The Lace Curtain was an occasional literary magazine founded and edited by Michael Smith

Michael Smith (poet)

Michael Smith is an Irish poet, author and translator.A member of Aosdána, the Irish National Academy of Artists, Michael Smith was the first Writer in-Residence to be appointed by University College, Dublin and is an Honorary Fellow of UCD. He is a poet who has given a lifetime of service to the...

 and Trevor Joyce

Trevor Joyce

Trevor Joyce is an Irish poet, born in Dublin.He co-founded New Writers' Press in Dublin in 1967 and was a founding editor of NWP's The Lace Curtain; A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism in 1968....

 under their New Writers Press

New Writers Press

New Writers Press is an Irish small press that specialises in poetry publishing. The press was founded in 1967 by the poets Michael Smith and Trevor Joyce and Smith's wife Irene in response to what they felt to be the stagnant state of Irish poetry at the time....

 imprint. Both press and journal were dedicated to expanding the horizons of Irish poetry

Irish poetry

The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to...

 by rediscovering a native modernist tradition

Modernist poetry

Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature in the English language, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases of the critic setting the...

, publishing younger Irish poets who were working in modes that sat outside the mainstream and introducing innovative non-Irish writing to an Irish audience.

The journal ran to six issues spanning the period 1969 - 1978. Contributors included Anthony Cronin

Anthony Cronin

Anthony Cronin is an Irish poet. He received the Marten Toonder Award for his contribution to Irish literature....

, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is an Irish poet born in Cork .-Life:Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is the daughter of Eilís Dillon and Professor Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin. She was educated at University College Cork and The University of Oxford. She lives in Dublin with her husband Macdara Woods, and they have one...

, Michael Hartnett, Augustus Young

Augustus Young

For the U.S. Representative from Vermont, see Augustus Young .Augustus Young is an Irish poet.-Biography:Young worked in London as an epidemiologist and adviser to health authorities, and now lives in France...

, John Montague

John Montague (poet)

John Montague is an Irish poet. He was born in New York and brought up in Tyrone. He has published a number of volumes of poetry, two collections of short stories and two volumes of memoir. He is one of the best known Irish contemporary poets...

, Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado

Antonio Cipriano José María y Francisco de Santa Ana Machado y Ruiz, known as Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98....

, Paul Durcan

Paul Durcan

Paul Durcan is a contemporary Irish poet.-Early life:Durcan grew up in Dublin and in Turlough, County Mayo. His father, John, was a barrister and circuit court judge; father and son had a difficult and formal relationship. Durcan enjoyed a warmer and more natural relationship with his mother,...

, Desmond O'Grady

Desmond O'Grady

Desmond M. O'Grady is an Australian journalist, author, and playwright who has resided and worked in Rome since 1962.- Early life:Desmond Michael O’Grady, was born in Melbourne Australia, the son of Edward O'Grady and Winifred O'Grady. He had an elder brother, Lance.In 1936 he attended...

, Brian Coffey

Brian Coffey

Brian Coffey was an Irish poet and publisher. His work was informed by his Catholicism and by his background in science and philosophy, and his connection to surrealism. For these reasons, he is seen as being closer to an intellectual European Catholic tradition than to mainstream Irish Catholic...

 Denis Devlin

Denis Devlin

Denis Devlin was, along with Samuel Beckett and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of Irish modernist poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat.-Early life and studies:...

, Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...

, Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

, Thomas MacGreevy

Thomas MacGreevy

Thomas MacGreevy was a pivotal figure in the history of Irish literary modernism. A poet, he was also director of the National Gallery of Ireland from 1950 to 1963 and served on the first Irish Arts Council .-Early life:MacGreevy was born in County Kerry, the son of a policeman and a primary...

, Thomas Kinsella

Thomas Kinsella

Thomas Kinsella is an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.-Early life and work:Kinsella was born in Lucan, County Dublin. He spent much of his childhood with relatives in rural Ireland. He was educated in the Irish language at the Model School, Inchicore and the O'Connell Christian...

, Derek Mahon, Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke, is a Canadian novelist, essayist and short story writer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Born in St...

 and Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

.