Walking through Dublin Castle or along the surviving medieval city walls, you can see only glimpses of what it would have been like to live in the city centuries ago. Tales of Medieval Dublin provides a chance for modern audiences to meet the Irish, Norse, and English men and women who lived in this colorful medieval city, and to hear their fascinating stories. While providing the most up-to-date research, the 14 tales in this book are written to appeal to anyone interested in the city's past. They span almost 1,000 years of Dublin 's history and trace the lives of warriors, churchmen, queens, bards, and barons, as well as those individuals who are so often ignored in the historical record, like housewives, tax collectors, masons, lawyers, notaries, peasants, and slaves. This volume serves both as a history of the medieval city, and as a window into the day-to-day lives of the men and women who lived there.

This volume contains a wealth of new research on Dublin's medieval past, including paired papers by Joseph Harbison and Rene Gapert that re-examine skulls found on the site of the Hospital of St John the Baptist, Thomas Street. Alan Hayden reports on his excavation of property plots fronting onto Kevin Street and New Street and what they tell us about the supposed fourteenth-century decline of Dublin, and Aisling Collins explains the significant findings from the dig of the church and graveyard at St James's. Antoine Giacometti examines a medieval tanning quarter that showcases leatherworking and shoemaking in medieval Dublin, complementing work by John Nicholl that analyses footwear styles in the late medieval city based on evidence excavated from Chancery Lane. This aspect of life is illustrated too in the findings of Paul Duffy's excavations in Thomas Street, which reveal a great deal about crafts in the western suburb of medieval Dublin. Franc Myles reports on the findings of his excavation at Keysar's Lane beside St Audeon's church in High Street, including some fascinatingly decorated medieval floor tiles; Jon Stirland reports on the discovery of two parallel ditches of possible early medieval/medieval date located to the rear of nos 19-22 Aungier Street; and Edmond O'Donovan describes his discoveries while excavating in the internal courtyard at the site of the Bank of Ireland at College Green, marked on Speed's 1610 map of Dublin as 'the hospital'. Historical papers include Denis Casey's analysis of Dublin's economy in its twelfth-century Irish context and Brian Coleman's study of taxation and resistance in fifteenth-century Dublin. Thomas W. Smith shines light on papal provisions to ecclesiastical benefices in thirteenth-century Dublin, while Stephen Hewer examines the oldest surviving original court roll of the Dublin bench, dating from 1290.

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.

Tales of the Elders of Irelandis the first complete translation of the late Middle-IrishAcallam na Sen rach, the largest literary text surviving from twelfth-century Ireland. It contains the earliest and most comprehensive collection of Fenian stories and poetry, intermingling the contemporary Christian world of Saint Patrick with his scribes; clerics; occasional angels and souls rescued from Hell; the earlier pagan world of the ancient, giant Fenians and Irish kings; and the parallel, timeless Otherworld (peopled by ever-young, shape-shifting fairies). This readable, lucid new translation is based on existing manuscript sources and is richly annotated, complete with an Introduction discussing the place of theAcallamin Irish tradition and the impact of the Fenian or Ossianic tradition on English and European literature. About the Series:For over 100 yearsOxford World's Classicshas made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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.