirely his own. He died of cholera in 1849. By one account, only three mourners came to his funeral.

Start with: Dark Rosaleen, The Nameless One and Siberia.

O my Dark Rosaleen,
Do not sigh, do not weep!

Yeats, the Revival and the Rising

W.B. Yeats (1865 to 1939)

Yeats was born at Sandymount, Dublin, on 13 June 1865. He spent his boyhood holidays in Sligo, and that county runs right through his poems.

Why he matters: he is the giant. He co-founded the Abbey Theatre and sat in the Free State Senate. In 1923 he became the first Irish winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, praised for giving voice to the spirit of a nation.

He died in France in 1939 and was reburied at Drumcliffe, Co. Sligo, in 1948.

Start with: The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Easter, 1916, The Wild Swans at Coole and The Second Coming. Then An Irish Airman Foresees His Death and Under Ben Bulben.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

Patrick Pearse, or Pádraig Mac Piarais (1879 to 1916)

Pearse was born in Dublin, the son of an English sculptor.

Why he matters: he was a poet in Irish and English, and president of the provisional government in the 1916 Rising. He was executed at Kilmainham on 3 May 1916. Tradition says The Wayfarer was written on the eve of his execution.

Start with: The Wayfarer, The Mother and Mise Éire.

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;

Francis Ledwidge (1887 to 1917)

Ledwidge was born at Slane, Co. Meath, the son of a farm labourer.

Why he matters: he wrote about Meath fields and hedges, then went to war with the Inniskillings. He was killed near Ypres on 31 July 1917, the first day of Passchendaele. His lament for Thomas MacDonagh mourns a friend executed after the Rising.

Start with: Lament for Thomas MacDonagh and June.

He shall not hear the bittern cry
In the wild sky, where he is lain,

Kavanagh, MacNeice and the new Irish-language poets

Patrick Kavanagh (1904 to 1967)

Kavanagh was born near Inniskeen, Co. Monaghan. He farmed, then became a Dublin journalist.

Why he matters: he made poetry out of small fields and parish life. The Great Hunger (1942) is a long, bleak poem about rural loneliness.

He wrote On Raglan Road in 1946 for Hilda Moriarty, to the old air Fáinne Geal an Lae. He is said to have given it to Luke Kelly in the Bailey pub in 1964. In 2019 an RTÉ vote named it Ireland’s favourite folk song.

Start with: On Raglan Road, Stony Grey Soil, Canal Bank Walk and A Christmas Childhood.

Louis MacNeice (1907 to 1963)

MacNeice was born in Belfast. He was one of the 1930s Auden group and a BBC radio producer from 1941.

Why he matters: he had a restless eye and a love-hate relationship with Ireland. Autumn Journal (1939) catches a year when Europe was sliding into war.

Start with: Snow, Dublin, Meeting Point and Autumn Journal.

Máirtín Ó Direáin (1910 to 1988)

Ó Direáin was born on Inis Mór, in the Aran Islands. He left for a civil service job, and island life became his great theme.

Why he matters: he self-published Coinnle Geala (1942) and Dánta Aniar (1943). In the Irish Times, Tomás Mac Síomóin saw these as the birth of modernism in Irish poetry.

Start with: An tEarrach Thiar, a Leaving Cert favourite.

Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916 to 1977)

Ó Ríordáin was born in Baile Bhuirne (Ballyvourney), in the Cork Gaeltacht. He had TB from his early twenties and worked for Cork Corporation. He also wrote a weekly column for the Irish Times for years.

Why he matters: many critics call him the major Irish-language poet of his era. His poems are odd, and painfully honest.

Start with: Cúl an Tí and Oíche Nollag na mBan.

Heaney and his generation

Seamus Heaney (1939 to 2013)

Heaney was born on 13 April 1939 near Castledawson, Co. Derry, the eldest of nine children on the family farm at Mossbawn.

Why he matters: he won the Nobel Prize in 1995, praised for the beauty and moral weight of his poems. His poems make potato drills and kitchen chores feel enormous.

