The Medieval Irish History Podcast

• Bonus episode: Interpreting the 'Anglo-Norman' Invasion with Dr Colin Veach

  As a follow up to our episode on the English Conquest with Dr Colin Veach (University of Hull) we examine the bias inherent in the contemporary sources, including the famous Laudabiliter papal bull, the works of Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis/Gerald de Barri) , and the 'Song of Dermot and the Earl'. We also discuss how historians can best approach this complicated period of Irish history.Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday).Email: [email protected] (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPodSupported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).Views expressed are the speakers' own.Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.Logo design: Matheus de Paula CostaMusic: Lexin_Music

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• 1169: The English Conquest of Ireland with Dr Colin Veach

  Happy St Brigit's weekend! (For links to Brigit content see below). Instead of Brigit we were eager to release an episode we recorded just before Christmas with the brilliant Dr Colin Veach, from the University of Hull, on the English colonisation of Ireland, which may be known to some of you as the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Today’s episode mostly focusses on the English perspective of the conquest. Whether it was inevitable, how we should frame the events, English or Anglo-Norman etc. We talk Diarmaid Mac Murchada or in English, Dermot McMurrough and Strongbow, King Henry II and the bad King John, but we’ll cover Rory O’Connor and other aspects in more detail in future episodes. We’ve an extra super short bonus episode which we will release next week on the initial propaganda that was released justifying the English invasion and how historians should approach the sources today. Suggested reading: Colin Veach, From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland , The English Historical Review, 2024;, ceae210, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae210 Brigit links: Niamh on the Bitesize Irish Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-vObx_1gg Tiago's article on RTÉ Brainstorm: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0130/1493745-medieval-ireland-kildare-women-st-brigid-darlugdach-gnathnat-sebdann-muireann-and-coblaith-sarnat/ Podcast episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna last year: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GYSJHylMlTNuKUSSzLhN1?si=fcdf72608d9142b7 Email: [email protected] X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council). Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music

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• Fashion and clothing with Mairéad Finnegan

  In this episode, Niamh Wycherley interviews Mairéad Finnegan, a PhD researcher in Maynooth University, about dress, clothing and fashion in late medieval Ireland (12th to 16th centuries). Mairéad brilliantly paints a vivid picture of how a medieval Irish person would express their ethnic identity, status, gender or community through their clothes and provides a glimpse into the private lives of medieval Irish men and women. Mairéad talks sumptuary laws, tomb effigies and dodgy hairstyles and indulges all of Niamh's random musings on short shorts, long shoes and colourful clothing. We ask the big questions like who wore it best (Waterford vs Limerick edition) in the 14th century and how does one deal with blackberry stains? Mairéad is half way through her PhD research in the Department of Early Irish (supervisor Prof. Deborah Hayden) and the Department of History (supervisor Dr Michael Potterton). Suggested reading: Sparky Booker, 'Moustaches, Mantles, and Saffron Shirts: What Motivated Sumptuary Law in Medieval English Ireland?' Speculum 96/3 (July 2021): https://doras.dcu.ie/26481/1/Speculum%20booker%20mantles%20moustaches%20final.pdf Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday). Email: [email protected] X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council). Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music

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• St Columbanus and the Merovingians with Dr Alexander O'Hara

  Happy New Year! To soothe fragile minds after the Christmas break we are easing you in to 2025 with St Columbanus part 2 — a further, more relaxed, reflection, on the career and legacy of Irish monastic founder Columbanus with Dr Alexander O'Hara. Do listen to our previous episode from November 22nd first if you get the chance. In this episode, we hear lots of Columbanus' own words, from his own writings. Dr O'Hara discusses how Columbanus became a dynastic holy man to the Merovingians, high politics, murder, marriage alliances, the appeal of Irish radical asceticism, the tension between temporal and spiritual power, the physical layout of Irish monastic sites, the legacy of St Gall (Sankt Gallen). Suggested reading: Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. G. S. M. Walker, (Scriptores Latini Hiberniae Vol. II) The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, (Dublin, 1957 [repr. 1970]) Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms (450-751) (London, 1994) Alexander O'Hara (ed.), Saint Columbanus: Selected Writings (Veritas, Dublin, 2015)  J.-Michel Reaux Colvin & Alexander O'Hara, "Réécriture and the cultus of Saint Gallus, ca. 680-850: A fidelissimis testibus indicata", Traditio 79 (2024) Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday). Email: [email protected] X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council). Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music

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• Law and Society with Prof. Liam Breatnach

  Happy Christmas everyone! In today's episode, Professor Liam Breatnach (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), one of Ireland's leading experts on the Old/Middle Irish language, medieval Irish law (so-called Brehon Law), poets and the Irish language, explains what the law tracts can tell us about medieval Irish society, the intellectual networks and frameworks that influenced and were influenced by the large corpus of legal material, and how the highly stratified Irish society understood itself in legal terms. We chat cats, what people ate in medieval Ireland, the Senchas Már, lost texts, polygamy, zombie concepts and much more! Suggested reading: Breatnach, Liam, ‘On Old Irish Collective and Abstract Nouns, the Meaning of cétmuinter, and Marriage in Early Mediaeval Ireland’, Ériu 66 (2016). ‘The Early Irish Law Text Senchas Már and the Question of its Date’. E.C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures 13 (Cambridge 2011) Breatnach, Liam, A Companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici, Early Irish Law Series 5 (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 2005) Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday). Email: [email protected] X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council). Views expressed are the speakers' own. Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva. Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa Music: Lexin_Music

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