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From long lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Elena Jarninger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life. Only on History Hit with your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe.
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Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yannicka and welcome
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to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the
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podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history.
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We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research.
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From the Vikings to the Normans, from
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kings to Popes to the Crusades, we delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were
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and how we got.
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In the year 431, soon after the abandonment of Britannia by Rome's famed legions, a Romano British monk arrived on the shores of the Emerald Isle. Schooled in the mystical practices of ancient Ireland's druids and spurred on by a holy vision, this churchman came with a sacred mission to save the pagan Irish and convert them to a new and enlightened faith. His name was St. Patrick, and with his coming, medieval Ireland was born. Years before, as a meek teenager, Patrick had been taken captive by Gaelic raiders and carried across the Irish Sea. Enslaved in a strange land, he spent his days herding animals on lonely hillsides, learning the language and customs of the people who had taken him. After escaping and returning home, Patrick would one day come back not as a captive, but as a missionary determined to transform pagan Ireland through force of will alone. Over the span of the medieval millennium that followed, Ireland emerged from the mists of ancient myth and legend to become a vibrant and distinct society, molded by the deeds of Gaelic high kings, Viking adventurers and Norman invaders. Monasteries became great centers of learning, warriors fought bitter rivals for a chance at power, and bustling towns rose along the coasts as Ireland opened itself to the wider medieval world. It is a rip roaring tale, taking in the lands of brilliant saints and the tyranny of oppressive warlords. But one thing shines through it all. The astonishing resilience of a dynamic Gaelic culture that helped forge the Ireland we know today. Now, to help me chart the enthralling story of medieval Ireland and unpick a thousand years of history in considerably less time than that, I'm thrilled to be joined by historian James Hawes author of the new book the Shortest History of Ireland.
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Welcome to Gone Medieval, James,
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and thank you very much for having me.
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Well, thank you very much. I really, really enjoyed this book and it covers more than just medieval history in Ireland. But listen, this is a medieval podcast, so I think that we can start with the beginning of the medieval period. It's a tricky one to explicate, so, but I think we kind of have to start there. So what does early medieval Ireland look like? I mean, what's society arranged around?
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Who's got political control at that point?
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Well, I think the most important thing about it is that it's unique in Western Europe because it has not been conquered by their own empire, which means not only has its culture not been kind of deep plowed first by Roman paganism, then by Roman Christianity, but it hasn't suffered the trauma of collapse of the Roman Empire and then the extra trauma of being invaded by Germanic ex Roman auxiliary warband to take over. So it's every other country in Europe is shattered basically and rebuilt from the ground up. And then even when that settles down, you start to have the Umayyads coming in from the south of Europe in the late 7th century, early 8th century, threatening even France. You have the Allies coming in from the east, pushing into the Balkans and pushing the Slavs further west. So the whole of Western Europe between around 450 to about 750 is in a complete state of flux except Ireland because it has not been attacked by the Romans. The Anglo Saxons never touch it. This is the extraordinary thing about it. No one has disrupted Irish society since the Bronze Age, since the Bronze Age repopulation by what we would now call Western European with their Western European common language, the Indo German language. This is a culture is now way over 3,000 years old and has never been disrupted by anybody except Christian missionaries who have had to, we notice from the earliest results, near the earliest annals, talk of St. Patrick essentially as a kind of, as a druid, basically. He had in fact been trained as a druid by, when he was a slave, he was slave to a high ranking druid and had learned the secrets of it all. And so he's actually what's come is what Professor Kieran Martha in Oxford is called a brehonized Christianity, sorry, a Christianized brehon society. When the first Christian missionaries come to Ireland, they find the only culture in Europe which has this kind of ancient rootedness still and which they have to treat as an equal on its own terms. That's the extraordinary thing about It. So you have a country there entirely undestructed for 3,000 years, economically extremely well off. Because there's one other disruption in this period which you all know of and most people don't know of. There's a climate disaster within the six and eighth centuries. Krakatoa, we think, blows up and the entire northern hemisphere is blanketed with ash. There's, you know, there, there are crop failures, plagues all over the place. Now Ireland, because it has this Atlantic rainy climate. If things get a bit colder and a bit drier there, that's no big deal. It's a big deal if you're a farmer in southeast England or central Germany. To get colder and drier is bad. But for the Irish, who are entirely cattle based, it makes virtually no difference. And so you have, for example, hard archaeological evidence of this. There have been more water mills, tidal mills, excavated in just the province of Munster for the seventh centuries than the whole of the rest of Western Europe put together. So Ireland is not only untouched by kind of foreign interference, it's actually the wealthiest and safest country in Europe.
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One of the things that's so interesting about early medieval Ireland and more particularly its economy, is that it is cattle based.
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Yeah.
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Can you explain to us what this means and how it came about the roots?
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We go back, in fact, to the Neolithic because the Neolithic farmers were the first to bring cattle. Cattle are not native to Ireland at all. There are no native bovines. They came in with the first farmers around 4000 BC. There was a climate change event shortly we, after the start of the Bronze Age, which meant that the climate is warmer even than now in the Neolithic, gets colder and wetter. And this means that arable crops become marginal in large parts of Ireland, so that the cattle which are already important in the neolith, they become completely dominant in the Bronze Age. I mean, one of the extraordinary things and the wonderful things are walking through the Irish countryside, particularly when you get into the west, is that they are everywhere, these small ring, what they call ring forts, small mounds. You see them all over the place. Every village has one outside it, say. And these are cattle enclosures. They're built to shelter cattle either overnight or under periods of time we're not entirely sure when, but they are built consistently from the Bronze Age up to about a thousand ad. People are still building them and using them in this extraordinary continuity. Because cattle are all that matters. The entire tribal wealth is cattle. This affects everything, notably the way of, ways of warfare. Because to this day, you know, if you, if you, if you, any, anyone knows anything about farming, you'll be aware that my, my own grandfather was, was a dairy farmer. So I know this cattle are a very, very concentrated way of having your wealth and, but you can shift them. That's the. See this, this will become really important later with how this society resisted the Normans. Better frankly than the Anglo Saxons could. Really quite simple. Think of this. If you're an arable farmer, your crops are in the ground, okay? Obviously you've invested all this money, all your work time. That's your survival package. If an attacker comes, you have got to stand and fight. You can't shift it. You have to either fight or run and starve. And if the opponent is militarily superior to you, you stand and fight and get killed. Now if you've got cattle, of course now you're in permanent danger of them being raided, which is why all the Irish sagas are about raiding cattle. It's a quick way to make yourself rich and your neighbors poor. Hurrah. You nick their cattle. That's one of the weird little phenomena is why to Irish warriors, and this was found quite weird even up through Elizabethan times, the place of honor in an Irish army was in the rear guard. Because you think you've done a cattle raid, you're bringing the cattle away, they're chasing you, the posse is after you. So you send the best guy, the hero stands behind the stolen cattle to face the oncoming posse and keep them back. That's. This is a complete. It's a completely different conception of warfare. But you see, if you have cattle, you're attacked by someone, you can take those cattle away into the mountains or the bogs or somewhere and this will become this, this explains cutting to the chase a bit. You know, we can say when the Normans finally come with their invincible cavalry. Well, cavalry are not invincible in bogs and uplands. So you can take them away and survive to fight another day in a way which an arable farmer just cannot. So it's a completely different arrangement of agriculture, which of course is the economy all over Europe. And this will become very, very important to the kind of survival power of Gaelic island. This cattle based notion, something that we
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end up hinting at a lot on gone medieval, particularly when we're talking about for example, the Christianization process in what is now England. Because it very much was the sort of thing where for a while we were looking at bouncing back and forth between very specific Irish forms of Christianity and Roman forms of Christianity. But I don't think we've ever really talked in excess about that.
