50 years of Ireland and Greece

Did you know that the first known geographer to mention Ireland was the Greek explorer, Pytheas of Massilia, and that Ireland’s landscape was first described and mapped by a Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy, writing in Alexandria in the second century AD?

Ptolemy, one of the most important geographers in the ancient world, gave the most detailed account of Ireland in classical literature, describing six promontories, fifteen river mouths, ten settlements and nine islands, and naming sixteen population groups.

This 9th century Irish philosopher is now recognised as the most outstanding philosopher of the Carolingian era, and he took the lead in upholding the Greek tradition of bold philosophical speculation during the Dark Ages.

Eriugena was a noted scholar of the Greek language, a skill which was very rare at that time in Western Europe, allowed him to translate the work of Dionysius the Areopagite, patron saint of Athens, among others.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852), the most famous Irish poet and musician of the first half of the 19th century, was one of the first members of the Philhellenic Committee of London, and a committed advocate of the Greek War of independence.

Moore had been close friends with several leading United Irishmen revolutionaries, and he saw echoes of Ireland’s own struggles for freedom and justice in the Greek struggle for Independence.

Together with Lord Byron, he supported the Greek liberation struggle with money, armaments and propaganda, and included multiple references to Greece in his work in particular ‘Evenings in Greece’.

In addition to her writing, she was an executive member of the radical political organisation, the Ladies’ Land League, which was devoted to the reduction of rents and the eventual seizure of land from landlords.

Lynch travelled throughout Greece between 1885 and 1887, and again in 1902, learning Greek and spending more than six months living in a convent on Tinos.

‘Greece lay upon the sea splendidly coloured by the gathering tints in the east’

Lynch would later publish two novels in which the island is a central setting i.e. Rosni Harvey and her “Greek” work of fiction Daughters of Men, originally published only in English but later translated into Greek by Dimitrios Vikélas.

As a 12 year old, Behan wrote the poem in honour of Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary who played a leading role in Ireland’s 1919-1921 War of Independence against British rule. Collins was killed in 1922, during the Irish Civil War.

Behan would later incorporate the poem into his 1958 play The Hostage, where it came to the attention of Mikis Theodorakis who decided to set it to music.

The song morphed into an anthem of resistance when a version sang by Maria Farantouri was included in the soundtrack to Costa-Gavras’ 1969 film Z about the assassination of MP Grigoris Lambrakis. Farantouri also sang the song at the historic concert in Athens in October 1974 to mark the fall of the junta and the restoration of democracy.

The award winning 2022 documentary - An Buachaill Geal Gáireach/ The Laughing Boy - examines the background to this remarkable anthem of resistance.

Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and playwright (winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature) was deeply Influenced by the literary and cultural legacies of Ancient Greece.

Heaney came to prominence as the conflict in Northern Ireland was escalating, and the literature of ancient Greece gave Heaney a way in which to examine the conflict.

Given the importance of Greece to his work, it was fitting that Heaney was in Pylos when he discovered he had won the 1996 Nobel Prize.

The Cure at Troy, Heaney’s verse adaptation of Sophocles’ play Philoctetes, became strongly associated with the Irish peace process. It is in the closing lines of this work that we find some of the most famous and celebrated lines of Heaney’s career:

Both Paula Meehan and Theo Dorgan, two of Ireland’s best-known contemporary poets, have had a lifelong passion for Greek myth, theatre and poetry, and have repeatedly being drawn to Greece in their work, in particular the island of Ikaria, which Meehan identifies as ‘home’ in the poem The Island.

Greece also serves as a source of inspiration for those writing in the Irish language.

In 2024, the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin breathed new life into Aeschylus’ Greek masterpiece, Persians, by staging an Irish-language translation of the play by the renowned poet and writer Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

The small but vibrant Irish community in Greece continues to ensure that the links between the two countries remain strong.

The Greek Irish Society (founded in 1977), and the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens (founded in 1995), have played a crucial role in in bringing the Irish and Greek communities together in Greece.

In addition, gatherings such as the annual Irish Wings Festival on Paxos, the Celtic Music Festival, and the Athens Irish Festival, have helped to foster cultural exchange.

Sherring was the son of Irish parents and a member of the St. Patrick’s Athletic Club in Hamilton, Ontario. He enchanted Greek sports fans in 1906 when he won the marathon while wearing a large shamrock on his shirt.

The 1906 Athens Games are also known for another incident involving symbols. As Olympic representation was limited to recognised States, and as Ireland was still struggling for independence in the early 20th century, Irish athletes had to participate under another banner – most frequently, the British flag.

At the 1906 Athens Games. Waterford native Peter O’Connor, incensed at the ceremonial hoisting of a Union Jack to honour his silver medal for the long jump, scaled the Olympic flagpole to wave a green flag bearing the message ‘Erin go Bragh’ (‘Ireland Forever’) as fellow Irish athlete, Con Leahy, and others stood guard below him.