Weaver Poets, Rhyming Weaver Poets and Ulster Weaver Poets were a collective group of poets belonging to an artistic movement who were both influenced by and contemporaries of

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

and the

Romantic movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

Origins

In the late eighteenth century, a number of men involved in the textiles industry, mostly confined to counties Antrim and Down began to submit poems to newspapers and publishers. They were craftsmen and often self-employed. They are known specifically for writing poems in the common tongue of the time for that region, Scots. More often than not, they were working-class and not formally educated. Some of the more well-known Weaver Poets were James Orr of

Ballycarry Ballycarry () is a village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is midway between Larne and Carrickfergus, overlooking Islandmagee, and is part of the Mid and East Antrim Borough Council area. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 981. Ar ...

and

David Herbison David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

- ''The Bard of Dunclug''.

Style and form

The style they adopted was the standard Habbie as adopted from a

Robert Sempill Robert Sempill (the elder) (c. 1530–1595), in all probability a cadet of illegitimate birth of the noble house of Sempill or Semple, was a Scottish ballad-writer and satirist. Very little is known of Sempill's life. He was probably a soldi ...

poem by

Robert Fergusson Robert Fergusson (5 September 1750 – 16 October 1774) was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson led a bohemian life in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and c ...

, himself a Scottish weaver, and later by Burns. Sometimes the poetry produced by the movement was political - Orr had joined the

United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional refor ...

in 1791 and took part in the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798. Many weaver poems were collected by poet John Hewitt. Hewitt bequeathed his entire collection to the

University of Ulster sco, Ulstèr Universitie , image = Ulster University coat of arms.png , caption = , motto_lang = , mottoeng = , latin_name = Universitas Ulidiae , established = 1865 – Magee College 1953 - Magee Un ...

References

*''Rhyming Weavers'', John Hewitt, Belfast 'History into Poetry, the works of James McKowen (1814-1889) The Bard of Lambeg.' (ed) Fredrick Gilbert Watson, Belfast ISBN 978-0-9932528-5-3 {{Irish poetry * Ulster Scots people Romanticism Scots language Culture of Northern Ireland *