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Irish Literature Guide

Encylopedias, etc.

In addition to the suggestions below, more reference resources for the field of Irish (and Anglo-Irish) literature can be found by checking UNB WorldCat, and the Reference Materials collection, or may be publicly accessible via the internet. If you are looking for general material relating to English literature, check the Reference Sources section of the English Literature Guide.

 

Awards and Prizes

Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards

Francis MacManus Short Story Competition, RTE Radio 1

Hennessy New Irish Writing, Irish Times

Rooney Prize for Literature, Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College Dublin

 

Biography and Bibliography

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online (DLB Online), licensed resource

An Bunachar Náisiúnta Beathaisnéisí Gaeilge, biographies are in Gaelic, public access

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), licensed resource

Irish History Online: a bibliography of Irish history, public access

Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature, School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, public access

Bibliography of Gaelic Arthurian Literature, University of Rochester, public access

Literature of the "Troubles", Bill Rolston, CAIN, public access

Bibliography of Nineteenth-Century Irish Literature, Julia M. Wright, public access

Old Irish and Early Christian Ireland: A Basic Bibliography, Charles D. Wright, public access

A Bibliography of Irish Studies in Japan, IASIL-Japan, public access

 

Dictionaries, Glossaries, ...

The pocket Oxford Irish dictionary (Irish-English), licensed resource

Gaelic Dictionaries, John T. McCranie, public access

 

Encyclopedias and Guides

Cambridge history of Irish literature, Vol. 1, To 1890

Cambridge history of Irish literature, Vol. 2, 1890-2000

Encyclopedia Mythica, M.F. Lindemans, public access

Concise Oxford companion to Irish literature, 5 simultaneous users, licensed access

 

Literary Criticism

Literature Criticism Online, includes: Twentieth-century literary criticism, Nineteenth-century literature criticism, Literature criticism 1400-1800, Shakespeare criticism, Contemporary literary criticism, and Children's literature review, licensed resource

Cambridge Histories Online, including Cambridge history of literary criticism, vols. 1-9, licensed resource

Literary Index, Gale, public access

Find Books

UNB WorldCat searches the WorldCat database and offers up-to-date availability information for material held by UNB Libraries. WorldCat contains more than 130,000,000 bibliographic records (including books, journals, videos, music ...) referring to the holdings of libraries world wide. Many of these items may be retrieved for UNB users through the Libraries' Document Delivery Service. WorldCat also catalogues selected journal articles, often available through document delivery, and internet-based resources.

Mobile users should note that although UNB Libraries has moved to a responsive web design, mobile interfaces and apps may NOT yet provide all the functionality of other types of web-based access.

Search UNB WorldCat:
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For members of the UNB/STU community of users, the Library provides access to individual electronic books, through UNB WorldCat. Among these are:

A Blake Dictionary: the Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, licensed access

But the Irish Sea betwixt us : Ireland, colonialism, and Renaissance literature, Andrew Murphy, licensed access

Decolonisation and criticism: the construction of Irish literature, Gerry Smyth, licensed access

Irish impressions, G K Chesterton, licensed access

The politics of language in Ireland, 1366-1922: a sourcebook, Tony Crowley, licensed access

 

As well, the University community may access several collections of electronic books.

 

Some internet sites offer full-text, public access books, and book-length works either as collections or as individual linked titles. Some full-text titles are free to view / access, others may not be. Examples of such sites of interest include:

Catalog, Hathi Trust, limit to full-text

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts, University College Cork

archive.org

Google Books, limit to free full-text

PR: Literature: English (non-American), Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania

 

Find Articles

For those interested in Irish (and Anglo-Irish) literature and related fields, several of the available licensed bibliographic databases are listed in Key and Additional Resources below. These databases will be especially useful when you are beginning a research project and looking for information on a topic.

For all of the Libraries' licensed databases, please see the Article Databases page.

Key Resources

  • Modern Language Association (MLA) International Bibliography & Directory of Periodicals (EBSCO)
    MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literature, folklore, film, literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing. Listings on rhetoric and composition and the history, theory and practice of teaching language and literature are also included. Dating back to 1925, the database contains more than 2.7 million citations, over 6,000 journals and series, 1,200 book publishers and over 372,000 subject names and terms and adds over 66,000 records annually (May 2018).

    Coverage is international and includes titles and full-text links from online publishers including JSTOR, Project MUSE, Wiley-Blackwell and Taylor & Francis.

