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 OXFORD 1911
 
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 PROLEGOMENA TO THE STUDY OF THE 
 LATER IRISH BARDS 1200 1500 
 
 By E. C. QUIGGIN 
 
 One of the most characteristic movements of the present time is 
 the growing interest in Keltic studies. This movement has had the 
 effect of stimulating investigations which serve to illuminate many of 
 the dark corners of the history and literature of Ireland and Wales. 
 It is consequently much easier at the present day to form some idea 
 of the general conditions of these countries in mediaeval times than it 
 was twenty years ago. A considerable time must elapse before the 
 whole of the literature surviving in MSS. can be published. But 
 certain broad features are already emerging, and in many cases it is 
 possible to sketch the outlines, leaving details to be filled in later. 
 One of the fields which is now being opened up for the first time is 
 the work of the later Irish bards. 1 The family poets who flourished 
 in Ireland in the period following the Norman invasion have left 
 behind them a considerable body of verse which is as yet all but 
 unknown. In this paper an attempt will be made to give some 
 account of the nature and extent of the literature of this kind 
 produced in Ireland and Scotland between 1200 and 1500. 2 But 
 before proceeding to deal with the work of the later bards in detail, 
 it will be well for us briefly to examine the relation in which the 
 bards stood to their Irish predecessors on the one hand, and to their 
 contemporaries in Western Europe on the other. 
 
 It is fortunately now no longer necessary to insist upon the merits 
 and originality of Old Irish literature. The claims of Ireland upon 
 the attention of all students have been eloquently summed up by 
 
 1 It is not without interest to note that some of the corresponding literature 
 in Wales has been in print for over three-quarters of a century. The Myvyriuu 
 Archaiology appeared in 1801-7, and the works of Lewis Glyn Cothi were issued 
 in 1837. 
 
 2 The reason for the superior limit will appear later. The inferior limit was 
 chosen, partly because this paper has arisen out of my studies in connexion with 
 the Book of the Dean of Lismore, and partly because the extensive bardic 
 literature composed between 1570 and 1620, though substantially the same, is 
 slightly different in character owing to the changed conditions.
 
 2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Prof. Kuno Meyer in the brief introduction to his Ancient Irish 
 Poetry. For the space of two or three centuries the lettered classes 
 of the island appear to have been seized with an inspiration which 
 found expression no less in the fervid appeals of the Hibernian mis- 
 sionaries among Angles, Franks, and Germans, than in the glowing 
 verses of the poets of nature. It would almost seem as if the Muse 
 had in anticipation of the troublous years in store been doubly lavish 
 in her gifts. At the very time that literature in the vernacular 
 begins in France the greatest monuments of Irish poetry and romance 
 had already taken shape, and it may be doubted if in the four 
 centuries which succeeded the battle of Ciontarf any literary form 
 was employed which was not current in the days of Adamnan. Irish 
 literature presents many points of similarity to that of Iceland, and 
 one of the most remarkable features common to the two islands is, 
 that a century or two of great splendour is followed by a long period 
 marked by an almost uniform lack of originality or brilliance. The 
 political decay which was caused by the storm and stress of the Viking 
 invasions is only too clearly reflected in the literature of the centuries 
 after the death of Brian Boruma. From about the beginning of the 
 second millennium of our era onwards Ireland loses her high place 
 among the literary peoples of Western Europe. With the decline of 
 originality in the treatment of native themes it might have been 
 possible for Irish men of letters to come under the influence of French 
 poetry — ' the source of literary inspiration in the whole of the West. 1 
 But, doubtless from a variety of causes, they did not. It is true that 
 it became the fashion to translate classical and mediaeval authors into 
 the mother-tongue. So, as is well known, we find versions among 
 other things of Statius' Thebaid, Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hamptoun, 
 and others. But these translations, or rather free adaptations, so far 
 as is known, did not exercise any influence upon the productions of 
 the professional literary men in Ireland. Though the greatest poets 
 of England and Germany in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
 were often indebted to Romance literature for their materials, yet 
 they stamped their own impress so thoroughly on their borrowed 
 themes that their works became truly national. Even Wales came 
 under this influence. For it is now definitely established that Dafydd 
 ab Gwilym owes much to Provencal poets. 1 This is in striking 
 contrast with what we find in Ireland. The loftier conception of the 
 Arthurian epic as developed by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the allegory 
 as represented in the Kingis Quair and the love-poetry as treated by 
 
 1 See L. C. Stern, Zeitschr. filr celt. Phil, vii. 238 ff.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 3 
 
 the great bard of Wales are all absent from Irish literature. Ireland 
 stood characteristically aloof from the main currents in European 
 literature, though this does not imply that she had no connexion with 
 the outside world. It is therefore not a mere accident or oversight, 
 or due to a dearth of published texts that in Prof. Saintsbury's 
 Periods of European Literature Ireland is only taken into account in 
 the first volume on the Dark Ages by Prof. Ker. 1 Hence it cannot 
 be claimed that the period with which we are here concerned is the 
 most fascinating period of Irish literature ; in fact it is in some ways 
 rather the reverse. Nevertheless, although in the three centuries 
 which elapsed between the arrival of Strongbow and the accession of 
 Henry VII there is little or no literature of supreme excellence, there 
 was an almost countless array of poets, and the work of these men 
 is of the highest importance if we wish to understand the social 
 conditions of the period over the greater part of the island. The 
 compositions of the later bards are almost our only source of in- 
 formation, if we desire to form any idea of the intellectual horizon 
 of the better situated classes outside the English pale. 
 
 From the beginning of the thirteenth century down to the middle 
 of the seventeenth, when the steady advance of the English power in 
 the island practically put an end to native learning and old literary 
 forms, the professional bard played a very important part in Irish 
 society. As was also the case in Wales, the English Government 
 realized only too clearly the power wielded by the men who followed 
 the poet's calling and endeavoured to put an end to them. 2 Although 
 bardic compositions only really become frequent in the thirteenth 
 century the fraternity had existed from time immemorial. At an 
 earlier period the bard had been looked down upon by the more 
 learned Jili. According to the metrical tract published by Thurneysen 
 the bards were divided into a number of grades like the higher order, 
 but as they corresponded more to the strolling minstrels of other coun- 
 tries, they were not able to claim payment for their compositions 
 
 1 Icelandic literature is likewise only noticed in this volume. 
 
 2 Cp. the entry in the Annals of the Four Masters, a. 1415 : ' Lord Furnival 
 . . . harried a large contingent of Ireland's poets, as : O'Daly of Meath, Hugh 
 Oge Magrath, Duffach son of the learned Eochaidh, and Maurice O'Daly. In 
 the ensuing summer too he raided O'Daly of Corcomrua.' See O'Grady, Cat., 
 p. 341. In 1403 a statute was passed forbidding the hards to follow their 
 vocation in North Wales, cp. Gweirydd ap Rhys, Hanes Llenyddiueth Gymrrig, 
 p. 195. An earlier attempt to suppress the vagrant hards had been made in 
 the reign of Edward I. It should, however, be stated that the English 
 Government did not scruple to employ the Irish bards to satirize their late 
 patrons when an opportunity presented itself.
 
 4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 according to a fixed tariff as in the case of the Jili} In the huge 
 miscellaneous MSS. which have come down to us the Jili occupies the 
 stage to the exclusion of others. The style of composition beloved of 
 this class during the tenth and eleventh centuries was the lengthy 
 historical or genealogical poem, ofteii a mere catalogue of names, in 
 which their learning could be displayed. And reams and reams of 
 this ponderous stuff have been preserved in the Book of Leinster and 
 elsewhere. Hence it is a mere chance if the verses of a gifted son of 
 the muses who had not qualified for the highest degree in the poetic 
 order have come down. During the last few years we have become 
 familiar with the delightful little poems by young clerics and others 
 which Kuno Meyer has rescued from oblivion, and among the despised 
 bards in olden times there must have been many endowed with the 
 gift of song who are unrepresented in the meagre body of spontaneous 
 verse which has been preserved. 
 
 The office of Jili appears to have gradually decayed during the 
 Viking period and the age of lawlessness by which it was followed, 
 though the stages are by no means clear. Meanwhile the humbler 
 bard, advancing in dignity, assumed many of the functions of the 
 learned order. Of the earlier court-poetry comparatively few complete 
 specimens have survived {infra, p. 100), and of the little that is known, 
 scarcely anything has been published. It will be seen later that this 
 court-poetry is the oldest literary form in the straight metres with 
 which we are acquainted in Ireland. Such compositions, apart from 
 fragments, are not at all well represented in our surviving MSS. until 
 we reach the time of Brian Boruma, connected with whose court were 
 the well-known poets Erard Mac Coisse and Mac Liag. 
 
 In the century and a half which elapsed between the death of Brian 
 and the arrival of the Normans there is a curious gap in this kind of 
 literature. But from the time of Cathal O'Conor (d. 1224) down to 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century there is a more or less unin- 
 terrupted stream of bardic verse. The island was divided up into the 
 domains of a large number of feudal lords, each of whom — at any 
 rate in the north, west, and south — would have his family bard. 
 Such men might attach themselves to one patron for a long period, 
 but most of them appear to have wandered from mansion to mansion 
 as was the case in France, Germany, and in the Scandinavian North. 2 
 
 1 Irische Texte, iii. 107. Thurneysen points out that in the metrical texts all 
 memory of a separate metrical system for fili and bard has disappeared 
 (I.e., p. 167). 
 
 2 In Wales the bards had fixed patrons and places of abode. But in addition 
 they made a tour of the country once in three years. This practice was known 
 as clem. Cp. Stephens, Literature of the Kymry 2 , p. 89.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 5 
 
 In mediaeval Ireland all the learned professions were hereditary, and 
 the poet's calling formed no exception to the rule. 1 Thus certain bardic 
 families can be traced for 200 or 300 years or even longer, as in the 
 case of the O'Dalys, the O'Higgins, the Maca wards, and several others. 
 In addition to the historical and genealogical lore which they had 
 taken over from the older Jili, the bards were in all probability the 
 repositories of as much of the old heroic stories as was remembered. 
 To them we perhaps owe in large measure the development of the 
 Ossianic cycle. And to them we certainly owe many, if not all, of 
 the heroic ballads dealing with Finn and his warriors. However, they 
 did not content themselves with the composition of court-poetry and 
 heroic ballads. Being the encyclopaedias of the day, they also wrote 
 a large number of religious poems. At the present moment it is not 
 easy to estimate how much of this later bardic literature has survived, 
 as scarcely anything has been published. It will be well, therefore, 
 to enumerate as briefly as possible our chief sources of information. 
 The numerous late MSS. which contain a few poems dating from the 
 period with which we are concerned are not noticed here. Among 
 the collections preserved in Ireland the following are of the greatest 
 importance 2 : — 
 
 1. The Book of Hy Mane, a large vellum written about 1360, 
 which has recently found a resting-place in the Royal Irish Academy. 
 It contains religious poems by Godfrey CTClery, Donnchad Mor 
 O'Daly (d. 1244), Maelmuire O'Lennain, and others. A description 
 of the volume was given by Kuno Meyer in the Archiv fur celt. 
 Lexik., ii. 138-46. Five important poems of the period from this MS. 
 are printed by the same scholar in Archiv, iii, p. 234 ff. 
 
 2. The Yellow Book of Lecan, into which was inserted a duanaire 
 or song-book written by Seanchan son of Maelmuire CTMulconry in 
 1473. This invaluable collection, which is however in many places 
 very difficult to decipher, contains about three score poems chiefly by 
 Tadhg 6g O'Higgin (d. 1448) and another writer, to my knowledge 
 otherwise unknown, Tuathal Macaward. Thirty of the compositions 
 in this collection occur elsewhere in Dublin, Edinburgh, and Oxford. 3 
 The miscellany is of interest as showing that it was not unusual to 
 gather together the works of one or two bards to form a book. Thanks 
 to the considerable number of his poems preserved in the Yellow Book 
 we are able to follow Tadhg's movements for a period of years, which 
 
 1 Prof. J. E. Lloyd, in his History of Wales, vol. ii, p. 529, quotes evidence 
 which seems to show that a similar state of affairs existed in Wales. 
 
 2 Collections containing poems addressed to one family are mentioned later 
 (p. 102 f.). 3 These I hope to publish shortly.
 
 6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 is scarcely possible in the case of any other poet previous to the time 
 of Elizabeth. 
 
 3. The Book of Fermoy, in the Royal Irish Academy, written 
 in part in the fifteenth century. It contains thirty bardic poems ; 
 several addressed to the Roche family date from the fifteenth century. 1 
 
 4. A paper MS. belonging to the O'Conor Don, written about 
 1630 in the Netherlands for a certain Captain Sorley MacDonnell, 
 who was taking part in the campaign in the Low Countries. We 
 have much reason to be grateful to this keen lover of Irish letters, as 
 this is not the only collection of poems which was copied for him. To 
 his interest in late mediaeval verse we owe the preservation of Finn's 
 Song-book and the collection of poems addressed to the O'Donnells, 
 now in the Royal Library at Brussels. 2 
 
 5. The O'Gara MS., in the Royal Irish Academy, written on 
 paper at Antwerp and Lisle in 1656 by Fergal Dubh O'Gara, a priest 
 O.S.A., whom Cromwell's dissolution of the religious houses had 
 forced to seek refuge in the Low Countries. A description of the 
 contents of the copy made by O'Scannail is given in O'Grady's Cata- 
 logue of Irish MSS. in the British Museum, p. 339 ff. 
 
 6. A seventeenth-century vellum in Trinity College, Dublin 
 (H. 3. 19), consisting in the main of religious poems. See Abbott's 
 Catalogue, p. 361. 
 
 7. A small paper MS. of the end of the sixteenth or beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, in the Library of the Franciscans on Merchants' 
 Quay, Dublin. 
 
 Of the Bodleian collection of Irish MSS. Rawlinson B514 contains 
 forty-nine bardic poems, several of which do not occur elsewhere to 
 my knowledge. 3 The British Museum MS. Add. 19995 (O'Grady, 
 Cat., p. 328) has unfortunately suffered so much from the ravages of 
 time that the interesting unique poems preserved in it cannot be 
 satisfactorily made out. Gaelic MS. No. xxix in the Advocates' 
 Library (a sixteenth-century vellum) contains ten religious poems by 
 
 1 See the description given by J. H. Todd in the Proceedings of the Royal 
 Irish Academy, 1870. Of the non-religious poems only two have so far been 
 published. The one beginning Baile suthain sioth Eanihna is printed, with a 
 translation by Hennessy, in vol. iii of Skene's Celtic Scotland, p. 410 if. The 
 address to David O'Keeffe has been recently edited and translated by Miss Knott, 
 Eriu, iv. 209 ff. 
 
 2 The contents of this book were described by Kuno Meyer in Eriu, iv. 183-90. 
 He overlooked the following half-illegible note at the end : ' Sorle mac Dounell 
 Capim of muskedtre the best of the Irish wither he will or nott witnes my hand 
 John mac Donell and so till deth . . . and so he shall .... till deth.' Elsewhere 
 the date ' xii day of Sept. 1622 ' is given. 
 
 3 A list of first lines is given in the Appendix.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 7 
 
 Tadhg (3g O'Higgin. No. lxiv in the same collection is a very much 
 torn paper volume which preserves poems rarely found elsewhere. 1 
 But the most important miscellany of poems of the period outside 
 Ireland is unquestionably the strange medley known as the Book of 
 the Dean of Lismore. As regards contents the Dean's Book resembles 
 two of the volumes written for Capt. Sorley Mac Donnell in the Nether- 
 lands about 1630, i. e. half the book is taken up with heroic poetry, 
 for which see the editions by Skene and M'Lauchlan (1862) and 
 Alex. Cameron (1892). The unpublished half consists mainly of 
 encomiastic and religious poetry by Irish and Scottish bards. Other 
 styles of composition, notably satire, are also represented to a degree 
 unknown in contemporary Irish MSS. This Edinburgh book pre- 
 serves a large number of compositions not found in Irish collections, 
 but it is perhaps chiefly interesting to us as showing the kind of verse 
 in which a Highland gentleman delighted at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 As the compositions of the later bards fall in the main into two 
 distinct classes, it will be convenient to treat the two divisions 
 separately. 
 
 Encomiastic Verse. 
 
 The panegyric has doubtless existed in one form or another in every 
 country in Europe ever since the beginnings of an ordered state of 
 society. Our common conception of a poet is that of a needy man 
 dependent on the bounty of his patron, and if the vanity of so great 
 a monarch as Louis XIV could be gratified by the eulogies of 
 a Moliere written to order, can it be a matter for wonder that the 
 petty princelings of other lands should delight in listening to the 
 extravagant praises of their humbler bards ? Court-poetry, as it is 
 often termed, is known to have been practised from very early times 
 among the Kelts and Teutons. It is held by Mr. Chadwick and 
 others that the Old English epic developed out of the panegyric, but 
 such early encomiastic verse has not been preserved in any Teutonic 
 language, 2 though there are indications that it once existed. In later 
 times this species of poetry was only developed to a high degree by 
 the northern branch of the Teutonic race, more particularly in Norway 
 and Iceland. The Old Norse encomia present such close analogies to 
 the work of the later bards in Ireland that it will be more convenient 
 to speak of them later. 
 
 1 A list of first lines is given in the Appendix. 
 
 2 The Old High German Ludwigslied is later than the date commonly assigned 
 to Bragi.
 
 8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 In Gaul it is possible to trace the composition of encomiastic poetry 
 at a considerably earlier date than among the Teutons. Diodorus 
 Siculus, writing about the middle of the first century b. c, says : 
 ' Among the Gauls there are lyric poets called bards. They compose 
 praises for some and satires on others and chant them to the accom- 
 paniment of a kind of lyre. - ' x A few decades earlier a Greek traveller 
 relates the story of a bard who chanted the praises of Lovernios, king 
 of the Arverni. This Lovernios was the father of Bituitos, who was 
 sent as a prisoner to Rome in 121 b. c. To celebrate a great banquet 
 a special building had been constructed, as in the well-known Irish 
 story of Bricriu's Feast. The bard in question arrived too late for 
 the festivities, ran after the royal chariot, chanting a poem in praise 
 of the king and at the same time deploring the unfortunate accident 
 which had detained him. The king threw him a bag of gold, which 
 he picked up, exclaiming, 'The track of thy chariot on the ground 
 brings gold and benefits to men,"' a sentiment very similar to what we 
 find in the later Irish poetry. 2 
 
 Encomiastic verse of a highly rhetorical character bulks very largely 
 in the poetic literature of Wales. Leaving out of account the poems 
 printed in Skene's Four Ancient Books of Wales, purporting to be 
 addressed to Urien Rheged and others, as of uncertain date, the 
 section of the Myvyrian Archaiology entitled Gogynfeirdd comprises 
 a large number of panegyrics by poets who flourished between 1120 
 and 1370. The most voluminous writers, such as Cynddelw, Llywarch 
 ab Llywelyn and Prydydd Bychan, flourished almost without exception 
 before the final subjection of Gwynedd by Edward I. The early 
 Welsh bards were fond of indulging in high-flown language, and 
 employed numerous metaphors and turns of expression which dis- 
 appeared with them. The loss of national independence naturally 
 robbed them of their chief theme. With the fall of Llywelyn the 
 patriotic fire which glows in the lines of the afore-mentioned Llywarch 
 becomes extinguished. But the formal panegyric survived the downfall 
 
 1 Et<rt 8e irap" airols Ka\ TroirjTai /xeAa>i>, ovs 0dp8ov? 6vop,d£ovo~iv. ovroi 8e per' 
 opydvoav rais Xvpais OfWiav aSovrcs, ovr pev vpvovoiv, oiis 8e j3\aa(pr)p,ov(n, Diodorus 
 5, 31, 2. Cf. also Ammianus 15, 9, 8 f Et bardi quidem fortia virorum illu- 
 strium facta heroicis composita versibus cum dulcibus lyrae modulis cantitarunt '. 
 Other passages in Holder, Altcelt. Spmchschatz, s. bardos. 
 
