Chapter 4 - Archipelagic Ireland

Summary

Archipelagic approaches to eighteenth-century poetry have played a part in rescuing Irish women’s poetry of this period from being read through an exclusively Anglocentric lens. In its cultural encounters between native Gaelic culture and colonial settlers, eighteenth-century poetry is rarely straightforward in its identifications. Often women poets, as in the case of Dorothy Smith, would frame their work through an address to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Though Britain will often be cast as the civilising force, the woman poet takes on the role of intermediary, pleading Ireland’s cause and defending her honour on the wider stage. Another complicating factor is the precarious economic situation of the poet seeking patronage as she makes these appeals, as we see in the work of Dorothea DuBois. The poems of Henrietta Battier and Mary O’Brien offer further permutations in what is a complex cultural landscape. Condescending English attitudes to Ireland are turned back on English audiences with witty defiance, as the female voice of Anglo-Ireland comes into its own.