This article focuses upon military mobility and movement in, around and out of Ireland in the eighteenth century, with a particular emphasis upon the Irish-associated regiments of the British army. While a great deal of attention has rightly been given to the Irish who served in foreign armies in the early modern period, especially after the Williamite–Jacobite war of 1689–91 and the flight of 12,000 ‘wild geese’ to the continent to continue to fight for James II in exile, a less dramatic and more quotidian movement of soldiers around Ireland and in and out of the country became a regular occurrence in the eighteenth century. Traditionally overlooked by historians in favour of the aforementioned proto-nationalist ‘wild geese’ and their fellow-travellers, the movement of soldiers of the British army around and in and out of Ireland as part of the imperial project of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has in fact left a much more visible impact upon Ireland, both in terms of infrastructure and demography. Commencing with the rules regarding the movement of soldiers around the newly established country-wide barracks network in early eighteenth-century Ireland, this article then examines the movement of the Irish-associated regiments of the British army both around Ireland and overseas.
Despite decades of research on Bronze Age metallurgy in Europe, the development of Ireland’s metalwork production and underpinning supply networks remains comparatively understudied, particularly in terms of large-scale analytical datasets capable of capturing regional and temporal variability. Addressing this gap, this study presents new data on metal production in Ireland during the Bronze Age, based on the chemical analysis of 105 metal artefacts from a variety of archaeological contexts. The analysed objects originate from multiple sites across the island, represent a range of typological categories, and are chronologically attributed to the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1550–1140 BCE) and the Late Bronze Age (c. 1140–800 BCE). The analytical results indicate that most artefacts were produced from bronze alloys (Cu-Sn) with relatively low concentrations of secondary elements. However, some objects exhibited higher lead (Pb) content, suggesting its occasional deliberate use in Irish metallurgy. Overall, the data reveal a technological continuity from the end of the Early Bronze Age through approximately eight centuries, from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age, with minimal significant changes in chemical composition. The main exceptions to this trend are discussed in detail, providing insights into the variability of metallurgical practices in use. By integrating a substantial corpus of new compositional data, this study refines our understanding of metallurgical continuity and innovation in Ireland, and situates it within broader European technological trajectories, thereby contributing to ongoing debates on craft organisation and cultural interaction during the Bronze Age.
This paper provides for the first time a description and interpretation of the metal shoe commonly referred to as the shrine of St Brigid’s shoe. Associated with Loughrea, Co. Galway, the shoe was acquired by George Petrie before 1845 and is now held as part of the Royal Irish Academy collection by the National Museum of Ireland. Four key findings are presented. First, that the date inscribed on the shoe, ostensibly 1410, is in fact 1710 and refers to the year of its manufacture. Second, that the shoe is unlikely to have been a reliquary but was a surrogate in devotional terms. Third, that the shoe is specifically derivative of a seventeenth-century shoe-shaped reliquary preserved at Asti in northern Italy. Fourth, that an inscription on the shoe carries a political message in defiance of contemporary legislation. The shoe is discussed throughout with reference to the medieval cult of St Brigid and to wider Irish tradition.
Despite many discoveries and developments in the archaeology of the Mesolithic (both developer-and research-led) in Ireland in the past 30 years, representations remain somewhat influenced by the legacy of a few key sites excavated by a few people in the early days of the discipline. The 1946 and 1948 excavation of three 'shell middens' by Frank Mitchell in Rockmarshall, Co. Louth, on a moraine overlooking Dundalk Bay, has contributed to create and solidify the image of a coastal Later Mesolithic in Ireland, along with the shell-bearing sites of Sutton and Dalkey Island, Co. Dublin. In this paper we reappraise the original data available (archives, lithics analysis) and present the outcomes of a new campaign of archaeological and geoarchaeological survey aimed at reassessing the state of knowledge and archaeological potential of the site using contemporary methods. Results indicate that a substantial part of the shell layers excavated by the original excavator still survives in situ, and identify a discrete accumulation of shells that was previously unrecorded. More widely, the 'midden' category itself masks differences between shell-bearing layers and sites that question their mooted monumentality, and overlooks commonalities across shell-and non-shell-bearing sites in the last two millennia of the Mesolithic period.
