The Contention took place in the context of the settlement of the country following on the Tudor conquest of Ireland, when full domination by Stuart royal authority had led to the Flight of the Earls (1607) and the Plantation of Ulster (1610).
In effect, Tadhg's verses celebrated the greatness of the Eberian septs of the southern half of Ireland and their ascendancy over the North; he even included his patron's Norman lineage as worthy of the race of Ébhear.
This provoked verses in response from other court bards, notably, Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh, in which abstruse points of poetic etiquette and the respective merits of the two halves of Ireland were vehemently argued.
Some of the participants in the Contention mocked the principal debate between Tadhg and Lughaidh; for example, Ó Heffernan used the fable of a cat and a fox (Eremonians and Eberians) that were bickering over a fat piece of meat (Ireland) when a wolf came along and snatched it all.
The Contention proved to be the last flourish of Dán Díreach courtly poetic style: within decades the great school metres had been abandoned in favour of the looser Amhrán or Aisling, and the esteem in which the bards had been held in Gaelic Ireland was never regained.