Thomas Moore , was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist, widely regarded in his lifetime as Ireland's "national bard". The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his Irish Melodies (with the first of ten volumes appearing in 1808). In these, Moore set to old Irish tunes verses that spoke to a nationalist narrative of Irish dispossession and loss. With his romantic work Lalla Rookh (1817), in which these same themes are explored in an elaborate orientalist allegory, Moore achieved wider critical recognition. Translated into several languages, and adapted and arranged for musical performance by, among others, Robert Schumann, the chivalric verse-narrative established Moore as one of the leading exemplars of European romanticism.
