Rivalries and debates

Rivalries of various kinds provide the mainspring for the plots of several ballads.  The elopement of Diarmaid and Gráinne, which drove a wedge between Diarmaid and Fionn, provides the background to Poem XXIV, although it is not mentioned as a factor in the death of Diarmaid in Poem XIII (see Elegies and death-tales).  The rivalry between Fionn and the Tara dynyasty is reflected in Poem IX, in which Caoilte gathers the animals, and also in Poems XXI and XXII, which are concerned with the crushing of the Fian by Cairbre at the Battle of Gabhair.

In these poems, the tension motivates the plot.  In five poems in BDL, however, it is more overt, and issues in a strong element of debate and action, arising directly from feuds and sharp differences of perspective. The intense rivalry between the two main kindreds in the Fiana, the Clann Baoisgne and the Clann Morna, represented by Fionn and Goll respectively, is explained in Poem XXV, while Poem II presupposes the death of Goll as the result of a feud.  Members of the Clann Baoisgne discuss the possibility of retrieving Goll's head.  In the poem partially restored in Appendix A, Goll mac Morna chafes under the yoke of Fionn's supremacy.  He seeks a band of men to go against Fionn, but he is challenged by one of his number to produce warriors as excellent as those under Fionn's command.  The fragment breaks off before the conclusion of the debate.

Debate between pagan and Christian ideals is at the heart of the two remaining poems.  In Poem X, Oisean, representing the old pagan ethos of the Fian, lists those warriors and their families who, if alive, would remove Patrick and his clerics from the territory once occupied by the Fian.  Patrick is given little opportunity to answer for himself, and Oisean seems to win by sheer length of argument.  The main point at issue in Poem XI is the question of admitting the Fian to the Christian heaven.  Patrick contends that they will not, and Oisean is thereby allowed the opportunity to indulge in a fulsome eulogy of the old way of life.  Although the poem is outwardly contentious, it contains an underlying current of good humour, matched by the jovial pace of the metre.