Tadgh Dall Ó hUigín (Blind Taigue Higgins), a professional poet in 16th Century Gaelic Ireland, had seen two patrons suffer ignominy and defeat before he wrote The Lion and Fox for his patron Brian MacGuire in 1588 AD. This poem comments on specific instances of political back-fighting, which were common in the anarchic Clan political systems of Gaelic Ireland. Ironically, because of the fragmented structures of Gaelic politics, within 20 years Brian would be dead, and the world of Tadgh and the Gaelic chieftains would be extinguished forever. Medieval Ireland was a land of two parallel worlds. There was a tribal world where land was under common ownership, and where kingship was decided by complex, mutable laws. There was also a centralised feudal world, represented by the colonial English, where deed and title was clearly defined and where authority came …
