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Irish Bardic Poetry

"By Bardic Poetry I mean the writings of poets trained in the BardicSchools as they existed in Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, down toabout the middle of the seventeenth century. In Scotland, indeed, they lingeredon till the eighteenth century. At what time they were founded we don't know,for the Bardic order existed in prehistoric times, and their position insociety is well established in the earliest tradition. You will understand thatthe subject is a vast one, but I mean to deal only with a small portion ofit—the poetry of the later Bardic Schools from about the thirteenthcentury to the close—that is to say, compositions of the period known asLater Middle Irish and Early Modern Irish. For this period the manuscriptmaterial is very plentiful, but very little has yet been printed.
Bardic Poetry of any period is easily distinguished by its form. A great dealof it is not really what a modern critic would call poetry in the higher sense.But though it may lack inspiration, it is never wanting in artistic finish. Forwe must remember that the Irishfile orbard was notnecessarily an inspired poet. That he could not help. He was, in fact, aprofessor of literature and a man of letters, highly trained in the use of apolished literary medium, belonging to a hereditary caste in an aristocraticsociety, holding an official position therein by virtue of his training, hislearning, his knowledge of the history and traditions of his country and hisclan. He discharged, as O'Donovan pointed out many years ago, the functions ofthe modern journalist. He was not a song writer. He was often a publicofficial, a chronicler, a political essayist, a keen and satirical observer ofhis fellow-countrymen."
"I have already mentioned the fact that thefile orbard—both terms have come to be used more or lessindiscriminately in our period, though at an earlier time there was a techincaldistinction of rank between them—belonged to a hereditary caste. TheGaelic poet, we may say, had to beboth born and made. In the same waythe professions of history, law and medicine were confined to certainfamilies."

Osborn Bergin,Irish Bardic Poetry (Dublin: Dublin Institutefor Advanced Studies 1970), 'Bardic Poetry: a lecture delivered in 1912', pp3-4, 5.

celtic knot
University College Cork


University College Cork
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