Welcome back for season three! Hope you missed us as much as we missed recording our chats on all things medieval Ireland! Today we have Dr Elizabeth Boyle back for the first episode of the new season (as is becoming tradition) to learn about poets and poetry. We discuss everything from Poet-President Michael D. Higgins, the power of satire, constrained poetical forms, and the high status of poets to the popularity of the blackbird in Irish poetry (!), Seámus Heaney, whether medieval Irish poetry rhymed, how to become a poet and much more!

Suggested reading:

– Elizabeth Boyle, Fierce Appetites (Dublin and London, 2022)

– Liam Breatnach, "Satire, praise and the Early Irish poet", Ériu 56, no. 1 (2006), 63-84

– Liam Breatnach, Uraicecht na Ríar: The Poetic Grades in Early Irish Law, Early Irish Law Series II (Dublin, 1987)

– Robin Chapman Stacey, Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland (Philadelphia, 2007), pp. 95–134

– https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0401/1504619-irish-medieval-poet-conchobhar-ruadh-mac-con-midhe-satire-exile/

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)

Email: medievalirishhistory@gmail.com

Producer: Tiago Veloso Silva

Supported by Maynooth University, the Dept of Early Irish, the Dept of Music, the Dept of History, & Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland.

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music