This study explores the connection between changing environmental and climatic conditions and dynastic conflict in late medieval Ireland, with a particular focus on the Ui Dhomhnaill (O'Donnell) dynasty in the kingdom of Tir Chonaill. By drawing on a range of paleoclimatic and historical sources, the study examines how the onset of the Little Ice Age after 1300 may have contributed to reduced agricultural output in this marginal region, thus intensifying competition among its ruling elites and their expansive networks of clients and kin. Traditionally, studies of segmentary conflict amongst Gaelic elites have focused on the more immediate political and interpersonal drivers of such conflicts. This study examines how the two great late medieval periods of conflict that split the Ui Dhomhnaill coincided with the two major medieval cold phases of the Little Ice Age. By using the Ui Dhomhnaill as a case study, this study proposes that the politics of Late Medieval Ireland was deeply affected by changes in the natural world, upon which the agricultural systems that underpinned Gaelic political and social structures relied.
This is the first comprehensive overview of the cross-slabs of Clonmacnoise in more than a century. The collection comprises c. 720 monuments and fragments thereof dating to the period c. 700-1200. While they are relatively simple, requiring a modest amount of investment, their sheer number is remarkable. It was unusual in northwest Europe for an early medieval community to invest in stone memorials for a significant proportion of its dead, and for some of its royal benefactors, over such a long period. This collection can contribute significantly to our understanding of the evolving relationship between the living and the dead, and of concepts of memory, salvation and community. Building on existing records and substantial survey work, we present a detailed typology of the corpus and an analysis of its chronology. This indicates a high rate of production in the period c. 700-850, while the mid-ninth century into the tenth saw the production of the finest of Clonmacnoise's slabs, coinciding with the erection of its finest high crosses. Production continued after 1000, and probably after 1100, albeit at a reduced rate, but by 1200 Clonmacnoise had ceased to be the innovative centre of stone-carving of centuries past. We consider what these fluctuations may reveal about the character and identity of this community, and the waxing and waning of its fortunes, over the course of half a millennium.
Excavations of a portal tomb at Tirnony, Co. Derry/Londonderry in 2010 and 2011 revealed a surprisingly dynamic monument with evidence for Neolithic ritual. The excavation uncovered pre-tomb pits, a disturbed stone floor, and primary tomb deposits, containing Neolithic pottery, flint tools, struck quartz and possible hammer-stones. There were indications of the sequence of construction of the elements of the tomb, and of interruptions, of unquantified duration, in the tomb's development potentially revealing a dynamic, multi-phase monument. Radiocarbon dates obtained from excavated material place the commencement of activity at Tirnony in the 38th to 40th century BC. After initial Early Neolithic activity at Tirnony there were sporadic indications of further activity with radiocarbon dates from the interior of the tomb suggesting Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, Iron Age and Late Medieval reuse. Our findings add to a growing body of evidence for a phase of Early Neolithic activity pre-dating the rectangular house horizon of around 3700 BC, and confirm, as already suggested by the dating of Poulnabrone, Co. Clare, that portal tombs appear at an early stage of the Irish Neolithic.
Most scholars believe that Spenser’s View was written in 1596. This study indicates that it is a 1596 amalgamation of two elements: one drafted about 1589 when an optimistic Spenser portrayed the controversial actions of Lord Grey de Wilton in Ireland as a humanist enterprise; the other composed in 1596 when a panic-stricken Spenser, believing England’s control over Ireland to be in jeopardy, argued for the appointment of a new governor, backed by a fresh cohort of English Protestant officials, who would revive the abandoned policies of Grey. Each element of the text proposed actions that may have seemed extreme to educated people in England. However, it is shown how the successive denigration by Spenser’s interlocutors of the Gaelic, the Old English and the English Protestant elements of Ireland’s population, reflected opinions that were widespread among English settlers in Ireland. For them experience was the most reliable source of knowledge.
