From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bardic Poetry refers to the writings of poets trained in the Bardic Schools of Ireland and the Gaelic parts of Scotland, as they existed down to about the middle of the 17th century, or, in Scotland, the early 18th century. Most of the texts preserved are in Middle Irish or in early Modern Irish.

Irish file or bards (there was a technical distinction between the ranks, but the terms in later times were used interchangeably) formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. The bards were steeped in the history and traditions of clan and country, as well as in the technical requirements of a verse technique that was syllabic and used assonance, half rhyme and alliteration. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles. They were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them.

Much of their work would not strike the modern reader as being poetry at all, consisting as it does of extended genealogies and almost journalistic accounts of the deeds of their lords and ancestors: the Irish bard was not necessarily an inspired poet, but rather a professor of literature and a man of letters, highly trained in the use of a polished literary medium, belonging to a hereditary caste in an aristocratic society, holding an official position therein by virtue of his training, his learning, his knowledge of the history and traditions of his country and his clan (Bergin 1912).

• Osborn Bergin, 'Bardic Poetry: a lecture delivered in 1912', in Irish Bardic Poetry, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (1970).

• Early Irish literature

Irish Bardic Poetry and Rhetorical Reality by Michelle O'Riordan, 2007 published by Cork University Press [1]

• http://www.ucc.ie/celt/bardic.html