author
Herbert Trench
1865–1923
An Irish poet, playwright, and civil servant, he was admired for lyrical writing that blended myth, music, and moral seriousness. His work helped carry late Victorian and early modern poetic traditions into the early 20th century.
1 Audiobook
Deirdre wed and other poems
by Herbert Trench
About the author
Born in County Cork in 1865, Herbert Trench was educated at Haileybury and then at Keble College, Oxford, where he later became a Fellow of All Souls. After traveling for a time, he worked as an examiner for the Board of Education, while continuing to build a literary career.
He is best known as a poet, but he also wrote plays and verse dramas. Accounts of his life consistently describe him as an Irish writer whose poetry was noted for its lyrical, reflective quality, and whose dramatic work drew on legend, history, and classical themes.
Trench died in 1923. Though he is less widely read today than some of his contemporaries, he remains an interesting figure for listeners drawn to elegant poetry, literary drama, and the rich Anglo-Irish literary world of his era.