Arnold, Burke and the Celts -- Literary myths of the revival -- Yeats and the idea of revolution -- Synge and heroism -- Pearse : writing and chivalry -- Joyce and Stephen : the provincial intellectual -- Joyce and nationalism -- O'Casey and Yeats : exemplary dramatists -- Joyce and Beckett -- Thomas Kinsella : 'Nursed out of wreckage' -- John Montague : the kingdom of the dead -- Derek Mahon : freedom from history -- Brian Friel : the double stage -- Seamus Heaney : the timorous and the bold.
