The structure of native Irish society was torn apart in the late 16th and 17th centuries, which put an end to the advanced schools run by the traditional learned families in the various kingdoms and lordships. That meant there was no longer a way to receive an education in history, law, language, medicine and poetry. The families that ran the schools often lost their land and became tenant farmers. There weren't many Irish lords left either, so no one was going to support historians, poets, etc, even if they received a traditional education. Some people kept things going as best they could for a while, but by the late 18th century, almost no one had a grasp of the old learning any more. The simpler Amhran poetry rose into prominence to take the place of the classical syllabic poetry.
(Yeah, weird picture, I know. It's one of the very few that survive, but was done by a late 16th century English artist who disliked the Irish. His series of drawings mostly illustrates a very efficient English army defeating treacherous savage Irish. Here an Irish poet or reciter illustrates the fact the Irish were 'not like us.')
Classical Irish (and Scottish Gaelic) poetry is very complex--not something a person could pick up in a few hours or even a week. Amhran poetry is based on accents, and is not that difficult to compose, for someone who is very familiar with the sound patterns or Irish, the swing of the language, and absorbed songs and poetry with mothers' milk. It used to be that most ordinary Irish speakers. were that way. A person doesn't need an education.
Classical poetry, on the other hand, is based on complex patterns of regularity in the number and distribution of various types of syllables (classified by consonant type, for example) in a stanza. Lines must end on a stressed word of a certain syllabic length. The most common type was Dan Direach (strict versification), and the most common metre within Dan Direach is Deibidhe (Deibhi in modern spelling).
Eleanor Knott in Irish Syllabic Poetry (1957) defines Deibhi as follows: "The stanza is composed of 4 heptasyllabic lines,line ' a' rhyming with 'b', and 'c' with 'd.' The...end-rimes are between words of unequal syllabic length, the final of the second line of the couplet having a syllable prefixed to the styllable or syllables forming the rime with the final of the first, e.g., seach: uaigneach; labhra: ealadhna...."There is alliteration between two words in each line, the final of 'd' alliterating with the preceding stressed word, and at least two internal rimes between 'c' and 'd.'"
Here is an example, from a poem by Giolla Brighde o hEodhasa at the start of the 17th century. No prizes for identifying the sound patterns, but think of the sense of accomplishment you'll have after you've done it....
A dhuine chuireas an crann,
cia bhus beo ag buain a ubhall?
Ar bhfas do'n chraoibh gheagaigh ghil,
re a fheagain daoibh an deimhin?
Oh person who plants the tree,
who will be alive to harvest its apple?
After the shining branched tree has grown
is it certain you will have a time to view it?
A stanza is close-set jewel work, each piece placed exactly so. The language is careful, precise and concise (usually). Here are some notes on the stanza above.
"A dhuine"; vocative' "chuireas": relative of 'put, plant, etc.: 'cia'; 'ce' : 'bhus'; relative, verb 'to be': "Ar'; 'after' it nasalizes the word that follows: 'chraoibh etc.'; dative case: 'a fheagain'; 'its seeing--to see it': 'an'; interrogative of the copula.
A stanza from another poem, also Deibhi. It was made by one of the Nugent lords of a part of Westmeath in the 16th century. (There are 6 more stanzas.)
Diombaidh trial o thulcaibh Fail,
diombaidh iath Eireann d'fhagbhail,
iath milis na mbeann mbeachach,
inis na n-eang n-oigeacach.
It is a sorrow to travel away from Ireland's hills,
It is a sorrow to leave the land of Ireland,
sweet land of bee-filled mountains,
island of places of herds of young horses.
Good source books on the matter are Eleanor Knott's Irish Syllabic Poetry, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1974; and Duainearacht: Rialacha Meadarachta Fhiliocht na mBard by Cait Ni Dhomhnaill, Oifig an tSolathair, Dublin 1975.
Here is description of how traditional bardic students went about learning poetry:
"....the place should be in a solitary recess of a garden or within a sept or inclosure far out of the reach of any noise....The structure was a snug, low hut , and beds in it at convenient distances, each within a small apartment without much furniture of any kind, save only a table, some seats, and a conveniency for clothes to hang upon. No windows to let in the day, nor any lights used at all but that of candles and these brought at a proper season only. The students upon thorough examination being first divided into classes. The professors....gave a subject suitable to the capacity of each class, determining the number of rhimes, and clearing what was to be chiefly observed therein as to syllables, quartrains, concord, correspondence, terminations and union, each of which were restrained by peculiar rules. The said subject having been given over night, they worked it apart each by himself upon his own bed, the whole next day in the dark, till at a certain hour in the night, lights being brought in, they committed it to writing. Being afterwards dressed and come together in a large room where the masters waited, each scholar gave in his performance, which being corrected or approved of, either the same or fresh subjects were given against the next day....It was six or seven years before a mastery or the last degree was conferred, which you'll the less admire upon considering the great difficulty of the art, the many kinds of their poems, the the exactness and nicety top be observed in each...."
This is from the Memoirs of the Marquis of Clanricarde, published in 1722. This piece is said to be the work of Thomas O'Sullivan, an Irish scholar from Tipperary who was active in London in the 1720s researching manuscripts in order to write a history of Ireland from an Irish perspective.
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