In 2015, RTÉ’s A Poem for Ireland vote went to his sonnet “When all the others were away at Mass”. He died in 2013 and is buried in Bellaghy. His last message was a text to his wife, two Latin words telling her not to be afraid.

Start with: Digging and Mid-Term Break, about the death of his brother Christopher, aged four. Then Postscript and Personal Helicon.

Michael Longley (1939 to 2025)

Longley was born in Belfast on 27 July 1939. He outlived his friends Heaney and Mahon, and died in Belfast on 22 January 2025, aged 85.

Why he matters: he wrote short, exact poems about love, nature and violence. His sonnet Ceasefire appeared in the Irish Times in 1994, after the IRA ceasefire.

Start with: Ceasefire, then the collection Gorse Fires.

Derek Mahon (1941 to 2020)

Mahon was born in Belfast and died in Kinsale, Co. Cork, after a short illness, in October 2020.

Why he matters: his poems are elegant and sad, but rarely without a joke. John Banville once rated A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford the finest Irish poem since the death of Yeats. In the 2020 lockdown, his Everything Is Going to Be All Right was shared very widely.

Start with: A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford.

Eavan Boland (1944 to 2020)

Why she matters: Boland was born in Dublin and died there on 27 April 2020. She put women’s ordinary lives at the centre of Irish poetry. Kitchens, babies and suburbs, in a tradition where women had mostly been symbols.

Start with: Night Feed, Quarantine (a Famine poem) and Love.

Paul Muldoon (born 1951)

Why he matters: Muldoon was born in Portadown, Co. Armagh, and he loves a riddle and a pun. He won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Moy Sand and Gravel.

Start with: Incantata, his long elegy for a friend.

The best living Irish poets

A good guide to who matters now is the Ireland Professor of Poetry, a post set up in 1998 after Heaney’s Nobel.

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (born 1952)

Born in Lancashire to Irish parents, she was raised in the Dingle Gaeltacht and Nenagh. She writes only in Irish, and her poems are funny and full of folklore. She was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2001 to 2004.

Start with: Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue). Her bilingual books include Pharaoh’s Daughter and The Astrakhan Cloak.

Paula Meehan (born 1955)

Meehan grew up in Dublin’s inner-city tenements and writes about the city and its women. She was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2013 to 2016.

Start with: The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks.

Vona Groarke (born 1964)

Groarke was born in Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford, and grew up near Athlone. In 2025 she became Ireland Professor of Poetry, for 2025 to 2028.

Start with: her collection Infinity Pool, shortlisted for the 2025 T.S. Eliot Prize. She has also made her own version of the Lament for Art O’Leary, a fine way back into the Caoineadh.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Her prose book A Ghost in the Throat weaves her own life together with Eibhlín Dubh’s. It was An Post Irish Book of the Year 2020.

More Irish poets worth knowing

Frankly, choosing just these was a challenge. Here are more, with poems on this site:

Oliver Goldsmith: The Deserted Village
James Orr: The Irishman, over 200 years old
Oscar Wilde: The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Michael Hartnett: Death of an Irishwoman
Paul Durcan: Going Home to Mayo

To go further, Poetry Ireland is the place to start. I hope you have enjoyed this Irish poetry. I certainly enjoyed putting it together.

Irish poets FAQ

Who is the most famous Irish poet?

W.B. Yeats is the usual answer. Seamus Heaney is the other contender, and Robert Lowell rated him the most important Irish poet since Yeats.

How many Irish poets have won the Nobel Prize?

Two: Yeats in 1923 and Heaney in 1995. Shaw (1925) and Beckett (1969) also won the literature prize, but mainly for plays and fiction.

Who are the greatest Irish poets of all time?

Most lists start with Yeats, Heaney and Kavanagh. Add Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, Moore, MacNeice, Ó Ríordáin, Boland and Mahon for a fair top ten.

Who is the best poet in the Irish language?

For the 1700s, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill and Aogán Ó Rathaille. In modern times, Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máirtín Ó Direáin and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Who was the first Irish poet?

Legend says Amergin, but he is myth, not history. The earliest real Irish verse comes from medieval monks, like the poem Pangur Bán.