Two neglected poets of late Victorian Scotland: John Luby and James Lynch

This article seeks to offer a way forward in investigating the contribution of a hitherto neglected group of Catholic poets working in Scotland in the final decades of the nineteenth century. The works of John Luby (1856-1925) of Bridgeton and James Lynch (1840/41-86) of Coatbridge are pre-eminent amongst these writers but they are not alone in their efforts. Others, such as Tom Burns, Thomas McMillan, Francis Joseph, John St Paul and Rev. Bernard Tracy (the first Catholic priest in Scotland to be elected to a school board), are to be found in the pages of magazines and newspapers, especially the Glasgow Observer, the weekly newspaper of the Irish Catholic diaspora in the West of Scotland, established in 1885 and the principal source of the material considered here. This article will introduce Luby and Lynch in turn, dedicating space to what is known of their lives and writings generally before providing an outline of their main concerns in a selection of the Glasgow Observer poems.