The contention of the bards (
Irish: ''Iomarbhágh na bhFileadh'') was a literary controversy of early 17th century
Gaelic
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
, lasting from 1616 to 1624, probably peaking in 1617. The principal bardic poets of the country wrote polemical verses against each other and in support of their respective patrons.
There were 30 contributions to the Contention, which took the form of a bitter debate over the relative merits of the two halves of Ireland: the north, dominated by the
Eremonian descendants of the
Milesians, and the south, dominated by the
Eberian descendants.
The verses were first published in print in two volumes produced by the Irish Texts Society in 1918 edited by
Lambert McKenna
Lambert McKenna S.J. ( ga, An tAthair Lámhbheartach Mac Cionnaith) (16 July 1870 – 27 December 1956) was a Jesuit priest and writer.
He was born Andrew Joseph Lambert McKenna in Clontarf, and studied in Europe. He collected and edited rel ...
who acknowledged the significant contribution of
Eleanor Knott to the accompanying translations.
Context
The Contention took place in the context of the settlement of the country following on the
Tudor conquest of Ireland, when full domination by
Stuart royal authority had led to the
Flight of the Earls
The Flight of the Earls ( ir, Imeacht na nIarlaí)In Irish, the neutral term ''Imeacht'' is usually used i.e. the ''Departure of the Earls''. The term 'Flight' is translated 'Teitheadh na nIarlaí' and is sometimes seen. took place in Se ...
(1607) and the
Plantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation ('' plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of th ...
(1610).
The occasion for the Contention was a dispute over the allegiance of the
Earl of Thomond
Earl of Thomond was an hereditary title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created twice for the O'Brien dynasty which is an ancient Irish sept native to north Munster.
History and background
First creation
Under the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 ...
, a Gaelic nobleman of the ancient
O'Brien clan
The O'Brien dynasty ( ga, label= Classical Irish, Ua Briain; ga, label=Modern Irish, Ó Briain ; genitive ''Uí Bhriain'' ) is a noble house of Munster, founded in the 10th century by Brian Boru of the Dál gCais (Dalcassians). After becoming ...
(or sept). Unusually for the time, the earl was a
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
and loyal to the new dispensation. The spark came in 1616, after the final annexation of the modern
County Clare (containing part of the ancient kingdom of
Thomond) to the Eberian province of
Munster
Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...
(when the
Earl of Thomond
Earl of Thomond was an hereditary title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created twice for the O'Brien dynasty which is an ancient Irish sept native to north Munster.
History and background
First creation
Under the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 ...
was appointed president of the province) and the death in exile of the last great Eremonian,
Hugh O'Neill in July that year.
For centuries before 1616, the bards had been sponsored by the
Irish Gaelic dynasties, and confirmed their
paternal lineages by recitals at social events, so they had a political importance as well as a cultural impact. In a society where most were illiterate, bardic recital in public was the primary method of recalling a clan's history back to its claimed
Milesian origins.
Substance
In 1616 the Earl of Thomond's bard,
Tadhg Mac Dáire Mac Bruaideadha
Tadhg mac Dáire Mac Bruaideadha) (1570–1652) was an Irish Gaelic poet and historian.
Biography
Born in County Clare to a family of chroniclers for the Earl of Thomond, Tadhg mac Dáire Mac Bruaideadha was most recognised for beginning the '' ...
, wrote verses attacking the semi-legendary bard Torna Éigeas on account of historical inaccuracies in his work and his partiality to the northern half of Ireland and the Eremonian branches of the Gael. In effect, Tadhg's verses celebrated the greatness of the Eberian septs of the southern half of Ireland and their ascendancy over the North; he even included his patron's
Norman lineage as worthy of the race of Ébhear.
This provoked verses in response from other court bards, notably,
Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh, in which abstruse points of poetic etiquette and the respective merits of the two halves of Ireland were vehemently argued. In extolling his own side, Lughaidh emphasised the historical defence of
Tara, rather than the internecine struggle for the high-kingship of Ireland; Tadhg's response referred to the achievements of his patron's ancestor,
Brian Boru
Brian Boru ( mga, Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig; modern ga, Brian Bóramha; 23 April 1014) was an Irish king who ended the domination of the High Kingship of Ireland by the Uí Néill and probably ended Viking invasion/domination of Ireland. ...
