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Eavan Boland was born in Dublin in 1944. When she was six, she moved with her father and mother to London. She wasn’t happy there, as you can see in some of her poetry. When she was older, she moved back to Ireland and went to Trinity College. It was here that she first began to write poetry. She found Dublin of the 1960s to be very inspiring. She said:
“The pubs were crowded. The cafes were full of apprentice writers like myself, some of them talking about literature, a very few talking intensely about about poetry.”
Life changed for her, however, when she got married and had her first child. Living in Dundrum with her husband and first child, she found herself living a much quieter life. Also, she found herself being two very different things:  a mother and a poet. It was this experience that led her to realise what she wanted her poetry to be about. She writes about women and their issues and about violence, in particular about the Northern Irish “Troubles”.

Here is some brief information about the poetry of Eavan Boland that is on your course.

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More detailed information can be found further down the page.

 This Moment.
This is a very simple poem. It depicts a moment in time on a suburban street, just as night is falling.
It is a good example of how Eavan Boland likes to write about suburbia, about normal things.
Also, in the lines “A woman leans down to catch a child who has run into her arms this moment”
we see a good example of how Boland often writes about motherhood, about things that women are interested in.
 
The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me.
Again, this poem is a good example of Boland writing from a woman’s perspective.
In this poem, she writes about the relationship between her mother and father.
There is a sense in the poem that time has passed and that things have changed. We see this in the description of the fan which is “worn out” and “overcast”.

Love.
In this poem, we also see an example of a relationship that has faded. She is writing here about her relationship with her husband. In writing lines like “Dark falls on this mid-western town” and “Will we ever live so intensely again?” she is saying that her relationship is not what it used to be, just like her parents’ relationship in the last poem.
 
The War Horse.
This is another example of Boland writing about suburbia.
It is a poem about an escaped horse coming down her street and coming into her garden.
No real damage is done, just some flowers and bushes trampled, but it reminds her of the violence in Northern Ireland at the time. This poem is also a perfect example of how Boland often writes about violence in her work.
 
The Shadow Doll.
This poem is about how women are often forced into behaving in ways that they would not choose by society.
In Victorian times, a Shadow Doll was a doll sent to a bride-to-be. The doll would be wearing a model of a wedding dress for the bride to see.
In this poem, Boland compares real women to this doll, mentioning that the doll is “Under glass, under wraps” and and the end, that there are “locks”.
 
Outside History.
In this complicated poem, Boland writes about how we see history, how we think about the people who came before us.
 
The Pomegranate.
A poem about an old myth (Pluto’s abduction of Persophone.) and how Boland links it with her experiences both as a young girl and as a mother.

 The Famine Road.

During the famine, people who were starving were given money to build roads. This poem is about that but also about a woman receiving some very bad news.

Child Of Our Time.

The Dublin Bombings of 1974 inspired this poem which is addressed to a child who died in the bombings.

 White Hawthorn In The West Of Ireland.

A poem about leaving the suburbs of Dublin and travelling to the west of Ireland. Boland is struck by how different things are there.