"Ireland's Other Poetry" accompanies the reader on a memorable journey through a country full of unexpected curiosities. Contributors range from Jonathan Swift to Shane McGowan, with others along the way such as Flann O'Brien, George Bernard Shaw and Seamus Heaney - and visitors like John Betjeman - but the book also rediscovers the work of many anonymous or neglected poets, humorists and lyricists.Among the anthology's almost 400 entries, readers will find verses on food and philosophy, on Guinness and ghosts, on war, on murder, on lighting a match. Masterpieces of wordplay and parody rub shoulders with sporting songs, advertising jingles and lyrics from the theatre. There is nonsense verse and satire and stage Irish buffoonery, there is religious propaganda, doggerel, music-hall bawdry, and good honest abuse - some of it decidedly politically incorrect.Irish verse has needed a shake-up for years. Since W.B. Yeats and his Celtic Revival, anyone daring to be funny has been written out of the story.