Boland, Eavan (Aisling) (1944– )

Irish poet and academic. Born in Dublin and educated in London, New York, and Trinity College, Dublin, Boland has lectured and taught creative writing in Ireland and the USA. Most significantly she helped open Irish poetry to the female voice and experience as in In Her Own Image (1980), The Journey and Other Poems (1986), and Against Love Poetry (2001). With the 1975 publication of The War Horse, Boland turned her attention to ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, but always with a clear and poignant attention to how the home environment and community are affected by political violence. She addressed this tension between domesticity and disruption again in In a Time of Violence (1994). In 1980 she co-founded Arlen House, a feminist press.

Boland's first collection of poetry, New Territory (1967), included a retelling of the Ulster cycle saga ‘Tochmarc Étaíne/Wooing of Étain’ and a contemplation of Irish history. Her later pamphlet ‘A Kind of Scar’ (1988) analysed the position of women poets in the Irish literary tradition and the lasting impact of the personification of sovereignty as a woman in ancient Gaelic culture. Her autobiography Object Lessons was published in 1996.