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Yeah, well, the Annals of the Four Masters record the beginnings of this tradition which became embedded in the whole notion of Celtic Christianity. And I say, I'm quoting from memory here, that St. Patrick caused the old books of Ireland to be brought towards him to be studied and corrected. And that's the fascinating thing. I mean, the earliest Irish law court, we have law code, sorry, called the Census Moore, which is actually dateable to a manuscript extraordinary of the seventh century. It talks about, it asks the rhetorical question in Irish, what is the tradition of the men of Ireland? What's kept it going? And it says something like recitation of elders, the law of nature and augmented by the law of scripture. That's a fantastic phrase to me. It's not been replaced, it's been augmented. So really, the brehon system, the Irish brehon system of law, has been, in their own words, augmented by. They've assimilated Christian teaching without actually changing anything. So that the Irish Church, by, let's say, around 750, let's say, is entirely different from the Roman Church. And of course, Rome knows this very well and does not like it, which will become vital for our story because, for example, the obvious thing is that the Irish Church is not run by bishops but by abbots. Abbots are hereditary, which obviously means they can marry. They are always related to the local ruling elites. So they are basically kind of the spiritual arm of the o' Neills or the o' Connells or whosever territory they're in. They're related to them, their privileges are inherited and they can use themselves as priests and bless in everyone else. All the different forms of marriages allowed under Brehon law, which are very many and varied, probably too detailed for us to describe, but some of them, for example, were much more beneficial to women than normal marriage in Western Europe. So it's an entire different church which tolerates and encourages behaviour which the Church, the Roman Church, as it starts to recover after Charlemagne and really start to kind of centralize and become the Catholic Church. We know it gets more and more impatient with this, but it does not have the power at this stage, because, as I just said, European Christianity is kind of under threat. You know, three of the five patriarchyates have gone to the Muslims now, and that's why Ireland sends forth this great wave of saints and scholars. It's actually driven by its economic boom and its security as a kind of base for Christianity. And so you have this extraordinary period from around the Late seven hundreds to about a thousand, where all over Europe there are monasteries founded, which were often called things in German, like shot in this and Shoten that, because the Irish were called Scotty in Latin, which are actually founded by Irish missionaries. And these monasteries were run on entirely different lines from the Roman ones. So you have this. It's quite a. Quite a different church entirely.
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Well, how do we then from this kind of tribalistic form of cattle farming and cattle raids and, you know, the various different groups that this encourages. How do we get that into what become the kingdoms that I suppose we expect when. When we're talking about me violin? So Ulster or Connacht or Munster.
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That is a good. The answer to that is we just don't know. But what we do know, fascinatingly, is that that's. That seems to have existed, I mean, as a quote I have in the book there, from a guy I know very well, actually, a guy called Dr. Conor Newman from Galway University, who's a great expert on it, saying that as far as we can tell, both the written and the archaeological evidence suggests that they were, in fact, bizarrely, wonderfully, there was something very, very much like the present four provinces of Ireland, possibly five, because the area just north of Dublin called Meath, where Tara is and things where the great Tara and Newgrange, was sometimes a separate kingdom and sometimes not, because it has some of the best land in Ireland and the most expensive land in Europe to this day. But that also means it's not very defensible, so it tends to be in play rather than a player. Do you see what I mean? But generally speaking, by the earliest records we have, people are talking about the provinces of Ulster, Connach, Munster and Leinster very much as we talk today. How these were formed, frankly, is just a matter of conjecture. One assume. One has to assume they were successful dynasties who simply expanded and incorporated smaller ones in a familiar process going on everywhere. Probably nothing particularly special about that, except inasmuch as the sense of their being within Ireland. And it's important to say within. Within Irish Gaelic culture differences is very, very profound. Eamon de Valera's own son, Rory, who was like the chief archaeologist in Ireland for 20 years, he produced this huge survey of the megalithic monuments. We're talking the Neolithic here. And he can trace something, a very strong north south divide and other southwest east divides right back to the Neolithic, it appears. There's a really interesting thing, if anyone look at a map of Ireland, which anyone can do here, look at the road from modern Dublin to modern Galway that goes across what is now known as the Great Central Plain. And this was known in the early, from the time of the earliest writings as Esceriada or just simply on Sleem or the Great Road, which Escuriada means the road for the track, for driving herds along. And this was a gigantic virgin deciduous forest full of bears and wolves and wild boars. And it was very, very difficult to traverse. So it became a north south border very early on. This is really important and for obvious reasons, perhaps is not kind of foregrounded in modern Irish historiography, is that the division of Ireland into north and south appears to have gone back to the Neolithic. It's nothing to do with the Brits and most of my Irish friends don't know this at all, but it's there. You can check it out yourself really easily by looking at the four Masters and things like that. Every Gaelic scribe from the earliest annals right up to the end of Gaelic culture as a kind of full spectrum culture in the 17th century, they simply treat it as axiomatic that there are two halves in Ireland called Lethkuin and Lethmorra. Lesqueen means the Conn's half, Lethmorra means Moggs half. And the four Masters ascribe a magical origin to this. So obviously it was something that was well established by the time of the first writings and continues to be talked of by every Gaelic writer right up to the 1630s. But there are these huge divisions within it and that militates against the construction of a unitary state simply because there have been these well known, universally acknowledged differences within Ireland since literally whenever.
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You know, I just think that it's a really interesting point because we have this tendency to think about things in terms of the conglomerations of nation states as we see them now. There's a natural Ireland, there's a natural England. And really the early medieval period is a proof positive that that is true.
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But we have this modern superstition and, and, and you'll find this very, very often and even like great and wonderful people aren't immune to it, which is this notion that if you propose, for example, that under Athelstan knows the foundation as an English nation state, that's somehow a good thing because it's somehow stronger now. That's not borne out at all. Anglo Saxon England was far closer to a modern nation state than say Ireland in 1000 AD. Anglo Saxon England was entirely destroyed by 1075 AD, whereas that's how, you know, Gaelic island was actually far more capable of resisting. So that A kind of a centralized state is actually much easier to decapitate as well. So it's not necessarily the best thing to be in terms of your culture surviving. Look at somewhere like Afghanistan, if, you know, a conglomeration of tribes, each with a very deep sense of belonging to a general culture, but with their own really tight local loyalties, is actually the best culture for surviving attack from outside. Whereas a cult, you know, if basically in a modern day, say you reach the capital, you've won, you know.
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Well, speaking of surviving attacks from outside, we do then get into the Viking age and the Vikings are very happy to show up in Ireland. You know, as you say, this is an incredibly wealthy sort of place. There is rather a lot to gain, I suppose, by raiding it. But why do they come over to Ireland? Is it just to take advantage of the riches that are there or is there also, I don't know, a political vacuum of sorts that they're taking advantage of?
