Celtic Revival

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The Celtic Revival, (also known as the Irish Literary Revival) began when Irish writers such as Lady Gregory, Percy French, "AE" Russell, Oliver St John Gogarty, Padraic Colum, Edward Martyn, Edward Plunkett, AKA Lord Dunsany, and William Butler Yeats stimulated a new appreciation of traditional Irish literature and Irish poetry in the late 19th and early 20th century.

[edit] History

The Celtic Revival movement also encouraged the creation of works written in the spirit of Irish culture, as distinct from English culture. This was, in part, due to the political need for an individual Irish identity.The spirit of rebellion was kept alive by invoking Ireland's historic past, its myths, legends and folklore.There was an attempt to re-vitalize the native rhythm and music of Irish Gaelic. Figures such as Yeats, J.M. Synge and Sean O'Casey wrote many plays and articles about the political state of Ireland at the time. These were connected with another great symbol of the literary revival, The Abbey Theatre, which served as the stage for many new Irish writers and playwrights of the time.

The Celtic Revival was an international movement. The Irish American designer Thomas Augustus "Gus" O’Shaughnessy made a conscious choice to connect his art with Irish design roots. Louis Sullivan the Chicago architect incorporated dense Celtic-inspired interlace in the ornament of his buildings. Sullivan's father was a traditional Irish musician and they both were step-dancers, showing how his creativity was not just rooted in his official education. Trained in stained glass and working in an Art Nouveau style, O’Shaughnessy designed a series of windows and interior stencils for Old Saint Patrick’s Church in Chicago, a project begun in 1912.

The term Celtic Revival is also sometimes used to refer to the Cornish cultural Celtic revival of the early twentieth century. This was characterised by an increased interest in the Cornish language started by Henry Jenner and Robert Morton Nance in 1904. The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies was formed in 1924 to "maintain the Celtic spirit of Cornwall", followed by the Gorseth Kernow in 1928 and the formation of the Cornish political party Mebyon Kernow in 1951.