Poems to the medieval O'Donnell chiefs and their historical context

Abstract

Abstract:A bardic ode which survives in written form is normally of the highest quality, an expensive prestige purchase. Consequently, the 31 extant poems to the medieval O'Donnell chieftains of Tír Conaill, or Donegal, reflect the rise and fall of that family's fortunes from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Both O'Donnells and O'Neills had newly risen to power around 1200, and the idea that the two families should alternate in leadership of the Northern Uí Néill is a recurring theme in the thirteenth-century poems. The fourteenth century saw O'Donnell power collapse as a result of a prolonged succession struggle, and many chieftains of that period have no surviving poems to their name. When, in the fifteenth century, the O'Neills in turn became enmeshed in civil strife, the O'Donnell poems begin to boast that in early days their ancestors had supplied 10 kings of Tara, where the O'Neills' forebears had produced only seven. In addition to the perceptible relationship of such broad themes with the politics of their day, many details in the texts of the poems confirm and supplement the information on the history of the O'Donnell rulers of Tír Conaill found in the Irish annals.