The Contention of the Bards (in Irish, Iomarbhágh na bhFileadh) was a literary controversy of early 17th century Gaelic Ireland, lasting from 1616 to 1624 (probably peaking in 1617), in which the principal bardic poets of the country engaged in a bout of polemical versifying against each other and in support of their respective patrons.

There were thirty contributions to the Contention (not published in print until the 19th century), 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 (Irish), and the south dominated by the Eberian descendants. In Irish mythology the Milesians or Sons of Míl Espáine were the final inhabitants of Ireland, representing the Goidelic Celts. ...

Context

The Contention took place in the context of the settlement of the country following on the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, when full domination by Stuart royal authority had led to the Flight of the Earls (1607) and the Plantation of Ulster (1610). The Tudor re-conquest of Ireland took place under the English Tudor dynasty during the 16th century. ... In September 1607, Hugh ONeill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory ODonnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, with ninety of their followers. ... The Plantation of Ulster took place in the Irish province of Ulster during the early 17th century. ...

The occasion for the Contention was a dispute over the allegiance of the Earl of Thomond, a Gaelic nobleman of the ancient O'Brien clan (or sept) - unusually for the time, the earl was a protestant 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 (whereupon the Earl of Thomond was appointed president of the province) and the death in exile of the last great Eremonian, Hugh O'Neill. Thomond (Irish: Tuadh Mumhan, meaning North Munster) sometimes called County Thomond was an ancient Kingdom of Ireland which included much of what is now County Clare and at its greatest extents included parts of the counties of Kerry, Limerick, Offaly and Tipperary. ... OBrien is a common surname of Irish origin. ... Sept could mean: An abbreviation for September, written as Sept. ... Hugh ONeill, 2rd Earl of Tyrone (c. ...

Substance

In 1616 the Earl of Thomond's bard, Tadhg Mac Dáire Mac Bruaideadha, 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 - noteably, Lúghaidh 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, Lúghaidh emphasized 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, and pooh-poohed the former martial feats of the Eremonians as consisting merely of battles amongst themselves; the northern poets (whose allegiance lay with the exiled Ulster 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. Tara might mean: rocky hill, tower; where kings reign; from Temair in Irish Language references: http://www. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Some of the participants in the Contention mocked the principal debate between Tadhg and Lúghaidh; for example, Ó Heffernan used the fable of a cat and a fox (Eremonians and Eberians), which 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 an ironically novel, run-on free-form, which contrasted with the traditional form in which Tadhg wrote.

Perspective

Essentially, the poems of the Contention share a sense of national culture, but their political allegiance is clan-centred. This was a period of decline for the court bards, and the fact that they were addressing each other suggests a realisation on their part that few within the new political dispensation were really listening to them, or that the audience they still enjoyed was not worth speaking to. See Bard (disambiguation). ...

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. This 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 as a descendant in its Milesian lineage, even though his crown authority was precisely the instrument by which the traditional order was being destroyed. The Ireland that the poems traced in their lore was past, and it seems the bards were incapable of adapting their ways to the new order. In fact, the Contention proved to be the last flourish of Dán Díreach : within decades the great school metres had been abandoned in favour of the looser Amhrán or Aisling, and the esteem in which the bards had been held in Gaelic Ireland was never regained. See James VI of Scotland and I of England James I of Scotland James I of Aragon James I of Sicily James I of Cyprus This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The aisling (Irish aislinn) or vision poem is a poetic genre that developed during the late 17th and 18th centuries in Irish language poetry. ...