From the domestic upheavals of the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence, to the thwarted idealism of the Spanish Civil War and the unrelenting casualties of two World Wars, Ireland was embroiled in a brutal succession of conflicts in the first half of the twentieth century.

Gathering together over three hundred poems by writers such as Francis Ledwidge, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney, this groundbreaking anthology records the thoughts and experiences of Ireland’s poets as soldiers, observers, protestors and mourners.

From patriotism to anger, passion to compassion, hope to regret, Earth Voices Whispering embraces the complex reality of a rich and unique period in Irish poetry.

Featuring, among others:

Katharine Tynan
W.B. Yeats
Eva Gore-Booth
Padraic H. Pearse
Winifred M. Letts
Francis Ledwidge
Austin Clarke
C. Day Lewis
Patrick Kavanagh
Samuel Beckett
Sheila Wingfield
Louis MacNeice
John Hewitt
W.R. Rodgers
Charles Donnelly
Eoghan Ó Tuairisc
Robert Greacen
Thomas Kinsella
John Montague
Brendan Kennelly
Michael Longley
Seamus Heaney
Derek Mahon
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Eavan Boland
Paul Durcan


‘What Gerald Dawe has done so movingly in this book is to bring together without any hint of partisan judgement the poems written on all sides by Irish writers in the five – or more – wars in the thirty years of its coverage. It is an important book, full of despair but also a humanity that might mollify it.’
Bernard O’Donoghue

‘This anthology reveals how Irish poets from many traditions have responded to a violent, war-torn half century … It will be essential reading.’
Terence Brown

‘This anthology is a revelation. It fulfils a cultural need. Why has no previous anthology shown us the range and depth of Irish war poetry? Gerald Dawe has done a magnificent job.’
Edna Longley

With thanks to: The Military Heritage of Ireland Trust

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