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Anglophone historians are generally familiar with a handful of treatises on Tudor Ireland, notably Edmund Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland. Yet it is less known that there were over six hundred of these treatises written on Ireland during the sixteenth century, and that there is substantial reason to believe that one of the most significant of these was A Breviat of the Conquest of Ireland and of the Decay of the Same written by Patrick Finglas during the reign of Henry VIII. This work of historical analysis and prescriptive policy advice was the most widely read treatise on Ireland during the sixteenth century and is a key text in the formation of the early modern British state. This paper examines Finglas's text and argues for its critical importance in determining how officials and senior ministers viewed Ireland and formulated policy for it during the sixteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government's incursion into the midlands lordships of the O'Connors and O'Mores in 1546 is often identified as the root of the Tudor conquest of Ireland. Conversely, the years from 1535 to 1546 have been depicted as a period wherein a conciliatory approach to Gaelic Ireland was favoured. This paper argues that the origins of the Tudor conquest lie in the 1530s following the Kildare Rebellion. At this time a majority of senior officials in Ireland urged the regional conquest of the lordships of the O'Byrnes, O'Tooles and MacMurrough Kavanaghs in Wicklow and Carlow. This strategy was not adopted as Henry VIII refused to finance such a costly endeavour. Consequently a cheap political alternative now known as 'surrender and regrant' was briefly adopted in the early 1540s. However in 1546 the officials whofavoured regional intervention in Leinster succeeded in initiating an incursion into the midlands. In light of the links between the campaign for the reduction of south Leinster in the 1530s and the incursion into the midlands in 1546. this paper argues that the origins of the Tudor conquest of Ireland can be traced to the campaign for the reduction of south Leinster in the mid-1530s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the clergy in counties Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare in Ireland between 1400-1540, focusing on how the Irish clergy in the region helped foster cooperation between the Irish and English in the counties listed. Other topics include the popularity of Irish clergy in British controlled areas of Ireland, the role of archdiocese in employing Irish clergy, and how Irish clergy helped spread the Irish language and customs through the British colony.

This article re-examines King John’s persecution and eventual destruction of his former friend, William de Briouze, a signal example of John’s tyranny on the eve of Magna Carta. Approaching the episode from the transnational perspective of the two men involved, the study uncovers the roots of their dispute in King John’s attempts to introduce English-style royal rule to Ireland. Desperate to extract what he could from his insular possessions following the loss of Normandy in 1204, John’s attempts to increase his authority in Ireland provoked a violent response from its greatest magnates in 1207. John lost this lesser-known baronial revolt, but the most prudent of his barons soon came to terms with him. Not so William de Briouze, who, we are told had his Irish honour of Limerick seized for refusing a summons to court. From that point Briouze’s fall was sudden and violent. King John hounded him across England and Wales, forcing him into a desperate rebellion and exile in Ireland. But 1207 had shown the limit of John’s power, and Briouze was sheltered for two years by his fellow Irish magnates. King John’s expedition to Ireland in 1210 was to finish the business of 1207, and firmly stamp English royal control on Ireland.increase his authority in Ireland provoked a violent response from its greatest magnates in 1207 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a re-evaluation of the notorious Statute of Kilkenny by placing it within a broader context of English state development in the fourteenth century. It argues that the Statute needs to be understood as part of a wider political and legislative programme shaped by military expansionism and the upheaval of the Black Death. Although racially motivated, at least in part, the Statute should not be seen as attempting to engineer a form of apartheid in Anglo- Ireland. Rather it was representative of a broader governing culture and compares closely with legislation enforced not only in the other Plantagenet dominions but also in England itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses and presents a vassalage contract or charter dating from 1207 written by Hugh II de Lacy, earl of Ulster, Ireland, to aristocrat and landowner Hugh Hose, lord of Deece in Meath, Ireland and of Penkridge, in Staffordshire, England. It comments on aspects of the charter including the holding clause and a record of witness, and also explores the use of Irish place-names. The author addresses the preservation of this document, noting that a transcript is included in a manuscript by seventeenth century historian Sir James Ware.

