Beside the Fire. A Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories

Douglas Hyde

Beside the Fire. A Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories

London

David Nutt

1890

Lady Gregory’s copy, with her bookplate

Three years after writing Beside the Fire, Douglas Hyde helped establish the Gaelic League, an organization whose mission was devoted to reanimating Irish language and culture. The work of Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats ran parallel to that of Hyde’s, and they drew on his sources of legend and myth. Hyde’s work was often written in Gaelic, while that of Yeats and Gregory was primarily in English. Hyde became one of the leaders of the Revival and his early work inspired Padraic Pearse, Eamon de Valera, and Michael Collins. He became the first president of the Irish Republic in 1938.