Making maps: Irish literature in transition, 1780–1830

IntroductionBetween 1780 and 1830, a highly distinctive body of imaginative writing emerged in Ireland. Novels, poems and plays were formed by and in turn helped to mould the linguistic, political, historical and geographical divisions characteristic of Irish life. The intense and turbulent creative effort involved bore witness to a key transition at the beginning of the nineteenth century: the emergence of modern Irish literature as a distinct cultural category. During these years, Irish literature came to consist of a recognizable body of work, which later generations could draw on, quote, anthologize and debate