Laoiseach Mac an Bhaird was a Monaghan poet of the late 16th century. In this poem criticism is aimed at one of two brothers who has apparently chosen Tudor ways, while the other has taken to the hills in revolt. TWO SONS You follow foreign ways and shave your thick-curled head: O slender fist, my choice! you are no good son of Donnchadh. If you were, you would not yield your hair to a foreign fashion -- the fairest feature in Fodla's land -- and your head done up in a crown. Little you think of your yellow hair, but that other detests their locks and going cropped in the foreign way. Your manners are little like. He loved no foreign ways, our ladies' darling, Eogan Ban, nor bent his will to the stranger, but took to the wilds instead. Eogan Ban thinks little of your views. He would give his britches gladly and accept a rag for a cloak and ask no coat nor hose. He hates the jewelled spur on his boot at the narrow of his foot, or stockings in the foreign style, nor allows their locks upon him. A blunt rapier wouldn't kill a fly holds no charm for Donnchadh's son, nor a bodkin weighing at his rump as he climbs to the gathering place. Little his wish for a gold cloak or a high Holland collar; a golden bangle would only annoy or a satin scarf to the heel. He has no thought for a feather bed but would rather lie on rushes, more at ease -- Donnchadh's good son -- in a rough-wattled hut than a tower top. Throng of horse in the mouth of a gap, foot-soldiers' fight, the hard fray, are some of Donnchadh's son's delights, and looking for fight with the foreigner. You are not like Eogan Ban. They laught as you step to the mounting block. A pity you cannot see your fault, as you follow foreign ways. -- Laoiseach Mac an Bhaird - translation, Thomas Kinsella