 2 ' A(popi<ravTos 8' avrov irpodecr p.Lav nore rrjs doivijs, dcpvcrrfprjcravrd riva tu>v 
 (iapftdpoav notrjTrjv d(pti(e<r8at, Kai crvvavTrjaaPTa /zero a>8ijs vpvtlv avrov rt]v vtrepox^v, 
 iavrbv 8' anoQpT)ve'i:' on vcrrepijiff, top 8e T(p<f>d(VTa dvkdniov atr^crai xpvavov, <a\ 
 plural airrto TrapaTp(\oi/Tt, dvtXopevov 8' itctlvov iraKiv v/xpelv, Xeyovra, fiiori ra ix vT ) 
 rrjs yrfs, (<P' ye dppxiTi)\aTfi, XP V0 ~ 0V Kal evepyeo-ias dvdpvnois (pepei, Athenaeus 4, 37. 
 See Holder, s. Lovernios.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 9 
 
 of the native princes, though in a somewhat emasculated form. Thus 
 Dafydd ab Gwilym praises the liberality of Ivor Hael in the days of 
 Chaucer, Lewis Glyn Cothi and Gutto'r Glyn celebrate theii 
 aristocratic patrons at the time of the Wars of the Roses, and the 
 bounty of the Vaughans, Wynnes, Lloyds, and others is extolled by 
 William Llyn under Mary and Elizabeth. The productions of these 
 and other writers of necessity suggest comparison with contemporary 
 verse in Ireland, and the general . similarity will be noticed later. 
 Perhaps the most striking difference between the Irish and Welsh 
 compositions of the period is to be found in the fact that the Irish 
 princes celebrated were virtually independent. The martial fame of 
 the Welsh nobles who figure in the poems of Lewis Glyn Cothi and 
 Gutto'r Glyn was gained in fighting under the banner of an English 
 leader, whilst Tadhg Og O'Higgin's patrons are chiefly extolled for 
 the losses they have inflicted one upon the other. With the lapse of 
 time the life of the Welsh nobles became too humdrum to stir the 
 poets to great rhetorical flights. Hence we are frequently treated to 
 exaggerated accounts of extravagance in food and drink. Thus 
 Dafydd Nanmor, who flourished in the second half of the fifteenth 
 century, sings of a feast given by Rhys of Towyn : — 
 
 ' Though Rhys owned on his lands one hundred thousand ploughs 
 and three hundred vineyards with wine and a hundred mills a-grinding, 
 though the earth were bread or the taste of water like good Osey, 
 'twere a wonder were water and earth to last three days at his 
 banquet.' * 
 
 At some future time when a fair number of Irish specimens have 
 been edited, it will be an interesting task to institute a comparison 
 between the panegyric verse of Ireland and Wales. In this manner 
 much light might be thrown upon the state of civilization in the 
 two countries. 
 
 Of all the lands in the west of Europe, the panegyric was most 
 extensively practised in Ireland. This may be due in some measure 
 to a fondness on the part of the Irish for the kind of rhetoric which 
 
 1 Cp. VV. J. Gruffydd, Y Flodeugerdd Newydd, p. 96. In James and Evans' 
 Hen Gumdidau, a poet, singing the praises of Sir Walter Herbert, says : 
 Ny bu ve wy.s, yn llys brenin 
 o bob rhyw rho.st, vwy gost kegin 
 bir kwrw er bod, bragod gasgwin 
 baru hwrdd tul, nys mul meliit. — I.e. p. 21. 
 That these exaggerated accounts of feasting had some foundation in actual fact 
 is shown, if other evidence were wanting, by the description of the hospitality 
 at the coming of age of Sir Watkiu Williams Wynn in 1770, Archaeologin 
 Cambrensis, 3rd ser. vol. x. p. 334. 
 
 V H
 
 10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 is almost inevitably associated with encomiastic poetry, but the chief 
 cause is doubtless to be sought in the political conditions. In later 
 mediaeval times much of Ireland remained largely unaffected by the 
 progress which we find in most Latin and Teutonic countries. Conse- 
 quently an archaic type of society lingered on over the greater part of 
 the island until the beginning of the seventeenth century. 1 This is 
 perhaps the chief interest of Ireland for the student if he can succeed 
 in detaching intellectual interest from patriotic sentiment. And the 
 archaic character of Irish civilization is reflected to a certain extent in 
 the literature. In a lecture delivered before the British Academy some 
 time ago, my friend and colleague Prof. Ridgeway emphasized the value 
 of the curious document known as the Book of Rights, to which it 
 would be difficult to find a parallel anywhere else in Europe. And this 
 encomiastic poetry, though not by any means confined to Ireland, 
 is one of those survivors of a stage of civilization which had run its 
 course, one might almost say, in England, France, and Germany, 
 before our literary documents in the vernacular begin. The panegyric 
 can be better studied in Ireland than in any other European country. 
 In Scandinavia it is possible to trace similar court-poetry from 
 about 800 to 1200, whereas in Ireland it begins earlier and continues 
 down to the first half of the seventeenth century. The curious thing 
 in Ireland is, that some of the earliest poems in the rhyming metres 
 with which we are acquainted, and the last poems in the old measures 
 about 1630, belong to this class. The earliest panegyrics were doubt- 
 less the archaic alliterative rhetorics, as they are termed, which are 
 found imbedded in the oldest Irish epics. It is held by some scholars 
 that the epic in Ireland originally consisted of a string of such 
 rhetorics 2 in declamatory alliterative prose with short narrative 
 passages connecting them. And the fact that the rhyming metres 
 were introduced from Latin before the epic had attained its 
 highest development, thus destroying the older system, may 
 explain in some measure the amorphous state of the Tain Bd 
 Cualnge. 3 In Teutonic, it should be observed, the influence of 
 Latin metrics was not felt for at least three centuries after the date 
 of their introduction into Ireland. It should also be noted that it was 
 apparently only the archaic rhetorics which led up to the regular epic 
 
 1 Cp. the remarks by Mr. Orpen in his Norman Conquest of Ireland, vol. ii, 
 p. 328. 
 
 ■ Cp. the introduction to Windisch's edition of the Tain Bo Cualnge, p. lxxxi. 
 
 3 On the analogy of the Icelandic sagas, however, it would be legitimate to 
 argue that the form of the Irish epic is secondary. This must remain an open 
 question unless it should become possible to derive further evidence from Early 
 Brythonic or Gaulish.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 11 
 
 in Ireland. Although we can trace the panegyric addressed to living 
 princes for a thousand years, no great epic poetry resulted from it. 
 The Ulster cycle determined for all time the form of the Irish epic. 
 The germs of the epic in verse may be seen in the Fenian ballads and 
 the Siaburcharpat Conadainn. Otherwise the histories of the exploits 
 of Cellachan of Cashel and Turlough OT'onor are in prose, and the 
 storv of the great struggle of Clontarf, instead of giving rise to a 
 chanson tie geste with Brian as its hero, became merged in the 
 omnium gatherum of Ossianic matter with the Battle of Ventry as 
 the result. 
 
 Irish tradition regards a poem by Cairpre, son of Etan, addressed 
 to Fiachna, son of Delbaeth, as the first panegyric composed in the 
 island. 1 The subject of this eulogy lived according to the synchronists 
 of the ninth and tenth centuries some seventeen centuries before our 
 era. That this poem is a fiction of a late date is demonstrated by the 
 fact that it is in the rhyming metres. Otherwise the oldest complete 
 composition of this nature is, as far as I am aware, an address to an 
 indeterminable Leinster princeling named Aed, contained in the ninth- 
 century Codex S. Pauli in Carinthia. The poem contains eight 
 stanzas, the last six of which run according to the version given by 
 Stokes and Strachan : 2 
 
 Son of Diarmait dear to me, though it he to he asked, it is easy, his praise 
 is move heautiful than treasures, it will he sung in lays hy me. 
 
 Beloved the name — they are no new fames — of Aed who deserves not 
 reproach : the pure form— renown that is not hidden — to whom lovely Liffey 
 helongs. 
 
 Descendant of Muredach at every time, rock of choice for nohle dignity : 
 a descendant — no evil person was found, of the kings of the clans of Cualu. 
 
 'flie lordship, this is his heritage, every good to him of gods or ungods : 
 the scion of a family without reproach, of the handsome kings of Marg. 
 
 He is the hole of a great tree— nohle dignity : for hattle he is a pre-eminent 
 stock : he is the sapling of silver— high worth— of the children of a hundred 
 kings, of a hundred queens. 
 
 At ale poems are chanted : fine (genealogical) ladders are climhed : melodious 
 hardisms modulate through pools of liquor the name of Aed. 
 
 But it is possible to trace the panegyric in Ireland still further back 
 beyond the eighth century. In the collections of Irish Annals old 
 poems are sometimes cited in support of statements, and even the 
 Annals of the Four Masters, compiled in the seventeenth century, 
 contain stanzas which, from the language, must go back to the Old 
 Irish period. The possibility that some of the oldest verse preserved 
 in Irish may go back to the sixth century has been pleaded by Kuno 
 
 1 Yellow Book of Lecan, lG b , 28. 
 
 2 Thesaurus Palaeohibernicu.s, ii, p. 295. 
 
 H 2
 
 12 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Meyer and the late Prof. Zimmer, 1 but this requires further investiga- 
 tion. In the seventh century we are on safer ground. At the year 
 645 the Four Masters quote stanzas bearing on the vengeance taken 
 for Ragallach, son of the king of Connaught, by his brother Cathal : 
 
 He slew six men and fifty, he committed sixteen devastations. 
 
 I had my share like another in the revenge of Raghallach, 
 
 I have the grey beard in my hand of Maelbrighde son of Mothlachan. 2 
 
 I see no reason for doubting that this may be a contemporary 
 description. Entire poems dealing with the eighth century and with 
 the Viking period are hardly as frequent as one might expect. How- 
 ever, a considerable number of fragments have been preserved. 3 
 Stanzas from such poems are frequently quoted as illustrations in 
 the eleventh-century treatise on versification. K. Meyer has fami- 
 liarized us with the ninth-century song to Cerball's Sword by Dalian 
 mac More. 4 Immediately preceding this in the Book of Leinster is 
 another poem by the same author addressed to the same prince of 
 Ossory : 
 
 Cerball of the curragh of the lovely Liffey, overthrower of battles on Conn's 
 Half — when he beheld his beautiful countenance Cnogba Corr fell dead. 
 
 Our friend and our darling, of lovely aspect, in his hand a spear ; great 
 famous son of Muiregan, with triumphs, with glory. 
 
 The triumph of beauty, the triumph of noble race are held by Cerball of 
 Carnsore, the triumph of murderous sword-red battle, the triumph of raiment, 
 the triumph of weapons. 
 
 Stately scion, pure, bright, and fair, he will seize mighty Banba ; fair- 
 sheltering bush, most glorious brave man, that is the description of Donn's 
 descendant. 
 
 The enumeration of his triumphs shall be heard till Doom ; his battles and 
 his fights, all shall hear them from me. 
 
 Whereupon Dalian with true Irish love of detail proceeds to 
 enumerate forty battles in which his patron had taken part. 5 
 
 Although the body of panegyric verse preserved in Ireland is 
 probably of very much greater bulk than that of the Scandinavian 
 North, there is unfortunately nothing corresponding to the Skaldatal. 
 This document gives a list of the northern rulers with the skalds 
 
 1 Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil., viii. 179 f., and Sitzungsber. d. km. preuss. Akad. d. 
 Wiss., 1910, p. 1031 ff. 
 
 2 For still earlier verses which may be contemporary with the events see the 
 Annals of Tigernach, Rev. Celt., xvii, pp. 168, 173. 
 
 3 Prof. Kuno Meyer informs me that he has counted portions of no less than 
 130 such poems composed before the year 1000. 
 
 * Rev. Celt., xx, p. 7 ff. Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 72. 
 
 6 The whole poem is edited and translated by K. Meyer in Rev. Celt., 
 xxix. 210 ff.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 13 
 
 who sang their praises beginning with Bragi (c. 800) down to 1260, 
 thus covering the whole period of court-poetry in Norway, which 
 came to an end in the thirteenth century. Several Irish composi- 
 tions dating from the time of Brian Boruma have been published, 
 e. g. the lament of Eochaid on the death of King Aed CNeill (d. 1004) l 
 and another by Erard Mac Coisse on the death of King Malachy II 
 (d. 1022). 2 In an interesting poetical dialogue between Erard 
 and Mac Liag the generosity of Brian Boruma is compared with 
 the liberality of Tadhg O'Kelly. 3 The latter is also celebrated by 
 Mac Liag in four other poems. 4 Mac Liag's poem on Kincora has 
 long been familiar. 5 Several others await an editor. It is unnecessary 
 to quote any specimens from this period as the ideas expressed are very 
 similar to those found in later compositions. 
 
 At the present moment there is a gulf separating the men just 
 mentioned from the poets of the thirteenth century beginning with 
 Murray CTDaly and Gilbride Macnamee. The surviving compositions 
 of the writers enumerated by O'Reilly consist mainly of genealogical 
 and historical pieces, and very few specimens of panegyric are known 
 to me from this age of turmoil. The Book of Fermoy preserves a 
 poem composed before 1095 and addressed to Ragnall, son of Godfrey, 
 King of the Hebrides. It is printed by Skene in the Appendix to 
 vol. iii of Celtic Scotland, who holds, however, that the prince 
 celebrated is Reginald, son of Godred, Norwegian King of Man and 
 the Isles from 1188 to 1226. 7 The Dean's Book has a poem begin- 
 ning Dursin tosg Dunche vac Vrane, 8 addressed to Donnchad, son 
 of Brian Boruma, but whether it was actually composed at the time 
 is a matter of uncertainty. 
 
 In his recently published Norman Conquest of Ireland, Mr. Orpen 
 claims to have shown that the period following Strongbow's invasion 
 
 1 The text is printed by K. Meyer in Archiv f. celt. Lexik., iii. 304 ; for 
 a translation see his Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 75. 
 
 The text is printed by K. Meyer in Archiv f. celt. Lexik. , iii. 305 ; for 
 a translation see his Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 77. 
 
 Printed by K. Meyer in Zeitschr.f. celt. Phil, viii. 218 ff. 
 
 4 K. Meyer, Z.f. c. P., viii. 222-31. 
 
 5 Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, ii. 196. 
 
 6 O'Curry {Manners and Customs, ii, p. 117 ff.) enumerates three eulogies of 
 Brian and his family. Extant poems by Erard in praise of Malachy, 
 Maelruanaidh, and Fergal O'Ruairc, are also mentioned by the same scholar 
 (ibid., pp. 127-9). 
 
 7 It is a curious fact that the test of language fails almost completely in 
 dealing with poetry composed between 1000 and 1600. 
 
 8 Macgregor, No. LXXIII. (This refers to the number of the poem in my 
 forthcoming edition of the unpublished portion of The Dean's Book.)
 
 14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 was one of peace and prosperity, thus forming a notable contrast to 
 the preceding era of turbulence and unrest. And it is probably not 
 without significance that the stream of encomiastic verse commences 
 to flow steadily once more under the rule of Cathal O'Conor (d. 1224) 
 and Donnchad Cairbrech O'Brien (d. 1242). 1 This s'tream, it might 
 be said, continues unbroken down to the first half of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 From the short description already given of the duanaire or song- 
 book in the Yellow Book of Lecan, as well as from other indications, it 
 is clear that it was not unusual for the poems of one or more bards to 
 be collected together to form a book. Hence a large miscellany of 
 bardic poetry might arise by uniting the contents of several such 
 books in one volume. And portions of our extant MSS. doubtless 
 took shape in this manner. 
 
 But there is abundant evidence for another method of preserving 
 or collecting bardic compositions. In Wales where the bards periodi- 
 cally went on circuit, the poet was expected to leave a sample of his 
 versification behind him as a return for the hospitality he had received. 
 In this way many Welsh MSS. came to be written 2 and the same thing 
 may well have occurred in Ireland. This is rather suggested by the 
 contents of the Book of Fermoy. Certain it is that in a number of 
 cases we find a cycle of poems addressed by different authors to the 
 ruler or rulers of one clan collected together. The earliest of such 
 family books now in existence is probably the Book of the Mac Governs 
 or Mac Gaurans (Mac Samhradhain), a fourteenth-century vellum, 
 in the possession of the O'Conor Don, a fragment of a larger book. 
 A century or so later comes the Book of Fermoy which contains 
 some fifteen poems on the Roche family. The next in point of date 
 is preserved in the Advocates' Library, and has remained unnoticed 
 hitherto. It consists of some ten battered leaves of vellum on 
 which are entered half a dozen very difficult encomia by different 
 persons addressed to an O'Reilly chief who flourished about 1500. 3 
 
 1 These princes were probably more firmly established than their predecessors 
 owing to the intimate and friendly character of their relations with the 
 English. See Chaps. XVIII-XXII of Mr. Orpen's work. Cathal O'Conor 
 is celebrated by Gilbride Macnamee in the poem beginning Tainic an 
 Croibhdherg go Cruachain (edited and translated by me in K. Meyer's Miscellany, 
 p. 167 ff.), and by Murray O'Daly in a piece beginning Fada in chabair a Cruachain 
 (O' Grady, Cat., p. 337). For poems to Donnchad Cairbrech O'Brien see O'Curry, 
 M. and C. , iii. 270 f. , 281. The verses in praise of O'Donnell by Murray O'Daly 
 are printed in the Appendix to this paper. 
 
 2 Stephens, Literature of the Kymry 9 , p. 137; W. J. Gruffydd in article 
 ' Celt — Language and Literature', Encycl. Britannica, 11th ed., p. 643, col. 2. 
 
 s Gaelic MS. No. XXX.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 15 
 
 As far as I am aware none of these particular compositions occurs 
 elsewhere. In a MS. in the Royal Library at Brussels there are 
 thirty poems addressed to the O'Donnells. Most of these refer to 
 chieftains who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but 
 a few are somewhat earlier in date. 1 A collection of some three 
 score poems on the O'Byrnes made between 1570 and 1615 only 
 survives in a transcript which a fellow of Trinity College had made 
 for him in the eighteenth century. 2 A few years ago the Cambridge 
 University Library acquired a miscellaneous Irish vellum MS. con- 
 taining, besides other matter, a score of leaves which originally 
 belonged to a large book of poems on the O'Reillys. The twenty 
 poems which have survived are almost all addressed to a Philip 
 O'Reilly who died in 1598. Similarly the Royal Library at 
 Copenhagen possesses a paper volume containing about thirty pieces 
 addressed to a chief of the M'Guires who lived about 1600. 3 As 
 it may reasonably be inferred that each princely house took care 
 to maintain a collection of the eulogies of their race, it is possible 
 for us to realize how many of these old books there must have been 
 in existence and now irretrievably lost. The O'Briens, the O'Kellys, 
 the O'Conors, and the O'Neills, 4 not to mention others, must all have 
 possessed similar monuments of bardic tribute to the glory of their 
 ancestry, but these have disappeared without trace except in so far as 
 some of the more highly prized of the pieces were thought worthy of 
 a place in other collections. Thus it is evident that the person who 
 wrote the Dean's Book had relations with some bard or bards 
 who had access to a miscellany of poems in praise of the Mac Dermott 
 family. 
 
