September 1913 Literary Elements

An unidentified Irish person living in the early twentieth century.

Four octaves of iambic tetrameter with an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme

The poem's most prominent metaphor is the description of Romantic Ireland as dead, "with O'Leary in the grave."
Ireland's exiles are metaphorically described as "wild geese," a re-appropriation of a preexisting figure of speech.
The phrase "dried the marrow from the bone" is an ambiguous metaphor—for death, or for colonial extraction.
The description of names traveling "like wind" is a simile suggesting speed and stealth.

The phrase "world like wind" uses alliterative W sounds, and the phrase "maddened every mother’s son" uses alliterative M sounds.
The phrase "pray and save" has assonant A vowel sounds, and the phrase "Was it for this" has assonant I vowel sounds.

Verbal irony, or sarcasm, is a hallmark of this poem. The speaker sarcastically asks his listeners, for instance, what they could wish for beyond prayer and saving money—implying all the while that these pursuits are insufficient. More broadly, the speaker's own cynicism, and his repeated assurances that Romantic Ireland is dead, carry a tinge of situational irony: his despair and anger are, counterintuitively, signs of hope, while the satisfied pragmatism of the people around him actually is a sign of hopelessness.

Protest poem; lyric poem

Ireland in September 1913, during a trade dispute that pitted Dublin's workers against their employers.

Cynical; angry; sarcastic; mournful

Protagonist—figures of Irish nationalism throughout history. Antagonist—the complacent Irish people of the twentieth century.

The poem's major conflict manifests as one between the urgent speaker and his contented listeners: he feels angry at their lack of interest in the past or present state of the Irish nation. This specific conflict, however, plays out against the background of a number of historical conflicts between Irish nationalists on the one hand, and forces of British empire or colonialism on the other.

The poem's climax comes when the speaker imagines a conversation between his contemporaries and the heroes of Irish history.

N/A

The oblique reference to execution through the phrase "For whom the hangman’s rope was spun" is an instance of understatement.

The poem as a whole is an allusion to the struggle for Irish independence. It contains specific allusions to the historical figures of John O'Leary, Edward Fitzgerald, Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, as well as to the groups of Irish soldiers abroad known as the "wild geese."

The act of "fumbling in a greasy till" metonymically represents saving money. A "woman's yellow hair" is used as a synecdoche to refer to a woman herself. The names of Ireland's national heroes metonymically represent the men and their reputations as a whole.

N/A

The description of Romantic Ireland as "dead and gone" in absolute terms is a hyperbolic one.

The word "cry" is an instance of mild onomatopoeia.