"Quarantine" is a political poem written by Irish poet

Eavan Boland Eavan Aisling Boland ( ; 24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role o ...

about the

Irish famine The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger ( ), the Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and had a major impact ...

of the mid 19th century, published in her 2001 poetry collection ''Code''. It was one of 10 poems shortlisted for

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

's selection of Ireland's favourite poems of the last 100 years in 2015. The poem is about a couple who leave the

workhouse In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse (, lit. "poor-house") was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as Scottish poorhouse, poorh ...

during the worst year of the Irish famine while she was sick with

famine fever Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

(typhus). The next day they are found to have frozen to death, with her feet held against his chest as he tried to keep her warm. The 20-line poem is made up of five

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

s, and is without ornament.

References

Irish poems Poems about death Historical poems 2001 poems {{Poem-stub Poems set in Ireland