 As our typical bard of the pre-Tudor period we are obliged to take 
 Tadhg Og O'Higgin, since he is the only one whose career can be 
 followed in any detail. The year of his birth is unknown and his 
 poems give us no domestic details. 5 In one of them he laments the 
 death of his elder brother and teacher Fergal O'Higgin 6 who is not 
 directly mentioned by the annalists. We first find him in 1397 in 
 Ulster with Niall 6g O'Neill of Cinel Eogain. 7 In 1403 he sings a 
 
 1 See Eriu, iv. 183-90. 
 
 2 D. Hyde, Literary History of Ireland, p. 472. 
 
 8 For an account of this MS. see the description given by Stern in Z.f. c. P., 
 ii. 326-65. 
 
 4 Since the above was written I learn that a late collection of poems addressed 
 to the O'Neills of Clannaboy is being edited for the Irish Texts Society. 
 
 6 He was the son of Tadhg ollam in poetry (d. 1391) son of Gillacolum. 
 
 6 See O'Grady, Cat., p. 366. For a poem by this Fergal see Appendix, p. 137. 
 
 7 O'Grady, Cat., p. 363 f.
 
 16 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 dirge over Tadhg O'Conor Sligo with whom he had evidently spent 
 some time. 1 In 1410 he laments the death of Tadhg O'KeUy. 2 
 At some date between 1412 and 1420 he composed a poem to James, 
 Earl of Ormonde, urging him to return to Ireland (Y. B. L.,379 b ,10ff.). 
 He was on terms of great intimacy with Ulick Mac William, whose 
 death in 1424 is lamented in a lengthy poem, 3 and somewhere between 
 1426 and 1438 he visited Tadhg O'Brien. 4 More than once he seems 
 to have been attached to the O'Donnells. 5 The following princes 
 have one poem each addressed to them in the Yellow Book — Mulrony 
 O'Carroll, lord of Ely, who died in 1443 (380% 31 ff.), Thomas 
 M'Guire who became prince of Fermanagh in 1430 (384% 17 ff.), and 
 Henry O'Neill, Lord of Tyrone (385% 9 ff.) At the year 1448 we 
 find this entry in the Annals of the Four Masters : ' Teige Oge, the 
 son of Teige, son of Gilla-colaim O'Higgin, chief Preceptor of the 
 Poets of Ireland and Scotland, died after penance, at Cill-Connla, 6 
 and was interred in the monastery of Ath-leathan. 1 7 There is no 
 direct evidence that Tadhg was ever in Scotland, but it might almost 
 be inferred from the popularity of his poems in the Highlands as 
 evidenced by the MSS. Against this, however, must be set a poem 
 (Y. B. L., 387 b , 7 ff.) addressed to the Lord of the Isles in which he 
 acknowledges the receipt of a present of a golden beaker. At the 
 same time he pleads the risks of the journey and the political situa- 
 tion at home which requires his presence, as an excuse for not 
 acceding to an invitation to visit Alba. 
 
 The above are the houses known to have been celebrated by Tadhg. 
 They do, as a matter of fact, include most of the families commonly 
 addressed by other bards in the period with which we are dealing. 
 A complete survey of this literature will be impossible until all the 
 
 1 O'Grady, Cat., p. 364, and Y. B. L., 388 b , 3. 
 
 2 O'Grady, Cat. , p. 365. For other poems addressed by Tadhg to the same 
 family cf. Y. B. L., 383 b , 9, 389% 12. 
 
 8 O'Grady, Cat., p. 365, and the poem beginning Fada in rdithisi romum, 
 Y. B. L., 377 b , 30. In a poem beginning Toghaidh Dia nech na naeidin, Y. B. L., 
 382 b , 8, he celebrates Walter son of Thomas son of Edmund Mac William Burke. 
 According to the Annals of Ulster Walter was made Mac William in 1402. 
 The Four Masters record his death in 1440. There is no means of fixing 
 accurately the date of composition of this poem. Edmund, Walter's successor, 
 is celebrated in a poem in Y. B. L., 386% 44. * Y. B. L., 389% 1. 
 
 6 Toirdhealbhach-an-Fhiona (d. 1423) appears to be addressed in a poem 
 beginning La a Teamraigh ac Toirrdealbach (Y. B. L. , 373 b , 1), and a piece com- 
 mencing Foillsigh do mirbuile a Muire (Y. B. L., 373% 8) takes the form of 
 a prayer to the Virgin to deliver Niall Garbh O'Donnell (d. 1439) from captivity 
 in London, where he was sent in 1435. 
 
 6 In the barony of Dunmore, co. Galway. 7 Strade Abbey, near Foxford.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 17 
 
 treasures of the Royal Irish Academy have been described. Nevertheless 
 it may perhaps be as well to give some account of what is readily 
 accessible. 
 
 Leinster would be almost entirely unrepresented between 1200 and 
 1500, were it not for the fact that at least one poem has come down 
 addressed to the well-known Art Mac Morrough. 1 The renown of 
 such a prince must have attracted many bards to his court, but 
 perhaps owing to political conditions as good as none have survived. 
 Further west in Munster we find the O'Keeflfes sparingly represented. 
 Miss Knott has recently published an address to David O'KeefFe, 2 
 whilst a poem in praise of Conchobar O'Keeffe (thirteenth century), 
 which I have not encountered in Irish collections, is preserved in the 
 Dean's Book. 3 The Roches, as already stated, are celebrated in nearly 
 a score of poems in the Book of Fermoy. The O'Gara MS. preserves a 
 few compositions addressed to Mac Carthy Riach, 4 but other families 
 such as the O'Sullivans and the O'Loghlins of Clare only appear in 
 bardic compositions of the sixteenth century. For a poem addressed 
 to Gerald, Earl of Desmond, see O'Reilly's Irish Writers, p. cxxxiii. 5 
 Other clans which are represented by a considerable number of 
 eulogies at the beginning of the seventeenth century, such as the 
 Mac Sweeney s, 6 either do not occur at all before 1500, or only very 
 sparingly, as in the case of the O'Reillys, who only appear in the 
 little Edinburgh book already mentioned. Poems in praise of the 
 O'Rourkes are likewise few and far between in the period in question. 
 The Dean's Book preserves one poem addressed to this house which 
 I have failed to discover in any Irish collection. 7 Other families 
 represented by isolated pieces are the O'Melaghlins, 8 the O'Maddens, 9 
 the Mac Mahons of Oriel, 10 and the O'Mornas or Mac Gilmurry. 11 The 
 
 I O'Grady, Cat., p. 359. 2 Eriu, iv. 209. 
 3 Macgregor, No. XXXIV. See also O'Grady, Cut., p. 443. 
 
 ' O'Grady, Cat., p. 358. 
 
 5 By Geoffrey Finn O'Daly, now contained in 23 D 14 (R. I. A.). This Earl 
 Gerald was well known in his day as a patron of letters and as a writer of Irish 
 verse. There is a short poem attributed to him in the Book of Fermoy, and 
 several others are contained in the Dean's Book. A century later a member of 
 a kindred house, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, had in his train a bard named de Nelan, 
 as we are informed by Holinshed. It was under the influence of this man's 
 declamation in the Dublin council-chamber that Silken Thomas finally decided 
 to rise in rebellion. 
 
 • O'Grady, Cat., pp. 386, 420-5, 464. 
 
 7 Macgr. No. XXXVII. 6 O'Grady, Cat., pp. 359, 362. 
 
 9 O'Reilly, 7mA Writers, p. cxxxiii. 
 
 10 O'Grady, Cat., p. 404 (see also p. 471). 
 
 II Ibid., p. 345 = Macgregor, No. XXXV.
 
 18 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 fortunes of several families naturally fluctuated considerably with the 
 unsettled state of society. Hence it is not surprising to find that a 
 house like the Mac Dermotts which figures somewhat prominently 
 in the Dean's Book 1 should, as far as I am aware, disappear entirely 
 from this class of literature after 1500. For the sake of completeness 
 we may mention that a British Museum MS. preserves poems in praise 
 of Sir Richard fitz Walter de Burgo, second Earl of Ulster (d. 1326), 
 and Sir William M'Keorish de Bermingham. 2 Another MS. not yet 
 catalogued has eulogies of John Cantwell, Archbishop of Cashel (d. 
 about 1466), James Pursell, Baron of Louth, and Tadhg Mac Donough. 3 
 Scotland is of course much worse situated than Ireland. No doubt 
 the Irish bards who visited North Britain composed countless pane- 
 gyrics in praise of Highland chiefs. But the whole of this literature 
 has unfortunately disappeared with the exception of what is preserved 
 in the Dean's Book. As far as I am aware, the Irish collections only 
 contain three pieces addressed to princes outside Ireland, one in the 
 O'Gara MS. to John Macdonald of the Isles by Donall, son of Brian 
 O'Higgin, who died in 1501 . 4 The other two are to a King of the 
 Hebrides anda Lord of the Isles already mentioned (,sMpra,pp.l01,104«). 
 Otherwise, Scottish families are only celebrated during this period in 
 poems preserved in the Dean's Book. The houses addressed are spread 
 over a fairly limited area. These are the Macgregors, the Campbells of 
 Glenurchy, the Mac Dougalls of Dunolly, the M'Neils of Castle Sween, 
 the Earl of Argyle, Macleod of Dunvegan, Macleod of Lewis, Mac- 
 donald of the Isles, Stewart of Rannoch. At the time there were 
 several other powerful clans in the Highlands who doubtless took 
 care that their fame should be extolled in verse just as much as 
 the nobles with whom the Macgregors came into contact. It should, 
 moreover, be remembered that the Books of Clanranald contain ten 
 panegyrics composed at various times between 1514 and 1736, thus 
 proving that the old encomiastic poetry lingered on in Scotland for 
 about a century after it had disappeared in Ireland, a fact first 
 pointed out, I believe, by Prof. Douglas Hyde. 5 
 
 1 Nos. XVI, XXV, XXXIII ; cp. also O'Reilly, pp. lxxxvi, cxi. 
 
 2 O'Grady, Cat., p. 338. 
 
 3 This MS., which I know through the kindness of Mr. Flower, is marked 
 Add. 33993. 
 
 4 O'Grady, Cat.,.?. 370. 
 
 8 A Literary History of Ireland, p. 547 ; Magnus Maclean, Literature of the 
 Celts, pp. 129-32. For yet others see now Mackinnon's Catalogue, pp. 116-17, 
 119 and 124. We are, of course, here only concerned with poems in the straight 
 metres. The old encomiastic poetry, however, survives to a small extent at 
 the present day in the Highlands, wherever the clan spirit is fostered. Cp. a
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 19 
 
 If we wish to draw a picture of the Irish bard, we have to rely for 
 our materials almost entirely on the extant compositions of the poets 
 themselves. Descriptions in English writers are not frequent. 
 Fergus Mac Ivor's bard in Waverley is drawn in part from the 
 imagination. In making the poet very old, Scott was doubtless 
 influenced by the sentimentality of Macpherson and his imitators, 
 one of whom composed a piece entitled The Wish of the Aged Bard. 1 
 But the Wizard of the North was, as we know, acquainted with the 
 Red Book of Clanranald, which preserves a number of panegyrics by 
 the M'Vurichs, who had an hereditary estate in S. Uist as shanachies 
 to Clanranald till the middle of the eighteenth century. Whether 
 Sir Walter had these poems actually translated for him I cannot say. 
 It is a matter of common knowledge, also, that he corresponded with 
 William Owen about the early poetry of Wales. Scott, however, 
 was familiar with the few English writers who give any details con- 
 cerning the Irish bards. Spenser's description has often been quoted, 
 but it may be as well to reproduce a portion of it here : — 
 
 There is none so bad, Eudoxus, but shall finde some to favour his doings ; 
 but such licentious partes as these, tending for the most part to the hurt of the 
 English, or maintenance of their owne lewde libertie, they themselves being 
 most desirous therof, doe most allow. ... A yong minde cannot rest ; if he be 
 not still busied in some goodnesse, he will finde himselfe such businesse, as 
 shall soone busie all about him. In which if he shall finde any to praise him, 
 and to give him encouragement, as those Bardes and rythmers doe for little 
 reward, or a share of a stolne cow, then waxeth he most insolent and halfe 
 madde with the love of himselfe, and his owne lewd deeds. And as for words 
 to set forth such lewdnes, it is not hard for them to give a goodly and painted 
 shew thereunto, borrowed even from the praises which are proper to vertue 
 itselfe. As of a most notorious thiefe and wicked out-law, which had lived all 
 his life-time of spoyles and robberies, one of their Bardes in his praise will say, 
 That he was none of the idle milke-sops that was brought up by the fire side, 
 but that most of his dayes he spent in armes and valiant enterprises, that he 
 did never eat his meat, before he had won it with his sword, that he lay not all 
 night slugging in a cabbin under his mantle, but used commonly to keepe others 
 waking to defend their lives, and did light his candle at the flames of their 
 houses, to leade him in the darknesse ; that the day was his night, and the 
 night his day ; that he loved not to be long wooing of wenches to yeeld to him, 
 but where he came he tooke by force the spoyle of other mens love, and left 
 but lamentations to their lovers ; that his musick was not the harpe, nor layes 
 of love, but the cryes of people, and clashing of armor ; and finally, that he 
 died not bewayled of many, but made many waile when he died, that dearly 
 bought his death. Doe you not thinke that many of these praises might be 
 
 Lament on Sir Charles MacGregor on p. 96 of the collection entitled Luinneagan 
 Luaineach (London, 1897), by John Macgregor, M.D., Honorary Bard to the 
 Clan Macgregor. 
 
 1 Mackenzie, Beauties of Gaelic Poetry, p. 14.
 
 20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 applyed to men of best deserts? yet are they all yeelded to a most notable 
 traytor, and amongst some of the Irish not smally accounted of. For the song, 
 when it was first made and sung to a person of high degree there, was bought 
 (as their manner is) for fourty crownes. 
 
 If due allowance is made for Spenser's anti-Irish bias and for the 
 reduced fortunes of many of the Irish families at the time when he 
 wrote, it will be found that the above description enables us to form 
 some idea of the content of many of the panegyrics in the time of 
 Elizabeth. The second witness I should like to call is the bitter 
 Dublin apothecary, Thomas Smyth, who wrote in 1561 as follows : — 
 
 The thirde sorte is called the Aeosdan, which is to saye in English, the bards, 
 or the rimine sepctes ; and these people be very hurtfull to the comonwhealle, 
 for they chifflie manyntayne the rebells ; and, further they do cause them that 
 would be true, to be rebelious theves, extorcioners, murtherers, ravners, yea 
 and worse if it were possible. Their furst practisse is, if they se anye younge 
 man discended of the septs of Ose or Max, and have half a dowsen aboute him, 
 then will they make him a Rime, wherein they will commend his father and 
 his aunchetours, nowmbrying howe many heades they have cut of, howe many 
 townes they have burned, and howe many virgins they have defloured, 1 howe 
 many notable murthers they have done, and in the ende they will compare them 
 to Aniball, or Scipio, or Hercules, or some other famous person 2 ; wherewithall 
 the pore foole runs madde, 3 and thinkes indede it is so. Then will he gather 
 a sorte of rackells to him, and other he most geat him a Proficer, who shall tell 
 him howe he shall spede (as he thinkes). Then will he geat him lurking to 
 a syde of a woode, and ther keepith him close til morninge ; and when it 
 is daye light, then will they go to the poore vilages, not sparinge to distroye 
 young infants, aged people ; and if the women be ever so great withe childe, 
 her they will kill ; burninge the houses and come, and ransackinge of the 
 poore cottes. They will then drive all the kine and plowe horses, with all 
 other cattell, and drive them awaye. Then muste they have a bagpipe bloinge 
 afore them ; and if any of theis cattell fortune to waxe wearie or faynt, they 
 will kill them, rather than it sholde do the honeur's goode. . . . And when he 
 
 1 Cp. what is stated below, p. 113. 
 
 2 This appears to be true of the compositions of the sixteenth and early 
 seventeenth centuries (cp. Stern, Z. c. P., ii, p. 351), but not to the same extent 
 of the earlier period. Troy and Laomedon are referred to in the stanza printed 
 in O'Grady's Catalogue, p. 354. However, in 25 encomiastic poems by Tadhg Og 
 comprising 890 stanzas, there are but two instances, and these only in the 
 alliterative foi-mula Gall nGreg, Y. B. L., 385 b , 27 and 380 a , 19. Cp. also aighnes 
 choinnle gloine Greg in Gilbride Macnamee's poem Miscellany presented to 
 K. Meyer, p. 168. In an elegy on Llywelyn ab Gruffydd, Bleddyn Vardd 
 describes his hero as givr prut uegys Priaf, ' a serious man like Priam,' Myv. 
 Arch., p. 253, col. 1. Similarly Rhys Gryg is compared by Llywarch ab 
 Llywelyn to Hercules and Hector, ibid., p. 208 a , 31, 33. 
 
 ( ompare the remark of the Bailie Jarvie in Rob Roy : ' It 's a queer thing 
 <•' me, gentlemen, that am a man o' peace mysell, and a peacefu' man's son, for 
 the deacon my father quarrelled wi' nane out o' the town-council — it's a queer 
 thing, I say, but I think the Hieland blude o' me warms at thae daft tales, and 
 whiles I like to hear better them than a word o' profit, gude forgie me ! '
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 21 
 
 is in a safe place, they will fall to the devision of the spoile, accordinge to the 
 dyscresion of the captin. . . . Now comes the Rymer that made the Ryme, with 
 his Rakry. 1 The Rakry is he that shall utter the ryme ; and the Rymer himself 
 sitts by with the captain verie proudlye. He brings with him also his Harper, 
 who please all the while that the raker sings the ryme. Also he hath his 
 Barde, which is a kinde of folise fellowe ; who also must have a horse geven 
 him ; the harper must have a new safern shurte, and a mantell, and a hacnaye ; 
 and the rakry must have xx or xxx kine, and the Rymer himself horse and 
 harnes with a nag to ride on, a silver goblett, a pair of bedes of corall, with 
 buttons of silver ; and this, with more, they loke for to have, for reducinge 
 distruxione of the Comenwealth, and to the blasfemye of God ; and this is the 
 best thinge that y e Rymers causith them to do. 2 
 
 The third contemporary source of information is the curious volume 
 entitled the Image of Irelande, published by Derricke in 1581. In 
 one of the woodcuts at the end of the work Mac Sweyn is represented 
 as sitting at a rude board for a table with a harper and bard at hand 
 to entertain. With regard to these men the poem has the following 
 lines : — 
 
 Now when their gutts be full, then comes the pastyme in : 
 
 The Barde and Harper mellodie, unto them doe beginne. 
 