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I think both. I mean, the Vikings go everywhere. We have to imagine there was a kind of fleet of people doing probing attacks. They go everywhere, as you know, they go right down to Pisa, they burn Paris, Pisa, Florence and places, but they go right down to what's now Kiev and they're constantly probing, like, what's in the next river? Who's there? Is there anything worth stealing or trading with? How tough is the resistance here, you know, and that's what now in Ireland they find great wealth as you know, go to the National Museum of Ireland. Extraordinary things like the Darien of absolutely priceless things. Pounds and pounds of pure gold in them. A workmanship buried out of fear of the Vikings. The Vikings knew this stuff was there because that's what they did. They found out what was there and if they could get it, they took it. The modern thing about the war being nice, peaceful traders, I mean, please, you know, so. I mean, honestly. So the Irish are shocked by this because as I said, they've never been attacked by anyone, including the Anglo Saxon. That's a really important thing for us to remember, by the way, in terms of the later history of Britain and Ireland, the idea of an ethnic clash, we can put that to bed. No Anglo Saxon kingdom ever attacked Ireland once. There was one raid in 684 AD because one of the royal family of Northern Umberland had actually been educated in Ireland and according to Bede, spoke fluent Irish because Ireland had the best universities in the world at the time. And he got mixed up in Irish domestic politics. It was a raid. That's it. The English qua ethnic English, whatever it's called. Anglo Saxons never interfere with Ireland. The other way around. Yes, they're not it that way around. So the Vikings find a country which is simply not used to being attacked. It's used to warfare among each other, but not to being attacked from abroad. And this does help them out because the initial reaction of the Irish is not to close ranks and say, kick out the foreigners. The initial reaction of Irish warlords and Irish minor kings and over kings is to say, huh, useful. Maybe I can use them against the o' Neills or against the o' Briens or whatever it is. And that's what happens. So for the first 30 or 40 years, basically they are conscripted into Ireland's internecine warfare until they're dead. But by. I think it's eight. I'm just reading my memory now. I think it's 878. The annals record for the first time that the kingdoms of the South, Lethmorra and Leth Quinn get together and the southerners hand over what's now County Kilkenny to the northerners to get peace. And then they launch a joint assault on the Vikings who are this time based entirely in the north. Now Aid o' Neill, Aid is Hugh in Irish actually destroys all the Viking bases in the north of Ireland thanks to this peace with the o' Briens of the south. And the Vikings are entirely kicked out by 902 AD which is very, very different. Of course. By now they've taken over half of England in the Daimler and settled and are colonizing it. They're thrown out. And then something really interesting happens which is the second wave comes back. But these are different guys because these are actually. They come from the Western Isles and the Eye of Man, not directly from Norway. They already speak Gaelic. Now the annals call them Gael G. They're actually, they are foreign Gaels, meaning they're foreigners. But they speak Irish, so they're already bilingual Norse and Irish and they fit in much more easily to what's going on. So they're still coming as aggressors, of course, but it's not a kind of full on culture clash because they already speak the language they found all of what will become islands, cities, Limerick, Cork, Wexford, Warshford, and they're all in the south, distant now. We don't really know why, but it may be because their previous generation were all massacred by the O' Neills in 902 AD and six dozen heads were brought before King O' Neill as it says in the things. So they choose to go south this time for whatever reason. And this actually changes the whole of Irish politics because this is the first time that Lethmoga, the southern half, once Brian Baru the great, founder of the dynasty of the o', Briens, Brian of the cattle tribute, of course, the cattle being the most important thing. He manages to defeat all the Vikings one by one, pick off their towns. But because, partly because they're already Gaelic speaking, he lets them stay on. He doesn't kick them out this time, he lets them stay on. So they stay in Waterford and Wexford and Limerick and go away and not go away. The water and Cork and Limerick trading and making money, which Brian can now control. Now no Irish king has. They've had cattle in wealth, rather like some of the Somalis. Somali warlords today still count their wealth in cattle. I love that so much, you know. But for the first time now, the southern kings of Ireland have a way to generate actual money. Silver bullion. The Vikings like bullion, not coins. And they have a navy. Brian Boru, because he's actually assimilated the Vikings, these semi foreign Gaels, he now has a strategic navy of Viking descent which he can use and does use to sail up the Shannon and basically kick the shit out of the northerns for the first time. And it's that which enables Brian Beru to become the first non o' Neill high king. It switched. The whole power thing in Ireland has switched because this, the second generation of Vikings have been assimilated by the o' Briens of Munster and used to grab the high kingship.
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Can we talk a little bit about the office of high king? How is this chosen? How does it differ from offices of king that we would see elsewhere in Europe at the time?
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It seems to me now this is this again we're on. It's not dodgy ground, it's just ground people that really know about. Now I. But I think having come to fairly fresh as a non expert, it sometimes helps. It struck me towards the end of the book, when you study the way the Brehon law operated within tribes within a tribe, it said any guy descended from the common great grandfather, father to son, anyone of fighting age, which could mean dozens of people, was a legitimate successor. And you were basically you made your legitimacy real by kind of blinding killing, doing away with or you're making submit in public all your male relatives and then you were crowned king. And now it wasn't. That wasn't. That wasn't an exception to the rule. That was the rule, that was the way it was supposed to happen. It really confused Elizabethans later when they said this guy Shane o', Neill, he's like murdered everyone to become top of the o'. Neills. Yeah, but that's what you did. Okay? That's how it was expected to be done. It didn't affect anyone else, of course. It's like a fight among the top mafia guys. It doesn't affect the shopkeepers, they're still just paying their tax. You know, when the top mafia guns kill each other to see who's the next top capo, it doesn't affect business. So it's strictly limited bloodletting among the royal family. So here he is. So that happens on a local level. Now it occurred to me that actually, and that as far as we know, it's a thousands of year old tradition and when it starts to become, when communication starts to get better and the priests are taking news from one province to another, things start to pull together. They construct something which is basically like a nationwide version of that same thing. Because the High Kingship is not hereditary, nor is it limited after Brian Baru to the o'. Neills. So basically any member of one of the royal families can bid to become High King. And the route you do this is very like the way you do it in your own, within your own tribe. You would first be established in your own tribe, then you were say, if you're on o' Brien in the south, you would have to make sure you could impose yourself on the other big country in the southern half, Leinster. So you'd have to make sure the Leinster men also. And then you'd say, I'm Chief of Lethmorra now. I'm going to be High King, I'm bidding for High King. And you. And if you could enforce that against the o', Neill, you would be selected and then you'd be crowned by everyone's agreement, just like a tribal king would be. But the important thing is that when you are deposed or die or get killed or whatever, any member of any of the royal families in Ireland is then still an eligible king to bid for next High King, just as any grandson was eligible within the family. So they've constructed this extraordinary extension of Brehon tribal law to cover the entire country in a kind of, frankly, it's a kind of medieval federalism.
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Am I correct in thinking that eventually the battle of Clontarf helps in terms of shaping up the way that we think about the High King? Or is that a bit of an outdated way of looking at it.
