In the beginning, the revivalists preferred to write in Classical Irish, and were notably inspired by Geoffrey Keating's (Seathrún Céitinn) Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (History of Ireland), a much-read 17th-century work.
His other works include the autobiography Mo Scéal Féin and retellings of tales from Irish mythology, as well as a recently reissued adaptation of Don Quixote.
Although he greatly admired these Gaeltacht memoirs and particularly that of Tomás Ó Criomhthain, novelist Flann O'Brien also chose to satirize their cliches quite mercilessly in his modernist novel An Béal Bocht ("The Poor Mouth"), which is set in the fictional, desperately poor, and constantly raining Gaeltacht of (Corca Dhorcha); a parody of Irish: Corca Dhuibhne, the name in Munster Irish for the Dingle Peninsula.
Micí Mac Gabhann was the author of Rotha Mór an tSaoil ("The Great Wheel of Life"), dictated in his native Ulster Irish.
His last novel, Dá mBíodh Ruball ar an Éan ("If the Bird Had a Tail"), a study of the alienation of a Gaeltacht man in Dublin, was left unfinished, a fact suggested by the title.
For these reasons, Liam De Paor has called Pearse's execution by a British Army firing squad after the defeat of the 1916 Easter Rising a catastrophic loss for Irish literature which only began to be healed during the late 1940s by the modernist poetry of Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máirtín Ó Direáin, and Máire Mhac an tSaoi.
Máire Mhac an tSaoi, who was also an accomplished Celticist and literary scholar, published several collections of lyric verse beginning in the 1950s.
Ó Ríordáin was born in the Ballyvourney breac-Gaeltacht: his poetry was experimental enough in metre to draw attacks from literary traditionalists, while also being intensely personal in content.
Modernist literature was developed further by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, a schoolmaster from Connemara, who was the Irish-language littérateur engagé par excellence.
At the camp, he taught Irish language courses to fellow internees and began his modernist masterpiece, the novel Cré na Cille ("Graveyard Clay").
Similarly to those of Flann O'Brien, Ó Cadhain's novel lampoons the rose-coloured depiction of life in the Gaeltachtaí favored by the romantic nationalist writers of the early Gaelic revival.
An important part of his writings is his journalism, essays, and pamphlets, found in such collections as Ó Cadhain i bhFeasta, Caiscín, and Caithfear Éisteacht.
Like the poet Liam Gógan, Ó Cadhain was a linguistic moderniser and wrote in an experimental form of the Irish language, even in contexts where a less obscure style would have been appropriate.
Ó Tuairisc, a stylistic innovator, wrote poetry and plays as well as two novels on historical themes: L'Attaque, and Dé Luain.
Diarmaid Ó Súilleabháin sought to adapt Irish to the urban world: An Uain Bheo and Caoin Thú Féin offered a depiction of a middle-class environment and its problems.
Colm Ó Snodaigh's novella, Pat the Pipe - Píobaire, describes a busker's adventures in Dublin's streets in the nineties.
Donncha Ó Céileachair and Síle Ní Chéileachair, brother and sister, published the influential collection Bullaí Mhártain in 1955, dealing with both urban and rural themes.
Countries other than Ireland have produced several contributors to literature in Irish, reflecting the existence globally of a group who have learned or who cultivate the language.
Seán Ó Muirgheasa, an American resident in California, is the author of An Dola a Íoc, a detective novel set in New York City and published by Coiscéim in 2017.
Colin Ryan is an Australian whose short stories, set mostly in Australia and Europe, have appeared in the journals Feasta, Comhar and An Gael.
[7] Two collections of his poetry have been published by Coiscéim: Corraí na Nathrach (2017)[8] and Rogha (2022)[9] Julie Breathnach-Banwait is an Australian citizen of Irish origin living in Western Australia.
Both magazines publish short fiction and poetry: the manifesto of Feasta also declares that one of its objects is to encourage students to write in Irish.
They have since been joined by An Gael,[12] an international literary magazine established in North America but publishing prose and poetry in Irish by writers from a number of different countries, including Ireland, Australia and Finland.
[14] There are presently over 2,500 works of various kinds in print in Irish, of which the largest proportion is literature (over 2,000, including novels, short stories and poetry), children's books and educational material.