English Language & Literature: Online Resources

CELT Corpus of Electronic Texts

CELT, the Corpus of Electronic Texts, is Ireland's longest running Humanities Computing project. It brings the wealth of Irish literary and historical culture to you on the Internet, for the use and benefit of everyone worldwide. It has a searchable online textbase consisting of over 19 million words, in 1636 contemporary and historical documents from many areas, including literature, medicine, and the other arts.

Contemporary Irish Writing

ContemporaryIrishWriting.ie features 100 Irish books published in the last decade. The platform includes books written in both English and Irish, ranging from fiction to poetry to memoir, young adult fiction and children's literature. Each of the 100 entries offers the opportunity to enjoy interviews and conversations with the author, to read reviews and responses to the literary works, and to explore other online resources relating to this dynamic field of contemporary writing.

Poetry Archive

The Poetry Archive is a not-for-profit organisation that produces, acquires and preserves recordings of poets reading their own work out loud.

British Library - Discovering Literature

An online exhibition about discovering literature; from the medieval period up to the twentieth century. The exhibition brings to life the social, political and cultural context in which key works of literature were written.

Jane Austen's Fiction Manuscripts

Contains around 1100 pages of fiction written in Jane Austen’s own hand. Unlike the famous printed novels, all published in a short span between 1811 and 1818, these manuscripts trace Jane Austen’s development as a writer from childhood to the year of her death; that is, from 1787 (aged 11 or 12) to 1817 (aged 41).

Frank O'Connor Research Website

A research resource on Frank O'Connor by University College Cork. It contains information about O'Connor's life and publications, and about O'Connor's Studies at local, national and international level. The website also provides rare photographs, audio recordings, video clips, news, and related information on related websites.

HathiTrust Digital Library

HathiTrust provides long-term preservation and access services to digitized content from a variety of sources, including Google, the Internet Archive, Microsoft, and in-house member institution initiatives. Items in the public domain are in full-view for everyone and items held in copyright are searchable.

Writing.ie

Writing.ie is the world's only national writing resources website, based in Ireland but designed for writers everywhere.

These tips will help you evaluate the quality, accuracy and reliability of information you find on the Web.

Authority

• Who wrote the page - where is the information coming from?
• Is the author qualified to speak on the topic?
• Is the site reputable?

Accuracy

• Is the information Correct?
• Can you verify the information from another source?
• Are there references available to back up the author's claims?

Objectivity

• Is the purpose of the website to inform you?
• Is it promoting or selling something?
• Is it biased?

Currency

• When was the site last updated?
• How current are the links – have some expired or moved?

​Coverage

• What topics are covered on the site?
• Is the information on the site well presented?
• Is special software required to view the page or is it fee based?