 This Barde, he doeth reporte the noble conquestes done ; 
 
 And eke in Rimes shewes forth at large, their glorie thereby wonne. 
 
 Thus he at randome ronneth, he pricks the Rebells on : 
 
 And shewes by suche externall deeds, their honour lyes upon. 
 
 And more to stirre them up, to prosecute their ill : 
 
 What greate renowne their fathers gotte, thei shewe by Rimyng skill. 
 
 And thei moste gladsome are, to heare of Parents name 
 
 As how by spoilyng honest menne, thei wonne such endlesse fame. 
 
 Wherefore like gracelesse graftes, sprong from a wicked tree : 
 
 Thei grow through daily exercise to all iniquitie. 
 
 As the panegyric was extensively practised over a very long period 
 in Ireland, it is but natural that it should have become somewhat 
 stereotyped in form before our period begins. It is, therefore, in 
 many ways, not surprising if we find little or nothing to set by the 
 side of some of the more imaginative encomia of the Scandinavian 
 North, as, for instance, the tenth-century Raven-Song, describing the 
 deeds of Harold Fairhair, or the reception of Eric Blood-Axe in 
 Valhalla. 3 One of the most striking poems in this connexion is a 
 poem of incitement addressed to Rolfe Mac Mahon of Oriel by the 
 thirteenth-century poet Gilbride Macnamee. 4 
 
 1 Ir. reacaire. 
 
 2 Ulster Journal of Archaeology , vi. 166-7. 
 
 1 Vigfusson and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i, pp. 254 ff. 
 
 4 The following summary is taken from O'Grady, Cat. , p. 405 : e On a mild 
 May morning the poet wanders off to contemplate Emain Macha. He enters 
 the ancient precinct, sits down and deep sleep invades him. Soon he is
 
 22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 What the Irish bards lack in originality is often made up for by 
 a dignified simplicity, 1 and, though all Keltic poetry presents serious 
 difficulty to the student, there is here little or none of the intentional 
 obscurity which is so frequent in the compositions of the skalds. 
 Such kennings as ' wolf of valour ', ' glistening fierce dragon ', ' fierce 
 blood-stained raven ', are common enough, and a bard may endeavour 
 to find a different name or epithet for his lord in each stanza. Thus, 
 a Connaught prince may be styled ' warden of the English ', ' lord of 
 Thomond ', ' ruler of Leinster ', or ' conqueror of Ulster '. The 
 difficult nature of the rhetoric, as in Welsh, is inherent in all stanzas 
 of such forbidding metrical complexity. 
 
 There are three points on which the poetry of the bards differs 
 profoundly from the compositions of the Scandinavian skalds, which 
 it may be well to mention at the outset. 
 
 1. In the Irish poems there are practically no references to 
 mythology, whereas in the Roman poet Claudian and in the earlier 
 Northern Court-poetry the pagan gods and goddesses are introduced 
 with great effect. In this respect the later Irish and Welsh pane- 
 gyrists were at a serious disadvantage. 
 
 2. The Irish princes celebrated by Gilbride Macnamee and Tadhg 
 Og O'Higgin had little or no direct connexion with countries oversea, 
 whereas the skald's chief theme is the roving piratical life of the Viking. 
 
 3. The later Irish bards never describe at great length any single 
 achievement of the chieftain they celebrate. There is little or 
 nothing which may be compared with Sighvafs description of the 
 Battle of Sticklestead, 2 or Llywarch ab Llywelyn's account of the 
 battle of Porth Aethwy. 3 Otherwise many poems, or at any rate 
 parts of poems, might just as well have been composed in Scandinavia 
 or Wales as in Ireland or Scotland. When a larger number of the 
 compositions of the Irish bards has been published, it will be neces- 
 
 aware that his guardian angel stands beside him, and on the instant marks 
 a great body of horsemen that out of the north ride towards Emain : the plain 
 being whitened witli the dust of their horses and again made to glow with their 
 red pennons ; he asks his companion who tells him that yonder are the sons of 
 kings of Eoghan's seed. Who are these from the eastward, helmeted, with 
 parti-coloured shields slung at their backs, with sword and spear ? The Ulidians. 
 U'ho come up out of the southern airt ? Emain's own tribes. Out of the west 
 on foot and all weaponless ? The Tuatha De. The four divisions converging 
 nu-et at the Navan Hill, where the first three ground their spears and by acclaim 
 choose Rolfe as their leader, the bards in chorus setting forth his praise.' 
 
 1 W. P. Ker, The Dark Ages, p. 332. 
 
 2 C.P.B.,\\, p. 139. 
 
 8 Myv. Arch., p. 210, col. 2-211, col. 1. Such sustained descriptions are not, 
 however, frequent in the poems of the Gogynfeirdd or Lewis Glyn Cothi.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 23 
 
 sary to inquire if there are any traces of Irish influence in the 
 Northern Court-poetry. Such an inquiry would at the present 
 moment be premature. It is, however, worthy of note that some of 
 the Icelandic poets were of Hibernian descent, so Kormak Ogmundar- 
 son and Einarr Helgason. 1 
 
 When Icelandic poets came to seek the favour of a new patron 
 they introduced themselves with a carefully composed panegyric. 2 
 Sighvat the Poet makes himself known to St. Olaf in this manner. 3 
 Something of the kind is also found in Ireland. The Irish Egill 
 Skallagrimsson, Murray O'Daly, who flourished in the first half of 
 the thirteenth century, drew down upon himself the displeasure of 
 O'Donnell by slaying his steward, and had to fly to Clanrickard 
 for protection. In one of the very few poems of his which have 
 survived we find him appealing to Richard de Burgo. He seems to 
 have had a full measure of the notorious impudence of the bardic 
 fraternity in Ireland. This is how he opens : — 
 
 This band in your house has come to you from afar. They were wont to 
 quaff wiiie from the hand of kings or knights. 
 
 Ofttimes did they partake of repast at the hands of abbot or bishop. They 
 disturb no foreign house with their converse, their carousing is not over- 
 talkative. 
 
 I am their master of teaching, many 's the time I was in the midst of foreign 
 courts ; little ceremony I make, 1 sit in the presence of monarchs. 
 
 I attain great power from every prince, pleasant to me to be abroad, my per- 
 son is respected in the eastern land, I was wont to have a knight in attendance. 4 
 
 Certain ideas almost of necessity become conventional. As the 
 bard was partly or wholly dependent on the bounty of his patron, 
 opulence and liberality cannot fail to be a stock theme. This is the 
 same all the world over. Of O'Neill Tadhg Og OTIiggin says : — 
 
 A man is he that receiveth the tribute of each province and bestoweth 
 cattle at the first draught, a feast given by the lord of Etar is not consumed 
 without enriching some one. 6 
 
 1 Mogk in Paul's Grundnss d. germ. Phil, ii, p. 677. It is probably an 
 accident that these two writers are perhaps the most obscure of all the skalds. 
 
 2 Cp. what Mogk says about Gunnlaugr Ormstunga, I.e., p. 080. 
 
 3 Corp. Poet. Bor., ii, p. 124 ff. 
 
 4 Macgr. XV., st. 2-5. See also O'Grady, Cat., p. -V-M. 
 
 5 Fer ga bfuil cdin gach cnigidh 
 ttg ddil chruidh leisan cceiddigh 
 n't hibhther fled fir Edair 
 
 nac meduigh sin fer eigin. 
 
 — From the O'Conor Don's Book = Y. B. L., 381 b , 40-7.
 
 24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 or — 
 
 Niall's son will not tolerate (leave) a mantle amongst his band in making 
 gifts to us, he satisfies a band that is hard to please so that it grows ashamed 
 of its complaints. 1 
 
 Tadhg Og O'Higgin and others state that they were wont to 
 receive twenty milch-kine for each lay or it might be a wand with 
 rings of gold. 2 Murray O'Daly represents himself as obtaining a 
 steed every year and a golden beaker. 3 In a poem on the death of 
 Malachy II the older poet Erard MacCoisse says that he received 
 from the monarch 300 goblets, 300 steeds, and 300 bridles. 4 The 
 following description of MacDermott is perhaps worthy of quotation: — 
 
 Mac Dermot would sacrifice his eye to save his honour ; if he found any one 
 to desire it he would not be the one to refuse it. 5 
 
 He covets nought on earth save to distribute it to each man. 
 
 What matters it however much is demanded of Tomaltach Mac Dermot, son 
 of the princess from Rath Croghan, seeing that his wealth is ever increasing ? 
 
 The royal race of Mulroney to whom a glorious reputation is secured, wine 
 from cups of gold is quaffed around it from morning to morning. 
 
 Illustrious is the guardian of their honour ; no single man was yet seen 
 leaving his presence with a refusal. 
 
 Of short duration would be the store of his wealth unless God assisted him, 
 seeing that one of his hands is engaged in bestowing gifts and the other in 
 making presents. 
 
 Tis not a first night's portion which God grants this man of the gentle 
 white countenance, but to be ever satisfying each single band, that in truth 
 is what He cares for. 
 
 What Conor's son bestows and receives, there is nothing like to it save it 
 be ebb and flood. 6 
 
 1 Brat ca fein ni fuilenga 
 
 macNeill ag ar neimera 
 
 riaraidh se dhaim ndoidhila 
 
 le gur nair a neimela. — Y. B. L., 374 a , 11 f. 
 8 Fichi bo dobeiredh dham 
 
 ar gach nduain dia dho chunnradh. 
 
 Dogheibhinn uadh fichti bo 
 
 leig an aighidh an annro 
 
 in tslat fainne dho uair me 
 
 o macGrainne uair eile. — Y. B. L., 375 a , 31 ff. 
 
 3 Macgr. XV. 26. 
 
 4 K. Meyer, Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 77. Cp. also the interesting dialogue 
 between Erard and Mac Liag, Z. c. P., viii, p. 218 ff. 
 
 5 This refers to the well-known story of Athirne. 
 
 6 Macgr. XVI. 4-12. For Welsh descriptions of the kind see Dafydd ab 
 Gwilym, iii. 25 ff., xiii. 29 ff. (= Stern, Z.f. c. P., vii. 16-17). Even the above is 
 not so extravagant as these lines by Lewis Glyn Cothi : — 
 
 Yr uur oedd amlach no'r irwydd yn ddellt, 
 No'r main ac no'r mellt, no'r gwellt a'r gwydd. 
 
 — Gweithiau, p. 1 73, 55-6.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 25 
 
 Personal beauty is such an ever-recurring theme in all Irish litera- 
 ture that it would be superfluous to lay stress here on this feature in 
 connexion with the poetry of the bards. Let us note that Irish men 
 of letters in this respect resemble the poets of Wales and ancient 
 Greece, thus furnishing a striking contrast to the framers of the Old 
 Teutonic Epics. 1 The noble addressed is invariably compared to 
 Cuchulinn or Conn or Niall Glundub or some other hero of old, but 
 not as in the later poets to the warriors of Greece and Rome. And 
 in this connexion an ancient Irish story is not infrequently introduced. 
 Thus John O'Cluan relates the history of Tuathal Techtmar's youth 
 (Macgr. No. XX), Torna CTMulchonry the tale of the hag at 
 Mac Dermott's court (Macgr. No. XVI) which is repeated by a High- 
 land author for the benefit of Macgregor (Macgr. No. XXXIII). 
 Tadhg 6g gives the story of Fiacha Sraibtine (Y. B. L., 376% 37) and 
 of Cormac Connlongas ( Y. B. L., 375% 39). The curious narrative of the 
 showers of Niall Frasach is given by Tadhg CTDaly (Macgr. No. XIX) 
 whilst Godfrey Finn recalls the story of Conn Cedchathacfts youth 
 (O'Grady, Cat., p. 358). It might also be mentioned here that the rule 
 of the prince in question is commonly represented as having been 
 foretold in the prophecies of Berchan. Occasionally the poet alludes 
 to his patron's success with the fair sex, as in the stanza : — 
 
 As in the concourse of a fair the snares of (Dermot) O'Duihne were cast 
 over their women — the wooing of an expert— so a woman leaps out of her 
 five senses to go towards Niall Og, Eoghan's descendant. 2 
 
 In many countries plentiful harvests are associated with just rule. 
 So in the nineteenth book of the Odyssey Odysseus says to Penelope : — 
 
 Thy fame goes up to the wide heaven, as doth the fame of a blameless king, 
 one that fears the gods, and reigns among men and mighty, maintaining right, 
 and the black earth bears wheat and barley, and the trees are laden with fruit, 
 and the sheep bring forth and fail not, and the sea gives stores of fish and all 
 out of his good guidance, and the people prosper under him. 3 
 
 But nowhere, perhaps, does this idea occur so frequently as in Irish 
 literature. This gives the bard an opportunity of introducing charac- 
 teristic descriptions of nature. We must, however, bear in mind the 
 small range of natural produce of which he could make use. This is 
 
 1 R. M. Meyer, Die altgermanische Poesie, p. 40. 
 a Lionta i Dhuibhne a nddil donaigh 
 
 ai\a\ tnhndib nuirge xeolaigh 
 ben ag leim da coig ciullaibh 
 diarraidh Neill Oig i Eoghuin. 
 
 —From the O' Conor Don's Book = Y. B. I,., 382% 28-9. 
 * I am indebted to Prof. Ridgeway for this reference, 
 v I
 
 26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 very striking, for instance, if we compare such poems with panegyrics 
 by Turkish authors who had a much wider selection of fruits and 
 flowers to choose from. In Ireland wheat is frequently mentioned, as 
 also apples. It should be remembered that the apple is the ambrosial 
 food of the Irish in all the old stories. But the harvest on which the 
 greatest stress is laid is the supply of hazel-nuts. It cannot be a 
 matter for surprise that the hazel should supply the poets with a 
 large proportion of their metaphors, if we reflect that nearly two- 
 thirds of the soil of Ireland is composed of the calcareous formations 
 so beloved of this tree. 1 As one of the best specimens the following 
 verses from a poem addressed to Cathal Redhand, King of Connaught 
 (d. 1224), by Gilbride Macnamee may be quoted : — 
 
 Croghan's Redhand has rendered fruitful the green woods of the warm 
 land ; if a beetle strike any white hazel it will yield a vat full. 
 
 His rule has put grain into the ground, it has made blossoms to sprout 
 through the tips of the branches, the sentences of the bright shining light of 
 the Greeks have caused mast to grow in the oak-wood. 
 
 Ireland has recognized her ruler ; she has brought forth the increase of 
 a quarter in one month, so that the forest which trembled with age has put 
 forth fruit again under his rule. 
 
 When comes the autumn the fruit will reach Galway's prince of the swift 
 steeds ; ear upon ear, cluster upon cluster will there be from Kesh Corrin to 
 Croagh. 
 
 The arms of each apple-tree are weighed to the ground in the land of 
 Cathal of Cruachan-Aoi, each bright hazel therein perforce bends down. 
 
 Each smooth nut puts forth its shell at the end of its branch on the margin 
 of the cornland, the yellow grain dons its husk underneath a fresh bending 
 brake. 
 
 A ruddy cluster on dark leaves amid green woods with soft grass, in 
 plentiful store the nuts fall down with their brown shells. 2 
 
 1 It is difficult for non-fruitarians to realize the esteem in which nuts were 
 held in mediaeval times as an article of diet. In the Brehon Laws the hazel is 
 reckoned a ' chieftain-tree ' along with oak, holly, yew, ash, pine, and apple. 
 Apart from the nuts it bears the hazel was also valued for its twigs, which 
 were extensively employed in wattling. See Joyce, Social History, ii, pp. 155-6, 
 286-7. Similarly the Scandinavian poets Sighvat and Othere the Black both 
 state that they have received gifts of nuts from KingOlaf. Cp. Corp. Poet. Bor., 
 ii, pp. 150, 157. It is curious to note, on the other hand, that in the Welsh 
 laws the fine for felling a hazel is only one quarter of that for cutting down an 
 apple-tree, which, in its turn, is only accounted half as valuable as the oak or 
 the beech. Wade-Evans, p. 248. 
 
 2 The poem is printed in the Miscellany presented to K. Meyer. It also contains 
 these characteristic stanzas : 
 
 When the curly4ocked (prince) rises betimes on a summer's morning to 
 hunt deer, there is the on the grass, the blackbird sings, the frost has 
 yielded its strength. 
 
 Swift steeds by the Shannon's bank on purple straths white with flowers, 
 a graceful stud on the carse of the Moy with green-headed ducks on each ford.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 27 
 
 Prowess is, of course, an essential theme of every panegyric, and as 
 we should expect from what we know in general of mediaeval Ireland, 
 freebooting expeditions play a great part. Numbers of these raids 
 are mentioned in the Annals, and what they were really like we may 
 gather from other sources. In one of the plates in Derricke's Image 
 of Irelande a picture of such a creagh is given. One party is setting 
 fire to the house of the victim, another is driving away his horses and 
 cattle, whilst a third body is advancing with a piper at their head. 
 A more detailed account corroborating all this occurs in an entry in 
 the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1592-1599, vol. v : — 
 
 In July 1592, the Stewarts of Lochearnside, with an armed body of ' Hieland- 
 men and sorners of clans ' invaded the lands of Drumquhassil, wounded many of 
 the tenants, drove away ' 20 tydie ky, 16 yeild ky, 10 oxin and 12 stirks, and 
 harried the whole guids, geir, insicht and plenishing' of their houses. In 
 October, they renewed the raid on the same lands, appearing this time as a body 
 ' of 200 persons with twa bagpypis blawand befoir thame,' and harried the ' puir 
 tenantis ' of 190 cows, 66 horses, and 300 sheep. In 1593, an attack was made 
 by the Roses of Kilravock on the house of George Dunbar of Clune. They 
 came armed with ' bowis, darlochis, and twa-handit swordis, steel-bonnettis, 
 haberschonis, hacquebutis, and pistolletis ' , plundered and burnt the house, and 
 went off with a booty of seventy head of horses and cattle. This raid wa9 dis- 
 tinguished by exceptional barbarity, for ' sa mony of the nolt as wald not dryve 
 they barbarously hoicht and slew,' while on the women they ' put violent hands, 
 tirvit thair claiths aff thame, and schoit thame naked furth of thair houssis.' 
 Dunbar's wife was not exempted from this treatment, and her infant of twelve 
 days old they ' maist barbarously kaist furth in the midding'. 1 
 
 Details of such cruelty are naturally not found in the poems of the 
 bards, but the general state of affairs disclosed is pretty much the 
 same. Let us see what Tadhg Og finds to extol in the deeds of his 
 patrons. Of one of the O'Donnells it is said : — 
 
 An attendant from Tralee follows thee, such is the spoil thou hast sought 
 out, thy charger is checked by the bridle to stay raids by offers of gifts. 2 
 
 And of Ulick Bourke : — 
 
 From Cnoc Laithrig hither many 's the grave and tomb-stone (set) in the 
 ground through thee. . . . 
 
 Assisting thy hereditary friends thou didst make a circuit of Thomond 
 without leaving a cow from Limerick to this place unless it be a survivor 
 from the raid. 
 
 Thou didst not deem it proper to march by night to attack Kilkenny : 
 a wide raid was conducted by thee in daylight to harry the county. 
 
