‘The drooping genius of our Isle to raise’: the Moira House salon and its role in Gaelic cultural revival

Although synonymous with France, important literary salons also existed in Anglophone countries such as England, Scotland and Ireland. This article aims to shed light on a successful Irish salon held by Elizabeth Rawdon, Lady Moira (1731-1808), on Dublin's Ussher's Island in the late eighteenth century. The Moira House salon quickly became one of the most important meeting places for those engaged in literary and antiquarian studies in the Ireland of the day, with Lady Moira using the institution of the salon to help foster the Gaelic cultural revival. Such was its importance that the salon attracted visitors from throughout Ireland in addition to foreign participants, indicating the influential nature of this salon and its great reputation at the time. Novelists, antiquarians and poets such as Sydney Owenson (later Lady Morgan), Joseph Cooper Walker and Thomas Moore were among those attracted to Moira House and the salon's engagement with the recovery and reinvigoration of Ireland's cultural and linguistic heritage will be examined throughout