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But it's a very well known song. Of course if everyone who goes to Nashvana it's about you're willing your Vikings and Brian Baru and kick them back into the water. Unfortunately, this is entirely wrong. Brian Barou is actually the villain of the piece. Brian Baru in alliance with the Alleles because they have this anti Viking alliance first. Now this north and south finally get together and it says, it explicitly says in the annals Lethmogo and Leth Quinn come together and kick the Vikings out. But now there's a problem because there's a standoff because the prize is the high kingship. You have Brian in the south and this guy called Mal Sechnal of the o' Neill in the north who've allied to kick out the Vikings from Dublin, which is the only place not yet assimilated. But the quest is now right. Each one has their own half. Whoever gets the Viking, the wealth of Viking Dublin on side is going to be High King. And this truce is not going to last. And it's Brian who actually breaks it. Brian lets Sitric back. Brian brings the Vikings back into Dublin as to work as his under kings, which he's been used to doing of course with the Vikings in Limerick and Cork and having them as his helpers. He's used to dealing with them. He thinks I can control these guys and with their wealth. It works. It seems to work. And then he's able to force Mous to give up the high kingship without killing him. He said okay, fine, I can't fight you plus the Vikings, you've broken the deal. But I give in. So Brian becomes the first High King not from Njr. It does not last however, because the Vikings and the Ulstermen and the Leinster men all revolt against him. So the story of the battle of the Clontarf is not about a united island throwing the Vikings out. It's this mad family story. And one hates to use the analogy, but it really is a big game of thronesy, you know, because Sitric of Dublin, the Viking king of Sitrich, his mother is an Irish princess who then married, who has now been married or has married Brian Boru to seal the deal. She then switches and marries Mal Sachnal instead. And at the battle of Clontarf, basically what seems to happen, if you look carefully at the annals and don't think about the common story, what looks like it happens is that Brian Baru's army comes up from the south. It has to fight the Leinster men before the Walls of Dublin with Viking assistants. These two forces more or less wipe each other out. At which point Myles Sahnat of the o', Neill, who is notionally there as Brian's second in command but has actually just secretly married Brian's ex wife behind his back, keeps out of things till the last minute, at which point he just marches into Dublin and there's no casualties mentioned in his army. Brian dies, Brian's son dies, all Brian's main general die. But Miles Sachnault and Sitric both live on. And far from being kicked out, the Viking Sitric, the King of Dublin comes back and reigns for a further 26 years quite happily. So you know, the legend of Brian Baru kicking the Vikings out is entirely cack handed. And this will actually be really, really important. It's so vital because exactly at this time. So Dublin is now firmly Viking again and will be for the next 30 years. 26 years, but forever for the next hundred years. Exactly at this time England is totally conquered by the Vikings. A year after the battle of Clontarf. Basically two years, possibly depending when you date the collapse. England is now totally ruled by King Knut of Denmark. It's part of his Scandinavian empire. And he has clearly has a special relationship with Viking Dublin who are from the same culture as he is. We know that for example, King Canute goes to Rome in 1028, 1027, sorry, Sitric does exactly the same thing a year later and converts to Christianity. He builds the first Christian cathedral, the first of the Viking cathedral in Dublin which is still there to this day, Christchurch Cathedral. And he sends the first bishop to be consecrated not in Amar but in Canterbury by Knut's Viking English Church of England Vicar Archbishop Canterbury this is the first time ever in the history of Ireland that anyone in England has claimed to run anything in Ireland. And it's brought him by this relationship between Sitric the King of Dublin and Knut the King of England.
B
That's where the trouble starts.
D
Indeed. Yeah.
B
We are going to fast forward about a hundred years at this point in time because you've already mentioned this briefly but in the 12th century, around about 1169 or so, we start having the invasions of Ireland that are launched from England. And you know, I would argue that this is kind of a Norman phenomena. You know, this is, this is what they do, you know, what is causing this to happen. Why do the English suddenly notice that Ireland is over there at this point?
D
Well, the first thing, if I may is to. We have to be really careful that terminology and you, you have correctly said Norman and incorrectly say the English. This is really fundamental. Ah, we have to. And this is something which patriotic English historians kind of just resist even acknowledging. But it's so clearly the historical truth. The people who invaded Ireland were entirely French speaking. In some cases French and Welsh speaking. Strongbow and the future Fitzgeralds, they were all Cambro Normans and called themselves thus, but they did not speak English at all. Henry II did not speak a word of English as far as we know. He may have. There's one reference that he may have understood a bit, but he certainly never wrote it. And there's no record of him ever speaking of. He was French. He wasn't even Norman, for God's sake. So England's elite are 100% French speaking. Their attack on Ireland is really. It's part of the Second Crusade, really. And unlike the Second Crusade, in the northern branch of it, it's really driven by climate change because the Medieval Warm Period, or the Medieval climate anomaly as it's sometimes called, is in full swing by now. The climate of Europe is much, significantly warmer even than now, having been colder beforehand. Vines are growing as far as Leicester in England. Places like the south of Ireland are now extremely desirable wheat farming places. Wheat gives you the highest acre, the highest energy per acre. That's why it's always the prime thing people want compared to oats and barley. And the population of all northern Europe is expanding. Everyone wants new land. The Teutonic Knights go east to find it. But also there's this thing h Southern Ireland, where they have all this cattle and stuff that could be fantastic wheat country. Now they think, and this is the driver, it's economic expansion driven by population expansion driven by climate change. Rather fascinatingly for our own age, the immediate trigger for it is the church, because in 1151 Ireland is actually coming very close to being united under the o' Connor kings of Connacht. And the Pope sends a legate for the first time officially to Ireland. It's like, okay, we'll end this fight between the Irish and Roman Churches. We're going to reform the Irish Church within reason not to be forced too much. And Dublin is taken away from Canterbury and made into an archbishopric of its own. Now the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury is furious. He's called Theodore de Beck and he's just been robbed of a sea. Medieval archbishops do not like being robbed of seas. He and his secretary are direct friends. You could do this wonderful link paragraph if you wanted to, with the greatest influencer of the age, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who is the guy who inspires the whole second crusade. And St. Bernard sits down, having failed to convert the Irish Church through Saint Malachy, he found that they still won't give up their Celtic ways. And he writes this, one of the most seminal texts of the mid 11th century called the Life of Saint Malachy, in which he absolutely denounces the Irish as quote, Christians in name, in fact pagans, which is, and this is the very same guy, the same man who just that year in fact sent the Teutonic Knights crusading, saying wipe them out literally until their nations or their religion is exterminated. And he's now saying the Irish are pagans like brackets, like the Slavs guys. And so the Norman archbishops, who all know him personally and their secretaries, they go off to Rome and get the Pope, who is of course the first English Pope, Adrian iv, the first and only English Pope to give an invitation to Henry. Go get him the bull laudability, he says. Go get him. Go get the Irish, force the church, make them change their church into the Roman Church at last. And we will bless you as king of the place. And it doesn't happen bizarrely for another 11 years because Henry is too busy. Nothing happens until he gets a get in. When one of the kings line, the King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurra boo decides to he crosses the High King. Rory O' Connor has flee and goes to Henry, having helped Henry in England civil war, yet another Irish intervention in England, not the other way around. He helped his fleets help Henry, who's based in Bristol to win the throne of England. So he calls in his favor. Look, you know I helped you in your civil war with the Empress, your mother, the Empress and you. I helped you fight against King Stephen. Yeah. So come along now, deliver. I'm offering you a country. The Pope's offering it to you too. I'm telling you, this place is ripe for the taking because I'm king of part of it. In fact, I'm the rightful king, he says. And vitally, this is also in Geoffrey of Mormon Arthurian tales. They have no armor. This is a really important part of what's the information tricking out of Ireland is that the Irish fight on foot without armor. Now that's a vital bit of military history. And I know a lot of people are interested, as I am deeply in military history. What's happened now is that the Normans we could rewind to the Normans beat Anglo Saxon England partly by check out the details of biotapestry it's the first depiction in European art of them using a lance couchant under the arm with a shield going head on. That's never happened before. It's not the Norway cavalry fight in any period in history. The Norway's have got this weapon, it's known as the Frankish charge. It shatters whole Muslim armies in the first Crusade because no one's faced this kind of thing before. This is the force which Dermot McMurra now invites to England. Henry still doesn't come, but his Cambro Norman warlords do. And they have something else. They don't just have the Frankish charge, they have Welsh longbows. The reason that they became Canro Normans is that unlike the English, one has to say this, I mean, people don't like it. But the Welsh fought much harder than the English against the Normans. There's no natural barrier stopping a Norman invasion of the whole south of Wales. But they were held up largely by a huge Welsh victory at Crigmawer 1133, where an army bigger than the army at Hastings was wiped out entirely, including 2000 Norman cavalry apparently. And Gerald of Wales records that the longbows even at this stage could quote pin an armored knight straight through his armor onto his horse. So the Normans marry the local Welsh elite. Unlike in Anglo Saxon England, they regard them as okay, we're going to do a deal with you. The result is that when they invade Ireland, the Canbro Norman warlords, the future Fitzgeralds, Strongbow, they can dispose of the most terrifying shock weapon military historians and the most terrifying missile weapon of the day. And the Irish have no chance against this. They've never faced a head on cavalry charge of armored cavalry, they've never faced longbows, and now they have to face them both at once. Which explains why in the first few battles it's clearly a shock to them because High King Rory o', Connor, although he musters against them, he obviously, it's quite clear he avoids a pitched battle because the first few skirmishes have shown that these guys have something completely new which the unarmored Irish foot soldiers just have no chance against.