This paper examines the occurrence of bishops of Irish dioceses among the grantors of so-called ‘collective indulgences’ at Avignon between 1322 and 1363 and attempts to demonstrate how these indulgences can facilitate our knowledge of the episcopate in Ireland during the fourteenth century. Over 140 references to Irish bishops have been collected and are discussed, along with twenty occurrences of bishops from Scotland for the same period, plus a handful of Scottish and Welsh bishops named in indulgences from the late thirteenth century. The paper discusses the nature of the Avignon collective indulgences and uses these documents to help reconstruct the movements and careers of the Irish prelates in question. The second part of the paper offers a more detailed consideration of the controversial bishopric of Annaghdown during the first half of the fourteenth century, in the light of the testimony of the indulgences. This case study also highlights problems relating to the collective indulgences as primary sources themselves, including their reliability. An appendix listing the occurrences of Irish and Scottish bishops in collective indulgences is provided, arranged by diocese, and additional data about individual bishops is provided there.
The chronological and typological frameworks used to describe the Mesolithic of Ireland and of Britain have developed along divergent paths. This has encouraged scholars to treat the areas as distinctive—especially in the Irish context, where changes within the Mesolithic are often understood as insular, sui generis developments. On the basis of two independent reviews of the chronologies of the Mesolithic in Britain (Conneller and colleagues) and Ireland (Warren and colleagues), we highlight considerable similarities between the areas—not least in social processes driving material changes. On this basis we propose aligning the terminology used for the Mesolithic across these islands
Ogam is well known as a writing system invented for the Irish language and used extensively for inscriptions on stone monuments across Ireland and Britain between the late fourth and seventh centuries. Although the script has primarily been examined in the context of early medieval archaeology and epigraphy, its long afterlife as an integral part of Irish manuscript culture from the medieval to modern periods has also been acknowledged. The present contribution seeks to add to the existing scholarship on manuscript ogam by discussing the transmission of ideas about the script as a cryptic device into the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on a recently discovered notebook, National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh) Advocates’ Manuscript 50.3.11 (or ‘The Minchin Manuscript’), which consists almost entirely of healing charms written in ogam.
The lordship of Ireland existed for 364 years from 1177 to 1541. Inhabited mostly by the English-of-Ireland, its medical infrastructure resembled contemporary England rather than Gaelic Ireland. The medical marketplace comprised physicians, surgeons, barber-surgeons, apothecaries and midwives, some organised into societies and guilds. Monastic infirmaries and hospitals, including leper hospitals, provided institutional care. Medical practice was rooted in classical medicine and the few Hiberno-English medical texts that survive attest to the use of bleeding, herbs and charms as treatments. Among many ailments leprosy was common, but the arrival of the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic of 1348 decimated the population of the lordship and contributed to its eventual decline. Using historical, archaeological and literary sources this paper analyses the experience of medicine, illness and disease among the people of the lordship of Ireland from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
The archives of religious organisations are some of the most significant, contested and least accessible repositories in Ireland. The decreasing size of the country's Roman Catholic religious congregations and the reorganisation of dioceses means that these archives also represent some of the island's most endangered collections. Aiming to address the need for more transparency about these repositories and to raise awareness of their vulnerability, this research presents the findings of a survey of Irish religious archives that was carried out in the Spring/ Summer of 2022. Divided into four sections, the findings provide quantitative data about a range of subjects, such as the content of repositories, the training level of staff, and the distribution of their work. In addition, the paper presents qualitative information about what it is like to work in a religious archive, what people in these roles find difficult or interesting, and what meaning they, and the organisations they work for, attach to their records. The paper brings into relief the significance that many of those working in religious archives attach to the provision of access and the barriers to this process, such as resourcing and organisational culture. Drawing on international comparators, the paper highlights some of the central challenges facing contemporary religious archives in Ireland. It also highlights the need for a concerted effort to realise the opportunities that exist to preserve and increase access to these resources.
