These essays explore aspects of the English colony in medieval Ireland and its relations with the Gaelic host society. They deal both with the foundation and expansion of the English lordship in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, and with the problems sand adjustments that accompaneid its contraction in the later middle ages. Attention is paid both to the government and society of the colony itself, and to the interactions between settler and native.

This book examines the development of English colonial society in the eastern coastal area of Ireland now known as county Louth, in the period 1170-1330. At its heart is the story of two relationships: that between settler and native in Louth, and that between the settlers and England. An important part of the story is the comparison with parts of Britain which witnessed similar English colonization. Fifty years before the arrival of the English, Louth was incorporated into the Irish kingdom of Airgialla, experiencing rapid change in the political and ecclesiastical spheres under its dynamic ruler Donnchad Ua Cerbaill. The impact of this legacy on English settlement is given due prominence. The book also explores the reasons why well-to-do members of local society in the West Midlands of England in the reigns of Henry II and his sons were prepared to become involved in the Irish adventure.

This work offers a new and innovative insight into the history of thirteenth-century Ireland by exploring the interplay between Gaelic lords, Anglo-Norman lords, and the medieval environmental landscape that connected them. Focusing on the king's cantreds of Roscommon, a space that was both the homeland of the O'Conor royal authority from the eighth century and a defined holding of the English kings from the early thirteenth century, the book explores the frontier landscape as an active player in its own right within Irish history and discusses the way that both Gaels and Anglo-Normans interacted with, and were in turn influenced by, this environment. This unique approach to Irish history enables the author to step away from the traditional view of a dyadic relationship between Gaelic and Anglo-Norman lords and instead demonstrate that not only did both sides alter and change the environment around them according to their perceptions of their enemies and the threat posed by the land, but that the landscape itself was to play a significant role in shaping and influencing the identities and destiny of its inhabitants.

This volume brings together twenty classic essays by three of the greatest historians of later medieval Ireland: Edmund Curtis (d. 1943), Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven (d. 1989) and James Lydon. These scholars successively held the Lecky Chair of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin, for a period of nearly fifty years. The collection includes several of theirÃ?Â?Ã?Â?most influential studies on the social, institutional, and political character of the English colony in Ireland between the invasion of the late 12th century and the 'Act of Kingly Title' in 1541. It includes Otway-Ruthven's unsurpassed studies of central and local government; and James Lydon's seminal explorations of the identity of the English community in medieval Ireland. To set the scene for this pioneering work, the collection opens with Edmund Curtis' lecture on 'Irish history and its popular versions' - delivered in 1925, as the fledgling Irish Free State was coming to terms with independence. The republication of these essays in a single collection will provide scholars, students and the general public alike with ready access to an invaluable intellectual resource.

Irish inhabitants of the 'four obedient shires' - a term commonly used to describe the region at the heart of the English colony in the later Middle Ages - were significantly anglicised, taking on English names, dress, and even legal status. However, the processes of cultural exchange went both ways. This study examines the nature of interactions between English and Irish neighbours in the four shires, taking into account the complex tensions between assimilation and the preservation of distinct ethnic identities and exploring how the common colonial rhetoric of the Irish as an 'enemy' coexisted with the daily reality of alliance, intermarriage, and accommodation. Placing Ireland in a broad context, Sparky Booker addresses the strategies the colonial community used to deal with the difficulties posed by extensive assimilation, and the lasting changes this made to understandings of what it meant to be 'English' or 'Irish' in the face of such challenges.

The thousand years explored in this book witnessed developments in the history of Ireland that resonate to this day. Interspersing narrative with detailed analysis of key themes, the first volume in the Cambridge History of Ireland presents the latest thinking on key aspects of the medieval Irish experience. The contributors are leading experts in their fields, and present their original interpretations in a fresh and accessible manner. New perspectives are offered on the politics, artistic culture, religious beliefs and practices, social organisation and economic activity that prevailed on the island in these centuries. At each turn the question is asked: to what extent were these developments unique to Ireland? The openness of Ireland to outside influences, and its capacity to influence the world beyond its shores, are recurring themes. Underpinning the book is a comparative, outward-looking approach that sees Ireland as an integral but exceptional component of medieval Christian Europe.