    The MLA Directory of Periodicals contains all information available on the journals and series on the bibliography's Master List of Periodicals.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Literature Criticism Online
    Provides Online access to the content of the following reference works on literature: Twentieth-century literary criticism, Nineteenth-century literature criticism, Literature criticism 1400-1800, Shakespeare criticism, Contemporary literary criticism, and Children's literature review.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • Literature Online
    Literature Online offers full text access to rare and inacessible works, up-to-date, reference resources, in addition to the full text of poetry, drama, and prose fiction from the seventh century to the present day. Materials are included from almost every period and genre of English literature as well as many works by 20th century authors. Contemporary criticism is available through the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL).
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • JSTOR Archival Collection
    JSTOR provides access to back issues of a variety of scholarly journals. UNB Libraries currently subscribes to the Arts & Sciences (I through X) collections, along with the Life Sciences and Ireland collections.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.

Additional Resources

  • Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL)
    Based on the annual print publication by the Modern Humanities Research Association, the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature provides bibliographic records for monographs, journal articles, doctoral dissertations and book reviews published since 1920, with selected materials included from 1892 - 1919. Part of the Literature Online collections.
    4 simultaneous users.
  • Project Muse
    "Project MUSE covers the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and many others." UNB subscribes to almost 400 eJournals, and provides access to select Open Access eBooks.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.
  • JSTOR Current Collection
    In addition to being an archive, JSTOR offers current access to a range of titles from various publishers. UNB has access to current and archival content for almost 50 of these journals.
    Unlimited simultaneous users.

UNB/STU users should take particular note that the JSTOR Archival Collection includes the Ireland Collection.

Other textual databases, bibliographic databases and citation indexers for Irish (and Anglo-Irish) literature  include:

Literary Index, Gale, public access

JSTOR, freely searchable and offers some free access to selected material. Search and then choose "Content I can access"

Sources: database for Irish research, National Library of Ireland

 

There is also a wide variety of individual periodical titles available to UNB/STU users. You can locate these by searching UNB WorldCat or through the UNB Libraries' Journals & Newspapers list. These include:

Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, licensed resource

Érui, licensed resource

Irish Studies Review, licensed resource

 

Some periodicals may be publicly accessible via the internet offering complete or selected full-text , including:

Early Modern Literary Studies, public access

English Language and Literature Studies, public access

Estudios Irlandeses : Journal of Irish Studies, public access

Hypermedia Joyce Studies, public access

Irish Quarterly Review, selected volumes, public access

James Joyce Online Notes, public access

Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, public access on free registration

Studi Irlandesi : a Journal of Irish Studies, English / Italian, public access

Studies in Bibliography, public access

 

Find Internet Sites

Collective Resources

National Library of Ireland

Literature: Arts in Ireland, Arts Council

Digital Repository of Ireland

Digital Humanities Observatory, "Ireland's window on humanities e-scholarship"

Irish Literary Collections Portal, Emory University

Folklore, Folktales, and Fairy Tales from Ireland, D. L. Ashliman

 

Associations, Organizations ...

American Conference for Irish Studies

Canadian Association for Irish Studies

Eighteenth Century Literature Research Network in Ireland

International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures

Poetry Ireland

Irish Writers Centre

 

Authors / Works

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts, University College Cork

A Celebration of Women Writers: Writers from Ireland, University of Pennsylvania

Irish Texts Society, broken run [v. 1-24]

"irish literature"subject search of archive.org

"irish poetry"subject search of archive.org

Poetry: Study Ireland, BBC

Belfast Group Poetry: Networks, Emory

The Writer's Passage, Voices from Ireland, podcasts.ie, Arts Council of Ireland

Samuel Beckett Endpage, University of Antwerp

James Joyce Collection, University of Buffalo

[Works of Sheridan Le Fanu], archive.org

J. M. Synge, a critical study, P. P. Howe, 1912

J. M. Synge and the Irish dramatic movement, Francis Bickley, 1912

Oscar Wilde, chronology and texts, CELT

 

Citing Your Sources

Accurate, properly formatted footnotes, reading lists, and bibliographies are hallmarks of good academic research. Through citing, you acknowledge the source of any ideas you mention in your writing, document your research, and provide the information your readers need to track down your sources.

Numerous citation styles exist, and each specifies what elements are required (title, author, journal name, etc.) and how the citation should be formatted. The standard citation style for English Literature is MLA, but your instructor may require or recommend that you use another. Consult your course syllabus or check with your instructor to be sure of using the correct citation style for your assignment.

Use these resources for guidance on proper citation:

As of spring 2021, the MLA Handbook is in its 9th edition; however, there are only two differences between the 8th edition and 9th edition for citation:

1) in works cited entries for MLA 9th edition, you should write the DOI number for a journal article from a database as a web address, e.g. https://doi.org/10.1162/tneq_a_00903, and use a permalink only if no DOI is provided.         

2) the works cited entry for a film should begin with the title of the film, rather than the director's name. If you streamed the film, include just the name of the streaming service, not a URL. E.g. 

Black Panther. Directed by Ryan Coogler, Marvel Studios / Walt Disney Pictures, 2018. Netflix. 

 

Citation Management Software

Zotero, public access

UNB Libraries' Guide to Zotero, public access

 

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