Married/Unmarried

 

(Note: This essay was written before the last two, but then not posted until now.)

Cia re bhfuil Eiri ac anmhuin?

Mó is righin dá rioghdhamhnaibh,

Críoch na n-iaith linnet leabhar,

Gan triath innti d’áitiughadh.

(For whom is Ireland waiting?

Potential kings are slow in appearing,

The country of wide territories of warm lakes,

Though no lord now inhabits her.)

(Translated from Duanaire Mhéig Uidhitr: The Poembook of Cú Chonnacht  Mág Uidhir, Lord of Fermanagh 1566 – 1589, edited from the Copenhagen manuscript by David Greene, Dublin Institute for advanced Studies, 1972)

Bardic poetry is not for everyone. It’s not just that the language is often compressed and difficult, but the subject matter is usually praise of some now long dead Irish king or lord. I mean, who cares? He was probably just some brutal strongman.

Probably he was sometimes, yeah, but maybe not.

The public presentation of a new bardic poem at the court of the lord for whom it was composed was not a literary or public relations event and the poet was not some bookish guy hoping  to get on the good side of the powerful. It was a public ceremony enunciating and affirming truths central to the society, and one of them was  the symbolic “marriage” of the human realm and nature/the non-human world, as represented in the person of the ruler.

Not that the ruler was believed to have achieved some mystical understanding or status. There were historical periods when he may very well have plotted and murdered to ascend to his position, but the understanding was that, by filling the position of king/lord, a man accepted the fact that he had to maintain justice and proper action in all matters because if he did not, natural and social harmony would be broken. Evidence that he was maintaining the proper way was good weather, good crops of nuts etc. in the forests, fish in the streams and social peace. Evidence that he was not living up to the ideal were bad crops, bad weather, bad acorn and berry crops and general bad luck foe everybody

There are several old stories that illustrate what happened when a ruler did something to satisfy his own desires, even though it went against the proper way of things. Conchobhar Mac Nessa took young and beautiful Deirdre for himself: Conaire Mór allowed close kin to do violence against the people. What happened as a result? Dark forces of chaos and violence erupt and destroy the king and his court. See the story of Deirdre or Togail Bruidne Dá Derga 

So the presentation of a bardic poem was one way that the social descendants of the ancient druids, acting as spokesmen for the proper way of things, affirmed that a particular ruler was following the right path and was a good king etc. It was a precise, important ceremony and though there were no priests and no mention of God, it could almost be called a religious one. If it was a religious ceremony, though, it involved difficult work on the highwire too, as it were, because the requirements of the poetic meter were very strict and required careful training.

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 to be observed in each...."

(This is from the Memoirs of the Marquis of Clanricarde, published in 1722, 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. Good source books on “bardic” metrics 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 tSoláthair, Dublin 1975.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about at all.

Bardic poetry can be difficult, but the poets did also compose poetry about other things. Mostly it was never written down because there was no one concerned about preserving it. Sometimes, pretty much by accident of history, it was written down and it survived, and this is where the whole corpus of the Dánta Grá, the great love poetry of the late Medieval period comes from.

Then in the late 16th century the world collapsed and Irish men and women watched as hordes of violent, greedy bastards with guns and cannon and big horses grabbed everything and killed anybody who got in the way. It didn’t matter that an Irish ruler observed the way of things: the flood engufhed everyone, It sure looked like all that old stuff was just total crap. It looked like God had abandoned the Irish too. 

Pretty soon, there were almost no Irish lords and the Englishmen who took their land did not care about ceremonies or bardic poetry or letting the old learned families stick around unless they could pay the new rent. “This land was always yours, you say? Don’t make me laugh. Land is a commodity and it’s mine now. Beat it.”

So knowldge of the old system of learning, including bardic poetry, gradually and sometimes instantaneously died out. Mostly it took a generation, though, asnd there were still some people who had been educated in the old system left and they composed poetry in the old way or something like it: poetry about what was happening. Great poetry.

Aodhgán O Rathaille, Seathrúin Ceitinn, Páidrigín Haicéad, Muiris Mac Dáibhi Dubh, O Bruadair, Séamas Dall Mac Cuarta, Piarais Feiritéar and the rest took the careful attention, gravitas and exquisite musical sensibilty of the bards and used them to go up against death and darkness, and I will talk about them next week.

 A thonn-sa thíos is airde géim go hard,

Meabhair mi chinn cloite ó’d bhéiceach tá:

Cabhair dá dtíodh arís ar Eirinn bhán,

Do ghlam nach binn, do dhingfinn féin i’d bhráid.

You, wave down there that cries out so loudly,

My mind is overwhelmed by your yelling:

If help came to fair Ireland once more,

I’d shove your harsh howling back down your throat.