Abstract
This then I note as a great defect in the Civill policy of this kingdom, in that for the space of 350 yeares at least after the Conquest first attempted, the English lawes were not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit and protection therof allowed unto them, though they earnestly desired and sought the same. For, as long as they were out of the protecion of the Lawe, so as every English-man might oppresse, spoyle, and kill them without controulment, howe was it possible they shoulde bee other then Out-lawes & Enemies to the Crown of England? If the King woulde not admit them to the condition of Subiects, how could they learn to acknoledge and obey him as their Soveraigne? When they might not converse or Commerce with any Civill men, nor enter into any Towne or Citty without perrill of their Lives; whither should they flye but into the Woods and Mountaines, and there live in a wilde and barbarous maner? … In a word, if the English woulde neither in peace Governe them by the Law, nor could in War root them out by the sword; must they not needes bee prickes in their eyes, and thornes in their sides, till the worlds end? and so the Conquest never bee brought to perfection.1
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Notes and references
Sir John Davies, A Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely Subdued, and Brought under the Obedience of the Crowne of England, untill the Beginning of his Majesties happie Raigne (London: John Jaggard, 1612), pp. 116–18.
The classic discussion of the significance of the Viking incursions is D. A. Binchy, ‘The passing of the old order’, in Brian O Cuív (ed.), The Impact of the Scandinavian Invasions on the Celticspeaking Peoples c. 800–1100 AD, Proceedings of the [First] International Congress of Celtic Studies (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1975), 119–32.
For discussion, see Katharine Simms, From Kings to Warlords. The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1987), chap. 1.
Francis John Byrne, ‘Senchas: the nature of Gaelic historical tradition’, Historical Studies, 9 (1974), 159.
See, for example, Eric St J. Brooks (ed.), Knights’ Fees in Counties Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1950);
H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles, The Irish Parliament in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952);
G. J. Hand, English Law in Ireland, 1290–1324 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967).
Aubrey Gwynn, The Medieval Province of Armagh, 1470–1545 (Dundalk: Dundalgan Press, 1946); some of Fr Gwynn’s more important articles have been brought together in the collection The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1993). John A. Watt has produced two monographs devoted to ecclesiastical affairs, The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), and The Church in Medieval Ireland (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1972).
See Art Cosgrove, Late Medieval Ireland, 1370–1541 (Dublin: Helicon, 1981) and,
for example, Steven G. Ellis, Reform and Revival: English Government in Ireland, 1470–1534 (London: Boydell & Brewer, 1984); idem, Tudor Ireland: Crown, Community and the Conflict of Cultures, 1470–1603 (London: Longman, 1985); idem, Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power. The Making of the British State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).
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© 1997 Seán Duffy
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Duffy, S. (1997). Introduction. In: Ireland in the Middle Ages. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25171-1_1
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