 1 Quoted in the reprint of Derricke's Image of Irelande, by John Small, 
 Edinburgh, 1883, p. 124. 
 
 2 Comtha o Traigkli ad lenamain 
 axi in tain do thoghubair 
 
 fosdar hech ar aradhain 
 
 dfoxdadh crech re comadhaibh. — Y. B. L., 373 b , 31. 
 i 2
 
 28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 The meteor-like host, with which thou didst move on this expedition ; on 
 the edge of Fethard it left not a people which it did not break in pieces as 
 far as the sea. 1 
 
 Note the stress laid on the marching by day. Similarly the 
 superior force of the enemy is not infrequently emphasized. There 
 are numerous other instances where recklessness is extolled. So we 
 read as follows of the foolhardiness of Mac William : — 
 
 At Ath Imdain thou didst not think it worth while, though the O'Conors 
 were advancing against thee, to leave the ford without bathing lest they 
 should impute it to fear. 2 
 
 Or the difficulties encountered may be curiously exaggerated as in a 
 poem by Angus son of Carroll O'Daly : — 
 
 Reaving the cattle of the men of Donegal was like meddling with a cold 
 tempestuous sea. 3 
 
 Reference has already been made to the arrogance of the Irish 
 poets, to which Wales and Iceland scarcely afford a parallel. The 
 tradition started very early, as we know from the story of Athirne, 
 and in the later centuries there is abundant evidence that the bard 
 frequently forfeited the goodwill of his lord as a result of overstepping 
 the mark. To attempt to restore himself to favour he composed a 
 
 1 Imdha o chnuc Laithrigh ille 
 fert is oil a nuir uaibse 
 
 ni fiu mfeirg a sena sin 
 na s6la atciu ar leirg Laithrigh. 
 Ac cur let chdirdib bunaidh 
 do thimchillis Tuadhmumain 
 gan boin o Luimnech ille 
 muna b/oil dfuighlech airgne. 
 Sibal oidhcki nir fiu lib 
 dinnsoighidh Cilli Coindigh 
 do seolad ruaig lethan laei 
 uaib do chreachad na cundaei. 
 An chaer sluaigh thainig tusa 
 re toighecht don turusa 
 tuath nachar minairg co muir 
 a mbruach Fidhaird nir fagaib. 
 
 — Y. B. L., 378», 38-9, ibid. 44-379 b , 3. 
 
 2 A nAth Iomdhain nir fiu lat 
 is siol gConchobair chugat 
 tocht gun ionnladh asan dth 
 go ttiobradh ort na ursgdth. 
 
 —From Stowe A iv 3 = Y. B. L., 383 b , 4-5. 
 ' Fa buain r£ muir fuair anfadh 
 
 buain a gcruidh do Conallchaibh. 
 
 — For the poem cp. O'Grady, Cat., p. 353.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 29 
 
 poem corresponding in some measure to the hgfud-Jausn of the skalds. 1 
 Several of these apologies have survived. Thus, in a late sixteenth- 
 century composition addressed to Cuchonnacht Maguire, Fergal Og 
 Macaward apologizes for having flung a beaker of wine in his 
 master's face. 2 In another Tadhg Og has called Ulick Mac William 
 a drunkard : — 
 
 Travelling by night is my state after what 1 have heard from Clanwilliam ; 
 
 myself in concealment from house to house, 'tis like to my death. 
 
 Thouwouldst have known had I spoken unjustly of thee in solitude, demand 
 
 a poem from me for my injustice ; let not thy mind be set on an honour-price. 5 
 
 In another poem preserved in a considerable number of MSS. John 
 O'Cluan apologizes for having struck his lord Aed CTConor. The 
 chief is flattered for his forbearance as follows : — 
 
 I dealt, Aed of the sleek hair, a blow to thee with my hand and thou bast 
 not taken vengeance ; if it had been lopped off in thy house, (> chief of Colt, 
 it were not a buffet without retaliation. 
 
 Banish me not, son of Eogan, for the hand I lifted in thy house : strike off 
 my hand as a due, but let not thy reproach be upon me. 
 
 Had it been abroad in the Southern Half that I had given the blow, or yet 
 in Ulster, 'tis a weapon surely that had been reddened with my fist, O hawk- 
 like blue-eyed genius of battle. 
 
 Thine 'tis in payment of my blow to lop the right hand from me, O gentle 
 noble countenance ; thy due 'tis to have a lay of its value, or else the very 
 hand, O Gairide's griffin. 
 
 1 Although it may be inferred from the poems of Dafydd ab Gwilym and 
 others that the Welsh poets were on a footing of privileged intimacy with their 
 patrons, such compositions as those about to be described are unknown. In 
 one piece, it is true, Phylip Brydydd remonstrates with Rhys Gryg for being 
 indignant with him for composing verses to any other patron beside himself, 
 and Elidir Sais in two poems endeavours to appease the wrath of Llywelyn ab 
 lorwerth. G'p. Myryrian Arch., pp. 240, 257; Stephens, Lit. of the Kymry. 
 pp. 87, 150 ff., 156 ff. 
 
 2 Corn deighfteidhe do doirt me 
 i nucht laoic Locha hEirne 
 don f'eirg do eirigh oirne 
 
 nir cheilligh an chomairle. 
 Do doirtios do druim feirge 
 beirios buaid ndibeirge 
 cuach fin ndighe ara gruaidh gloin 
 
 ri bile nach bfuair iorgoil. — Cp. Stern, Z.f. c. P., ii. 33B. 
 * Sibal oidhchi issed doniam 
 
 deis a cuala o chloinn Uilliam 
 me ar falachta o thigh dho thigh 
 samalta he is moighidh. 
 Letrom gloir dogebtha a fis 
 da ndernainn ort a nuaignis 
 ben dim laeidh isin leatrom 
 na bidh hdeidh re heineclond. 
 
 —Y. B. L., 377 b , 42-3, 378», 22-3.
 
 30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Not kine, not horses, not artificers' gold are promised thee, O ruddy one 
 benign of face ! Neither hand shalt thou have, no, nor foot ; but a poem in 
 lieu of that which I have done. 1 
 
 As in Wales and Scandinavia, and all other countries where the 
 
 poet was dependent on the bounty of an aristocratic or royal patron, 
 
 the elegy or dirge is very frequent. The bardic poems falling under 
 
 this head throw an interesting light on the life of the period, even 
 
 after due allowance has been made for poetic exaggeration. A 
 
 powerful prince may be succeeded by a man with no military genius, 
 
 thus exposing the land to attack from outside. Accordingly Tadhg Og 
 
 sings as follows on the death of Ulick Mac William (d. 1424) : — 
 
 Since our lord departed who is there furthermore whose hand is not against 
 you ? Who would dare, were he alone alive in our midst, to come to the 
 confines of our territory to observe the boundary ditch ? 
 
 Tal's sept has received no insult from us from which our land will not be 
 in conflagration ; in other days fires were ofteuer kindled by us in return for 
 insults offered to us. 
 
 Those of the men of Ireland whom Ulick injured are about to encircle you ; 
 like a ring of smouldering fire, such is the end of fair Clanwilliam. 2 
 
 Or the bard may picture what the loss means to him personally : — 
 
 My share in the sorrow for Cathal O'Conor's son is all the greater, I stayed 
 with no other lord in the days of Tadhg, would that I had done so ! 
 
 Unhappy the man who like myself has gained the affection of a constant 
 patron ; in expectation of encountering misfortune 'tis fitting to shun the 
 honour. 3 
 
 » Macgr. No. XXX ; O'Grady, Cat., p. 367. 
 8 Ciu fesda ac nach full derna 
 
 ruib 6 thesta ar tigerna ? 
 
 Techt ar cimsaib ar crichi 
 
 dfeghain in chluidh coiccrichi 
 
 cia do lemhadh a Leth Cuinn 
 
 da mbeth na enar aguind? 
 
 Gan oirbiri ac aicme Thail 
 
 nach bia ar tir ina tendail 
 
 doba mend uair eili 
 
 teinti uain nar noirbeiri. 
 
 Atait ar ti bar timchail 
 
 ar loit Uilleg dEirindchaib 
 
 mar timchail na teinedh diadh 
 
 a dheiredh finnchlann Uilliam. — Y. B. L., 377% 2-4, 11-14. 
 8 Moide mo chuid da chumaidh 
 
 mac Cathail Hi Chonchubair 
 
 nir an me mairg nach derna 
 
 re re Thaidhg ac tigerna. 
 
 Mairg do uair mar uair misi 
 
 muirn tigerna tairisi 
 
 a ndoich in ansoidh dhfaghail 
 
 coir in anoir dhinggobail. — Y. B. L., 375 a , 3, 13-14.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 31 
 
 Or:— 
 
 Ireland has no means of subsistence for the man of learning since O'Kelly's 
 death ; far removed from Banba is any prince or royal successor save the one 
 who is most powerful. 1 
 
 In order to vary the theme the bard, instead of addressing his 
 master in person, may celebrate his sword,- or his standard, 3 or his 
 shield, 4 or his belt, 6 or more commonly his patron's hall or rath. 
 The latter form of address also occurs in Wales and elsewhere. The 
 poet's imagination almost makes us forget the character of the 
 timbered banqueting-halls, or the grim strongholds erected in imita- 
 tion of the Norman castles. The brilliance of the company is always 
 a favourite theme in such pieces. So in a fourteenth-century lament 
 on the reduced fortunes of the O'Briens : — 
 
 On the hither side there was wont to be a concourse of poets around his 
 bright breast ; what the company received from the successor to Ireland's 
 monarch was oppressive. 
 
 On the other side of the house would be the valiant men of Limerick, every 
 poet received his due from the company, there was drinking of wine to the 
 very floor-posts. 
 
 No women in the casements, no chess-playing in yon doorway, no carousing, 
 no kindling of lights, it is a great cause for sadness. 7 
 
 An interesting poem, by Godfrey Finn O'Daly, describing a bardic 
 festival has been recently printed in JEriu, v, pp. 50-69, with a trans- 
 lation by Miss Knott. 
 
 One of the most difficult of the bardic compositions of the period 
 consists of an address to the stronghold of Cloonfree in Roscommon, 
 the residence of Aed O'Conor. A long poem of thirty-eight quatrains, 
 it may be considered a miracle of technical skill, as in addition to the 
 obligatory end-rhymes and alliteration each line contains two and 
 often three internal rhymes. Two stanzas may be quoted here : — 
 
 In the palace is the sheen of each smooth hilt so that the bright abode lias 
 never grown dark ; men find the gleaming dry path into the house by the 
 brightness of the women's footwear. 
 
 Mighty palace of gentle outline, rath of princes, rath of bardic schools. 
 Munstermen and Ulstermen gather round Bregia's chieftain, on its hill it hath 
 not selected a niggardly lord. 8 
 
 1 Slighi in egnuigh nocha nfv.il 
 ag Eirinn deis Hi Cheu/luigh 
 ingar ri na damna dhi 
 
 Banba acht inti bus treisi. — Y. B. L. , 370 a , 33-4. 
 
 2 K. Meyer, Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 72. J Y. B. L., 377 a , 37 ff. 
 4 Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil., viii. 227 ; Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, n, p. 100. 
 
 • Macgr. No. XXII. 
 
 6 Macgr. Nos. XVIII, XXI, XXXIII ; cp. O'Urady, Cat., p. 353. 
 
 7 Macgr. No. XVIII. 
 
 8 Macgr. No. XXI.
 
 32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Compositions of such extraordinary metrical complexity appear to 
 have enjoyed great popularity and were evidently recited in the halls 
 of other princes than those to whom they were originally addressed. 
 In this case a stanza was usually added at the close in praise of the 
 poet's patron for the time being. The number of such adventitious 
 stanzas varies in different MSS., the O'Conor Don's Book usually 
 having the maximum. The common practice of appending two or 
 three stanzas to the patron's wife was pointed out by Stern (Z.f. c. P., 
 ii, pp. 333, 337, 339, 348 f., &c). 
 
 From what has been said it will be clear that the secular composi- 
 tions of the later bards furnish a valuable source of evidence for the 
 study of social conditions in Ireland during the period in question. 
 This source has not hitherto been accessible to historians, with the 
 consequence that eminently fair writers have been under the necessity 
 of ignoring in large measure the state of culture obtaining in the 
 North and West. Up to the present, works on Irish history pro- 
 fessing to deal with the centuries under consideration contain little 
 but a chronicle of the affairs of the English Pale. It may be expected 
 that within a few years the great bulk of bardic verse will have been 
 edited and translated. Then, and not till then, will it be possible to 
 write a dispassionate history of Ireland from the Norman Invasion to 
 the Reformation. 
 
 Religious Poetry. 
 
 The religious poetry of the later bards naturally bears a great 
 resemblance to their secular compositions. In the one case the 
 liberality and munificence of an earthly patron is extolled, in the other 
 the succour of the Virgin or of some saint is invoked. The themes 
 and manner of treatment are, in part at any rate, a legacy from the 
 poets of preceding centuries, but there is a marked change. The 
 poets of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, who are 
 known as the authors of devotional verse, were evidently familiar with 
 the religious literature in the Latin language which flourished chiefly 
 in France. Mediaeval Latin literature reached its high- water mark 
 between 1050 and 1350, and it would be a matter for surprise if the 
 well-informed poets of Ireland had not come under its influence. 
 
 The Christian poetry of the Old Irish period, apart from learned 
 compositions as the Felire of Oengus, the Saltair na Rann and the 
 versified monastic rules, exhibits the same peculiarities as the secular 
 lyrics. There is the same love of suggestion and of saying half-seen 
 things, the same delight in colour and sound and the tiniest mani- 
 festations of nature, all expressed with a freshness that appears to us
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 33 
 
 surprisingly modern. Some of the best instances are collected together 
 in K. Meyer's Ancient Irish Poetry. At the end of the Viking Period, 
 however, life seems to have worn a more sombre aspect than during 
 the preceding centuries, as the early note is more rarely struck. The 
 compositions which have survived become more highly reflective, which 
 is equivalent to saying that they are less spontaneous. The most 
 celebrated devotional poet of the thirteenth century is undoubtedly 
 Donnchad Mor CTDaly (d. 1244), who is styled the Ovid of Ireland in 
 the Annals. Edward O'Reilly in his Irish Writers ascribes some 
 thirty pieces to this author, but several of those mentioned are 
 certainly the work of others. It is unfortunate that his poems are 
 for the most part scattered about in late MSS., so that a considerable 
 amount of sifting will be required before a critical edition can be 
 prepared. The pieces beginning : — — 
 
 Eist ream faoisdin a Io.sa 
 Creidim dhuit ubhlainn uasail 
 Gabum deachmhadh ar nddna 
 
 bear a general resemblance to the Latin verses of Marbod of Rennes 
 (d. 1123) and Hildebert of Tours (d. 1134), 1 and I am inclined to 
 think that Donnchad may have been influenced by these writers. It 
 is probably not without significance that he composed a poem on the 
 Fifteen Tokens of the Day of Judgement 2 on precisely the same lines 
 as the one in Latin on the same subject attributed, though on 
 doubtful grounds, to Hildebert. 3 
 
 A few religious compositions in much the same strain are ascribed 
 to a contemporary of Donnchad Mor, the turbulent Murray OT)aly. 4 
 The chief theme is contrition and prayer for guidance. One of these 
 writers is also the author of a poem on the Legend of the Holy Rood. 5 
 A piece of unknown authorship on the Harrowing of Hell has been 
 edited and translated by Prof. Bergin 6 from the Book of Fermoy, and 
 there is more than one metrical version of the Three Marys. 7 The 
 
 1 Migne, vol. clxxi. 
 
 a Macgr. No. VI. This theme is also treated metrically in Welsh hy Llewelyn 
 Fardd, see Myvyr. Arch., p 250. An Irish prose version was printed hy Whitley 
 Stokes in the Revue Celtique, xxviii. 308. 
 
 3 Migne, vol. clxxi, col. 1287-8 ; Groeber, Grundrix-s d. roman. Phil., ii. 1, 
 p. 369. 
 
 4 Skene-Maclauchlau, Book of the Dean of Lismorc , pp. 157-60. 
 
 5 Macgr. No. V. In this poem the well-known Three Kisses of St. Bernard 
 are introduced. 6 Eriu, iv. 112. 
 
 7 Macgr. No. IX, attributed by the Dean to Murray O'Daly. A poem on 
 the same subject, beginning Trl hingiona rug Anna, is found in Maynooth MSS., 
 and in R. I. A., 23 L 17, but in this copy the first stanza commences, Sagart 
 dobhi fecht eile.
 
 34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Old French versions by Wace and a writer named Pierre at the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century are held to go back to a Latin 
 original which has not as yet been discovered. 1 Other poems deal 
 with the Nativity of the Virgin and the Infancy of Christ. 2 
 
 As early as the middle of the tenth century an Irishman had made 
 a metrical version of the chief portions of Old Testament history. 
 Poems on biblical subjects were, however, a favourite exercise with 
 writers of Latin verse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We 
 may take Peter Riga of Rheims (d. 1209) as a typical instance. He 
 is the author of metrical versions, among other things, of the stories 
 of Noah, Daniel, Susanna, and the Magi. 3 Similarly in Irish we find 
 a poem on the Epiphany 4 and the Beheading of John the Baptist. 5 
 
 The rapid circulation of the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine 
 and of collections of exempla at the end of the thirteenth and the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century, furnished the later bards with 
 new sources of material. This may go hand in hand with an increasing 
 fondness for introducing narrative into their secular compositions 
 (supra, p. 1 1 3). The poet begins by stating a theme which is elaborated 
 for several stanzas. Then the story is introduced in illustration, and 
 finally there is a moral application. The first bard known to me who 
 made use of a story of this nature was Godfrey Finn O'Daly (d. 1387). 
 He is the author of what appears to have been for centuries the most 
 popular religious composition in Ireland, if one may judge by the 
 large number of MS. copies. It begins thus G : — 
 
 Alas for him whom love of the world deceives, the glamour of the great 
 Fair endures but for a brief space ; alas for him who keepeth not utterly aloof 
 from it during the life of this troublous evil world. 
 
 A kingdom vast (bartered) for brief mirth ; life eternal for fleeting space ; 
 to forsake God for vain World's transitory season ; such is a worthless 
 covenant. 
 
 O ye to whom prosperity is assured (here), and that deem the measure of 
 your merriness all-sufficing ; therefore it is that your happiness seems 
 sufficient to you, for that joys greater (than such) ye have never seen. 
 
 Felicity of the celestial host that up above surrounds the Lord, as against 
 that all felicity that is underneath Heaven is but as the life of one entombed. 
 
 To certify that, here's a story bearing on the matter according to the just, 
 a story by which heaven is to be sought, whatever holy book it was taken 
 from. 
 
 1 Groeber, Grundriss d. roman. Phil., ii. 1, p. 647. 
 
 2 Macgr. No. VIII = Archiv f. celt. Lex., iii. 244, and Z.f. c. P., viii, p. 561 ff. 
 For a Welsh cywydd on this subject see Ashton's Gweithiau Iolo Goch, p. 550. 
 
 3 Groeber, Grundriss, ii. 1, p. 370. 
 
 * Macgr. No. II. A lengthy Welsh poem on the same subject by Madawg ab 
 Gwallter (1250-1300) is printed in the Myvyr. Arch., p. 274. 
 
