Weaver Poets, Rhyming Weaver Poets and Ulster Weaver Poets were a collective group of poets belonging to an artistic movement who were both influenced by and contemporaries of Robert Burns

Robert Burns

Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

 and the Romantic movement.

Origins

In the late eighteenth century, a number of men involved in the textiles industry, mostly confined to counties Antrim

County Antrim

County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...

 and Down

County Down

-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...

 began to submit poems to newspapers and publishers. They were craftsmen and often self-employed. They are known specifically for writing poems in the common tongue of the time for that region, Scots

Ulster Scots language

Ulster Scots or Ulster-Scots generally refers to the dialects of Scots spoken in parts of Ulster in Ireland. Some definitions of Ulster Scots may also include Standard English spoken with an Ulster Scots accent...

. More often than not, they were working-class and not formally educated.

Some of the more well-known Weaver Poets were James Orr

James Orr (poet)

James Orr was a poet or rhyming weaver from Ulster also known as the Bard of Ballycarry, who wrote in English and Ulster Scots. He was the foremost of the Ulster Weaver Poets, and was writing contemporaneously with Robert Burns...

 of Ballycarry

Ballycarry

Ballycarry is a village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is midway between Larne and Carrickfergus, overlooking Islandmagee. In the 2001 Census it had a population of 981.-Archaeology:...

 and David Herbison - The Bard of Dunclug.

Style and form

The style they adopted was the standard Habbie as adopted from a Robert Sempill

Robert Sempill the younger

Robert Sempill, the younger , Scottish poet, son of James Sempill, was educated at the University of Glasgow, having matriculated in March 1613....

 poem by Robert Fergusson

Robert Fergusson

Robert Fergusson was a Scottish poet. After formal education at the University of St Andrews, Fergusson followed an essentially bohemian life course in Edinburgh, the city of his birth, then at the height of intellectual and cultural ferment as part of the Scottish enlightenment...

, himself a Scottish

Scottish people

The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 weaver, and later by Burns.

Sometimes the poetry produced by the movement was political - Orr had joined the United Irishmen

Society of the United Irishmen

The Society of United Irishmen was founded as a liberal political organisation in eighteenth century Ireland that sought Parliamentary reform. However, it evolved into a revolutionary republican organisation, inspired by the American Revolution and allied with Revolutionary France...

 in 1791 and took part in the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798

Irish Rebellion of 1798

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...

.

A large number of weaver poems were collected by poet John Hewitt. Hewitt bequeathed his entire collection to the University of Ulster

University of Ulster

The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...

.