July 2004

This book recovers many aspects of a forgotten Gaelic world. Using a wide variety of sources – historical documents and bardic poetry, maps, place-names and the archaeological landscape – eighteen authors reveal the later medieval period to have been a time of profound and complex regional change. In Part I the survival and reconfiguration of Gaelic government and political structures are investigated in the Mac Giollapadraig lordship of Ossory and the trans-insular Mac Domnaill lordship of Antrim and the Isles. Social organization is highlighted through studies of landholding in MacMahon’s county of Arighialla and the custom of fostering and gossiprid as practiced by Gaelic aristocracy in the late sixteenth century. Part II provides insights into both the natural and cultural landscapes of Gaelic territories. The representation of the built environment on maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the nature and extent of woodland cover are reviewed. Scientific analysis of pollen profiles provides a rare insight into woodland and agriculture in medieval landscapes of the north of Ireland. Part III deals with the archaeology of lordship, an exciting new area of research. The strongholds and residencies of Gaelic aristocracy, ranging from crannogs and moated sites to natural island fortresses and tower houses, are examined for parts of Ulster, Munster and Connacht, and a more humble Gaelic vernacular dwelling is revealed in an Ulster Plantation context.