Ireland Encastellated, AD 950–1550: Insular castle-building in its European contect

Despite an ever-expanding literature on Irish castles, the relationships between the castle building tradition in Ireland and those of contemporary Europe have attracted very little attention among Irish scholars. This book seeks to remedy this by approaching the corpus of Irish castles as a non-Irish scholar might do. Is there a case for dating the first castles in Ireland to the tenth century in line with the revised chronology of castle-building on the Continent? Are castles in Ireland typical of their periods by contemporary standards in England and France in particular? Are any castles in Ireland genuinely innovative or radical by those contemporary standards? What inferences about Ireland’s place in medieval Europe can be drawn from the evidence of its castles and their forms? "Despite an ever-expanding literature on Irish castles, the relationships between the castle-building tradition in Ireland and those of contemporary Europe have attracted very little attention among Irish scholars. This books seeks to remedy this by approcahing the corpus of Irish castles as a non-Irish scholar might do. Is there a case for dating the first castles in Ireland to the later tenth century in line with the chronology of castle-building on the Continent? Are castles in Ireland typical of their periods by contemporary standards in England and France in particular? Are any castles in Ireland genuinely innovative or radical by those contemporary standards? What inferences about Ireland's place in medieval Europe can be drawn from the evidence of its castles and their forms?"--Jacket Cover 1 Frontispiece 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Dedication 6 Table of contents 8 List of illustrations 10 Abbreviations 13 A note on placenames 14 1. Introduction 18 2. Beginnings: voices and words, rings and mounds 31 3. Signifying lordship in an age of medieval historicism: the rectangular donjon 61 4 After Romanitas: castles of the new medieval modernism 116 5 The long tail of European influence: a late medieval epilogue 184 6 Conclusion 211 Bibliography 216 Index 234