 5 Eriu, iv. 173. e Macgr. No. I ; O'Grady, Cat., p. 357.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 35 
 
 Then the poet proceeds to tell a story from the Gesta Romanorum 1 
 of a boy who was born in a dungeon, and who. though unacquainted 
 with the light of day, grows apace, whilst his mother pines away. 
 One day he sees tears streaming down her face and asks her the cause. 
 This affords the poet an opportunity of comparing the mother and 
 son to the dwellers upon earth, and of describing the joys of heaven 
 and the terrors of hell. Another favourite story was that of a pious 
 monk who was saved by the Virgin from the temptation of the Devil 
 in the form of a woman. 2 A story of two monks 13 is told by Mahon 
 O'Higgin (d. 1441). The Dean's Book preserves a variant of the 
 curious story of the Woman and the Consecrated Wafer, 4 in addition 
 to metrical versions of the Man in the Tree,*' from Barlaam and 
 Josaphat, and the North French story of the monk who spent 300 
 years in his garden listening to the song of a bird. These appear to 
 be the work of Finlay Mac Nab, the Red Bard, who was probably 
 official poet to the Macgregor. 7 
 
 However, apart from Donnchad Mor, the only bard in the period 
 with which we are concerned whose religious compositions have 
 survived in any quantity, is Tadhg Og O'Higgin. By a fortunate 
 chance some twenty-one poems of this nature by him are preserved in 
 the Song-book which was inserted into the Yellow Book of Lecan. I do 
 not think that Tadhg was by any means the most gifted of the later 
 bards, but fate has decreed for some reason or other that he should be 
 the one who is best represented in the MSS. that have been spared 
 by the ravages of time. Apart from the miscellany just mentioned 
 Tadhg"s poems are better preserved in Edinburgh than anywhere else. 
 A number of them are scattered through various MSS., but Gaelic MS. 
 No. XXIX in the Advocates 1 Library is a little vellum book contain- 
 ing nothing but devotional poems — ten in number — by this author. 
 Eight of them occur in the Yellow B )ok of Lecan. A number of his 
 compositions consist of addresses to the Virgin, into which a consider- 
 
 1 Gesta Romanorum, ed. Oesterley, No. 80, p. 414. 
 
 2 Macgr. No. VII. Probably a variant of the story in Rufinus, cp. Migne, 
 vol. xxi, col. 399, ibid, lxxiii, col. 1147. See also Catalogue of Romances in the 
 Brit. Mus., iii, pp. 180, 459. 
 
 8 O'Grady. Cat., p. 380. The source of the story is unknown to me. 
 
 * Wright, Latin Stories, p. 133. B Macgr. No. XIV. 
 
 * Macgr. XIII ; cp. A. J. Herbert, Romania, xxxviii. 427. 
 
 T It always seems strange to me that no VVelsh poet appears to have drawn 
 upon the exempla literature. Was narrative eschewed in the cywydd? In 
 a note on Dafydd Nanmor's poem on Damon and Phidias Mr. W. J. Gruffydd 
 says in his anthology entitled, Y Flodeugerdd Newydd (p. 226) : ' This is, as far 
 as we know, the only cywydd of this period that tells a story.'
 
 36 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 able amount of narrative matter from the Old and New Testaments 
 is introduced. The remainder are drawn in part from the Golden 
 Legend, but sometimes one has to have recourse to the Apocryphal 
 Acts in order to understand incidents referred to by Tadhg. One of 
 his poems is addressed to St. Dominic, 1 whose life was the subject of 
 metrical treatment at the hands of a French poet as early as 1240. 2 
 
 Another poem contains an invocation to St. Patrick 3 which pre- 
 supposes acquaintance with the life of the Saint as contained in the 
 Book of Lismore. It is not without interest to note that this is the 
 only case, so far as I know at present, in which a native saint is 
 addressed during this period. 4 Tadhg's most popular composition of 
 this nature, if one may judge from the frequency of its occurrence 
 in MSS., deals with a theme which was first treated by a French 
 poet in the thirteenth century, and which is attributed to the 
 influence of Clairvaux. 5 The soul is represented as being confronted 
 by three adversaries, the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
 
 The more one studies the works of these bards, the more one is 
 impressed with the range of their attainments. They were not in holy 
 orders, and yet they must have been better versed in Latin than most 
 of the clergy. Some of them in all probability paid visits to Highland 
 chiefs, and may have acquired English and French, though we could 
 not assume this from merely studying the sources of their composi- 
 tions. And unfortunately we have evidence of continental travel in 
 the case of one member of the fraternity alone, viz. Murray O'Daly, 
 who may have taken part in a crusade. In any case, it was no mean 
 achievement on the part of men like Tadhg OTIiggin to show such 
 acquaintance with the voluminous Latin religious literature 7 of the 
 day in addition to the huge store of native learning exemplified in 
 their other works. 
 
 In addition to the compositions already mentioned, Tadhg's poems 
 deal with Mary Magdalen, 8 John the Baptist, 9 St. John the Divine, 10 
 St. Paul, 11 St. Andrew, and others. He also treats the story of the 
 Discovery of the Saviour's Cross by Helena. 12 This is of interest as 
 
 I Y. B. L., 364 8 , 12. 2 Groeber, Grundriss, ii. 1, p. 648. 
 
 3 Y. B. L., 370 a , 34. 
 
 4 In Welsh there is similarly a cywydd to St. David, see Ashton's Gweithiau 
 Mo Goch, p. 589. 
 
 5 Macgr. No. Ill ; O'Grady, Cat., p. 363 ; Groeber, Grundriss, ii. l,p. 696ff. 
 
 6 O'Grady, Cat., pp. 366-8. In st. 6 of the poem printed in the Appendix, 
 p. 44, he laments that he has been absent from Ireland for fifteen years. 
 
 7 See note, p. 143. 8 Y. B. L., 365 a , 28. 
 
 8 Y. B. h., 369 b , 17. 10 Y. B. L., 362 a , 19. 
 
 II Y. B. L., 365 b , 30. ,2 Macgr. IV ; Y. B. L., 363», 31.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 37 
 
 being, to my knowledge, the only poetic treatment of the subject in 
 Irish, although a number of prose versions are known, some of which 
 have appeared in print. 1 
 
 These religious poems can scarcely be expected to afford such 
 valuable information as regards the life of the period as the pane- 
 gyrics. Nevertheless some of the metaphors are of interest in this 
 connexion. So the custom of giving hostages is frequently 
 brought in : — 
 
 Behold thy captive, O God, who is bold in selling Thee, O King, prepare 
 fetters for me, O God, the end of my days is at hand. 
 
 I would fain not be without chains, Thou that didst ascend the tree, better 
 for me to be placed in thy bonds as a hostage than . . . . 2 
 
 I am a hostage though not in custody through failing to find repentance. 
 
 The world only gives on loan to men, this world is no estate of theirs, they 
 hold it on rack-rent. 3 
 
 In other poems Tadhg confesses his weaknesses : — 
 
 I am slow to rise at time of matins ; allow for that, O Lord, each cold 
 night on which I have arisen. 
 
 I have forgotten the King of the Elements, all the times when I have verged 
 on intoxication : to make up for this forgetfulness allow all the wine I have 
 forsaken for water. 4 
 
 Cp. G. Schirmer, Die Kreuzeslegenden im Leabhar Breac, St. Gallen, 1886. 
 
 Ag so braighi dheit a Dhe 
 
 is dana ar dho reic a ri 
 
 ullmaidh geimeal dam a Dhe 
 
 mo r€ is gar a deredh dhi. 
 
 Gan betk san igh ni hail Urn 
 
 a fir dockaidh isa chrann 
 
 mo car at geimil a ngeall 
 
 /err dham ina medhir ann. — Y. B. L., 368 ft , 11-15. 
 
 Me am braighid gan beth a laim 
 do dith aithreachais dfaghail 
 Ar iasacht as eadh dobir 
 in doman dona daeinib 
 in bith ce ni duthaidh daib 
 acht se futhaibh ar formail. 
 
 — Y. B. L., 401 b , 26, ib. 401 a , 27-8. 
 
 Ni Horn nach aimhlesg eirghe 
 a n-ionam na hiarmheirghe 
 leig nam ina aghaidh sin 
 gach adhuigh fiiar dar eirigh. 
 Ri na ndul do dhermhuid me 
 gach trath da ttaighlim [meisce] 
 ar Ireig dfion ar an uisge 
 leig a ndiol an dermhuid-se. 
 
 —From the O'Conor Don's Book = Y. B. L., 364*, 41 »f.
 
 38 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 In other passages the poet uses images drawn from nature : — 
 
 From the day that I came on to the earth I am as a straying salmon ; put 
 me safe into the river from the bank, daughter of Joachim. 1 
 
 Elsewhere Tadhg is fond of dwelling on the marvels of the Creator 
 shown forth in nature : — 
 
 Who could control the flow and ebb, or the growth of the egg in the bird ? 
 Let us attempt to discover an artificer skilled to fashion hazel and apple-tree 
 side by side. 2 
 
 Tis Thou that givest the bright sun along with the ice. Thou it was that 
 orderedst the rivers and the salmon in the river. 
 
 That the hazel should put forth its blossom, O Christ, 'tis a strange art ; 
 with Thy skill alike Thou causest the kernel to grow and the shapely ear on our 
 wheat . 
 
 Though the children of Eve ill deserve to behold the flocks of birds and the 
 salmon, the Living One that was on the Cross it is that creates both salmon 
 and fowl. 
 
 'Tis He that causes the sloe-blossom to pierce the side of the blackthorn, 
 the hazel-blossom through another tree, by the side of that, what miracle is 
 greater ? s 
 
 Finally, I should like to quote a few stanzas from two fifteenth- 
 century poems by other writers. The first is attributed to Godfrey 
 
 On lo tainig an talam 
 
 eigne me is me ar merugad 
 
 tuc slan ar an innmer inn 
 
 on trag a ingen Iuchim. — From Adv. xxix. =Y.B. L.,372 a , 6. 
 
 Cia dofedfadh tuili is tragh 
 na techtadh uighi sun eon 
 cull is aball tueb re taeb 
 fagham saer ann dha budh eol. — Y. B. L., 368 b , 15-16. 
 
 Is tu dober in grian ghel 
 
 a nenecht is toidregh 
 
 is tu thug nu huibni ann 
 
 sna maigri ar fut na habann. 
 
 An cnu do beth inu blath 
 
 a Crist is cerdacht nemgnuth 
 
 dot gres uraen sa teitni 
 
 a dhess chaem dhar cruithneichtni. 
 
 Gidh olc cennchuit claim Eaba 
 
 na healtu sna heignedha 
 
 ise in beo dobi sa croich 
 
 doni itir eo acus enlaith. 
 
 Blath na nuirni is he dobeir 
 
 do thecht tre thueb in droighin 
 
 bluth na cno tre crueib eili 
 
 re thaeib ca mo mirboili ?—Y. B. h., 366 b , 19-26.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 39 
 
 CKClery, and deals with the Nativity of the Virgin and the Birth of 
 Christ :— 
 
 Mary, the smooth white ewe, bore an illustrious Lamb in the stall of an 
 ass ; she merited not a mean cold lodging when the illustrious Lamb was 
 with His mother. 
 
 The High-King of Heaven was born in kindly Bethlehem at Christmas : 
 when He was born He took a course from the sun so that He warmed the 
 world with His glowing heat. 
 
 The windows of the moon and ether opened at the tidings, so that the sun 
 flung wide his doors, heretofore there had been a veil over his light. 
 
 Tlie air was full of his radiance, 'twas easy to notice it, it was one bright 
 grove of angels reaching to heaven over Holy Mary. 1 
 
 The other poem is a short anonymous piece on St. Catherine of 
 Alexandria : — 
 
 The King of the Greeks' daughter who never refused entreaty, has a bright 
 brow ; the complexion of the strawberry is in the hue of her fair cheek. 
 
 In her bright cheek is the hue of the strawberry and sunlit eyes ; manifold 
 is the waving and the coils and the curling (?) of her coifed tresses. 
 
 No Grecian woman surpassed the maiden in .... form ; (she has) a well- 
 set eye that never gazed on youthful warrior, bright lips with white teeth. 
 
 Her countenance (glowed) like fire, with bosom like the swan, a virgin that 
 was never defiled ; blossom is not whiter than her pale-white hand, her eye is 
 grey in a fair cheek. 2 
 
 Other Verse. 
 
 In Wales and Scandinavia the court-poets did not confine them- 
 selves to the composition of official and religious verse. In the North 
 love-songs (mansongr) are preserved in which Kormak, Gunnlaug, 
 and others sing the praises of Steingerd or the fair Helga, whilst in 
 Wales erotic verse is met with from the time of Howel ab Owain 
 onwards. 3 In Ireland, on the other hand, no love-poetry known to 
 be composed by the later bards in the period in question has been 
 preserved. It can scarcely be doubted that the men who played such 
 an important part in the society of their day actually wrote many 
 love-poems in praise of the ladies they met at the various houses they 
 visited. As it is, almost all the verses of this description which have 
 survived are in the Dean's Book, and are attributed to Isabella 
 Countess of Argyle. 4 
 
 1 Archiv /. celt. Lexicog., iii, p. 244; Macgr. No. VIII. Kuno Meyer lias re- 
 cently printed another poem on the same subject, Z.f. c. /'. , viii. 5(>1 ft. 
 
 2 Macgr. No. XXXI. 
 
 * Stephens, p. 37 IF. 
 
 * According to Henderson, Home Life of the Highlander*, p. 5)7, this lady was 
 the daughter of the second Earl of Argyle, and wife of the second Earl of 
 Cassilis, who was killed at Prestwick in 1527. Eor a poem by her see
 
 40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Short satirical poems also occur in considerable numbers in the 
 same Edinburgh book. But here again the authors are, it would 
 seem, exclusively of aristocratic origin, chief amongst them being 
 Countess Isabella, Gerald the Rhymer, Earl of Desmond (d. 1397), 1 
 and Sir Duncan Campbell. The subjects of the satires which are 
 often of the grossest description, are, as elsewhere, the fickleness of 
 women and the dissolute life of t he clergy. 2 Two of these compositions 
 were in all probability suggested by Brant's Ship of Fools. 3 
 
 The skill of the Irish in playing the harp is noticed by several 
 writers, and is grudgingly admitted by Gerald the Welshman, who 
 had very little that was good to say about the island. Given this 
 passion for music, it is easy to understand how it comes about that 
 the harp forms the subject of a number of poems. O'Curry in his 
 Lectures published two, one by Gilbride Macnamee, 4 the other 
 a sixteenth-century composition. 5 Similarly Macgregor preserves an 
 address to a harp which is found also in the O'Conor Don's Book and 
 a Stowe MS. : — 
 
 O harp of O'Coscair's Hill that bringest slumber to waking eyes, thou of 
 the sweet melodious voice, pleasant, refreshing, grave. 
 
 O choice instrument of the gentle curve, loud-tongued one, crimson as 
 hemlock (?), melodious harp that lulled us to sleep played by harmonious fingers. 
 
 Thou healer of every wounded warrior, prince to woo women, sound of 
 carousing that is wont to be heard o'er the dark ale, mystic sweet-sounding voice. 
 
 Thou especial delight of all that know thee, smooth sweet-musical weir, 
 bright star above fairy mansions, cherished diadem of monarchs. 
 
 O plash of the beach against the gentle wave, shady tree of true melody, 
 feasts consumed in thy presence are like the song of the swan on beautiful lakes. 
 
 O strain of fairy women from the mound of Ler, peerless in respect of 
 melody, under thy guidance every abode is full of harmony, thou highest 
 glory of the harp's minstrelsy. 6 
 
 Maclauchlan and Skene, p. 155, and Sigerson, Bards of the Gael and Gall, p. 211. 
 Macgregor also preserves the following verses by this lady :— 
 
 There is a youth intent upon me, King of Kings, may he come to fortune ! 
 he was denied by my wrangling (?) and yet 'tis him I choose as companion. 
 
 Were all according to my desire there would ne'er be distance between us ; 
 is it not enough to say that, seeing that he understands not how things are? 
 
 Alas ! 'tis not easy unless his ship come - a tale that is grievous to us both ; 
 he is east and I am west, so that our mutual desire will not come to pass 
 again. (No. LXI.) 
 
 1 It is curious to note that whilst the Dean's Book preserves poems by this 
 writer, only one specimen of his verse is known to me from other sources. See 
 Todd's Analysis of the Book of Fermoy p. 33. 
 
 2 Cp. S. M. Tucker, Verse Satire in England before the Renaissance, more 
 especially, pp. 175-7. 
 
 3 Skene-Maclauchlan, p. 107; Macgr. No. LI I. 
 
 4 Manners and Customs, iii. 271. ■ Ibid., iii. 287. 
 6 Macgr. No. XL.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 4l 
 
 From what has already been said, it will be clear that we are merely 
 acquainted with a few stray representatives of the non-official poetry 
 of the later bards. The Irish collections consist almost exclusively of 
 panegyrics and religious poems, but until all the material in the 
 Royal Irish Academy has been described, we may continue to cherish 
 the hope that pieces of a more personal nature will be discovered. 
 
 In conclusion, I should like to draw attention to a lament in the 
 Dean's Book on the death of a bard's wife. Macgregor ascribes the 
 poem to Murray O'Daly. As the verses are unique in character there 
 is no need to apologize for the length of the quotation : — 
 
 My soul parted from me yestere'en, a fair form that was dear to me lay iu 
 the grave ; a gentle, stately lady was taken away from me with a linen 
 shroud around her. 
 
 Myself alone to-night, O God, evil is this crooked world Thou beholdest ; 
 fair and whole was the goodly form which was here last night, O King. 
 
 Sad for me (to behold) that couch over there, my long pallet . . . . ; we 
 have seen a tall noble form with scattered tresses upon thee, couch. 
 
 A woman with gentle countenance lay upon half of my pallet, with naught 
 save the hazel-blossom like to the one with the sweet-spoken dark womanly 
 form. 
 
 Mael Mheadha of dark brows, my mead-vessel along with me ; the flower 
 that has left me was my (dearest) heart, the royal blossom after being planted 
 has drooped. 
 
 My body has passed from my control and has fallen to her share ; 1 am 
 a body in two pieces now that the fair gentle beauteous one has passed away. 
 
 She was one of my two feet, one of my sides, her countenance was like the 
 white-thorn; she was one of my eyes, one of my (two) hands. 
 
 She was the half of my body, the bright candle ; Thou hast dealt harshly 
 with me, O King, 1 am faint in saying it, she was the full half of my soul. 
 
 Her large soft eye was my first love, her white teeth and . . . ; her fair 
 body belonged to no man before me. 
 
 Twenty years we spent together ; our converse grew ever sweeter ; the tall 
 bright stem with tapering fingers bore to me children eleven. 
 
 Though I am alive, I no longer exist since my smooth hazel-nut departed, 
 after my dear love has parted from me, the dark world is empty anil bare. 
 
 Mael Mheadha's voice was full of mirth . . . ; my maidens and my scbool 
 have dispersed since the gentle fair one has gone from us. 
 
