these family connections could result in the Anglici-
zation of the Irish nobles rather than the Gaelicization
of the newcomers. However as the colony grew poorer
and more neglected by central government, cross-cultural
influence swung the other way, and is seen in the
acquisition of noble Irish concubines by the barons,
whose children were acknowledged as family mem-
bers with certain rights of inheritance. Thus where
aristocratic families in other parts of Europe often
died out for lack of heirs, the Anglo-Irish earls and
barons multiplied into small armies of Geraldines,
Burkes, and Butlers, their ranks swelled by numerous
bastards and adherents. In a number of cases the marcher
lords avoided the strict rules of English primogeniture,
and elected leaders from among the wider kindred
when direct heirs failed, leading to confrontations with
the Crown in the case of the fourteenth-century de
Burghs (Burkes) and the fifteenth-century FitzGerald
earls of Desmond.
Gerald FitzGerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, while
negotiating in 1488 with Henry VII’s envoy to be par-
doned for his support of the Yorkist pretender Lambert
Simnel, is said to have objected to a particular clause
inserted into the text of his submission, threatening
that he and his fellow-conspirators would “sooner turn
Irish every one” than agree to that condition. Edmund
Curtis saw this episode as supporting his claim that
there was a movement for Anglo-Irish “Home Rule”
in the late fifteenth century. What is undeniable is that
the threat implies that the rebellious Anglo-Irish did
not perceive themselves as having turned “Irish” yet.
Gaelicization had its limits.
K
ATHARINE
S
IMMS
References and Further Reading
Cosgrove, Art. “Hiberniores ipsis Hibernis.” (More Irish than
the Irish.) In
Studies in Irish History, Presented to R. Dudley
Edwards
,
edited by Art Cosgrove and Donal McCartney,
1–14. Dublin: University College Dublin, 1979.
Curtis, Edmund.
A History of Medieval Ireland from 1110 to
1513
. First edition. Dublin: Maunsel and Roberts, 1923.
Duffy, Seán.“The Problem of Degeneracy.” In
Law and Disor-
der in Thirteenth-Century Ireland: The Dublin Parliament
of 1297
, edited by James Lydon, 87–106. Dublin: Four
Courts Press, 1997.
Ellis, Steven G. ”Nationalist Historiography and the English
and Gaelic Worlds in the Late Middle Ages.” In
Irish His-
torical Studies
25 (1986): 1–18.
Frame, Robin. “Les Engleys nées en Irlande: The English Polit-
ical Identity in Medieval Ireland.”
Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society
6, no. 3 (1993): 83–103. Reprinted in
Robin Frame,
Ireland and Britain, 1170–1450
, 131–150.
London and Rio Grande: Hambledon Press, 1998.
Lydon, James, ed.
The English in Medieval Ireland
. Dublin.
Royal Irish Academy, 1984.
Nicholls, Kenneth.
Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Mid-
dle Ages
. The Gill History of Ireland 4. Dublin: Gill and
Macmillan, 1972.
Simms, Katharine. “Bards and Barons: The Anglo-Irish Aris-
tocracy and the Native Culture.” In
Medieval Frontier Soci-
eties
, edited by Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay,
177–197. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
See also
Parliament; Fosterage; Gossiprid; Poets,
Men of Learning; Coyne and Livery; Lionel of
Clarence; FitzGerald; FitzGerald, Gerald, third
Earl of Desmond; FitzGerald, Gerald, eighth Earl
of Kildare; Burke; ButlerGAMBLING
See
GamesGAMES
The sources of medieval Ireland reveal a variety of
games. Field games, particularly stick and ball games
(mentioned in the tract
Mellbretha
, “sport judge-
ments”), seem to have been quite popular in medieval
Ireland. References to the games, including clues to
their equipment and strategy, are described in literary
sources dating back to the seventh century. The richest
and most informative descriptions of early field games
are found in the Ulster Cycle saga “The Cattle Raid
of Cooley” concerning the hero Cú Chulainn. Scenes
from the saga literature generally describe games in
which numerous participants vie for one or several
balls. Goals are scored by either driving or throwing
the ball(s) through a hoop or across a border. Evidence
for the skills and strategy needed in stick and ball
games is hinted at in a fourteenth-century saga. In the
tale, a skillful foreigner keeps a ball aloft from one
end of a strand to the other, catching it occasionally
with hands, knees, shoulders and feet.
Hurling, a popular contemporary game, is first men-
tioned under that name in the medieval period. The
earliest testimony to hurling (
horlinge
) is found in a
statute issued at Kilkenny in 1366, describing a game
played with clubs and ball along the ground. The stat-
ute, one of many designed to suppress native custom
and activity, outlaws
horlinge
as a distraction from
more constructive pursuits such as archery and military
training.
The earliest physical representations of what
may
be an early playing stick (
cammán
)
are found on the
tenth-century high crosses at Kells and Monasterboice;
there is a more clear-cut, although late, depiction on a
fifteenth-century grave-slab from County Donegal,
showing a sword alongside a thin playing-stick with
curved end, above which a ball lies. The image sug-
gests the subject was known as both a superior soldier
and sportsman; early Irish literature portrays field
games as favorite pursuits of warriors.GAELICIZATION