Contention of the Bards

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

There were 30 contributions to the Contention, which took the form of a bitter debate over the relative merits of the two halves of Ireland: the north, dominated by the Eremonian descendants of the Milesians, and the south, dominated by the Eberian descendants.

The verses were first published in print in two volumes produced by the Irish Texts Society in 1918 and 1920, edited by Lambert McKenna.

The Contention took place in the context of the settlement of the country following on the Tudor conquest of Ireland, when full domination by Stuart royal authority had led to the Flight of the Earls (1607) and the Plantation of Ulster (1610).

The occasion for the Contention was a dispute over the allegiance of the Earl of Thomond, a Gaelic nobleman of the ancient O'Brien clan (or sept), unusually for the time, the earl was a Protestant and loyal to the new dispensation. The spark came in 1616, after the final annexation of the modern County Clare (containing part of the ancient kingdom of Thomond) to the Eberian province of Munster (when the Earl of Thomond was appointed president of the province) and the death in exile of the last great Eremonian, Hugh O'Neill.

For centuries before 1616, the bards had been sponsored by the Irish Gaelic dynasties and confirmed their paternal lineages so they had a political as well as cultural impact.

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