The Struggle for Mastery in Ireland, 1442-1540: Culture, Politics and Kildare-Ormond Rivalry

The Fitzgerald Earls of Kildare and the Butler Earls of Ormond were the foremost old colonial magnates in the late medieval Lordship of Ireland, rivals against each other for power and influence, and for the role of Lord Deputy, the representative of the English crown and head of the government in Ireland. This book, based on extensive original research including evidence from literary culture, material culture and oral culture, counterbalances the anti-Kildare impression given by official documents such as the State Papers, which broadly stress that a military conquest of Gaelic Ireland was needed. Instead, the book argues that the Kildare-Ormond rivalry was a more subtle and sophisticated conflict between two different concepts of what Ireland should be, the then dominant Fitzgeralds promoting the idea of Ireland as an integrated polity with the recognition and co-option of leading figures in Gaelic Ireland, the opposing Butlers embodying the traditional Cambro-Norman ideas of conquest. However, it is argued that these were alternating positions that were fundamentally driven by a standpoint in terms of political power rather than factional rivalry. The book elaborates on these conflicting concepts of Ireland, and shows how the political war between the two magnate families, and the accompanying culture war, played out over time.