Athirne Ailgheasach

Athirne Ailgheasach appears in Ulster Cycle narratives as the professional court poet of Conchobar mac Nessa. He travels the circuit of Ireland visiting royal courts and exploits the legal and social privileges accorded to poets (fili), making outrageous demands of hospitality and using satire as a sanctioned but powerful form of social coercion. Episodes connected to him in the sagas include the circuit-of-Ireland tale (often titled The Siege of Howth), the Amergin episode (attempted murder, siege, and fosterage), and the Wooing of Luaine and Death of Athirne (his satires against Luaine, flight to Benn Athirni, and final burning by Conchobar).

The saga sources do not provide a systematic physical description of Athirne himself. Narrative detail records objects and settings associated with him — notably three cranes stolen from Midir that stand at his door and bar entry — and describes his house on the hill of Benn Athirni on the River Boyne and his death by burning when Conchobar walls in and burns the house.

Athirne is a professional poet/satirist whose words carry enforceable social and quasi-magical force in the saga world: his satires are said to leave "three blotches of shame, blemish and disgrace" on a target (as in the Luaine episode), an outcome that in that narrative leads to the woman's dying of shame. He habitually abuses the customary immunities and rights of poets — demanding extreme hospitality, making outrageous material claims (for example, demanding an eye, a night with certain noble wives, or a jewel), abducting women (capturing 150 wives of Leinster nobles in one tale), and provoking inter-kingdom responses. He also possesses items taken from the otherworld (he stole three cranes from Midir of the Tuatha Dé Danann) that are described as standing at his door and refusing entry or hospitality to anyone who approaches, marking an interface between human courts and Tuatha Dé Danann objects. He is capable of jealousy and lethal intent (attempting to kill the poet-child Amergin) but is also subject to social sanction, forced compensation, and ultimately execution by burning when Conchobar punishes him.