The Light of the Universe: Poems of Friendship and Consolation by Giolla Brighde Ó hEódhasa

In a seminal lecture, Osborn Bergin (one of the great editors of the genre) expressed his regret that the horizons of the poets had not been ‘widened by the freshening influences of the Renaissance’ and this has in some measure set the tone for future assessments of the genre. In an attempt to redress the balance, I recently examined a short poem by Giolla Brighde Ó hEódhasa and demonstrated how it drew on sound humanist principles in order to address fundamental reformation and counter-reformation issues. And in the present talk, I wish to build on this by looking at two other poems by the same poet which cannot be understood, I will contend, unless they are placed firmly within the context of Renaissance and humanist moral and ethical thinking.