 The Lord of Hosts and the Lord of Roads has taken her from us ; small the 
 affection on the part of the one of the flowing tresses <?o bright and young to 
 die leaving her husband. 
 
 Dear the soft hand that was here, King of bells and churchyards ; alas 
 for the hand that never sware (false) oath ; 'tis a pain for me that it is not 
 placed under my head. 1 
 
 1 Macgr. No. XXVII. The restoration of the text of this poem is due to 
 Prof. Bergin, who has kindly answered a number of inquiries with regard to the 
 rendering of other quotations.
 
 42 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A 
 
 Two Poems by Murray O'Daly from Rawlinson B 514. 
 
 Addressed to Donnell Mor O'Donnell (d. 1241). 
 
 1 A Domhnaill, deglam fa sid, denu-sa aicnec? indrig ; 
 
 ni maith sidh acht co subac/t, na bidh flaith co fn'chnumach. 
 
 2 Dena righacht is reidhe, ni haicnerf rig rodheine ; 
 as lat Erne acus Eine, brat ar n-erghe a hainbfine. 
 
 3 Tarla damh lamach, dar lem, dofetar isse m'fuighell, 
 ni derna fuighell acht fer ar nach cuirenn a cainedh. 
 
 4 Geis do righ, a ri Finde, sceinm re seel an cet-gille ; 
 ni dlesidb gach duine tren go fessidh luidhe ar lethseel. 
 
 5 An me docuaid d'iarruid Finn 1 fiarfaza da fuil 'san airdchill ; 
 fech, a cridhe solus s[a]in, ca dorus tighe a torcair. 
 
 6 Is hi an foiridhin fallsa do soissea" uaib oramsa, 
 
 gur b'e, a Domnaz7/, do dillecht do congbhuinn ret cipinecfa (?). 
 
 7 Dob'e an coimes echt oile Mac Coissi 's a cirmoiri ; 
 
 dail nar b'ferr rium doronadh Find am cend do comoradh. 
 
 8 Tainic is tuc mo loissi fa xx. id am fiadhnawe, 
 
 dosia ara corp no ara cruth, cia les nach ole-an t-enghuth ? 
 
 9 Da marband acus me ad tig mac rig maith no mac taisig, 
 fnlang hanfaia* dob'ussa tn'asan tarbchoin turussa. 
 
 1 Mo a ndernais inam dlighe d'falad at fir muinnttre ; 
 ge sith donessi anossa fWt[h] do sith d'eis Aengossa. 
 
 1 1 An ced long tWallfus tar tuind uaid, a ri Doiri, a Domnat7Z, 
 leic, a milzo*, me tar ais lesna tirib 6 tucais. 
 
 1 2 Oirdeochaa" duid a ndlige rim, a soerclama tSuile^e ; 
 
 a n-ic Finn no Duib no Duinn na cuir ind dit, a Domnaill. 
 
 13 Eacail leamsa do moid mer, a Domnaill Droma Lighen; 
 ar los do rimhoide rim cros na trmnoide a timcliiull. 
 
 14 Ge tussa nac[h] ti tar aiss ar an eeiglor docanais, 
 gach Conallach 'sa cruinde go rolonduch romhuinde. 
 
 15 Clann aindilis an fuind gloin, clann Eochac/i is clann Ceallaia, 
 Sil mBaigill ni biad am cinn, ni sailim iad dom indill. 1 
 
 1 MS. imdUl.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 43 
 
 16 Muindtt'r Teirc/tet'rt ar mo thi ni creidira uaid, a airdrigb, 
 mo sailim mo cin do ceilt d'fir mar 6 taibseing Tercheirt. 
 
 1 7 Da ngreistea, a ri, dom rochtain muintir dedgheal Dochartaich, 
 cuich dob'anatblamh ann sin no clann maluchdub Maenat'g. 1 
 
 1 8 Clann Breislein ni biad am cenn ge bbud d'aicmea'aib Eirenn, 
 mac Duinn, ge bocc do bunadh, is mac Cuum is Concubar. 
 
 1 9 D6cba iad uili ar mo druim ina duine d'lb Dombnat7£, 
 ni ticc mac daib no dalta lat a ndail na dighalta. 
 
 20 Gach niaith do tir is do tuind cugaib, a cinel Corarill, 
 na raib d'foghail no d'esbm'd oraib acht an t-enfer-soin. 
 
 2 1 Ni facadhus re hathaidh me, a mic i Cwind Cetc&tbaig ; 
 
 a Domnaill, na duin mar sin an suil mongduinn red muintir. 
 
 22 Traethfud-sa th'ferc da fedar, dligtAcr airdn'c d'uirbregaaVi ; 
 braithfea 7 , a flaith Breg, do bet, ni maith cnedb gan a corned. 
 
 23 Cethrar is grwamdha dar gbin, leomaw buidhe is beithtV, 
 matghamam finn, dregan donn, dar Hum tecar 'na timcholl. 
 
 24 Hferg mor-sa is do miri baidfe ceol ar cerdi-ne ; 
 
 dan agus gan duais da cinn, samh les gach cluais da cluinenn. 
 
 25 Sloindfed da creide, a cul lag, a mic hua n-EcbacA Fanad, 
 ni fail, a dercc ceibfinn cais, cerd a n-EireVm at fecmais. 
 
 26 Tucais leat, a cais corcra, cer&& bregtba banntrochta, 
 comlaine gac^a cerde, bondbaine is beildeirge. 
 
 27 Derge n-aigthe is n-ingen, rose le&than gan luathfilkd, 
 maign saer tana troighed, mala cael nar caeloidbe^A. 
 
 28 Colpa seda, sliasad geal, mala dub, Dia da diden, 
 ded as caeimbe 'sa crwinde, med is saire is sulcuirri. 
 
 29 Long do brondadh cona hert is cloidhem co n-6r d'imbert ; 
 long cona, hert do bronnadb 's gan a ceilt ar ceZlongadb. 
 
 30 Tinnscnamh ar sidha ise sin, a mtc Ecnecham Oilig, 
 
 anadb bud lomlainn learn sunn, ma ferr, a Domnaill deglum. ADomnai7Z. 
 
 31 Do corcras clocban don aib, a Maeil Mbaedoic Mic Amlaib, 
 nir b'fwail deit deglaid glan, a Mic Amlaib, 'na inadh. 
 
 32 Logh damh a ndernus ad cill, a I Neill Teamra, a Tailcinn, 
 is tu caraim is ru-m-car, a Calm'm dan clu crabad. 
 
 33 A Dubgaill, na delaig rind, a codhnata cloinde Baigbill, 
 a 1 Baigill duinn Doiri 6 tuind taibseng Thoraiae. 
 
 34 Na deglam ar Dia do nimh, a Diarmm'd finn I Firgil, 
 is tu at aenar is imlan 6t aeradb ot athimradh. 
 
 35 A I Breslein, a barr lace, a mtc Duinn a dun Fanad, 
 
 na dish'o mesi, a mtc Duinn, ma deit budh tresi ad trenc/twing. 
 
 36 A Aed f T[h]erc/ictrt, na treicc mesi no mac mo leitheid, 
 a cinn Caisil od omhnair, taisich ind 'nar n-ollomhnato. 
 
 1 MS. ma€g. 
 k 2
 
 44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 37 A Choncubair duinn dsAtaig mic Dovanaill I Doch&rtaig, 
 
 na leic loidhe oirnn <5n T>a\a.igh 1 do geicc Doiri dimbadhaigh. 
 
 38 Na deglam ar Dia nime, a MailtsechlarVm tSuiKoi, 
 masa leir deit ar ndograing, a mic reidh i righ-Domna?7Z. 
 
 A Domnaill. 
 
 n 
 
 1 Cian 6 d'ibess digh ndermaid ro-m-scar re Siuir sibhenbhuicc, 
 risin Sinainn moir maigridh, re Boinn sriubfainn sriubhaibm'aA. 
 
 2 Nocha dermodainn don digh Muaidh na Suca no Sibhinn, 
 no Buill an buinne braenaidh 'nar muime 'nar macaemhuibh. 
 
 3 So Finn no Drobhais no Duib, no Sliccidh n-ughaid n-enaigh, 
 no ar mbuime nuaidhes nellne, no ruaidhes na righ-Erne. 
 
 4 No Eithne na n-ecxied ngel no Life leathern Laighen 
 
 no Banna no Tuinn Tuaide, no clanna Cuinn Craebruaidbe. 
 
 5 Gidh imdha do clannaib Cuinn gilla ag oirbhiri oruinn, 
 
 a ciall go cert no a cuimne terc da mbiad 'nar mbethmd-ne. 
 
 6 Coic bliadbna dec as doigh lim damh a n-ingnuis na hErerm ; 
 a suil rinn ni fuil festa,, 6 soin ind ar enmbesca. 
 
 7 Rainec me, maith an sidhe, saerclann Tiri Tairrngire, 
 ni me rainec fer bud ferr, ass ed 2 tainec im thimchell. 
 
 8 Cownachta, Dal Cais cialla, Conull, Eogcm, Oirghialla, 
 sluaigh an brogha 's na bruigne uaim ar ndola ar dichuimhne. 
 
 9 Mar budh eadh as e ar s&mail ar an echtra allmaraich 
 bretha Colium ceibfinn caidh orainn fa Ermn d'facbail. 
 
 10 Farir do radsatar Goill brechrugad ingnadh orainn, 
 Goill dom srained tar sal soir o lar GaideZ do gelladh. 
 
 1 1 As eadh bud amharus Hum da roisind <5ca Ein'oww 
 
 gan m'aithne ag righ no ac ruiri dib a haithli m'arahsuine. 
 
 1 2 Bess nocba bertha a calacZ me a Fodla na findchalacZ, 
 me uaim gan adhradh a fad sluaigh na talman o tanag. 
 
 13 Eagail lem croidhe ni eel, da risainn Inis 8 Samher, 
 gan aes ogbad d'anadh rinn 'na caladh fddglan aibinn. 
 
 14 Cach uaim 'ga fiarfa^e damh, cuich me fen ar tuinn talman ? 
 cet fir 4 deroil dim ag each am senoir crin gan cAonach. 
 
 15 Gidh eadh ro facbus, dar learn, aenoclacA d'feraib Emm, 
 m'aithne doberudh go becht ar feghadh m'aighte ainfecA^. 
 
 1 6 Da mbeith clann aelta Amlaib adrum 's a derg dondabra/a, 
 sailim aithne ar an guth nglan gan cmth a aighte d'fegadh. 
 
 17 Inmain oclaech airm fada, leoman Leptha Diarmada, 
 nar leic orainn orlann airm, DomnaZZ Conuill a comhainm 
 
 1 8 Con&Waigh mo chroinn mela, Connacht&igh as iad m'oideadha ; 
 
 na aluaigh fa sech ar m'oigh ann, is suaill nac^leath doibDomnaV. 
 
 1 leg. oirnn na leic loidhe on Dalaigh ? 
 
 2 MS. ass. 3 vel co sruth MS. (recte). 4 MS. .c. f.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 ^5 
 
 19 Do-adras 6 ais lenaib DomnaZZ Duna na innenaidh, 1 
 mala goirmseda mar Goll, a coimleaba do-clechtsum. 
 
 20 Da mairedh m'aicned and sin acam am airdrigh Oilig, 
 
 gilla an ruisc gormmoill gleghlais, O Domnaill ni dermedmais. 
 
 21 Ni dermed(a)mar a gnuis ngloin 'ga cedlenmain a Cruachom ; 
 tossach gach beinde buaba^ZZ fa linne ar a leathgualairm. 
 
 22 Dia da ic re folt rodglan an tres iecht ro-m-furfocradh, 
 hud neinomaw da cul cam dealogad dunn re DomnaZZ. 
 
 23 Da treicinn an finn fallan, DomnaZZ Duine Cremthannan, 
 dobeir cend Codhail is Cuilt mo cenn a comhair cetf-fuilt. 
 
 24 Nir chara damh ri remhe failte flatha Suih'ae, 
 
 mar dobinn 'ga gruaidh gelbuilc docim uaim nach indermaid. 
 
 25 Ni deirmed ecusc an fir DomnaZZ O Domnat'ZZ d£idghil ; 
 ded ban agus bel corcra dan tren bagh an banntroc/t<a. 
 
 26 Bricht serce a n-urlabra an fir, gen gairi 'na gruaidh thibno/i, 
 sduaidh ina dhegmalaia duinn os gruaid gelbhanaia (?) 2 DomnaiZZ. 
 
 27 Eogha na cerd, an Coimdhe, do-chwm delb ar nDomhnaill-ne ; 
 snas donn a cuil 'na caraib, suil glas corr fa caemmalaz^A. 
 
 28 DomnaZZ Indse Sainw sin mac EcnechdVi ua DonnchatVZ/t 
 beithir Fanad mar Fer nDiadh 6 tanac re headh n-imcian. 
 
 Cian o d'ibes. 
 
 B 
 
 A Description of the Poems contained in Rawlinson B 514. 
 
 The first 60 leaves are taken up with the Life of St. Columba by 
 Magnus O'Donnell. The following 18 leaves have their own pagination : — 
 
 1 a. 58 stanzas attributed to Fland Mainistrech, beginning : 
 
 Conall cuingidh cloinde Neill tainic a Temrnig taibreidh 
 daithe a^foZadh sa tlr Z^aaidh a cuicedh Uladh armruaidh. 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 1 b. A poem of 30 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 Ata sund rulla na righ eland Ech&ch nach ob essldh 
 [cuig] m\c Echa.ch.fd tv&n tress dleaghar dim a rliencus 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 2 a. A poem in 32 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 A eolcha Conaill ceoluigh sloinnid dunn dail co treorxx 
 ga cuis far gab ZMZach dil urlamhus ar a braithnh. 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 1 leg. Duna finn-Enaigh ? 8 gelbani MS.
 
 46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 Ibid. A poem in 46 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Enna dalta Cairpri cruaid rogab tir nEnda armruaidh 
 facb&id an cuingidh a cfann a/oscadh cinidh Couaill. 
 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 2 b. Under the heading of Slicht seinliubair Caillin andso there is a poem 
 
 of 1 2 stanzas, beginning : 
 Cairpri Eog&in Enna eimh agus Conall mor mac Neill 
 as mesi as eolcha na roinn a triuchadha sa toraind. 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 3 a. A similar heading is prefixed, Slicht an tseinliubair cedna an duan-sa. 
 
 There follows a poem of 23 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Eistigh re Conall calma agus re hEoghan amra 
 
 mar dorinneadar an dail a mullach Droma Cruachain. 
 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 17 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 A liubhair ata ar do lar senchus Coinchubo.iv comhlan 
 do righ echtach Oilig uill is do righ cinil Conuill. 
 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 Dbid. Another poem of 1 7 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Ata sunn senchus n&ch suaill do righ Essa rogloin Ruaidh 
 </ach ni dlighes ni duaithnidh as sires o jwimthuath&xhh.. 
 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. Printed by K. Meyer 
 from B iv 2 in Z.f. c.P., viii. 115. 
 
 3 6. A well-known poem of 12 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Bendacht ort, a Floind Aidhne, gab ot mAathair comairli, 
 na bidh gan gart at gnim ngle oir is lat #aeh ni cuinghe. 
 
 Printed by K. Meyer in Z.f. c.P., viii, p. 109. Other copies in 
 
 the O'Conor Don's Book and in a MS. at Stoneyhurst. 
 
 Ibid. A poem ascribed to Fland mac Lonain ollamh Connacht. 64 stanzas, 
 beginning : 
 Ard do scela a mic na cuach doraduis lat as gnimh truagh 
 Ecn&chan mac Ddl&ig dil do dhulfon talm&'m tromdhil. 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 4 b. 66 stanzas ascribed to Coluim-cille : 
 
 Eisteafrim a Baithin buain guth mo cluic anl adhuair 
 gem indiser iar sodhain a ticc jri deredh domhain. 
 
 See triu, v. 11 ; Abbott's Cat., pp. 291, 307(?). 
 
 5 a. A poem of 35 stanzas attributed to Caillin. Begins : 
 
 Ata sunn lecht Conuill cruaidh mor fecht rue buaidh ar cech leth 
 sochixide ro-cvir a n-eg mor cuiri mor crich ro-crech.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 
 
 *7 
 
 5 6. The next poem has the heading, Slicht seinliub&ir Caillin so. It 
 contains 9 stanzas similar to the following : 
 Caillin caidh cumhachtach 
 espoc uass&l oirnidhe 
 dorinde mbr d'/ertaibh 
 as each tir a bfuair 
 tainic Caillin caimhfertach 
 is aingeal Be ga forcongra 
 corub ann ro-suidhestar 
 ac dim Baili buain. 
 
 Ibid. 14 stanzas ascribed to the same Caillin, beginning : 
 
 Gebaidh with an talumh tend gach tlr jal&m iar mbrdth ngfonn 
 ba deimhin do edeh an brath faiclet ticfa in muir ar each. 
 
 6a. A dialogue between Caillin and an angel with the heading, Aingeal 
 
 dixit fri Caillin. Contains 8 stanzas similar to the following: 
 
 Codludh san imdaidh-se 
 
 don mind oir oirnide 
 
 don merge lasamna, 
 
 do Caillin caidh 
 
 an mhuir tfar minnlochuib 
 
 don grein os minnrendaib 
 
 don breithir blaith. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 1 7 stanzas ascribed to Caireall mac Curnain. Begins : 
 
 Is die ata a nEri anocht Goill is Gaidil jolt ar jolt 
 siad Gaidil bus mel&igh de co n-eir sraonghalaig Doiri. 
 
 Abbott's Cat., p. 291. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 18 stanzas attributed to Ulltan. Begins : 
 Foghar na gaithe-si anoir benus re bord mo curaicch 
 is saeth Hum an ni diata claidhjind na heculsa. 
 Abbott's Cat., p. 291. 
 
 6 b. Seven stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Marthain tar ais d'Eirinn uaim re toighecht go hArainn uair 
 biaidh Eri gan rian gan rath xxoco toir an t-Aedh Eng&c\\. 
 Abbott's Cat, p. 292. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 47 stanzas ascribed to Find. Begins : 
 A Oisin an raide rinn ni d'jaisdine mic Cumaill 
 ar tairrng'we and rig co rath jir ainglide a adhradh. 
 
 Abbott's Cat., pp. 291, 292. 
 
 7 a. 9 stanzas ascribed to Find, beginning : 
 
 A ben labrus rium an laech ata ni as mo do-traoth mo ceill 
 tadbhas damh-sa taibrid recht rue mo nert is rue mo ceill. 
 Abbott's Cat., p. 291. Duanaire Finn, p. 85. 
 
 Ibid. 20 stanzas ascribed to Find, beginning : 
 
 Uathm&r me a Temr&ig anocht a Adlainn as docht mo seel 
 ni mairend don rigraidh reil acht Fiachna. jen damna der.
 
