ABSTRACT
Irish writing in the eighteenth century is a multilingual and multicultural domain, subject to and active in the business of empire. Writing in English, Irish and Scots evidences this hybrid status, played out in recurring themes of consumption and precarity, allegories of siblinghood and parenthood, in queer disruptions, dreams, visions and fantasies, and in the vitality of Gaelic culture throughout a period when Irish remained the majority language. This chapter provides a thematic survey around issues of identity, language, genders and sexualities, and empire. A short coda reviews work by modern Irish writers dealing with the inheritance of eighteenth-century Irish literature and culture.