B
Well, how does the invasion then play out? I mean, would we say that the Angevins actually achieve what they were aiming to when they show up?
D
It looks like it initially by politics. Henry II is a really clever politician. When he lands at Waterford, he does not go to Dublin, he goes straight to Cashel, which is the HQ of the southern branch of the Irish Church. It's been split like York and Canterbury. Now on the English model. So the southerners, who hate the northerners, of course, because they're their Brian Peru's guys. And he goes straight to them and says, you know what? I'm only here to do that. He calls a synod and says, I'm only here for the church. And he rolls out this invitation for 11:55. He said, look, the Pope's invited me, for God's sake. I'm not here to take it. I'm just here to kind of, you know, do the Pope's bidding. The combination of this and the heavy cavalry and the archery is just too much for the High King, Rory o'. Connor. He's politically outflanked and he's outgunned and it looks like complete victory. So Henry then just sort of rolls into Dublin and he basically declares, okay, Strongbow, you get to keep Leinster as your under me, I keep doubling Wexford, Waterford as royal towns. And you guys, Hugh de Lacy, marshals and people, you take what you can. Just think after 1066, go get it, guys, because we've won. That's what it looks like. And he heads off again and straight away leaving Ireland by grants of conquest. And to people like the Delaces, meaning they can just basically get. If they get it, it's theirs, says Henry ii. They quite clearly expect a walkover. This is what's really fascinating is it doesn't happen in Ireland. Totally unlike Anglo Saxon England, because even though he's been badly hurt, the high King Royal O' Connor is able to regroup very spectacularly. And two years later, 1173, he's able to destroy the Delaces big brace at Trim. And he goes, then goes down south to Thurles, where he makes an alliance with the southerners and actually stops Strongbow himself at the Battle of Thurles. So suddenly it's all changed. This is not Anglo Saxon. Hold on. This society is able to survive in the way Anglo Saxon wasn't. And Henry then does this really interesting change because as a politician, as you said right at the beginning, he's not interested in modern ideas of nationality or ethnicity at all. He runs the Angevin empire, which has all sorts of people and languages in it. As far as he can see, suddenly the strongman in Ireland is Rory o'. Connor. So he calls Rory's envoy over and they have the Treaty of Westminster of 1175. He says, look, okay, you're the tough guy now. So I'm going to control Dublin and Leinster and a strip down to Dungarvan. But the rest you Run for me as my liegeman. And it's really an extraordinary comeback. And it could have been. Unfortunately, Roy doesn't seem to understand that he's actually up against someone totally new here, even now. And what he does with this is he tries to use the Normans in his old battle to kill the Southerners and force Munster into submission. Chaos ensues. Henry thinks, geez, I've got the wrong horse. And he declares a direct family role. Okay, I'm ruined. He tears up. He tears the thing up and says, right now, my son John is Lord of Ireland instead now. So you've had your chance. It's really. It's a quite extraordinary moment where, you know, you can see an entire alternative history where Gale Khan is ruled by Gaelic Irish king as part of the Angan Empire, but preserving its own identity. Unfortunately, King Rory o' Connor is not up to really seeing just how powerful the Normans are and how much he cannot use them, just like he used to use the Vikings, you know.
B
Well, you've mentioned it already. You know, this. This comes then under the auspices of our good friend John Lackland, which I still find it very funny to call John the First that. But what does this new situation mean for the Irish? I mean, is this new, more direct Angevin rule particularly putative, would you say?
D
It becomes absolutely a watershed. John at first, tries to make the o' Connor kings of Connacht and the o' Neill kings of Ulster into vassals. It does not work. They refuse to give him their sons as hostages, which, given what John does to hostages, is actually a really good move on their part, but they refuse to do it. So what he does is he switches everything around. But he has a huge, big castle built in Dublin. And he says that from now on, it's what we would. We would nowadays say lawfare instead of warfare. He says, okay, I can't. You're not surrendering to me. I can't beat you. So from now on, all law in Ireland is English law. Irish law just does not count as law. Anyone who does not use English law is automatically an outlaw. And this is a really fascinating change because Professor Robert Bartlett of St. Andrews has said this. It's a complete clash of laws which you find nowhere else in Europe. It's the most extreme clash, more extreme even than in Umayyad Spain or on the marches of, say, Poland and Germany between Slavs and germans. It's absolute 100% law clash here. And the reason is quite fascinating is because everywhere else in Europe, all the lawyers are churchmen and all their laws are derived from Roman law books, Justin's Code and so forth. Now, bizarrely, Normans and Irish are outliers here because Brehon law and what we now call the English common law, which of course is a Norman invention, are actually just codifications of national custom. That's all they are. They're not derived from any philosophy or any civic codes at all. So when John says that English law, I. E. Norman common law is the law in Ireland, you now have a situation where you have two systems of law in collision, which are both basically just laymen, not churchmen, laymen with records of their national customs. There's nothing to discuss. I say to you, my national custom says this. And you say, well, tough. My national custom says this. It's a complete clash. And that will set that. That's what really sets the fault line in Ireland for the rest of the medieval period.
B
I think this is a really important point. This is the sort of things that historians love, don't we? We love a little bit of a legal clash because it gives us great records. But it is this really interesting point. You know, there is a phrase that is often used very specifically within the same kind of lawfare in a Central European context, where people will refer to the old and customary law.
