Irish inhabitants of the 'four obedient shires' - a term commonly used to describe the region at the heart of the English colony in the later Middle Ages - were significantly anglicised, taking on English names, dress, and even legal status. However, the processes of cultural exchange went both ways. This study examines the nature of interactions between English and Irish neighbours in the four shires, taking into account the complex tensions between assimilation and the preservation of distinct ethnic identities and exploring how the common colonial rhetoric of the Irish as an 'enemy' coexisted with the daily reality of alliance, intermarriage, and accommodation. Placing Ireland in a broad context, Sparky Booker addresses the strategies the colonial community used to deal with the difficulties posed by extensive assimilation, and the lasting changes this made to understandings of what it meant to be 'English' or 'Irish' in the face of such challenges.

Irish inhabitants of the 'four obedient shires' - a term commonly used to describe the region at the heart of the English colony in the later Middle Ages - were significantly anglicised, taking on English names, dress, and even legal status. However, the processes of cultural exchange went both ways. This study examines the nature of interactions between English and Irish neighbours in the four shires, taking into account the complex tensions between assimilation and the preservation of distinct ethnic identities and exploring how the common colonial rhetoric of the Irish as an 'enemy' coexisted with the daily reality of alliance, intermarriage, and accommodation. Placing Ireland in a broad context, Sparky Booker addresses the strategies the colonial community used to deal with the difficulties posed by extensive assimilation, and the lasting changes this made to understandings of what it meant to be 'English' or 'Irish' in the face of such challenges.

Walking through Dublin Castle or along the surviving medieval city walls, you can see only glimpses of what it would have been like to live in the city centuries ago. Tales of medieval Dublin provides a chance for modern audiences to meet the Irish, Norse and English men and women who lived in this colourful medieval city, and to hear their fascinating stories. While providing the most up-to-date research, these fourteen tales are written to appeal to anyone interested in the city's past. They span almost 1,000 years of Dublin's history and trace the lives of warriors, churchmen, queens, bards and barons, as well as those individuals who are so often ignored in the historical record, like housewives, tax collectors, masons, lawyers, notaries, peasants and slaves. This volume serves both as a history of the medieval city, and as a window into the day-to-day lives of the men and women who lived there.