Editing Aibell (section)

===''Cúirt An Mheán Oíche''===
Aoibheal also features prominently in the 18th-century comic poem ''Cúirt An Mheán Oíche'' by [[Brian Merriman]]. The poem begins by using the conventions of the [[Aisling]], or vision poem, in which the poet is out walking when he has a vision of a woman from the other world. Typically, this woman is Ireland and the poem will lament her lot and/or call on her 'sons' to rebel against foreign tyranny. In Merriman's hands, the convention is made to take a satirical and deeply ironic twist.

In the opening section of the poem, a hideous female giant appears to the poet and drags him kicking and screaming to the court of Queen Aoibheal of the Fairies. On the way to the ruined [[monastery]] at [[Moinmoy]], the messenger explains that the Queen, disgusted by the twin corruptions of [[Anglo-Irish]] landlords and [[English Law]], has taken the dispensing of justice upon herself. There follows a traditional court case under the [[Brehon law]] form of a three-part debate.

In the first part, a young woman calls on Aoibheal declares her case against the young men of Ireland for their refusal to marry. She complains that, despite increasingly desperate attempts to capture a husband via intensive flirtation at [[hurling]] matches, [[wake (ceremony)|wake]]s, and [[pattern (devotional)|pattern days]], the young men insist on ignoring her in favour of late marriages to much older women. The young woman further bewails the contempt with which she is treated by the married women of the village.

She is answered by an old man who first denounces the wanton [[promiscuity]] of young women in general, suggesting that the young woman who spoke before was conceived by a [[Irish Traveller|Tinker]] under a cart. He vividly describes the [[infidelity]] of his own young wife. He declares his humiliation at finding her already pregnant on their wedding night and the gossip which has surrounded the "premature" birth of "his" son ever since. He disgustedly attacks the dissolute lifestyles of young women in general. Then, however, he declares that there is nothing wrong with his [[illegitimate child]]ren and denounces marriage as "out of date." He demands that the Queen outlaw it altogether and replace it with a system of [[free love]].

The young woman, however, is infuriated by the old' man's words and is barely restrained from physically attacking him. She mocks his [[impotent]] failure to fulfill his marital duties with his young wife, who was a homeless beggar who married him to avoid starvation. The young woman then argues that if his wife has taken a lover, she well deserves one. The young woman then calls for the abolition of [[priestly celibacy]], alleging that priests would otherwise make wonderful husbands and fathers. In the meantime, however, she will keep trying to attract an older man in hopes that her unmarried humiliation will finally end.

Finally, in the judgement section Queen Aoibheal rules that all laymen must marry before the age of 21, on pain of [[corporal punishment]] at the hands of Ireland's women. She advises them to equally target the romantically indifferent, homosexuals, and skirt chasers who boast of the number of women they have used and discarded. Aoibheal tells them to be careful, however, not to leave any man unable to father children. She also states that abolishing priestly celibacy is something only the [[Holy See|Vatican]] can do and counsels patience.

To the poet's horror, the younger woman angrily points him out as a 30-year-old [[bachelor]] and describes her many failed attempts to attract his interest in hopes of becoming his wife. She declares that he must be the first man to suffer the consequences of the new marriage law. As a crowd of infuriated women prepares to flog him into a quivering bowl of jelly, he awakens to find it was all a terrible nightmare.