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Dunmore Head, with Blasket Islands in the background. By Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Wikimedia.
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Known as LibrarySearch, this interdisciplinary database is UofT's largest--and your best bet when more focused databases let you down. It combs through more than 1,200 databases, journal packages, e-book collections, and other resources ranging from the sciences to the social sciences and humanities. At its best, LibrarySearch finds relevant results you won't find elsewhere; at its worst, however, LibrarySearch can overwhelm you will a mish-mash of results from different subject areas.
The MLA is the major English literature database. It covers criticism related to literature, linguistics and folklore from 1921 to the present, and contains more than 1-million citations to journal articles, series, books, working papers and conference proceedings. Most of the materials indexed before 1963 are American.
Looking for articles, books or essays? This article database, covering from 1920 to the present, is one of the most important resources available. Packed with more than 840,000 records, ABELL refers you to journal articles, books, essay collections, book reviews, and doctoral dissertations. Another advantage is scope. Covering American, British and Commonwealth literature, as well as some material in languages besides English, ABELL is one of the two key indices for literature students--the other is the MLA International Bibliography.
Bibliography of British & Irish History (BBIH)
Ó Crohan, Tomás. The Islandman. Edited by Seán Ó Coileáin. Translated by Robin Flower. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Ó Crohan, Tomás. The Islander: A Translation of An tOileánach -- The Autobiography of Tomás O’Crohan as Presented in the Cló Talbóid Edition Under the Editorship of Seán Ó Coileáin 2002. Edited by Seán Ó Coileáin. Translated by Garry Bannister and David Sowby. Dublin, Ireland: Gill & Macmillan, 2012.
Ó Súileabháin, Muiris. Twenty Years A-Growing. Nashville, Tennessee: J.S. Sanders & Co., 1998.
Sayers, Peig. An Old Woman’s Reflections. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Sayers, Peig. Peig: The Autobiography of Peig Sayers of the Great Blasket Island. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1974. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Flower, Robin. The Western Island ; Or, The Great Blasket. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Harrison, Alan. “Review Article: Blasket Literature.” Irish University Review 31, no. 2 (2001): 488-494. https://www-jstor-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/25504890
Hughes, Eamonn. “‘The Fact of Me-Ness’: Autobiographical Writing in the Revival Period.” Irish University Review 33, no. 1 (2003): 28–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25517212.
Luce, J. V. “Homeric Qualities in the Life and Literature of the Great Blasket Island.” Greece and Rome 16, no. 2 (1969): 151–68. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500016971.
Lysaght, Patricia. “From the British Museum to the Great Blasket: Robin Flower and the Western Island.” Folklore 128, no. 3 (2017): 219–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.2017.1336002.
Mac Conghail, Muiris. The Blaskets: A Kerry Island Library. Dublin: Country House, 1987. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Nic Craith, Máiréad. The Vanishing World of the Islandman: Narrative and Nostalgia. Springer International Publishing, 2020.
Nic Eoin, Máirín. "Twentieth-Century Gaelic Autobiography: From lieux de mémoire to Narratives of Self-invention." In Modern Irish Autobiography: Self, Nation and Society. Edited by Liam Harte, 132-155. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2007.
O’Guiheen, Micheál. A Pity Youth Does Not Last: Reminiscences of the Last of the Great Blasket Island’s Poets and Storytellers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Quigley, Mark. "Modernity’s Edge: Speaking Silence on the Blaskets." In Empire’s Wake: Postcolonial Irish Writing and the Politics of Modern Literary Form. New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.
Stagles, Joan, and Ray Stagles. The Blasket Islands: A Kingdom of Stories. Dublin: The OʼBrien Press, 2019.
Thomson, George. Island Home: The Blasket Heritage. Dingle, Ireland: Brandon, 1998. Available for free on the Internet Archive. Requires free registration.
Peig Sayers - Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Maurice O'Sullivan - Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Tomás O'Crohan - Dictionary of Irish Biography.
Oxford Companion to Irish Literature
Cambridge Companion to Irish Modernism
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. By Peter Berresford Ellis. ABC-CLIO, 1992.
A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. By James MacKillop. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Research Guide to the Modern Irish Language
Both online and in print, and containing more than 1,500 articles, this 5-volume set is the major encyclopedia for Celtic studies.
Oxford Companion to Irish History
With more than 9,000 articles on subjects ranging from politics, law, engineering, and religion to literature, painting, medicine, and sport, this encyclopedia is a key resource for Irish studies. The entries, written by established academics, contain bibliographies to guide students in further research. The 9-volume set is so detailed that you get thorough articles on a wide range of people, from internationally-famous figures such as the poet W.B. Yeats to lesser-known persons such as Denis Kilbride, a 19th Century agrarian campaigner and MP.