Beyond the Pale and Highland Line

The Irish and Scottish Gaelic world

Simon Egan

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781526178411
• eBook ISBN: 9781526178404
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This book offers important new insights into the history and culture of the Gaelic-speaking world from the mid-fifteenth century through to the reign of James VI and I. Throughout this period, the reach of the English and Scottish crowns within these western regions was limited. The initiative lay with local communities and royal power was contingent upon negotiating with well-established and largely autonomous aristocratic lineages. Moreover, events within this western world could exert a powerful, often unpredictable, influence upon the affairs of the wider archipelago. Using a series of case studies, this collection examines the evolving relationship between Ireland and Scotland in rich detail. It demonstrates how this world interacted with the encroaching English and Scottish states and underlines the importance of paying closer attention to this neglected area of Irish and British history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Series Editors’ Preface
• Abbreviations
• A note on orthography
• Introduction: Beyond the Pale and Highland Line
• 1 The age of the Gonna Cam
• 2 The sacking of Rathlin, 1557
• 3 The Gaelic lordship of west Bréifne
• 4 The Gàidhealtachd, the Gordon earls and the Scottish crown, c.1450–1600
• 5 Gaelic sovereignty in the later middle ages
• 6 ‘An enduring grudge, a steadfast heart and a mettlesome mind’
• 7 Sex and subversion in late medieval and early modern Scottish Gaelic verse
• 8 What the dean left out
• 9 Cultural and political identity in the hagiography of Gaelic Ireland
• 10 Silencing Irish Ulster
• 11 ‘Mere Irish’ in Ireland’s parliaments and towns, 1316–1659
• Index