Papers by catherine swift
Limestone and river: essays on Thomond history in honour of Liam Irwin, 2024
This volume represents a collection of essays written in honour of Liam Irwin, the retired Head o... more This volume represents a collection of essays written in honour of Liam Irwin, the retired Head of History in Mary Immaculate College by his friends and colleagues. The chronological range is from the prehistoric period through to the mid twentieth century in keeping with Liam's own wide-ranging research interests while the geographical focus is very much on the region of the high medieval kingdom of Thomond. The volume is published by Four Courts Press, Dublin and is currently in bookshops around Ireland.
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Pattern and purpose in insular art, 2002
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Durham Archaeological JOurnal , 1999
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Medieval Dublin XIX, 2023
This article looks at the evidence for the fur trade in Dublin in the late Viking period and how ... more This article looks at the evidence for the fur trade in Dublin in the late Viking period and how it might have evolved during the first hundred years of Angevin rule in Ireland
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Constructing Gender in Medieval Ireland, 2013
At the beginning of the twentieth century, W. B. Yeats described various females from Irish saga ... more At the beginning of the twentieth century, W. B. Yeats described various females from Irish saga in the following terms: “After Cuchulainn, we think most of certain great queens—of angry amorous Maeve with her long pale face, of Findabair, her daughter who dies of shame and pity, of Deirdre who might be some mild modern housewife but for her prophetic vision … I think it might be proud Emer … who will linger longest in the memory, whether she is the newly married wife fighting for precedence, fierce as some beautiful bird or the confident housewife who would waken her husband from his magic sleep with mocking words.” A hundred years later, it is the description of early Irish queens as “housewives” that is particularly striking. This perspective is not confined to Yeats’s critical writing but also occurs in his poetry. In the 1893 collection The Rose, the poem Cuchulain’s Fight with the Sea refers repetitively to Emer in a domestic setting, working at the arduous task of preparing cloth: A man came slowly from the setting sun, To Emer, raddling raiment in her dun, Then Emer cast the web upon the floor, And raising arms all raddled with the dye, Parted her lips with a loud sudden cry. “You dare me to my face,” and thereupon She smote with raddled fist.1
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Brides of Christ: women and monasticism in medieval and early modern Ireland, 2023
This paper looks at the evidence for the particular forms of charism and religious life shared by... more This paper looks at the evidence for the particular forms of charism and religious life shared by Brigit and Íte as recorded in their hagiography and suggests that the closest parallels for their social engagement and non-enclosed lifestyles is probably to be found in the Cappadocian traditions associated with St Basil and his elder sister, St Makrina.
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Medieval Dublin XIX, 2023
An examination of traders in élite furs in eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth-century Dublin, looki... more An examination of traders in élite furs in eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth-century Dublin, looking at Norwegian descriptions of Dublin, DNA of walruses and Plantagenet trading networks. As the paper has only just come out, this is only the first couple of pages. Published by Four Courts Press and available through their catalogue.
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Ireland and the Crusades , 2022
There are many palmers identified by name in late twelfth-century and early thirteenth-century Du... more There are many palmers identified by name in late twelfth-century and early thirteenth-century Dublin. In this paper I argue that many represent the men who helped transport the Crusaders to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade and who subsequently sought their fortune as merchant traders in King John's burgeoning colony. Volume edited by Edward Coleman, Paul Duffy and Tadhg O'Keeffe
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Tulla Reaching Out volume 5, 2021
A study of the community described in the little known Vita Mochullei of Tulla in central Clare. ... more A study of the community described in the little known Vita Mochullei of Tulla in central Clare. The life occurs in the Magnum Legendarium Austriacum and is dated to AD 1185 or before. Stefan Weber argued in 2010 that the text was either edited or created by the author of Vita Mariani of Regensburg, a feature which it shares with the Vita Flannani, the patron of Killaloe, Co. Clare. See also Donnchadh Ó Corráin, "Foreign connections" in 1982.
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Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 2018
In this paper, the political and social context for the early Cistercian foundation of Monasterne... more In this paper, the political and social context for the early Cistercian foundation of Monasternenagh, as a foundation of the Uí Bhriain rulers of Thomond and its importance in the economy of Ireland's Mid-West in the later 12th C and early 13th C is examined in depth.
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An essay in a section entitled "Monastic proto-towns and Viking towns" which is Part II in volume... more An essay in a section entitled "Monastic proto-towns and Viking towns" which is Part II in volume entitled MORE MAPS AND TEXTS: SOURCES AND THE IRISH HISTORIC TOWNS ATLAS ed. H.B. Clarke & S. Geary (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy 2018)
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This was published in Education Matters Yearbook 2016-2017 in the context of a discussion of the ... more This was published in Education Matters Yearbook 2016-2017 in the context of a discussion of the commemoration of 1916 and its impact on teaching in Irish primary schools. The editors of the volume are Brian Mooney and Phyllis Mitchell.
