Poetry of Violence and Injustice in Irish History

Authors Avatar
Poetry of Violence and Injustice in Irish History

Assignment title

In what ways do these two poets tell their stories so that readers will be shocked and moved?

Which poem shocked and moved you more and why?

The two poems that I will be comparing and contrasting are "The Eviction" (from Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland) by the poet called William Allingham and "Claudy" by James Simmons.

William Allingham was born in Co, Donegal in 1924 and he died in 1989. During his life he worked as a customs officer, first in Ireland then in England where he settled in 1963. His friends in the literary world were people such as Rosetti and Tennyson.

James Simmons died at the age of 68 in June 2001. He taught at Friends School Lisburn for five years before moving to Africa to teach English in a school in Nigeria. He then returned to Coleraine and taught in the University of Ulster. He was born into a Protestant family who lived in Londonderry where his grandfather was the major. His reason for writing the poem "Claudy" was as a result of the I.R.A. setting off three bombs on the morning of July 31st 1972 killing nine people.

"The Eviction" is simply about a village being evicted by their landlords and it shows the reactions of the people to this.

"Claudy", however, describes what the people were doing at the time of the bomb and it shows their desperate attempts to fight death.

In "The Eviction" we immediately see that it is in iambic pentameter. For example,

"In early morning twilight, raw and chill."

This is to give the effect of a relentless and methodical march, coming towards the village. This marching effect is kept throughout the whole poem. There are rhyming couplets at the end of each line. The effect of this is to make the reader believe that the march is never going to stop. They are always expecting the rhyme to come at the end of each line that helps in the long, slow drone of the march. The poet uses alliteration in line three by writing,

"Through miles of mire in steady grave array."

The poet used this to again give a sort of momentum or drone to the line.

On line six the poets writing shows irony as he wrote,

"Under each greatcoat a bayonet clings."

This is a bit like taking a hammer to crack a nut. The army who are marching are there to defend, not attack, s we can see the irony as they are far too well armed, "a rifle swings."
Join now!


We see that there are some Catholics like "Paudeen Dhu" who are betraying the people in the village. We see that the poet used the word "creeping" which has a sense of power behind it. We also see that he "pretends his needful duty". He is hiding away and his stature has shrunk. His needful duty is to feel sorry for the people and to have a look of regret on his face but as we know, this is just pretend and Paudeen Dhu does not care for these people who are about to be evicted. He is ...

This is a preview of the whole essay