Trivallate enclosures are extremely rare in Ireland and very few have been subject to archaeological excavation to date. Accordingly, there is a paucity of knowledge regarding their chronology, relationships to nearby contemporary sites and role within society. In 2017/2018, archaeological fieldwork carried out in advance of a road development on the N70 near Milltown in Co. Kerry afforded the opportunity to examine a former trivallate ringfort known as Lissaniska (Lios an Uisce; fort of the water). Excavation focused on the northern extent of the three ditches, revealing water management features and a side channel in the inner ditch containing a series of troughs or pits. The latter were interpreted as likely used for retting flax, perhaps also nettle. This was supported by the identification of flax and nettle pollen, a flax sheaf, and an insect assemblage that indicated temporary standing water mixed with decaying plant detritus. An important assemblage of well-preserved discarded structural wood and wooden vessels, both carved and stave-built, were also recovered from the inner ditch, hinting at the everyday life of those that once lived and worked here. Scientific dating of the site indicated it was built and occupied between the sixth/seventh and ninth centuries AD, while historical research offered insight into the contemporary political and social landscape. This suggested the site was likely part of the estate of Cell Achaid Coinchinn (Killagh), the chief church of the Mag Coinchinn, which was a local or petty kingdom in the regional kingdom of Corcu Duibne. It could therefore be speculated that Lissaniska was linked to the manufacture of linen, perhaps for the associated ecclesiastical community.
The Digital Atlas of Early Irish Carved Stone (DAEICS) seeks to record and map key traits of carved stone monuments of late prehistoric and early medieval date, providing fresh perspectives on stone-carving over the course of a millennium. First, however, the question of chronology must be addressed, so here we reassess the potential of Latinate inscriptions as a dating tool. Rather than a comprehensive treatment of palaeography and language, we focus, first, on the small number of monuments that commemorate historically identifiable individuals and, second, on the chronological implications of the use or non-use of formulae, proposing new termini post quem for different variations. We also show that the appearance of Gilla- compound personal names on inscriptions allows the monuments in question to be dated to after 950 CE. The implications of the inscriptions for the date-ranges of some specific cross-forms are explored, above all with respect to the singularly large collection of carved stone monuments at Clonmacnoise, which we argue was the only site in Ireland where stone-carving was sustained over several centuries. Using the dateable inscriptions, we demonstrate that there was a general increase in the average size of recumbent grave-markers between 600 and 1200 CE, a trend indicative of changing strategies of commemoration that has important implications for the chronology of these monuments, especially those that cannot readily be dated on other criteria. This refined chronology will facilitate further research on the key questions raised by these monuments, including patterns of patronage and resource investment, the varied identities of ecclesiastical communities, and networks of carvers and churches.
This paper traces the longue dureé architectural history of Cong Abbey, Co. Mayo. It demonstrates how patterns of change, echoed in medieval religious houses across Ireland, can mislead the interpretation of medieval remains. The thirteenth-century church was transeptal in form. The demolition of the north transept and conversion of the south transept to a fortified tower in the late sixteenth century has hitherto obscured this. Conversion of the east range of the cloister into a manor house in the early seventeenth century involved the movement of carved features from other areas of the site. From at least the early eighteenth century, worship was reinstated at the abbey in a thatched mass house located at the south-east corner of the abbey complex. The preservation of the abbey buildings as a Romantic ruin in the late nineteenth century added further difficulties to the interpretation of the remains. As the complex, multi-layered history of the buildings was improperly understood, ‘replica’ historical features were added that may never have originally existed. These changes were not recorded and have subsequently further confused interpretation of the medieval elements of the buildings.