, and pooh-poohed the former martial feats of the Eremonians as consisting merely of battles among themselves; the northern poets (whose allegiance lay with the exiled
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
princes) countered with the accusation that Tadhg was betraying the bardic profession in his failure to comprehend the truth of the noble history of the Gael.
Some of the participants in the Contention mocked the principal debate between Tadhg and Lughaidh; for example, Ó Heffernan used the fable of a cat and a fox (
Eremonians and
Eberians) that were bickering over a fat piece of meat (Ireland) when a wolf came along and snatched it all.
In June 1617, Tadhg had suggested in a letter to Lúghaidh and the northern poets that a decisive face-to-face poetic disputation be convened in order to resolve the Contention. It is not known if the suggestion was acted upon, but it appears to have marked the moment of greatest controversy. The Contention came to a head in a whirl of extreme sarcasm from the poet Mac Artúir, who defended the bards' tradition in a novel, run-on free-form, which contrasted with the traditional form in which Tadhg wrote.
Perspective
The poems of the Contention share a sense of national culture, but their political allegiance is clan-centred. It was a period of decline for the court
bard
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise ...
s, and the fact that they were addressing each other suggests a realisation that their audience was losing its influence and that few within the new dispensation were paying heed to them.
In the course of the exchange, the theme of North-South rivalry was developed to include a debate about the struggle between tradition and iconoclasm. That allowed the poets to vent their bitterness at the late conquest and colonisation of the country and at the collapse of the political order upon which they depended.
Throughout the Contention, each side had eagerly and jealously claimed
James I of Ireland as a descendant in its Milesian lineage, as he was descended from
Marjorie Bruce whose ancestors included the Gaelic kings of Scotland, such as
Kenneth McAlpine
Kenneth McAlpine (born 21 September 1920) is a British former racing driver from England.
Biography
McAlpine was born in Cobham, Surrey and is a grandson of civil engineer Sir Robert McAlpine. He participated in seven Formula One World Champi ...
, back to the formation of the kingdom of
Dál Riata
Dál Riata or Dál Riada (also Dalriada) () was a Gaelic kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland and north-eastern Ireland, on each side of the North Channel. At its height in the 6th and 7th centuries, it covered what is n ...
c.400 CE. His royal authority based ultimately on his Gaelic ancestry was ironically the instrument by which the traditional Gaelic order was being destroyed or transformed in Ireland.
The Ireland that the poems traced in their lore was past, and it seems that the bards were incapable of adapting their ways. The Contention proved to be the last flourish of ''
Dán Díreach
Dán Díreach (; Irish for "direct verse") is a style of poetry developed in Ireland from the 12th century until the destruction of Gaelic society in the mid 17th century. It was a complex form of recitative designed to be chanted to the accompanim ...
'' courtly poetic style: within decades the great school metres had been abandoned in favour of the looser ''Amhrán'' or ''
Aisling
The aisling (, , approximately ), or vision poem, is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry. The word may have a number of variations in pronunciation, but the ''is'' of the first syll ...
'', and the esteem in which the bards had been held in Gaelic Ireland was never regained.
References
*Richard Bagwell, ''Ireland under the Stuarts'' 3 vols. (London, 1895).
*John O'Donovan (ed.) ''Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters'' (1851).
*Lambert McKenna (ed.) ''The Contention of the Bards'' 2 vols. (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1918).
*Joep Leerssen, ''The Contention of the Bards’ and its place in Irish political and literary history'' (London 1994).
*
See also
*
Bardic poetry
Bardic poetry is the writings produced by a class of poets trained in the bardic schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of th ...
*
Contention of the Bards in Gwynedd
*
Irish poetry
Irish poetry is poetry written by poets from Ireland. It is mainly written in Irish and English, though some is in Scottish Gaelic and some in Hiberno-Latin. The complex interplay between the two main traditions, and between both of them and ...
*
List of poetry collections
*
Medieval poetry
{{Irish poetry
Dál gCais
MacBrody family
History of literature
Irish poetry collections
17th century in Ireland
Medieval poetry