K.W. Nicholls - Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle Ages

This book consists of two distinct parts. The first section is devoted to a general account of the society and institutions of Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland during the later middle ages, so far as the available evidence permits us to reconstruct them. The available materials on the economic condition of the country are unfortunately so scanty that no adequate picture can be drawn and I have designedly left aside literature and art, partly from consideration of space but principally because these aspects, unlike the political and legal structure, have been already the subject of a considerable degree of published work. Some other sections, especially on the Church, have been regretfully omitted due to exigencies of space: I hope to publish some material on them elsewhere. The second portion of the work consists of a brief history of those regions of Ireland outside the control of the English administration during the same period.

Both sections of this work, with the exception of a few short paragraphs on specialised matters, are based almost entirely on original research, largely among unprinted sources, a fact which creates a number of problems for a work of a popular nature without footnotes or critical apparatus.

If one might coin an epigram, Gaelic Ireland in its later period has been as unfortunate in its historiography as it was in its history. Not only has there been a destruction of source material perhaps unparalleled in western Europe, when one adds to the destruction of the Irish Public Records in 1922 the destruction of private archives which has continued unabated down to the present day, but the subject itself, the history and institutions of Gaelic Ireland during its latest period, has been left almost entirely untouched by those who have concerned themselves with the history of Ireland. A few schematic generalisations, grounded not in research on the sources but on deductions from the conditions of an earlier age, have too often been the substitute for a detailed investigation of the actual society itself. That neither the society and institutions of late medieval Ireland nor the individual history of the various regions has up to now been the subject of a work of scholarly value might seem surprising to anyone unacquainted with the limitations of Irish historiography, especially when he notes that what seemed to have been a promising beginning had been made in the early and mid-nineteenth century. The explanation must be sought in a number of causes, not all of them in the world of learning, but certainly a most important factor in this neglect was the dichotomy which developed and still exists in Ireland between the fields of historical and Celtic studies.

The present work could therefore be described in the words used with infinitely less justification than in the present instance by Professor Otway-Ruthven to describe her HistoryofMedievalIreland, as an interim report on my work on Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland, its society and institutions . The popular work has in this case come before the learned monograph; for the defects which must necessarily arise from this inversion of the normal order, as well as for the imbalance which considerations of space have imposed in certain parts, I beg the readers forbearance.

I must express my gratitude to Dr Gearid Mac Niocaill, who drew my attention to some slips in my original draft of chapters 2 and 3.

The Crown copyright material quoted in this work appears by permission of the controller of Her Majestys Stationery Office.

K.W.Nicholls,July1971