STEPHENS

Stephens produced many retellings of Irish myths. His retellings are marked by a rare combination of humour and lyricism. He also wrote several original novels based loosely on Irish wonder tales. He began his career as a poet under the tutelage of poet and painter Æ (George William Russell). His first book of poems, Insurrections, was published in 1909. His last book, Kings and the Moon (1938), was also a volume of verse.Stephens's influential account of the 1916 Easter Rising, Insurrection in Dublin, describes the effect of the deaths by execution of his friend Thomas MacDonagh and others as being like watching blood oozing from under a door.