D
Yep.
B
And which is almost a legal formulation that you bring up. And I think that especially in a place like Ireland, which is so defined by its legal traditions, and, you know, there is a way of looking, I suppose, at the earlier English kings as. As just lawyers, actually. You know, these are people who've got a lot of cows and they're really, really good at. At making legal arguments. This is a huge blow to the way that people live their lives and. And see government as working, I suppose.
D
Yeah. You. It means you cannot use the law, which you've been using for that by now nearly 4,000 years, let's say, or very in Ireland anymore, without being automatically a criminal. There is no place for this law anymore. The one thing that we do have to remember again to get away from these modern conceptions is it's called the English common law. It's confusing and we have to be very careful here. The people doing this called themselves les anglais, but in French. And that's an important point. That meant the other ones were called les francaises in Norman French. What it meant was people loyal to King John, essentially people loyal to the throne of England as opposed to the throne of France, but they're all speaking French. So when you read the word Liz Ingles it doesn't mean ethnic English. It means French speakers loyal to the throne of England. That's why it's in French. Okay. It's a no brainer really. We think about it, but we're so used to seeing things in kind of ethno nationalism, it's hard to say. And one of the things I always this killer, the killer bit, what I've always shown to my Irish friends is in 1265, William Marshal fortifies his new port which is the arrival to the royal port of Waterford called New Ross. And he builds a beautiful circular walls which is still there, sadly ignored largely by the population, but it's still there. And a poem is written to celebrate this. And that poem is in French because the poet begins by saying, I'm using the language everyone will understand because if you don't understand it, it's not worth a clove of garlic, which is literal. You can't get any more French than this. So the guy, this is a hundred years after Henry II has come in. The people who are doing the conquering still speak French. All the bosses speak French. There is almost no record of ethnic English people in Ireland. There's not one single word of English from Ireland in the whole 13th century, or not even from Dublin, where if anything most of them are Dublin and Wexford. They're probably. There are people there, we think. But in terms of numbers, it's really, really small and they are of no social account as they are not in England. Still, that's what we always forget. And this I think accounts for something really fascinating and strange which really puzzled the crowd at the time, is that in the Dublin Parliament of 1297, which is the first kind of properly constituted modern style parliament, we have the records of it wonderfully. And they are complaining that the Irish are getting bolder and bold. It's like Tolkien and the Mines of Moria, you know, it's like they're coming closer and grosser. We can't hold them back. The roads are getting overgrown and quote, the English also being degenerate in these times, are adopting Irish clothes, cutting their hair like the Irish and going Irish. And at first this seems really weird, like why would they be doing that? But remember that these people in England were second class citizens. When they're enticed over to Ireland by their nor by their French speaking landlords, they are still second class citizens to their French speaking landlords. But just across the river, just across the Rio Grande, just across the state line, there is Gaelic rambunctious freedom and it seems as though it's bizarre as it sounds to us that the Irish were ready to accept these deserters because the same Dublin Parliament records I said, this is why it often happens that people who are actually English get mistaken for the Irish by us and killed by the authorities because they've gone completely Irish. And it seems being accepted by the Irish, if you cut your hair right, you learn the language, why not? And for the English, why wouldn't you rather be a free Irish tribesman than a second class Saxon peasant? Which, as Gerald of Wales says, the attitude is best summed up by Gerald of Wales, the great poet of King John's invasion, where he says the English are the most wretched nation in heaven, mere slaves of the Normans in their own country. But in Ireland they have right across the fence an alternative culture which if they can marry into it or whatever, and it appears they can. So from 1297, and I knew nothing about this before I wrote this book, but from 1297 onwards, right up to some of the penal laws in the late 17th century, this word is used degenerate. King James uses it. Cromwell's underlings use it the same word always. Elizabethans use it all the time. It means the common English turning Irish. You know, nothing could be further away, ladies and gentlemen, from this fantasy of an ethno nationalist collision here. Please get that into our heads.
B
Yeah, well, I think that it's also a really interesting point because when you have this, this form of quote unquote degeneracy, right, that, that the English settlers are succumbing to it also shows that there is a kind of vibrant Irish culture that's still happening. You know, this is an alternative to what is being offer the Norman legal districts.
D
No, absolutely. And the best. And I recommend any of your listeners to get you could find easily yourself online. Look for some of the earliest early Irish statues or whatever the statutes of Kilkenny. Wonderful. It's such fun. And so it was a revelation to read them. This is not actually an anti Irish law. The whole point of the statues of Kilkenny is to stop the English inhabitants of the only 10 counties which still obey the King. I can't list them, I come off the memory. But it's basically the southeast to stop them turning Irish. It's there in black and white. It says, you know, it says, you know, it is agreed and told that no Englishman can marry an Irishman. He cannot call himself O or Mac. He cannot bring in Irish singers into his house. And this best of it is he cannot play Hurling. He says they cannot play the gaming men call hurling. So they obviously are right. It's extraordinary. And the most mad thing about it all is, of course, it's all in French. So the English settlers of 1366 are being ordered in French to stop becoming Irish. You couldn't want any. It'd be such a fantastic trilingual TV drama. I want to write the series. You know, they're marrying the Irish, in fact, and they're actually forbidden because the Kilkenny statues say, don't do this. He says, will you please stop. Stop calling newcomer Englishmen English dogs. This is addressed to the English vibrancy. It's clearly. It's winning. This is the thing and this is the big takeaway that people forget so easily. It's not just resisting this thing called the Gaelic Revival, which starts earlier than most people think. It starts around 1250, 1260. By now, it is clearly winning. You have the royal authorities by 1385 writing to King Richard saying, we are screwed here. Unless our Lord the King come in person. This colony is finished. The Irish are complete. Gaelic island is absolutely winning at this stage. It's a complete comeback.
B
My family's from Kilkenny, so, you know, if you told me that I couldn't enjoy the sport of hurling, well, I would rather die. Thank you again. It's not good enough. Okay, let's kind of get up creeping towards the end of the medieval period, when we hit the 15th century, Ireland has a really outsized role in dynastic politics that are happening over in England, right, Like during the reigns of Richard II and Henry vi. Why is that?
