Medieval Ireland

ARMAGH (Medieval Ireland)

Armagh (Ard Macha) became the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland in the middle ages, its status based on its supposed associations with Patrick. Prehistory Historians have been tempted to associate Armagh’s emergence as Ireland’s premier Christian center with a pre-Christian cultic legacy reflected by a sizable collection of stone carvings at Armagh, though the provenance of […]

ARMAGH, BOOK OF (Medieval Ireland)

A vellum manuscript consisting originally of 222 folios (c. 195 x 145 mm; folios 1 and 41-44 are now missing) in three parts: The first contains a dossier of texts mostly in Latin but partly in Old Irish, comprising almost all the earliest biographical and historical materials relating to St. Patrick; the second part is […]

ARMIES (Medieval Ireland)

Armies in Ireland trace their origins to the legendary Fianna and their leader Finn mac Cumaill. From at least the eleventh century, the Irish kings maintained small permanent fighting forces later known as their teaghlach or lucht tighe—meaning "troops of the household." These were well-equipped and were divided into footmen and marcshluag (cavalry). Highly skilled […]

BARDIC SCHOOLS, LEARNED FAMILIES (Medieval Ireland)

Before the Twelfth-Century Church Reform Although Julius Caesar mentions large schools run by druids for the youth of Celtic Gaul in the first century b.c.e., we know little or nothing about the education of poets and other men of learning in early Ireland before the eighth century c.e. Around this period, Liam Breatnach has argued, […]

BERMINGHAM (Medieval Ireland)

The medieval Irish lineage of Bermingham (in the sixteenth century, sometimes written Brimegham) was a branch of a knightly family resident at Birmingham in England. The first to appear in Ireland was Robert de Bermingham, to whom Earl Richard "Strongbow" granted the Irish kingdom of Offaly. Although Robert left only a daughter and heiress Eva, […]

BIBLICAL AND CHURCH FATHERS SCHOLARSHIP (Medieval Ireland)

Irish activity in biblical studies can properly be said to have begun with St. Patrick in the fifth century. The saint’s writings rely heavily on scripture, particularly the Epistles of Paul, which Patrick cites effectively to illustrate his own situation as an exile. Apart from Patrick’s writings, the fifth century remains dark, and there is […]

BLACK DEATH (Medieval Ireland)

Ireland, like most of Western Europe, suffered from the bubonic plague, or the "Black Death," in the years from 1348 to 1350. Unlike its nearest neighbor, England, the surviving contemporary sources for this catastrophic event are very limited. Even archaeological evidence is meager. Therefore, in order to understand the impact of this event on Ireland, […]

BLATHMAC (fl. EIGHTH CENTURY) (Medieval Ireland)

Blathmac was the son of Cu Brettan mac Congusso (d. 740), who was perhaps king of the Fir Roiss, a sept of the Airgialla, located in modern counties Louth and Monaghan. In the eighth-century saga of the battle of Allen (718), his father is represented as a combatant and ally of the king of Tara, […]

BREHON LAW (Medieval Ireland)

"Brehon law" is a term used to describe the native Irish legal system. This system operated in Gaelic Ireland until the early seventeenth century. The phrase "Brehon law" comes from the Irish word for a "judge," which was Anglicized as "brehon." The Irish themselves generally referred to their law as fenechas (Irish jurisprudence). The term […]

BRIAN BORU (926[?]-1014) (Medieval Ireland)

Brian Boru was arguably the most famous medieval Irish king, due to his achievement in becoming the undisputed king of Ireland and his death by the Norsemen at Clontarf in 1014. Later tradition turned him into the first true high king of the island and a heroic fighter for Ireland’s freedom against the oppression of […]

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