Professor Brearton’s research interests are primarily in British and Irish Poetry of the 20th and 21st centuries, and in the literature and culture of the First World War. Her work explores the influence of Yeats, and other poets of the early 20th century, on contemporary poetry, and highlights the significance of the First World War to the Irish tradition. She has written extensively on Yeats, Heaney, Longley, Mahon, Graves, and MacNeice, as well as on contemporary poets such as Quinn and O’Reilly.