The Irish Literary Society was founded in London in 1892 by
William Butler Yeats,
T. W. Rolleston
Thomas William Hazen Rolleston (1 May 1857 – 5 December 1920) was an Irish writer, literary figure and translator, known as a poet but publishing over a wide range of literary and political topics. He lived at various times in Killiney in Cou ...
,and
Charles Gavan Duffy
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, KCMG, PC (12 April 1816 – 9 February 1903), was an Irish poet and journalist (editor of ''The Nation''), Young Irelander and tenant-rights activist. After emigrating to Australia in 1856 he entered the politics of ...
. Members of the Southwark Irish Literary Club met in Clapham Reform Club and changed the name early in the year. On 13 February they met again to form a committee. Evelyn Gleeson became secretary. Stopford Brooke (chaplain), Stopford Brooke gave the inaugural lecture to the society, on "The Need and Use of Getting Irish Literature into the English Tongue" (Bloomsbury House, 11 March 1893).
The Society developed a proposal for a New Irish Library, a series of books to honor Irish culture, with Rolleston and Douglas Hyde as editors. Limerick man Michael MacDonagh (author), Michael MacDonagh, author and Parliamentary correspondent for the ''Times'', was an active member and editor of the Society's quarterly Gazette.
''A Book of Irish Verse'', designed to publicise the new societies, was published in 1895, edited by Yeats and dedicated "To the Members of the National Literary Society of Dublin and the Irish Literary Society of London." It featured poetry by Rolleston, Hyde, Katharine Tynan, Lionel Johnson, George William Russell, AE and several others, with notes and an introduction by himself.
Arthur Conan Doyle, of Irish descent, and with a keen interest in Ireland, chaired the Irish Literary Society's dinner on 13 February 1897. He spoke on 'The Irish Brigade'.
['The Irish Brigade' by Dr. A. Conan Doyle, Irish Literary Society General Report 1897-1898, National Library of Ireland, Ephemera Department.]
Notable members
* D. P. Moran
* Ethel Rolt Wheeler (committee member)
* William Gibson, 2nd Baron Ashbourne (vice-president)
* David James O'Donoghue
* C. R. Cooke-Taylor (honorary secretary)
* Stephen Gwynn (secretary)
* Edmund Downey
* Michael MacDonagh (1862-1946)
* Peter Berresford Ellis
* Charles Russell, Baron Russell of Killowen, Charles Russell, first Baron Russell of Killowen (vice-president)
* Richard Barry O'Brien (founder-member, chairman for twelve years and president for another six)
* John O'Connor Power
* Joseph R. Fisher (author), Joseph R. Fisher, newspaper editor and Unionist representative on the Irish Boundary Commission
* Alfred Perceval Graves (president)
* Eleanor Hull (president)
* Laurence Ginnell
* Helen Waddell (vice-president)
* Mark F. Ryan
*Richard Ashe King (president 1925-32)
See also
*Irish Literary Revival
*National Literary Society
References
{{Authority control
Organizations established in 1892
Cultural organisations based in London
Irish writers' organisations