The Contention of the Bards (in Irish, Iomarbhágh na bhFileadh) was a literary controversy of early 17th century Gaelic Ireland, lasting from 1616 to 1624 (probably peaking in 1617), in which the principal bardic poets of the country wrote polemical verses against each other and in support of their respective patrons.
There were thirty contributions to the Contention, which took the form of a bitter debate over the relative merits of the two halves of Ireland — the north dominated by the Eremonian descendants of the Milesians, and the south dominated by the Eberian descendants.
The verses were first published in print in two volumes produced by the Irish Texts Society in 1918 and 1920, edited by Lambert McKenna.
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