Irish poetry has often inhabited a condition of ontological doubleness. Existing between two languages allows for both stereophonic and transgressive qualities not available on the monoglot plane. The poetry of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, best known from bilingually presented volumes, has benefited hugely from this paradigm, as it enters into dialogue with a host of translators including Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Medbh McGuckian and Paul Muldoon. Permeability and slipping across boundaries becomes an enabling aesthetic. The work of Celia de Fréine too engages with translation to destabilise hierarchical binaries, and challenge deep-rooted concepts of originals and translations in the reception of the Irish poem. The work of younger poets, such as Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, and Aifric Mac Aodha, builds on the achievements of these writers, while engaging with the rapidly changing linguistic environment (and poetic culture) of Ireland today.

Modern women poets writing in the Irish language occupy a unique place, historically, between the vibrancy of the Irish folk tradition and the frequently encountered sense that they are lonely workers in a dying language. Their place in the canon of modern Irish poetry thus differs subtly from that of writers in English, but their contribution to the tradition has nevertheless been central. In mid-century, Máire Mhac an tSaoi writes poems of startling modernity and outspokenness at a time of proverbial cultural conservatism, belying conventional identifications of the language with patriarchy and puritanism. The emergence of Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Biddy Jenkinson in the 1980s marked another dramatic moment. In a satirical poem, Jenkinson inverts the conventions of the aisling and speaks from the position of the female apparition, or embodiment of the nation. In both Jenkinson’s and Ní Dhomhnaill’s work what was static comes unexpectedly to life, bristling with submerged, unruly energy. Their contemporary successors, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh and Aifric Mac Aodha, have ensured that women remain in the forefront of the contemporary tradition.