The article discusses a feud between lord deputy of Ireland Anthony St. Leger and Irish nobleman James Butler, ninth earl of Ormond, focusing on the years 1544 to 1546. It comments on appeals to English King Henry VIII and the English privy council. The author explores royal authority in Ireland, Anglo-Irish relations, and the factionalization of politics according two loyalties to either of the two men. Political relations between Ormond and St. Leger are explored, including early cooperation and reasons for later competition.

New evidence from a series of 11 Bristol customs accounts indicates that Irish consumption patterns underwent significant changes over the course of the sixteenth century. This article considers the use of the Bristol 'particular' accounts and port books as a source for Irish material culture and consumption studies and uses the customs data as a statistical framework on which to establish how, why, and to what extent patterns of consumption changed in Ireland. It considers who was consuming the increasing range of commodities that were imported into Ireland from Bristol towards the end of the century, and what changing consumption patterns may reveal about the nature of Ireland's economy, society, and culture during this critical period in Irish history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the analysis of three important texts-Gerald of Wales's Topographia Hibernica, the poem known as both The Song of Dermot and the Earl and The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland, and the 1367 Statutes of Kilkenny-this article seeks to demonstrate that characterizations of the Irish by the English during the first centuries of conquest and settlement established the Irish as differently gendered from the English. This is shown through the use of terms that define the Irish as sexually, socially, and culturally deviant, as unmanly and emasculated, and as legally and culturally inferior even to English women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses relations between two Angevin Kings of England, brothers Richard I and John, and barons such as Walter de Lacy, who supported them financially. De Lacy inherited property in England, Ireland, and Normandy upon the death of his father in 1186. His contentious relations with John over lands in Ireland and Richard over lands in England and Normandy are detailed. The kings relied on income from taxing and fining barons to fund their overseas military campaigns. John succeeded Richard upon his death in 1199 and attempted to create a balance of power in his realm by manipulating the holdings of de Lacy and two other barons, William de Burgh and William de Braose. De Lacy's involvement in political and military conflicts in Ireland in the early 1200s is also detailed.

In the process of state formation, representative institutions often serve as a primary arena in which authority is ‘negotiated’ between princes and subjects—or, in the case of colonial legislatures, between the agents of metropolitan governments and settler elites. The medieval Irish parliament falls into the latter category. It was an assembly of English colonists in Ireland presided over by a chief governor, who held the place of the king of England. The present essay investigates the process of ‘negotiation’ in the Irish parliament between c.1370 and 1420. It shows how parliament served both as a source of legitimation for unpopular chief governors and, conversely, as a forum for expressing the grievances of the settler community. The essay explores the complex structure of colonial politics by locating parliament within a matrix of institutions linking Ireland to England; and, in the final section, the discussion moves into the world of political ideas. The underlying issue that it seeks to address is how ‘parliamentarianism’ helped to shape the political identity of the colony. Expressions of dissent in parliament drew heavily upon English political traditions. To that extent Irish parliamentary disputes reinforced the Englishness of the colony's political culture; but, in a paradox familiar from later colonial situations, the rhetoric of English liberty was frequently turned against the crown's own representatives. Thus it is argued that the conflicts played out in the medieval Irish parliament acted as a catalyst in the crystallization of a distinctively colonial identity among the English of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the political climate amongst English nobleman in Ireland in the 1300s and 1400s. Feuds among Irish noble families during this period, particularly the feud between the Fitzgerald family of Kildare and the Butler family of Kilkenny, are described in detail. Characteristics of lordship in feudal Ireland in the absence of the king of England are considered. Efforts of the Irish Parliament and English court to combat antagonisms among the ruling classes of Ireland are noted.

The article discusses the role of English marcher lineages, or those families not of Gaelic descent who settled in the area comprising south County Dublin, Ireland, in shaping the boundaries of what would by 1500 be known as the English Pale. The successful incorporation of south Dublin's marcher lineages into the expanding English state demonstrates the difference between acculturation and political loyalty.

Studies the medieval history of the county Ireland community of Louth in the broader `British' context. Re-evaluation of the nature of English power in the lordship; Magnate influence in the local government; Activities of the Louth gentry in 1313 and 1329; Louth as a frontier and heartland of English authority in England; Fundamental political transformation which left power in the hands of the local gentry.