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I'm afraid I don't have a hard copy of this (its over twenty years old at this stage - oh dear) a... more I'm afraid I don't have a hard copy of this (its over twenty years old at this stage - oh dear) and there is a problem with the scanning - my apologies. I think at this remove I'd be happier arguing for a dindshenchas reinterpretation of standing monuments especially since John Waddell's work on the Knockans of Teltown and at Dathí's mound at Rathcroghan which seems to show an early medieval interest in prehistoric monuments and their reinterpretation.
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This short note looks at early precursors to the month's mind and how at least some early Irish ... more This short note looks at early precursors to the month's mind and how at least some early Irish priests kept away from death beds.
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Paper on the DNA of Brian Boru's descendants published in Medieval Dublin XVI - Proceedings of Cl... more Paper on the DNA of Brian Boru's descendants published in Medieval Dublin XVI - Proceedings of Clontarf 1014-2014 edited by Seán Duffy, Four Courts Press 2017
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This paper examines the takeover of Ui Briain lands in Limerick by the first and second generatio... more This paper examines the takeover of Ui Briain lands in Limerick by the first and second generation of De Burgos and the potential implications of this case study for our understanding of the nature of Norman settlement in Ireland.
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Studia Hibernica, 2017
Oireachtas is a later medieval Irish word which seems to evolve from
earlier terms such as airech... more Oireachtas is a later medieval Irish word which seems to evolve from
earlier terms such as airecht but which was chosen as the most appropriate
word for the legislature of a newly independent Ireland at a time when
Irish society was expressing a considerable interest in its ancestral roots
and in an ethnic identity expressed by use of Irish terminology. This
paper explores the evidence for the submission of agricultural renders to
higher political authorities at such assemblies and their ultimate redistribution
across both higher and lower levels in Irish society. It is argued
that there is little or no evidence for the presence of large numbers of
craftsmen engaged in creating goods for sale (as occurred, for example,
in Norse market assemblies) at a medieval Irish oireachtas. It is,
however, clear that political and legislative assemblies, concerned with
political submission, judicial penalties and the material wealth generated
by both, were a key element in encouraging the circulation of goods
in the medieval Irish economy and that such assemblies could but did
not necessarily take place in the immediate vicinity of fortified urban
settlements. This has implications for our understanding of medieval
Irish trade, of the organisation of manufacture and of the role of towns in
Irish-speaking society from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
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Papers by catherine swift
earlier terms such as airecht but which was chosen as the most appropriate
word for the legislature of a newly independent Ireland at a time when
Irish society was expressing a considerable interest in its ancestral roots
and in an ethnic identity expressed by use of Irish terminology. This
paper explores the evidence for the submission of agricultural renders to
higher political authorities at such assemblies and their ultimate redistribution
across both higher and lower levels in Irish society. It is argued
that there is little or no evidence for the presence of large numbers of
craftsmen engaged in creating goods for sale (as occurred, for example,
in Norse market assemblies) at a medieval Irish oireachtas. It is,
however, clear that political and legislative assemblies, concerned with
political submission, judicial penalties and the material wealth generated
by both, were a key element in encouraging the circulation of goods
in the medieval Irish economy and that such assemblies could but did
not necessarily take place in the immediate vicinity of fortified urban
settlements. This has implications for our understanding of medieval
Irish trade, of the organisation of manufacture and of the role of towns in
Irish-speaking society from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.
earlier terms such as airecht but which was chosen as the most appropriate
word for the legislature of a newly independent Ireland at a time when
Irish society was expressing a considerable interest in its ancestral roots
and in an ethnic identity expressed by use of Irish terminology. This
paper explores the evidence for the submission of agricultural renders to
higher political authorities at such assemblies and their ultimate redistribution
across both higher and lower levels in Irish society. It is argued
that there is little or no evidence for the presence of large numbers of
craftsmen engaged in creating goods for sale (as occurred, for example,
in Norse market assemblies) at a medieval Irish oireachtas. It is,
however, clear that political and legislative assemblies, concerned with
political submission, judicial penalties and the material wealth generated
by both, were a key element in encouraging the circulation of goods
in the medieval Irish economy and that such assemblies could but did
not necessarily take place in the immediate vicinity of fortified urban
settlements. This has implications for our understanding of medieval
Irish trade, of the organisation of manufacture and of the role of towns in
Irish-speaking society from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.