Irish history is often past and furious and nowhere more contentiously than when discussing religion. This book is designed to be read with equal profit by those who know a little and those who know a lot about the role of religion in Irish history. It moves at a fast pace, it is extensively illustrated with fresh images and maps, it draws on diverse evidence in multiple languages and it uses examples drawn from every county in Ireland. The volume covers commentators writing in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latin and Spanish. The focus is on the lived experience of real people in real places in real time, rather than on the abstractions of nationality, class and race. Because religion played such a decisive role in Irish life, the book is also an oblique-angle version of Irish history, conveying a sense of how we got to be where we are, even as we leave it behind.

This is a study of Ireland's people, landscape, and place in the world from late antiquity to the reign of Brian Borama. The book narrates the story of Ireland's emergence into history, using anthropological, archaeological, historical, and literary evidence. The subjects covered include the king, the kingdom and the royal household, religion and customs, free and unfree classes in society, exiles, and foreigners. The rural, urban, ecclesiastical, ceremonial, and mythological landscapes of early medieval Ireland anchor the history of early Irish society in the rich tapestry of archaeological sites, monuments, and place-names that have survived to the present day. A historiography of medieval Irish studies presents the commentaries of a variety of scholars, from the 17th-century Franciscan Micheal O Cleirigh to Eoin Mac Neill, the founding father of modern scholarship. *** "Bhreathnach draws on archaeological evidence to supply insights into a society that has left only oblique views in the written record, proposing a revised view of the place of Ireland in medieval Europe....the book features eight pages of color plates and many photos, and is a must for academic libraries, particularly those with extensive history or archaeology collections. Essential." - Choice, Vol. 52, No. 4, December 2014 *** Featured in 'Outstanding Academic Titles', a prestigious list of publications for the year 2014. - Choice, January 2015 [Subject: History, Medieval Studies, Archaeology, Anthropology, Irish Studies, Religious Studies]

Between the fifth century and the ninth, several thousand churches were founded in Ireland, a higher density than in most other regions of Europe. This period saw fundamental changes in settlement patterns, agriculture, social organisation and beliefs, and churches are an important part of that story. The premise of this book is that landscape archaeology is one of the most fruitful ways to study them. By considering their placement in relation to pagan ritual sites, royal sites, burial grounds and settlements, we can begin to discern the shifting strategies of kings, ecclesiastics and ordinary people. The result is a new perspective on the process of conversion and consolidation complementary to those provided by historians.

Medieval Ireland is often described as a backward-looking nation in which change only came about as a result of foreign invasions. By examining the wealth of under-explored evidence available, Downham challenges this popular notion and demonstrates what a culturally rich and diverse place medieval Ireland was. Starting in the fifth century, when St Patrick arrived on the island, and ending in the fifteenth century, with the efforts of the English government to defend the lands which it ruled directly around Dublin by building great ditches, this up-to-date and accessible survey charts the internal changes in the region. Chapters dispute the idea of an archaic society in a wide-range of areas, with a particular focus on land-use, economy, society, religion, politics and culture. This concise and accessible overview offers a fresh perspective on Ireland in the Middle Ages and overthrows many enduring stereotypes.

Irish history if often past and furious and nowhere more contentiously than when discussing religion. This book is designed to be read with equal profit by those who know a little and those who know a lot about the role of religion in Irish history. It moves at a fast pace, it is extensively illustrated with fresh images and maps, it draws on diverse evidence in multiple languages and it uses examples drawn from every county in Ireland. The volume covers commentators writing in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latin and Spanish. The focus is on the lived experience of real people in real places in real time, rather than on the abstractions of nationality, class and race. Because religion played such a decisive role in Irish life, the book is also an oblique-angle version of Irish history, conveying a sense of how we got to be where we are, even as we leave it behind.

Isle of the Saints recreates the harsh yet richly spiritual world of medieval Irish monks on the Christian frontier of barbarian Europe. Lisa Bitel draws on accounts of saints' lives written between 800 and 1200 to explain, from the monks' own perspective, the social networks that bound them to one another and to their secular neighbors.

Published in association with the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement and the American Society for Irish Medieval Studies, this exciting new book features twelve essays from an international panel of experts on religious landscapes. They explore the dynamic relationship between settlement and the church, spanning the dawn of Christianity, the Middle Ages and the post-medieval eras. Clearly written and profusely illustrated, this volume shows how, over the centuries, the church formed a core component of settlement and played a significant role in the creation of distinct cultural landscapes in Ireland. [Subjects: Medieval History; Irish History; Early Christianity]