Stretching back to 1600 and covering works in English and Gaelic, Irish Classics scrutinizes the enduring Irish classics that have challenged readers generation after generation. Irish themes are explored as inspiration for the bitter poetry of Seathrun Ceitinn and the prose of Jonathan Swift and Edmund Burke, and analogies are made between modern and classic writers. Although Kiberd acknowledges that often frictions existed between the two languages he finds that, nevertheless, strong similarities override both.