D
Well, it's one of the things, and this is something I really want your listeners to get into their heads and every. Because it's so easy to forget, because we tend to think in the light of now throughout the whole medieval period, right up to the act of Union, right up to the famine, Indeed, the population of Ireland is approximately half that of England and nothing like the power relations now. Ireland is much bigger than Scotland and Wales. It's much more powerful. It's much more worth conquering for tax. That's the whole root of it. It's more like England now trying to control a country the size of Poland. So we tend to think of Ireland being like a tenth society. Not at all. It's a big, powerful country. When King John tries to escape his barons by giving the Pope control of both his kingdoms, a third of all the money is supposed to come from Ireland. So Ireland is regarded as approximately half the kind of gdp, power, military, of England. And this is really important, it accounts for why it's able, as you rightly said. This is fascinating. It actually defines the War of the Roses in many respects. Now, anyone who's read Shakespeare will know what is the proximate cause of Richard II's fall. It is the fact he's stuck in Ireland. That's what enables Henry Bolingbroke to do. It's in shape. He comes back from Ireland and it's too late. And he's stuck in Ireland because he had to go there because his heir, his appointed heir, the Earl of March, Richard Mortimer, was killed, even in supposedly loyal County Carlos. So the whole colony is collapsing. If Richard, who's now trying to be kind of a dictator within Britain, with another bad parliament, all that kind of thing, he has got to maintain his personal rule. He has to go to Ireland because his heir has just been killed, if he can't control it and he comes back with his tail between his legs and that's the end of it. So Ireland actually sparks off the wars of the Roses and it interferes germanely in them. One of the, to my astonishment, least known bits of the whole story of Ireland, of England, is that in 1459 and again in 1487, wait for it, the Irish invade England. They invade England because they are on the side of the Yorkists. They want to force regime change in England because the Yorkists, to buy their support, have, guess what, recognized Irish independence. The declaration of The Irish parliament, 1461, under Richard of York. That's not just Home Rule. It says it's free. And it's so free that Henry VI sends an envoy to Dublin and says, hand over Richard of York, he's a traitor. And do you know what they do? They hang, draw and quarter the messenger instead as a traitor to the power of Dublin. Unlucky messenger. But it goes to show how completely independent the Irish felt by then. So they invade England to make sure the House of York wins in that, so that their independence will be recognised. It's such a little story. And again, we know, despite Shakespeare writes about it, for God's sake, I'm going to quote it by memory now. You know the Duke of York is newly come from Ireland and with a puissant and a mighty power of gallowglasses and stout kerns is marching hitherward in proud array. The Irish are menacing England. This is such a turnaround to our whole thing about this kind of 800 years of a small country fighting a gigantic league. But no, no, no, you have A very powerful small. A powerful small country only half the size of England, which is constantly interfering in England and actually invading it twice in the late 18th century.
B
That's a beautiful culture. What can I say? Well, graving towards the end of the medieval period here, how far can we say the crown in England controls Ireland, say at the end of the century or around the 1490s, is this really a place that the English crown has control of, or are we looking at something entirely different?
D
It controls it precisely. As far as the modern toll point at Kilcock on the motorway after Dublin westwards. It's one of my favorite things. People in Dublin often say Dublin is like a kind of different world. And the motorway toll point at Kilcock is where most people think that property prices doubling, prices stop, et cetera. It is literally on the border, which was a hard border. By now the 1488 parliament orders in desperation, the English crown has been telling with things like the statutes of Kilkenny, it's been ordering its subjects not to become Irish for the last 300 years. It's not working. By now, the crown only controls essentially the greater Dublin commuter area of today, almost exactly. It's extraordinary how accurate that is, in fact. And it's saying, okay, that's okay. It's not enough for us to order you two. We're going to build a hard border. And freudings. Parliament orders the construction of a bank and double ditch at least 6ft tall all around this area. And there are forts in places. The crown rule in Ireland is reduced, I say, to literally the modern area where Dublin transport runs, and no further than that by the 1490s and it's still shrinking. In 1517, there's a deputation of the kind of good, loyal burghers of Dublin. Dubliners don't like me saying this, but the truth of the matter is Dublin is not only the Crown HQ, but when the Scots invade in 1317 and again any minute now in 1535, it is the only thing holding out for the crowd. You're a bunch of Brits, you know, it's that kind of thing, which is why you all like football. So it's only the loyalists of Dublin, or pauci fidelis et maxime Dublinsis, as the Latin quarters put it, who save the colony. And they are even by 1517, they are complaining to the same. The wall's not working. The Irish language is taking over. Even here within this fortified wall. As we come to the end of the medieval period, you would bet that English rule in Ireland is about to be extinguished. The Earl of Kildare, the Lord Lieutenant, is basically running it entirely, as if he owns the place. He's only paying taxes to Henry vii and even the young Henry viii, without account, as it was called, means. He just means what it says. He just shifts enough gold to keep Henry viii, young Henry, happy, and otherwise. He does whatever the hell he wants. He's basically acting as King of Ireland. And the annals of the period, my favorite entry in all the annals of the four masters, check it out, ladies and gentlemen, is for 1504. There's a huge battle between Earl of Kildare and his rivals within Ireland, and there is not. When the Annalist writes this down in 1504, it could be 704. There is no mention of any king, of anyone being a Sassenach or a foreigner or anything like that. It says, less Queen beats lethmora. It's literally like the crown has never arrived. The comeback is almost complete. Oh, my God. And then we have the Reformation, but that's another story, Right?
B
So that's too tantalizing, because I think you've argued, and others have as well, that had the Reformation not happened, then maybe Ireland would have kind of kept on in this same vein and not necessarily come to the attention so much of the English crowd.
D
Absolutely not. I mean, if we can just shift slightly into the early modern period, let's say we're still kind of medieval. One of the proudest things. And I have cyst because I'm not a professional historian, so it's a first taste to look in Denmark. And a professor from Harvard said, I wish to hell I'd seen that before I wrote my book on the British Empire. And it's this. The records which you can look up, ladies and gentlemen, the Privy Council records. I love this because it's the timeline. We love the timeline in history. Right. 1st of May, 1546, the Privy Council records say, you know, this French Empire, we've been going for 500 years, it's finished. We have to clear out of Boulogne. We've been trying to con. We're done with France, Calais, maybe for another 10 years. We're done. 500 years of foreign policy ends. Four days later, the Privy Council writes to the Privy Council of Ireland, saying, the King requires you in your own hand to answer how this realm may best be run to his profit and honor. In other words, Henry VIII has been England. The Crown has finally been kicked out of Europe and immediately turns on its one other realm, which is Ireland. And it's there in the documents. It is four days that kind of changed the world. This is the change of English foreign policy away from Europe into fest the archipelago and then, well, go west.
B
You know, James, what an incredible journey through several centuries of Irish history. Thank you so, so much for coming on to talk to me about one of the most interesting kingdoms in medieval Europe.
D
It really is. And thank you so much for having me.
C
Thank you once again to James for joining me. And thank you for listening to Gone Medieval from history hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award winning original TV documentaries, including my recent film the Trials of Joan of ARC and ad free podcasts by signing up@historyhit.com subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify where you can leave us comments and suggestions or or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.
Podcast: Gone Medieval (History Hit)
Host: Dr. Eleanor Yannicka
Guest: James Hawes, historian and author of The Shortest History of Ireland
Release Date: March 27, 2026
This engaging episode takes listeners on a sweeping journey through a thousand years of medieval Ireland. Host Dr. Eleanor Yannicka and guest historian James Hawes delve into the evolution of Irish society: from the arrival of St. Patrick, through the age of high kings, Viking invasions, and Norman conquest, to Ireland’s complex relationship with England by the end of the Middle Ages. Their discussion emphasizes the unique resilience and vibrancy of Gaelic culture, the central role of cattle, the intricacies of Irish law and kingship, and the enduring myth versus reality of Irish-English relations.
[03:19 – 11:13]
Island Untouched by Rome:
Ireland stands alone in Western Europe for not having been conquered by Rome. Unlike its neighbors, Ireland was never “reploughed” by Roman paganism or Christianity, nor traumatized by the Empire’s collapse—retaining undisturbed Bronze Age roots for over 3,000 years.
“You have a country there entirely undestructed for 3,000 years... actually the wealthiest and safest country in Europe.” (James Hawes, 06:56)
Cattle-Based Economy:
Irish wealth and society have been organized around cattle since the Neolithic period.
