The representation of the feminine: some evidence from Irish-language sources

Cúirt an Mheán Oíche by Brian Merriman is one of a number of poems which focuses on men's and women's expectations of marriage in Ireland during the long eighteenth century. This article discusses other examples which deal in particular with the physical and psychological imprisonment of women. It will emerge from some cases, moreover, that editions published during the first half of the last century of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century poetry in Irish are not always entirely reliable, and may reproduce but a garbled version of a scribal original.