http://hdl.handle.net/10468/310 2017-10-29T22:06:49Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/3270 A kingdom near lost: English military recovery in Ireland, 1600-03 O'Neill, James Ireland was rarely a peaceful realm for Elizabeth I, but Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone and his allies brought the edifice of English power in Ireland to the brink of collapse. The war in Ireland at the end of the sixteenth century devoured money, lives and reputations at a prodigious rate. However seven years of Irish success ended when in 1600 the Queen appointed Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy as Lord Deputy. Success replaced failure, but only after the new Lord Deputy transformed English strategy and rebuilt the army into an instrument fit for purpose. 2016-11-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/3165 Profits and patriotism: Nicholas Weston, Old English merchants, and Ireland's Nine Years' War, 1594–1603 Canning, Ruth A. Ireland’s Old English merchants, and especially those of the Pale, provided the English crown with vital material supplies, finance and intelligence throughout the Nine Years’ War (1594–1603). Yet, surviving official correspondence criticised the mercantile community for providing weak support and accused its members of favouring the queen’s Irish enemies. The reality was that they did both, but their reasons for doing so were complicated. Too often described as a homogenous group, Old English merchants did not all share the same economic ambitions, political views or faith. Examining the specific actions of certain individuals alongside those of the wider community provides a fresh angle on the conflict and sheds new light on the role of Old English merchants. 2016-09-20T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/3612 National identity, classical tradition, Christian reform and colonial expansion at the ends of the earth: an analysis of representations of the Swedish and Norwegian peoples in Adam of Bremen’s history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen and the Irish in Gerald of Wales’s topography of Ireland Forde, Britt This thesis compares the representations of the Swedes and the Norwegians in Adam of Bremen’s History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen (c 1074) and the Irish in the first recension of Gerald of Wales’ Topography of Ireland (1188). Adam and Gerald placed their respective locations and peoples of which they write within the concepts of ancient and medieval geographical and ethnographical thought, as remote islands in the Ocean that surrounded the tripartite terrestrial landmass that constituted the known world. This Oceanic location was believed to influence nature and wildlife as well as the character of the inhabitants; thus they shared a common geographical environment, yet their depictions of the inhabitants sharing this peripheral Oceanic location is widely different. The classical stereotypes about remote Oceanic locations like Sweden, Norway and Ireland encompassed two separate traditions of ethnographical and geographical thought, one positive and one negative. This thesis argues that the cumulative image of the inhabitants that emerges in Adam’s work is a positive representation of the Swedes and Norwegians of his own era, whereas the image of the Irish in Gerald’s narrative is starkly negative. This thesis will suggest that the secular and ecclesiastic context of each writer and their engagement with earlier sources and models, determines their approach to the people of whom they write: Adam’s reform ideals in an era of imperial and papal strife in Germany; Gerald’s concern with church reform, at a time of crusades and the ongoing attempts at a conquest of Ireland. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2578 The Resurgence of Gaelic power in Ireland and Scotland and its wider impact, c.1350-1513 Egan, Simon Peter Over the course of the later Middle Ages nearly half the landmass of the British Isles fell under the control of a handful of Gaelic dynasties in Ireland and Scotland. The impact of this profound geopolitical recasting of much of the Atlantic Archipelago has however, received very little scholarly attention. Instead, historians have tended to view events within this expanding Gaelic world, or Gàidhealtachd, as peripheral to the political development of the British Isles and the course of Anglo-Scottish relations during the later Medieval period. Drawing upon a comprehensive range of sources from Ireland, Scotland, and England, as well as significant archival research, this thesis challenges the concept of the so-called 'Celtic fringe' and illustrates how developments within the Gàidhealtachd impacted upon the course of 'British' politics during the period c.1350-1513. The thesis centres on an examination of how two competing Gaelic alliance systems came to dominate much of the Gàidhealtachd from the late fourteenth century through to the early 1500s. The first of these alliance blocs was controlled chiefly by the O'Neills of Tyrone, the O'Briens of Thomond, and MacDonalds of the Hebrides; in the other network the O'Donnells of Tyrconnell, the Burkes of Mayo and the Campbells of Argyll held sway. By tracing the interconnectivity of the lordships in each respective network, the thesis investigates how these alliance systems became a durable force not only within the Gàidhealtachd but also on the broader 'British' stage. The thesis is structured in a manner that makes the intricate, lineage-based world of the Gàidhealtachd more accessible. Each chapter shifts between the various regions of the Gaelic world and examines how developments in one region impacted upon corresponding territory. Ultimately, this provides historians with a new model for exploring what has previously been a majorly neglected area of Irish and British history. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z