 48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 7 b. 7 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Congal cind magair maith ri bliad&m da Wiadain fo tri 
 d'Erind gan cogadh can cath fa ri sona secht bliadhna.cn. 
 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 Ibid. A short prose extract with the heading, Slicht senliubair is cingin 
 
 o A rd Carna andso : 
 
 Buand&cht bona I Domna,il\ ar cuicid Ulad andso . i . cuid da xx ar 
 thir Conuill agus cuid tri xx ar cloinn Aedha Buidhe agus cuid v bfer 
 ndec co leith agus dd fichit ar Cathan. Cuid tri xx ar Cinel Moain 
 agus cuid dd xx sa raithe ar Ua Floind agus cuid dd xx ar Mac Gillamuiri 
 agus cuid tri xx ar lb Eachach agus cuid dd xx ar Oirr thearaib agus 
 an uirrdail cetna ar Oirgiallaib agus cuid da xx ar feraib Manach agus 
 cuid da xx ar Tir Flachrach Arda Sratha agus cuid da xx ar Mac 
 Cathmail agus cuid da fer dec ar Mdg Cana agus cuid dd fer decc ar xx 
 ar muindtir Birn agus cuid sesir ar Charagdn agus rl. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 41 stanzas by Gillabrighde Mac Conmidhe, beginning: 
 
 Bogha na cloinne Conall togha na droinge aderam 
 tolc dar seolad rue romham Couall tuc d' Eog&n ferann. 
 
 There is another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. O'Grady, 
 
 Cat, p. 353. 
 
 8 a. A poem of 33 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Conall cuingidh cloinne Neill mac dob'uaisli don airdreim 
 les cfoc^uaid a Midhe amach g&chfine tuaidh ar tossach. 
 
 For other copies see E\riu, iv. 187, and the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 8 b. A poem of 33 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Tainic tairngeri na n-erlum uaisli Fodl a j 'err de daib 
 
 ni cian co foirther aformad foirfed ar fiadh fonnbog Fail. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 39 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Cethv&r asfeilifuair Flann on lo do-crec a cet-rann 
 ar tolladh Erend uili d'ollamh meirseng Maenmhuighe. 
 
 9 a. A poem of 26 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Do-fidir Dia Cinel Conuill do cur an imsnimh tar ais 
 tainic trebaidh cride Coluim ar fine caidh Conaill cais. 
 See O'Grady, Cat., p. 350. 
 
 9 b. A poem of 25 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Testa eochair glais Gaidil fd Eirinn do-heccdinedh 
 
 6udh anbjunn doib greim a nglais isa seim oir na fecmus. 
 
 10 a. A poem of 45 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Do slan uaim a Ath Senuig docuaidh each ad claindebuid 
 tdrrus ort meing as mebuil ole do greim do Gaidheluibh. 
 
 10 6. A poem of 37 stanzas attributed to Brian Ruadh Mac Conmidhe, 
 beginning : 
 
 Imdha urruim ac Ultaibh dligid uaisli imarcaidh 
 asse dleghar do dhuine lenadh se na sochaidhe. 
 
 For other copies see Eriu, iv. 187, and the O'Conor Don's Book.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 49 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 38 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Lenfat mo chert ar cloinn Dal&ig mo dhuthchas riu recfa me 
 ni ghebh acht le cert don cet-seal dogen nert mad eccen he. 
 
 1 1 a. A poem of 33 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 Dimghach do Chonall Ddl&ch dimy&ch ar nach oirches dldi 
 ni ni acht mar do- an ar eneing an ri is Magh Feilim fdi. 
 
 1 1 b. A poem of 44 stanzas attributed to Ruaidri Ruadh O hUiginn. 
 
 Begins : 
 Fulang annrbidh adbhar soidh fadla ar tus as tuar jiedhoil 
 asse as tiir anora ann run an ansodha d 'fulang. 
 
 For other copies see Eriu, iv. 188. 
 
 12 a. A poem of 33 stanzas ascribed to Fergal Ruad O hUiginn. Begins : 
 
 Fada adert&r na deich rig do breith na leab&id go leir 
 
 go roich an t-aenmadh dec dibh deich righ decc a naembhrugh Neill. 
 
 12 b. A poem of 15 stanzas by Tadg Occ hUicind. Begins : 
 
 Faillsigh do mirbaili a Muiri maidem assad asse ar Ion 
 bid mo cds ort ina eri nocht do gras a Muiri mbr. 
 
 Another copy in Y. B. L., 373 a , 8. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 28 stanzas, probably by the same writer, beginning : 
 Olc cuimhnighim mo cumann aicned muna athcumam 
 mo cuimhne docbidh a richt nach coir suirylie re sesiucht. 
 
 13 a. A poem of 36 stanzas attributed to Diarmaid O Cleirig. Begins : 
 
 Maruid fbs ferta Coluim liaide da lucht uraduill 
 
 la ar a cumachta ni cuir mar td a n-udJtachta an erlaimh. 
 
 13 b. A poem of 37 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Ni deoraidh meisi a Manainn me este ni hintadhaill 
 do-gab baid re Manainn me dot yrad anaim a Eri. 
 
 For another copy see Y. B. L., 395 a , 40. 
 
 14 a. A poem of 29 stanzas attributed to Muireduch Lesa-an-Doill. Begins: 
 
 Cian 6 d'ibess digh ndermaid ro-m-scar re Siiiir sibhenbhuicc 
 risin Sinainn moir maigridh re Boinn sriubfainn sriubhaibnigh. 
 
 Supra, p. 132. 
 
 Ibid. A poem of 38 stanzas by the same, beginning : 
 
 A Domhnaill deglam fa sidh denusa aicned indrig 
 
 ni maith sidh acht co subach. na bidh flaith co frichnumach. 
 
 Supra, p. 130. 
 
 14 6. A poem of 54 stanzas ascribed to Tuathal mac Taidc I Uicind. 
 Begins : 
 
 Dimghach Eiri d'fuil Conuill coir estecht a huroghaill 
 bee t&rlafan dimgaidh dib gabla d'fidbaid na n-airdriyh.
 
 50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 15 a. A poem of 42 stanzas by Gofraid Mac-an-Baird, beginning : 
 Minec frith Eri a hEam&in a dil celi fa comhair 
 an thin nifuil na adhaidh ^ra&aidh don full righ roghain. 
 
 15 b. A poem of 48 stanzas attributed to Domnall mac Taidg Oicc I Uigind : 
 
 Cia adeir nar melladh Maghnus ni ceisd is ecail d'aidhnes 
 si ar clodh ceilli fa clernhnus mor derbus Ere a ainmhes. 
 
 16 a. 57 stanzas ascribed to Seaan Dalaig Breithfne. Tbe last 7 
 
 stanzas are on 18 a. The leaf containing them has been misplaced. 
 
 Begins : 
 
 Cia rer fuirghedh feis Teamra ar claochlogh a cedmeadra, 
 mithid ri a tul&ig an trir nir cw&aid hi gan airdrigh. 
 
 17 a. A poem of 33 stanzas by Giollabrighde MacConmidhe, beginning : 
 
 Caidhet cethri teallsag Temra dhan toich Eri o thuind go tuinn 1 
 don thiol is saire rechtcus do sil raidhi cennchas Cuind. 
 
 1 7 b. A poem of 50 stanzas in a much later hand than the remainder of the 
 
 poems. It is attributed to Cu-Ulao'A mac Concubair Ruaidh 
 
 Mic-an-Baird. Begins : 
 Fuigheall formaid fuil Dafaigh. tnuth da mbuain na mbengdnaibh 
 do-chronaigh suit eigin ind an tnudh ni heidir d"faichill. 
 
 18 a. A poem of 38 stanzas ascribed to Gofraidh Mac-an-Baird. Begins : 
 
 Anois aithnighim m'uabhar airighim ar g&ch n-aeinfer 
 ler cuir sinn d'eol ar rrCuabar fuar&d linn deor do deneam. 
 
 18 6. A poem of 33 stanzas attributed to Giollabrighde MacConmidhe. 
 Unlike the rest of the book this page is not easy to read in conse- 
 quence of rubbing. The piece begins : 
 
 Ceidtreabh Erend Inis Saimher ar selbh dilend dia do rus 
 
 ni daim ochtair do fuair Banbha ar rochtain iAuaidh tarla ar tils. 
 
 II 
 The Contents of Gaelic MS., Advocates' Libkary No. LXIV. 
 
 A veiy dilapidated paper MS., now consisting of 37 leaves. The 
 contents are almost entirely religious poems. 
 
 1 a. Half of the first leaf is torn away. Gives the end of a poem, the last 
 stanza of which contains the words : 
 gcreidir mar is coir damh cwmacht Muire 
 
 Ibid. A poem, beginning Triur righ tainic = Macgregor, No. II. Cp. 
 Abbott's Cat., p. 363. 10 stanzas. 
 
 Ibid. A poem, beginning : 
 
 Mairg dan 6udh chara an ogh anam elithe moghuin. 
 Extends to font of 1 6 (1).
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 51 
 
 2 a. A poem of 60 (?) stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Deirbhthsiur don egna an eigsi. 
 Extends to foot of 3 a. See Abbott's Cat., Index. 
 
 3 b. A poem, beginning : 
 
 Oach maith a moradh aluind cerd o craobh 6 rath 
 nona serg a snuadh mar sin buan aach cerd 7 coiridh. 
 
 5 b. A poem of 46 stanzas on the Legend of the Holy Rood, beginning : 
 
 Marthuind duit a crock an choimdedh (= Macgregor, No. V). 
 
 6 b. A poem of 43 stanzas on the Nativity of the Virgin and the Infancy of 
 
 Christ. Begins Fuigeall bennacht brugh Muire. Printed by 
 K. Meyer from the Book of Hy Mane in Archiv f. celt. Lex., iii, 
 p. 244 = Macgregor, No. VIII. 
 
 8 a. Duan anso ofpilip mac Cuinn Crosaigh ann a daispentar tuarusgbhai 
 
 uathm(ar) laithe an braich agus an modh ar a dtiocfa Criosd docum 
 an bhretheamnais agus na briathra adera ann . . . grasa nach 
 diongnafa dheredh. 54 stanzas, beginning : 
 Tuar feirge foighide Dhe. 
 Cp. Abbott's Cat., p. 362. There is another copy in the O'Conor 
 Don's Book. 
 
 9 a. Poem by Tadhg Og. 29 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Ataid tri comraig am chind. 
 Macgregor, No. III. Cp. O'Grady, Cat., p. 363. 
 
 10 a. Poem by Tadhg Og. 19 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Aithin me dod toide a Eoin. 
 Other copies : Y. B. L., 362 a , 19 ; Book of the O'Conor Don. 
 
 10 6. Poem by Tadhg Og. 28 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Cia gabus m'anamain re ais. 
 Cp. Y.B. L., 364 a , 12 ; Book of the O'Conor Don. 
 
 11a. Poem by Tadhg Og. 44 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Bee nach tainic mo t(h)erma. 
 Other copies: Y.B.L., 364*>, 27; Adv. XXIX; Book of the 
 O'Conor Don. 
 
 12 a. Poem by Tadhg 6g. 30 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Gab m'egnach a Eoin Baisdi. 
 Other copies: Y.B.L., 369*>, 17; Adv. XXIX. 
 
 12 6. Poem by Tadhg Og. 32 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Cairt a sichana ag siol Adhamh. 
 Macgregor, No. IV. = Y.B. L., 363<S 31. 
 
 13 6. Poem of 34 Btanzas by Tadhg Og, beginning : 
 
 Ag so bragha det a Dhe. 
 Other copies: Y.B.L., 368*, 11; Adv. XXIX; Book of the 
 O'Conor Don.
 
 52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 r 
 
 14 6. Poem of 36 stanzas by Tadhg Og, beginning : 
 
 Mairg danab soirbh an saegeil. 
 Other copies : Y. B. L., 366 b , 28 ; Book of the O'Conor Don. 
 
 15 a. Poem of 38 (?) stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Namadh da caraid claim Adhaim egoir bid gan beth da reir 
 ge atafala De ar oach nduine ise a gcara fire fein. 
 
 16 a. Poem of 44 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Gabham dechmadh ar ndana. 
 Cp. O'Grady, Cat., p. 345 ; Archiv, ii. 141. 
 
 17 a. Poem of 30 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Gabam grem maith do Muire minic sinn ga sirguidhe 
 a cuid do duain De dligi dochuaidh me na muinigin. 
 
 17 6. Poem of 32 stanzas attributed to Dounchad Mor, beginning : 
 
 Aithrige sunn duit a Dhe. 
 
 18 6. Poem of 41 stanzas attributed to Tadhg Og, beginning : 
 
 Teine arna fadodh ferg De. 
 Other copies : Adv. XXIX, R.I.A. 23 G 23, F ii 3. 
 
 19 6. Poem of 37 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 Ceangal sodenta siogh De. 
 
 20 a. Poem of 38 stanzas attributed to Fpilip bocht [O hlliginn]. Begins: 
 
 Bennachd a mathar ar mac nDe. 
 Abbott's Cat., p. 362. 
 
 21a. Poem of 30 stanzas by Fergal Og [Mac-an-Bhaird ?]. Begins : 
 
 Ben glas dom croidi a Choimghe. 
 The opening words are not repeated at the end. 
 
 22 a. Poem of 40 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Fada me ar merughad sligheadh. 
 
 23 a. Three stanzas by Mac Con O CleirioA. Begins : 
 
 Roim na 6p[ecthach] (?) ar thech nDe. 
 Three (?) stanzas by Tadhg Dall. Begins : 
 
 bpthach uaim Padraig(?) bee na saraidh uaim Letha 
 
 port glanta anma o fpianaibh glan Roim iarthar in betha. 
 
 23 6. Poem of 44 stanzas by Pilib bocht. Begins : 
 
 Do aem[edh] engen on umla dar boide mianta mac De 
 in mac ar a uaisli dfaicsin dar lat fuairsi anaisgidh. 
 
 There is a further copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 24 6. Poem of 38 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 Tri gluine ginel&igh mic De. 
 Abbott's Cat., p. 362.
 
 THE LATER IRISH BARDS 1200-1500 53 
 
 25 6. Poem of 37 stanzas in rannaigecht mor, beginning : 
 
 Tri mic do Muire mic De slat gon duine ag gleic re gnat. 
 
 At the end the words Tri gluin are repeated. These belong to 
 the preceding poem. 
 
 26 6. Poem of 27 stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Do chodail ar bfer /aire. 
 See Abbott's Cat., Index. 
 
 27a. Poem of 15 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 Suntach sin a cholann criadh. 
 
 27 b. Poem of 10 stanzas attributed to Fergall Og [Mac-an-Bhaird]. Begins : 
 
 Na dena diomus a duine. 
 A copy in the O'Conor Don's Book is ascribed to Geoffrey Finn 
 O'Daly. 
 
 Ibid. Poem of 4 stanzas by Fergall Og Mac-an-Bhaird. Begins : 
 
 S . . r . . si a mhic an Duilimh. 
 
 Ibid. Poem of 3 stanzas by Solamh Mac Conmidha. Begins : 
 
 Cionta na colla is cuis truaighe. 
 
 28 a. Poem of 13 stanzas attributed to Tadg Dall Mac Mathgamna. Begins : 
 
 Teach lega leaba fPadraig. 
 
 Ibid. Poem of 30 (?) stanzas attributed to Fergal Og O hUiginn. Begins : 
 
 Linn fPadraig na bport solus. 
 
 29 a. Eight stanzas by Fergal Og Mac-an-Bhaird, beginning : 
 
 Slan uaim ag oilen Padraig. 
 Cp. Abbott's Cat., p. 366(?). 
 
 Ibid. Poem of 13 stanzas attributed to Aongus mac Aodha Ruaidh I Uiginn. 
 Begins : 
 
 Mo chen teid i dtegais fPadraig. 
 
 The opening words are not repeated at the close. 
 
 29 6. A poem of 13 stanzas beginning : 
 
 Loch Berg at Roim na hEirind. 
 
 Ibid. Poem of 16 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 Tugais damh a I) he nime onoir ar fad maimsire. 
 
 The poet's name is given as Tuilecna and again in the upper 
 margin above the preceding poem as Tuilecina mac Torna cc. It 
 extends to 30 a. 
 
 From f. 30 on half of the page is torn away. 
 
 30a. Poem in 25 stanzas, beginning: 
 
 TugsuNi mo coimed do coigiur. 
 
 Another copy in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 30 6. Twelve stanzas extending to 31 a.
 
 54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY 
 
 31a. Seven (?) stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Fada an suanso ar righ na ndul. 
 
 Thirty-five (?) stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Maelduin Maelduin o righa in te6. 
 
 32 a. Twelve stanzas, beginning : 
 
 Do mJieall a saog&l sibse a cliar brisde bar gcuinge. 
 
 32 b. Fifteen stanzas by . . . gide Buidhe. 
 
 33 o. Poem of 45 stanzas by Donnchad Mor Dalaigh. Begins : 
 
 Lochrann aoillsi ac siol Aduim. 
 Two copies in the O'Conor Don's Book. 
 
 34 a. Poem, beginning : 
 
 Tainig bhur gcairde a clann Adham. 
 It may extend to 36 a. 
 
 36 a. Poem, beginning : 
 
 Coir foighidi refeirg nDi. 
 
 36 b. Poem, beginning : 
 
 [Bean ar naitheirghe Flire] = Macgregor, No. XIX. O'Grady, Cat., 
 p. 354. 
 Extends to 37 6. 
 
 37 b. . . . ain .1. ri da choigedh Mumhmn agus airdescub Caisil cc. Three 
 
 stanzas beginning : 
 fesda dom aimsir beag n&ch tainig mo saog&l. 
 
 A poem, beginning : 
 
 an troth sgarfus rem anmuin. 
 
 euir a dtalmwin ag 
 
 Extends to 38 b (?).
 
 55 
 
 ADDENDA 
 
 P. 102. The Magauran Book was transcribed by Adam O'Cianan for 
 Thomas Magauran who, according to the Four Masters, was slain in the year 
 1343. A stanza on p. 50 affords the only literary evidence with which 
 I am acquainted, that the better known families maintained books in which 
 eulogies of their race were entered. I give the verse according to a tran- 
 script made by Joseph O'Longan in 1869 which the O'Conor Don kindly 
 deposited for me in the Cambridge University Library in February, 1913 : 
 
 Ni hinann duchas dhuinde \ 's du daimh ri flesg findbaille 
 seach dhan gach dainie oile | Ian dar ndaine a duanoire. 
 
 P. 103. Mr. Purton informs me that a book of poems addressed to the 
 Dillon family is preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. 
 
 P. 124. At the outset I assumed that the later bards drew the material 
 for their religious compositions directly from Latin. It still seems probable 
 to me on other grounds that many, if not all of them, were acquainted with 
 that language, but this cannot always be inferred from the devotional poems 
 they composed. F. A. Patterson's work on the Middle English Penitential 
 Lyric (New York, 1911) has convinced me that a large part of their ideas 
 and phraseology was drawn from the liturgy which would be accessible to 
 them in an Irish dress. The stories of saints were taken from the 
 homiliaria, many of which are known to have been rendered into the 
 vernacular, and with regard to the exempla Mr. Flower informs me that 
 there is in existence an Irish translation of the Gesta Romanorum. In 
 cases where Latin sermons and treatises are closely followed, further study 
 will perhaps show whether such poems go directly back to the Latin 
 original or are based upon an Irish prose intermediary. The O'Conor 
 Don's Book appears to preserve several compositions of this nature. One 
 beginning Glac a chonipdin cornhairle Miss Knott shows to be based upon 
 St. Bernard's Formula Honestae Vitae (Migne, vol. clxxxiv, col. 1167).
 
 
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