SOURCE: "The Vision of Liberation in Cúirt an Mheán Oíche," in Folia Gadelica: Essays Presented by Former Students to R. A Breatnach, edited by Pádraig de Brún, Seán Ó Coileáin, and P'adraig Ó Rianin, Cork University Press, 1983, pp. 95-104.

In the following article, Ó Crualaoich systematically analyzes the major arguments of the previous sixty years regarding "The Midnight Court" and situates Merriman's poem in its Irish and European historical contexts.

Cúirt an Mheán Oíche is surely the most genuinely popular poem in Irish known to us. Among ordinary people, of perhaps no very sophisticated literary tastes, it has been, and still is, a sort of instant success. The delights of its humour and its energetic fluency account for much of its popular appeal. For a people allegedly appreciative of verbal excellence An Chúirt constitutes a sort of test-piece. The attractiveness...