Fili - Decline

Decline

The ultimate accommodation of Christianity within Irish Gaelic society resulted in a strain on the resources of the Chiefs and in that they were required to provide land and titles for both fili and bishop alike. Consequently, a decision was made in the 6th century to limit the number of fili to certain families who were respected and believed to be poets as a birth right. The greatest of these families included the Ó Dálaigh (O'Daly), several of whom were accorded the rank of 'chief ollamh of poetry of all Ireland,' and O'hUiginn (O'Higgins) who were hereditary filí in more than one Gaelic house such as O'Conor Slighit, The MacDermotts, The McDonagh and O'Doherty., The Ó Maol Chonaire chiefly as Ollamh of the Síol Muireadhaigh, the Ó Conchubhair Donn and the MacDermot of Moylurg; although this family was also associated with Ulster and spread from Connacht into the courts of Munster and Leinster. Finally the Ó Cleirighs who served the O'Donnel chieftains of Tír Connell. The hereditary poets that were a fixure of court life in medieval Ireland serving as entertainers, advisors and genealogists maintained practices of and enjoyed a similar status as the pre-Christian fili. But from the 12th century onwards, Anglo-Norman elements had increasing influence on Irish society. As Gaelic culture waned, these folk became increasingly involved with written literature and such non-native traditions as heraldry. Nonetheless in Gaelic society the chief filí of the province, or Ollamh, was seen as equal status to the Ard-rí, or High King. This high social status existed right into Elizabethan times, when English nobility were horrified to see the Gaelic chieftains not just eating at the same table as their poets, but often from the same dish. Eventually classical literature and the Romantic literature that grew from the troubadour tradition of the langue d'oc superseded the material that that would have been familiar to the ancient fili.

See '"Bard" and "Contention of the Bards" for more details.