William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist and writer, and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. He was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature, and later served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.
Eavan Aisling Boland was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of women in Irish history. A number of poems from Boland's poetry career are studied by Irish students who take the Leaving Certificate. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
Pat Boran is an Irish poet.
Mary Dorcey is an Irish author and poet, feminist, and LGBT+ activist. Her work is known for centering feminist and queer themes, specifically lesbian love and lesbian eroticism.
Gregory O'Donoghue (1951–2005) was an Irish poet.
Paula Meehan is an Irish poet and playwright.
Joseph Woods is an Irish poet born in Drogheda, Ireland. He moved with his family to Harare, Zimbabwe in 2016, where he works as a poet, writer and editor.
Constan Olive Leland Bardwell was an Irish poet, novelist, and playwright. She was part of the literary scene in London and later Dublin, where she was an editor of literary magazines Hibernia and Cyphers. She published five volumes of poetry, novels, plays and short stories, for which she received the Marten Toonder Award and the Dede Korkut Short Story Award from Turkish PEN. In later life, she moved to Sligo, where she co-founded the Scríobh Literary Festival. Her memoir A Restless Life details her difficult upbringing and her experiences in London and Dublin.
Christopher Robert Agee is an American poet, essayist, editor and publisher living in Ireland. He is the Founder and Editor of Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and of The Irish Pages Press/Cló An Mhíl Bhuí as well as the author of four books of poems, and one work of poetic non-fiction. He lives in Belfast, and divides his time between Ireland, Scotland and Croatia.
Eva Bourke is a German-born Irish poet.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish poet and essayist who writes in both Irish and English.
Áine Ní Ghlinn is a bilingual Irish journalist, poet, playwright and children's writer. She is the current Laureate na nÓg, 2020—2023, the first to write exclusively in Irish.
Nessa O'Mahony is an Irish poet and a freelance teacher and writer.
Nell Regan is an internationally renowned Irish based poet and non fiction writer.
Máighréad Medbh is an Irish writer and poet.
Catherine Ann Cullen was the first Poetry Ireland poet in residence and is a writer.
Ciaran O'Driscoll is an Irish poet and novelist born in Callan, County Kilkenny and living in Limerick.
Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi is a Nigerian-Irish poet, writer, editor, and performer.
Enda Wyley is an Irish writer of poetry and children's literature.
Victoria Kennefick is an Irish poet. She has been an artist/poet/writer in residence for Cork County Council, University College Dublin and the Yeats Society. She has been a recipient of bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and Kerry County Council. Her collection Eat or We Both Starve won the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and Costa Book Award for Poetry.