This collection of studies on the history of Gaelic Ireland is the product of four years of an essay competition, sponsored jointly by the Standing Council of Irish Chiefs and Chieftains (Buanchomhairle Thaoisigh Éireann) and Clans of Ireland (Finte na hÉireann). The works represent the winning entries and superior quality essays from 2013 to 2016, and cover the period ranging from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries. The study themes range from political and social history to kinship and culture, relating to a selection of Gaelic Irish, Anglo-Norman and Scottish population groups who shared the island.

The first volume in this series, Gaelic Ireland (c.600-c.1700): politics, culture and landscapes, ed. Katharine Simms (Wordwell Press, 2013), was the fruit of a competition initiated by the Standing Council of Irish Chiefs and Chieftains, with the object of both encouraging research into Gaelic Ireland among budding postgraduate historians, and reaping the harvest of independent researchers, while always requiring a full academic apparatus of footnotes and bibliography.

The continuance of the competition, and the appearance of this second anthology under the joint sponsorship of Clans of Ireland and the Standing Council of Irish Chiefs and Chieftains, testifies to the success of the original project. The essay competition continues to this day and will hopefully go on to achieve its joint aims of spurring the interest of a rising generation of Irish researchers, and disseminating information about a somewhat understudied but vital part of our nation’s past.

Part I: Political and social history

1. An introduction to the free Gaelic people in English Ireland,

c. 1250–1307

Stephen Hewer (2015 prize)

2. An Irish context to a Scottish disaster: James IV, the O’Donnells of

Tyrconnell and the road to Flodden 

Simon Egan (2016 prize)

3. ‘It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend’: Barnaby

FitzPatrick and Gaelic collaboration with the Tudor crown, c. 1535–1581 

Diarmuid Wheeler

4. Burning their bridges: the opposition of the Gabhal Raghnaill and

Feagh Mac Hugh O’Byrne to the process of Anglicisation during the long 

sixteenth century 

Chris Lawlor (2013 prize)

5. Russell’s grudge: the demise of Feagh McHugh O’Byrne

Stephen Kestell

6. The strange tale of Mary Bux: ethnicity and identity in 1641

Gordon Bond

Part II: Chiefs and clans

7. A gallowglass clan: the Mac Cabes in Ireland

Brian McCabe

8. ‘Sr Richard Burk of the Newtowne knight otherwise called MacWilliam

Eighter’

Declan Keenan

9. Resurrecting an ancient chief

Gerry Moloney (2014 prize)

10. The unravelling of a Gaelic dynasty, 1446–1690

Eugene McMahon

Part III: Church, culture and craftwork

11. ‘From the cattle run to the Woods of Cluain’: a king’s circuit and the

birth of an archdiocese 

Ruairí Ó hAodha

12. A legacy of the munificence of Cathal Crubh Dearg O’Conor

(1153?–1224) towards the Irish church: a women’s story forgotten

Gerard Beggan

13. The Trinity College harp: the most exotic musical instrument in the

world! 

Brian Manners

14. A woman’s place: the functions of Queen Medb in Gaelic literature

Lora O’Brien

15. The Tallaght hills: a landscape of kingship and assembly

Colette Allen

16. In the footsteps of the noble Gael

Con Connor

ISBN: 978-1-9997909-2-9

160 pages illustrated

Paperback

€25

Hardback available click here

Publication date 10 April 2018

Size 235 x 155mm

Dr Joseph Mannion holds a PhD from NUI Galway, where his research interests focused on medieval and early modern Irish history.

Dr Katharine Simms is a Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin, where she was a Senior Lecturer in Medieval History.