e whole Irish world
of letters. Soon all the hereditary poets were engaged in the conflict,
which raged for many years, and the verses of both parties were
collected into a volume of about 7000 lines in _debide_ metre, known as
the _Contention of the Poets_. Amongst the prominent poets of the period
may be mentioned Tadhg Dall O'Higinn (d. shortly before 1617) and
Eochaidh O'Hussey, who between them have left behind nearly 7000 lines
in the classical metres, Bonaventura O'Hussey and Ferfesa O'Cainti. The
intricate classical measures gradually broke down. Dr Douglas Hyde gives
it as his opinion that the exceedingly numerous metres known in Middle
Irish had become restricted to a couple of dozen, and these nearly all
heptasyllabic. Nevertheless they continued to be employed till into the
18th century. However, during the 17th century we find a new school
arising with new principles and new methods. These consisted in (1) the
adoption of vowel rhyme in place of consonantal rhyme, (2) the adoption
of a certain number of accents in each line in place of a certain number
of syllables. Thus, according to what we have just said, the accented
syllables in a line with four accents in one line will fall on, say, the
following vowels e, u, u, e, and the line rhyming with it will have
the same sounds in the same or a different sequence. (For English
imitations see Hyde, _A Literary History of Ireland_, pp. 548 ff.)

The consequences of the changed political conditions were of the
greatest importance. The bards, having lost their patrons in the general
upheaval, threw behind them the old classical metres and turned to the
general public. At the same time they had to abandon the countless
chevilles and other characteristics of the old bardic language, which
were only understood by the privileged few. But to compensate for this
much more freedom of expression and naturalness were possible for the
first time in Irish verse. The new metres made their appearance in
Ireland about 1600, and the learned Keating himself was one of the first
to discard the ancient prosody. During the latter half of the 17th
century and throughout the 18th century the body of verse produced in
Ireland voices the sorrows and aspirations of the whole nation, and the
literary activity in almost every county was correspondingly great. It
is only during the last few years that the works of any of the poets of
this period have been published. Pierce Ferriter was the l