DANIELA CESIRI Università del Salento Visions of Ireland: Semantic Differentiation in the Description of Ireland from English Travel Texts 1. Introduction T he earliest attestations of English descriptions of Ireland date back to the Middle Ages when historians like Giraldus Cambrensis (c1146-c1223) compiled histories of the British Isles. These writers, however, never visited the country and based their accounts on second-hand sources. Their real experience of Ireland, therefore, can hardly be ascertained. Eye-witnessed accounts of facts regarding Ireland and the Irish start to appear only from the Renaissance with an increasing number of volumes published during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. A peculiar aspect of the travel texts written during the Late Modern (LMod) period (c1710-c1920) lies in the different language adopted to describe Irish landscapes, history and culture or the political and social situation. Another differentiation is constituted by Irish people who are sometimes regarded with a sympathetic look and sometimes considered in a negative way. In order to investigate these differences further, in the present study I have chosen to analyse the language of travel texts written during this period, in managed to shape their lexis and style. 2. English writings on Ireland Hooper (2001), who analyse original documents and manuscripts, we could trace a parallel evolution in the English travel descriptions and perceptions of Ireland and the different political events connected with the British presence in the country. Descriptions before the LMod period include general comments on