Five Irish poems (5)

I believe the answer is:

verse

'poems' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'five irish' is the wordplay.
'five' becomes 'V' (Roman numeral).
'irish' becomes 'erse' (old-fashioned term for the Irish language).
'v'+'erse'='VERSE'

(Other definitions for verse that I've seen before include "Part of a song or poem" , "Section of a poem" , "Poetry - subdivision of the Bible" , "Stanza; poetry" , "Metrical text" .)

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail.

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