In the translations of early Irish materials into English there are two translation traditions, a scholarly and a literary one, diverging markedly in their practices and norms. The effects of the Macpherson controversy, Irish nationalism, and the Irish language movement in defining and polarizing these translation traditions are explored. In historical poetics, analysis must allow for the ways in which historical circumstances may produce a translation system, internally differentiated itself, such that investigation of a part of the translation system will not necessarily be predictive or reflective of the whole.