From 1315 to 1318, Edward Bruce, brother of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland, led a military campaign in Ireland, seeking to establish himself as High King and create a pan-Gaelic alliance against England. Bruce landed at Larne in Ulster and was crowned King of Ireland at Dundalk in 1316, but his campaign ultimately failed when he was killed at the Battle of Faughart in County Louth. Though short-lived, the Bruce campaign demonstrated the potential for a united Gaelic front against English rule.

The Bruce campaign inspired a body of Gaelic poetry that celebrated the Scottish intervention as a harbinger of Irish liberation. The campaign's failure was lamented in verse, and Bruce's ambition to unite the Gaels became a recurring motif in later nationalist poetry. The event is remembered in the 'Book of Ballymote' and other medieval manuscripts, which preserve the poetic responses to this dramatic episode.