At Clermont on 27 November 1095 Pope Urban II made an appeal to his French audience to cease fighting one another and to turn to the east against non-Christian enemies. Urban might well have been wanting to raise a force in response to an appeal for help by the Orthodox Christian emperor at Constantinople, but … Read more
In June 1541 King Henry VIII began to style himself ‘king of Ireland’, abandoning the title of ‘lord’ which English kings had used for four centuries. It has long been assumed that the English kings from Henry II to Henry VII were content to rule Ireland as lords, but the events of the later years … Read more
The development of the Limerick Main Drainage Scheme and Lower Shannon Navigation has necessitated large-scale archaeological investigations in the heart of Limerick city and in its rural hinterland from July 1999 to the present date. The scale and location of the construction work required a planned and innovative approach to the excavations, including a detailed … Read more
The Economic and Social Research Council in the UK is funding a projectentitled ‘England and Ireland, 1170-1485: a guide to documents in thePublic Record Office’. The researcher is Paul Dryburgh, and the projectis supervised by Brendan Smith (University of Bristol) and PhilomenaConnolly (National Archives, Dublin). Work began in January 2002 andfunding has been secured for … Read more
Before the second half of the thirteenth century no Irish king of Connacht was able to maintain himself without the support of the leading Anglo-Norman family there, the de Burghs. The head of the family, Richard de Burgh, was decisive in the king-making process in Connacht: his choice of king usually prevailed. And so it … Read more