A Lecture on the subject of Bardic Poetry before the National Literary Society implies, of course, a lecture on the bardic poetry of Ireland. That is, no doubt, what you have expected. Yet after I had agreed to deliver this lecture I began to doubt the wisdom of the choice. Irish bardic poetry differs so widely from any form of literary expression that most of us have been accustomed to, that it will be well-nigh impossible in a single evening to discuss its characteristic features. Few forms of composition suffer more in translation. The grace and the elaborate polish of the original must disappear entirely, and even if I could succeed in the difficult task of producing an accurate though bald and prosaic version of some of the finest work of the bardic schools, the world in which this kind of poetry arose and flourished was so different from the world we live in to-day that a running commentary would be needed to make that version intelligible. Such a commentary would, I fear, leave little of the elusive charm of the original.

(c)
Osborn Bergin
A Lecture delivered before the NAtional Literary Society, Dublin 15th, April, 1912.