This paper presents the results of the first detailed archaeological survey of the Hill of Skreen, an important multiperiod site that is closely linked-topographically, historically, and symbolically-with the Hill of Tara, 3km to its west. Skreen's early ancestry as a burial ground laid a foundation for the establishment, in or before 976, of a church dedicated to Colum Cille ( Scr & iacute;n Columb Chille) and, some two hundred years later, an Anglo-Norman manor. Few extant remains of pre-Anglo-Nor man date survive and, beyond the Columban church and motte marking the caput of the manor granted to Adam de Feypo, an array of low-relief earthworks provides the only visible trace of an associated settlement. High-resolution aerial and geophysical surveys conducted as part of the Discovery Programme's Tara Research Project, combined with documentary and cartographic evidence, reveal the wider imprint of past occupation at Skreen in remarkable detail. There is now evidence to suggest that the church is circumscribed by a large, subrectangular enclosure and that this putative ecclesiastical boundary may be an original feature of the Columban foundation. The Anglo-Norman manorial settlement that developed around the church and castle, moreover, is shown to be far more extensive, and indeed significant, than previously recognised. The core area of the medieval village of Skreen, extending to more than 30ha, was demarcated by an earthwork boundary, of hexagonal plan, and encompassed a complex network of roads, property divisions, domestic and agricultural buildings, enclosures and fields. These bear witness to the vibrant and dynamic 'market settlement' of which we catch such intriguing glimpses in contemporary historical records. Skreen thus presents a case study of particular relevance to the field of medieval settlement studies, with significant potential for further research.
Brigit of Kildare is the first Irish saint to be celebrated in detail by Irish writers. Her cult enjoyed great depth and popularity. Nevertheless, Brigit’s very existence has been doubted; she has been recast as a pre-Christian goddess despite an overwhelming disparity in evidence. This paper reframes our approaches to the origins of her cult through examining how the earliest writers understood her and made her real for their audiences, real through shaping her sanctity, her historicity and her family relationships. They placed Brigit along a gender continuum where sanctity intersected biology. Yet, Brigit has been treated differently to Irish male saints, becoming a secondary character in her own biographies, reductively overshadowed by a barely attested goddess. It is time for a revitalised appreciation of Brigit as an actual woman, depicted by her first hagiographers as pushing against the grain of an elitist and patriarchal society.
This paper contextualises an original, hitherto overlooked, charter of Robert Poher that sheds new light on King Henry II’s overlordship in Ireland. From its text it may be inferred that Henry infringed on the rights of Strongbow as lord of Leinster by granting Robert Poher land that was to be held by him and his heirs directly of the king and his heirs. The charter dates from around the time of a royal council held at Oxford in 1177 when, in the wake of Strongbow’s death, Henry II made a tripartite custodial division of the military services owing from Leinster. Henry’s action predates the better-known encroachments on the prerogative rights of the lord of Leinster by his son, John, following the assumption in 1185 by the latter’s personal household of responsibility for Angevin lordship in Ireland.
This article considers how the idea of the ‘Celt’ came into being and how the term was leveraged both in service of racism and as a tool for constructing ethnic and political identities. ‘Celt’ is a broad category and this paper focuses specifically on Ireland. Definitions of Celticity came from both within and outside Irish culture and had a diversity of aims. This paper provides a necessary overview of the history of this broad and kaleidoscopic term. It will equip scholars with a better understanding of its use throughout history, particularly in the early twentieth century. After outlining the development of the ‘Celt’ as a racial and cultural category, the paper considers the meaning of Celticity as Ireland approached independence, with particular attention to the revolutionary era, c. 1913–23. The article examines the interplay between Anglo-Irish and revolutionary understandings of the ‘Celt’, and how the idea of a Celtic race was deployed selectively in diverse political and cultural contexts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In some contexts, the word emphasised solidarity with global independence movements and anti-racist struggles, whilst in others it bolstered the logic of white supremacy. Rather than focusing solely on new engagements with primary texts, one of the aims of this article is to synthesise existing research into a broader narrative of ever-changing classifications and identities. Examining the meanings and uses of this kaleidoscopic term enhances our understanding of Irish identity in a period of political transition.
