Research

Current Research

My current book project, Won by the Sword? Identity and Authority in the Irish Borderlands, 1366-1594, explores the mechanisms by which the structure and character of lordship were developed in Gaelic polities in the later Middle Ages. The book follows the MacCarthy Reagh lords of Carbery in West Cork between 1366 and 1594, to trace the ways in which their interactions, allegiances, and self-expressed identity evolved in relation to dynastic opportunities. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Ireland was wracked by economic crises, frequent rebellions, and shifts in governance that by turns helped and hindered the growth of Gaelic lordships like the MacCarthy Reagh. This case study serves as a lens for understanding the social, cultural, and political forces that shaped Irish society in this transitional and transformative period. It also illuminates mechanisms of hybridity and cultural negotiation, contributing to a range of fields, including borderland studies and identity studies.

My next project, Litigating Irishness in Plantation Ireland, will explore the legal strategies employed by Gaelic lords to defend and renegotiate their authority in the face of England’s growing colonial apparatus. The late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of intense legal contestation in Ireland, as the indigenous legal system and hierarchies were methodically attacked by the colonial administration. But as English administrators attempted to eradicate Irish legal practices (and with them the legitimacy of the Gaelic aristocracy), the native Irish responded with new and often innovative legal strategies. Through otherwise routine legal interactions like inheritance disputes and small claims suits, Irish lords reframed their authority in the vocabulary of English common law, trading tanistry (the Irish system of partible inheritance) for primogeniture and the language of overlordship for that of landlordship. Through rhetorical and theoretical shifts, they redefined the very basis and nature of their authority.

Selected Recent Articles

“Overlords, underlords, and landlords: negotiating land and lordship in Plantation Munster”

Irish Historical Studies 47, no. 171 (2023): 38-58

This article explores the legal strategies of negotiation employed by Gaelic lords in early modern Munster through a case study of the O’Driscoll lordship of Collymore, co. Cork. The late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced an environment of intense legal contestation, as indigenous legal practices and hierarchies were methodically attacked by the colonial administration. But as English administrators attempted to eradicate Irish legal precedent (and with it the legitimacy of the Gaelic aristocracy), Gaelic lords responded with new and often innovative legal strategies. The territory of Collymore presents a microcosm of the legal tensions produced by and under the Munster plantation, subject to competing claims by rival O’Driscoll heirs, MacCarthy Reagh overlords, ‘Old English’ neighbours, and incoming planters. This article offers a reconstruction and analysis of the complex legal disputes surrounding Collymore. It argues that through otherwise routine legal interactions like inheritance disputes and chancery suits, Irish lords reframed their authority in the vocabulary of English law, trading tanistry for primogeniture and the language of overlordship for that of landlordship. Through these rhetorical and theoretical shifts, they attempted to redefine the very basis and nature of their authority.

“The Castle as a Node of Internecine Conflict in Gaelic Ireland“

New Perspectives on Castle Studies, ed. Thomas J. Finan, Margaret K. Smith, Thomas Barrows, and Kailen Kinsey (Archaeopress, forthcoming)

Early modern Ireland conjures up images of plantation, of war and rebellion, and eventually of Cromwellian devastation. It was a site of imperial control and of colonial violence. However, it was also a site of hybridity and negotiation. Confronted with a rapidly shifting hierarchy and an increasingly hostile state, the Gaelic and Old English ruling class endeavored to carve out new space and status for themselves. Much of the story of Ireland in this transitional period is about the tensions over hierarchies, legal systems, and cultural contexts that arose between Ireland’s existing population and the adventurers, planters, and government officials attempting to remake this society. The resulting disputes over tangible assets like land, livestock, and castles illuminate strategies for contesting the deeper stakes that are more difficult to trace in the archive: authority, status, and legitimacy. This chapter follows the connected histories of two tower houses in County Cork: Carrignavar in the barony of Muskerry and Cloghane (now known as Lissangle) in the barony of Carbery. The protracted legal disputes that surrounded these tower houses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries reveal some of the strategies employed by Gaelic lords and their Old English neighbors to contest ownership of the castles and, by proxy, cultivate their own authority and legitimacy.