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Tahdg O'Keeffe's lively and wide-ranging study addresses the need for a fresh archaeological study of medieval Ireland. Individual chapters re-examine such familiar themes as urban and rural settlement, military, domestic and ecclesiastical architecture, agriculture and craft, and trade and industry. Other topics discussed include diet, dress, burial rites, and entertainment. The cultural relations between the Gaelic Irish and English populations of medieval Ireland are explored throughout the book, as are Ireland's relations with her European neighbors. With its elegantly written text and numerous illustrations, this portrait of medieval Ireland will appeal to general readers as well as to students and professionals in the fields of archaeology, history, and historical geography.
Despite an ever-expanding literature on Irish castles, the relationships between the castle building tradition in Ireland and those of contemporary Europe have attracted very little attention among Irish scholars. This book seeks to remedy this by approaching the corpus of Irish castles as a non-Irish scholar might do. Is there a case for dating the first castles in Ireland to the tenth century in line with the revised chronology of castle-building on the Continent? Are castles in Ireland typical of their periods by contemporary standards in England and France in particular? Are any castles in Ireland genuinely innovative or radical by those contemporary standards? What inferences about Ireland's place in medieval Europe can be drawn from the evidence of its castles and their forms?
Irelands landscape is dotted with remains of medieval buildings, most of them in ruins. As works of architecture, these buildings have very specific stories to tell about the people who built them and about the societies in which they functioned, but it is hard for historians to hear those stories without some knowledge of architecture. This guide seeks to provide historians with the knowledge they need to tap into this great reservoir of information. It reviews the different types of medieval building that one encounters in Ireland, discusses their measurements, materials and construction techniques, explains their functions, and provides a checklist of datable features and includes a guide to recording buildings.
The crusades--a broad term encompassing a disparate series of military expeditions, with the avowed intent of preserving/expanding Christianity and the heterodoxy of the Roman Church--were a quintessential phenomenon of moral and religious life in medieval Europe. Traditionally, Ireland's connection with the crusades has been seen to be slight. In recent years, however, new research has begun to replace this view with a more nuanced picture. This is an interdisciplinary volume of essays from leading scholars working in this field, which re-examines Ireland's connection to the crusading movement in its many forms.
"The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the Plantation of Ulster. This timely book explores the concept of plantation as a model for explaining change in cultural and social behaviour in early modern Ireland. Focusing on the implications that the various plantation schemes had for economic development, architecture, landscape and ideology, essays touch upon issues including the representation of plantation in contemporary literature, the impact of new technologies, and the material manifestations of religious beliefs. Additional essays place Ightermurragh Castle, Co. Cork, in context; provide insight into famine and displacement in plantation-period Munster; examine the popularity of fortified houses during this time, as well as the cultural role of the alehouse; and finally closes with a look at the last stages of plantation in Ireland."--Publisher's description.
The Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Tristernagh played an important role in the Anglo-Norman colonisation of Meath. A fourteenth-century register allows us map the extent of its lands in the middle ages, and early drawings of its church explain why its demolition in the eighteenth century caused scandal.
"The Military and Hospitaller Orders emerged in the twelfth century as Christendom engaged with the threats and the opportunities offered by its Muslim and non-Christian neighbours. In an Irish context, the Knights Hospitaller and the Knights Templar were the most significant expressions of this unusual vocation that sought to combine military service with monastic observance. Arriving with the first Anglo-Norman settlers, the orders were granted vast landholdings and numerous privileges in Ireland to support their activities in Palestine and the Middle East. From the outset, the knights were closely associated with the administration of the Anglo-Irish colony, with the superior of the Hospi...
An introduction to the ways in which archaeologists study the recent past (c.AD 1500 to the present).
Although the most numerous and widespread of all the religious orders in medieval Ireland, the regular canons and canonesses have been somewhat neglected in Irish historiography. This collection, the proceedings of the 2017 Glenstal History Conference, examines the role of the canonical movement (those who followed the rule of St Augustine) in Ireland from its emergence as an expression of the Vita Apostolica in the twelfth century, through the dissolution of the monasteries in the Tudor period until its eventual disappearance in the early nineteenth century. This volume combines the evidence for the archaeology, architecture and history of the movement with that relating to its cultural, economic, liturgical, intellectual and pastoral activities. Between them, the contributors provide fascinating insights on a neglected aspect of Irish monastic history while situating it in a broader European ecclesial context.
As people move through life, they continually shift affiliation from one position to another, dependent on the wider contexts of their interactions. Different forms of material culture may be employed as affiliations shift, and the connotations of any given set of artifacts may change. In this volume the authors explore these overlapping spheres of social affiliation. Social actors belong to multiple identity groups at any moment in their life. It is possible to deploy one or many potential labels in describing the identities of such an actor. Two main axes exist upon which we can plot experiences of social belonging – the synchronic and the diachronic. Identities can be understood as mult...