The poet Fearghal Óg Mac an Bhaird flourished during
the second half of the sixteenth century and the first
three decades of the seventeenth century. Sixty poems
which can definitely be ascribed to him survive today.
Of these, thirteen (over a quarter of his extant
corpus in terms of the total number of quatrains) have
remained unedited until now and the central part of
this thesis consists of an edition of these poems. In
broad terms these alternate in subject-matter between
eulogies and elegies and range in date from 1580 to c.
1610. Each poem is provided with an introduction,
translation, critical apparatus and textual notes.
Prefixed to this is a General Introduction
in which is attempted an overview of the poet's life
and work. The intention here has not been to discuss
all of the poet's compositions in detail but rather to
focus on aspects of his work which have received
little attention to date while at the same time
providing a context for the poems edited in the main
section of the thesis. Notes on language and
editorial principles are also included here.
Matters requiring special attention, arising
from the General Introduction and from the edited
texts, are dealt with in six appendices. These are
followed by indexes and by bibliographical material
