Poetry for Students, Volume 31

For decades, the provisional Irish Republi-
can Army (IRA) fought to make Great Britain
relinquish its hold on Northern Ireland, and Ire-
land watched its brother state experience violent
bombings and unsuccessful attempts to force the
British from the island of Ireland all together. In
2005, the Army Council of the IRA announced
an end to its armed campaign. In the Republic of
Ireland, years of economic difficulties and low
living standards for the Irish people began to
draw to a close toward the end of the twentieth
century. With the 1992 ratification of Irish par-
ticipation in a united European community, the
European Union, by the Republic of Ireland, the
political status of the nation stabilized, and its
economic situation began to improve. Amid this
tumultuous history, Boland established herself
as a poet, and her work is inextricably tied to her
nation’s status. ‘‘Outside History’’ was published

in 1990, the same year that the Irish elected the

republic’s first female president. From her posi-

tion as an established Irish female poet, Boland

had much to look back on that year as she con-

templated Irish history and claimed her place in

it in her poem.

CRITICAL OVERVIEW

While there is limited criticism available on

the individual poem ‘‘Outside History,’’ discus-

sions of other works in the twelve-poem poetic

sequence bearing the same title and of Boland’s

work in general often apply to this particular

poem. In discussing Boland’s body of work,

Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle, in their 2005

book A History of Twentieth-Century British

COMPARE

&

CONTRAST

 1990s:In 1990, Ireland elects its first female

president, Mary Robinson, marking a vic-

tory for self-described feminists like Boland.

Thomas McCarthy, a reviewer for theIrish

Times, will later suggest that President Rob-

inson’s constituency is drawn in part from

readers of Boland’s feminist poetry. In 1997,

Ireland elects its second female president,

Mary McAleese.

Today:In 2001, President McAleese men-

tions Boland, among other Irish writers

and artists, in a speech honoring the fiftieth

anniversary of Ireland’s first Arts Act, legis-

lation designed to offer government support

to the arts and artists. President McAleese is

reelected in 2004.

 1990s: Eavan Boland is one of only a

few prominent female Irish poets with a

number of collections in print by the 1990s.

Other established female Irish poets include

Medbh McGuckian, Mary O’Malley, and

Paula Meehan.

Today:Having benefited from the inroads

made in the realm of contemporary Irish

poetry by the female poets who preceded

them, a new group of female Irish poets

begins to achieve popular and critical atten-

tion. These women include Colette Bryce,

Leontia Flynn, Caitrı ́ona O’Reilly, Leanne

O’Sullivan, and Mary O’Donoghue.

1990s: Contemporary Irish poetry often

takes the form of free verse and is influenced

both by Ireland’s own literary history and by

America’s, with critics observing connec-

tions between the work of Irish poets and

American poets of the past and present,

including Walt Whitman and John Ashbery.

Today:Irish poets continue to experiment

with free verse and to draw on Irish mythol-

ogy as well as on the work of American

writers. The influences of such American

authors as Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Parker,

F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Robert Lowell are

discussed among critics and poets.

Outside History