“The entire tribal wealth is cattle. This affects everything, notably the way of... warfare.” (James Hawes, 08:44)
Unique Response to Climate and Plague:
Ireland’s economy and geography insulated it from continent-wide disasters, further solidifying its stability and affluence.
[11:13 – 15:04]
Christianity Adapts to Gaelic Customs:
The arrival of St. Patrick introduced Christianity, but the faith was “augmented” rather than imposed; Irish Brehon Law and traditions were retained and merged with Christian principles.
“They've assimilated Christian teaching without actually changing anything.” (James Hawes, 12:44)
Distinct Church Structure:
[14:39 – 18:39]
Early Provincial Divisions:
The four (sometimes five) provinces—Ulster, Connacht, Munster, Leinster (and Meath)—take shape deep in prehistory, pre-dating the idea of the modern nation state.
“The division of Ireland into north and south appears to have gone back to the Neolithic. It’s nothing to do with the Brits…” (James Hawes, 16:35)
Contrast with Nation State Formation:
Decentralization and the lack of a single capital made Ireland better able to survive external attacks compared to highly centralized neighbors.
[20:07 – 26:04]
Why the Vikings Came:
Ireland’s wealth and lack of history of external attacks made it a ripe target.
Assimilation and the Second Wave:
Vikings were initially expelled (by 902 AD), but a later wave returned, already partially Gaelicized, and founded Ireland’s major cities.
"For the first time now, the southern kings of Ireland have a way to generate actual money… and they have a navy." (James Hawes, 24:43)
[26:04 – 29:33]
Brehon Law Succession:
Kingships were not hereditary in the modern sense—multiple claimants from a dynastic group could contest for power, often violently.
"It’s a completely different conception of kingship… It’s a kind of medieval federalism." (James Hawes, 28:21)
The Battle of Clontarf Demystified:
Contrary to popular legend, the 1014 battle was not a unified Irish stand against Vikings, but a tangled, internecine conflict involving alliances across ethnic lines—including Brian Boru partnering with Vikings.
“The legend of Brian Boru kicking the Vikings out is entirely cack handed...far from being kicked out, the Viking Sitric, the King of Dublin comes back and reigns for a further 26 years quite happily.” (James Hawes, 33:44)
[34:05 – 46:15]
Norman, Not English, Invasions:
The so-called "English" invasion post-1169 was orchestrated by French-speaking Cambro-Norman elites, not ‘English’ as we’d understand today.
“The people who invaded Ireland were entirely French speaking... Henry II did not speak a word of English as far as we know.” (James Hawes, 34:46)
Crusading, Papal Politics, & Climate:
The invasion had religious (Papal bull “Laudabiliter” calling for Christianization), economic (fertile land due to the Medieval Warm Period), and crusading motives.
Military Revolution:
Normans brought armored cavalry and longbowmen, utterly new to the Irish, leading to early battlefield successes.
“These guys have something completely new which the unarmored Irish foot soldiers just have no chance against.” (James Hawes, 41:34)
Irish Resistance and Adaptation:
Despite initial Norman victories, Irish kings (notably Rory O’Connor) were able to regroup and even win crucial battles, leading to a shifting settlement that briefly saw a divided rule—before King John’s direct rule reset the situation.
[46:15 – 54:20]
John Lackland’s Lawfare:
When military conquest did not subdue Ireland, John imposed “English law” (Norman common law) and criminalized the ancient Brehon law system.
“From now on, all law in Ireland is English law. Irish law just does not count as law. Anyone who does not use English law is automatically an outlaw.” (James Hawes, 47:00)
Linguistic and Cultural Assimilation:
Despite official efforts, Norman settlers—still French-speaking and distinct from native English—were often absorbed into Irish society, adopting Irish customs, marrying locals, and sometimes “going native.”
“From 1297 onwards…degenerate means the common English turning Irish. Nothing could be further away… from this fantasy of an ethno nationalist collision.” (James Hawes, 54:02)
Statutes of Kilkenny (1366):
Laws attempted (in French!) to prevent the assimilation of Norman/English settlers, forbidding marriages, adoption of Irish dress, music, even the playing of hurling.
“They cannot play the gaming men call hurling... and the most mad thing about it, of course, it’s all in French.” (James Hawes, 54:48)
Gaelic Revival:
By 1380–1500, Gaelic culture was resurgent; even once loyal areas had largely abandoned English authority.
[56:45 – 62:00]
Independent Power and English Weakness:
Throughout the Wars of the Roses and beyond, Ireland was not a minor player: it was populous and wealthy, half the size of England, and able to influence English politics—including providing direct military support for Yorkist invasions (1459, 1487).
“Ireland is much bigger than Scotland and Wales. It’s much more powerful... it is a big, powerful country.” (James Hawes, 57:22)
By 1500, Crown Rule Shrinks:
By the end of the period, effective English royal authority was reduced to the “Pale” around Dublin (today’s commuter belt), surrounded by a fortified ditch. The rest of Ireland operated with virtual autonomy under local lords like the Earl of Kildare.
“By now, the crown only controls essentially the greater Dublin commuter area of today, almost exactly.” (James Hawes, 61:24)
[62:00–end]
On the Brink of Change:
At the close of the medieval era, Ireland had nearly expelled English influence—if not for the coming upheaval of the Reformation, its independent trajectory might have continued.
“The comeback is almost complete. Oh, my God. And then we have the Reformation, but that’s another story, Right?” (James Hawes, 63:50)
Pivot in English Policy:
After centuries of focusing on France, the collapse of English interests on the continent in 1546 led to an intensified focus on Ireland—the archipelago would become the new focus for English statecraft.
On Irish Continuity:
“No one has disrupted Irish society since the Bronze Age, since the...repopulation by what we would now call Western European...This is a culture is now way over 3,000 years old and has never been disrupted by anybody except Christian missionaries.”
(James Hawes, 05:34)
On Ireland’s Resilience:
“If you’ve got cattle...you can take those cattle away into the mountains or the bogs...you can survive to fight another day in a way which an arable farmer just cannot.”
(James Hawes, 09:36)
On Popular Myths:
“[The] legend of Brian Boru kicking the Vikings out is entirely cack handed...the Viking Sitric, the King of Dublin comes back and reigns for a further 26 years quite happily.”
(James Hawes, 33:44)
On the 'English' in Ireland:
"It means you cannot use the law, which you’ve been using for...4,000 years...without being automatically a criminal."
(James Hawes, 49:45)
"There is almost no record of ethnic English people in Ireland...they are of no social account as they are not in England. Still, that’s what we always forget..."
(James Hawes, 51:25)
On Law and Identity:
“From 1297 onwards...degenerate means the common English turning Irish. Nothing could be further away...from this fantasy of an ethno nationalist collision here.”
(James Hawes, 54:02)
The conversation balances scholarly rigor, myth-busting, and humor, often playfully dissecting national narratives. Dr. Yannicka and James Hawes stress the remarkable endurance of Irish culture and the persistent misreadings of history—particularly the myth that Ireland was simply a victim of relentless English oppression. Instead, the story of medieval Ireland is one of complexity, resilience, and adaptability.
"You have a very powerful small country only half the size of England, which is constantly interfering in England and actually invading it twice in the late 18th century."
(James Hawes, 60:46)
For a deeper dive:
End of Summary