Further reading… – The Norman Way

If you are interested in learning more about the Norman history of Wexford then some of the books below may be a good place to start. You can purchase someof these books from your local bookshop in Wexford or access them via the Public Libraries in County Wexford.

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Carrick, County Wexford: Ireland’s first Anglo-Norman stronghold
Edited by Denis Shine, Michael Potterton, Stephen Mandal & Catherine McLoughlin.

ISBN: 978-1-84682-796-9
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.885

From the publisher’s website:
Carrick, Co. Wexford, is one of the most enigmatic and misunderstood medieval sites in Ireland. Built in the autumn and winter of 1169 by Robert Fitz Stephen, one of the first knights to land at Bannow Bay, Carrick is the oldest Anglo-Norman fortification in the country. The site developed as an important borough in the thirteenth century and it was home to one of the first Marshal castles in the south-east. It was also the site of one of Ireland’s earliest Anglo-Norman deer parks. Over the centuries the site has passed in and out of public consciousness. Since 1987, it has been incorporated within the Irish National Heritage Park, which partnered with the Irish Archaeology Field School in 2018 to carry out a major archaeological research programme – ‘Digging the Lost Town of Carrig’. This volume details the results of the project to date, as well as select previous research at the site, and is published to coincide with a series of events to commemorate the 850th anniversary of both the site and the Anglo-Norman landing.

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Arrogant Trespass: Anglo-Norman Wexford, 1169–1400
Billy Colfer

ISBN: 978-1-84682-822-5
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.885

From the publisher’s website:
Arrogant Trespass is the first sustained treatment of the Anglo-Normans in Wexford since Orpen’s century-old work. Profusely illustrated, meticulously researched and tightly written, this model study has stood the test of time and is now a classic of Wexford history.

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Diarmait: King of Leinster
Nicholas Furlong

ISBN: 978-1-85635-505-6
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.502

From the publisher’s website:
This book is a thorough account of Diarmait’s life (Diarmuid McMurrough) and examines his actions and decisions not only in the context of his questionable personal traits and character but also expanding the analysis to reflect on his effect on the political turbulence of the time.

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The Norman Invasion of Ireland
Richard Roche

ISBN: 978-0-94796-281-4
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.502

Blurb from Amazon.co.uk:
In 1169 there occurred one of the most important events in the history of Ireland – the Norman invasion. Now in a new, enlarged and revised edition, Richard Roche’s lively account brings the invasion and the people involved in it vividly to life. With over a hundred illustrations, this is history in its most informative and attractive form.

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The Forth and Bargy Dialect
Sascha Santschi-Cooney

ISBN: 978-0-99333-788-8
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 427.941

From the author’s LinkedIn page:
The book is in a dictionary format (English-Yola and Yola-English), with information about the baronies of Forth and Bargy (with complementary photos from the area), along with a short list of phrases and expressions in the dialect and a number of songs and rhymes. Words of the Yola dialect in the dictionary were collected from various people of the area as well as the Quaker Library Archives in Dublin and various books written about the customs and expressions of Forth and Bargy.

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The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland
Edited by Evelyn Mullally

ISBN: 978-1-84682-817-1
Library catalogue reference: 941.52

From the publisher’s website:
‘The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland’ (La Geste des Engleis en Yrlande) is a primary source for the history of Ireland in the twelfth century. Formerly edited as ‘The Song of Dermot and the Earl,’ it is the only vernacular text to chronicle how Diarmait Mac Murchada brought Richard de Clare (Strongbow) to Ireland from Wales and how Henry II of England followed and established his régime.

This edition includes a facing translation, a history and description of the manuscript, a study of the anonymous author, an analysis of the language, textual and historical notes, maps, a chronology, a genealogical table, a select glossary and an index of proper names.

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The History and Topography of Ireland
Gerald of Wales (Gerald Cambrensis)

ISBN: 978-0-14044-423-0
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.503

From the publisher’s website:
Gerald of Wales was among the most dynamic and fascinating churchmen of the twelfth century. A member of one of the leading Norman families involved in the invasion of Ireland, he first visited there in 1183 and later returned in the entourage of Henry II. The resulting Topographia Hiberniae is an extraordinary account of his travels. Here he describes landscapes, fish, birds and animals; recounts the history of Ireland’s rulers; and tells fantastical stories of magic wells and deadly whirlpools, strange creatures and evil spirits. Written from the point of view of an invader and reformer, this work has been rightly criticized for its portrait of a primitive land, yet it is also one of the most important sources for what is known of Ireland during the Middle Ages.

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Ireland Under the Normans
Goddard Henry Orpen

ISBN: 978-1-84682-818-8
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.502

From the publisher’s website:
Almost a century after the publication of his magnum opus, Goddard Henry Orpen’s Ireland under the Normans remains a work of quite the most stupendous scholarship. Every monograph which has since appeared on this era of Irish history has paraphrased him, adjusted some of the details of his account, added some information where a new source has been unearthed, or sought to tell the same story in a different tone. His work cannot be superseded because it is the source and origin of the professional historiography of Anglo-Norman Ireland.
The Four Courts Press edition is completely reset, and published in one volume, with an introduction by Seán Duffy of the Department of Medieval History, Trinity College Dublin.

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The Hook Peninsula
Billy Colfer

ISBN: 978-1-85918-378-6
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.885

From the publisher’s website:
This case-study explores the rich landscape of the compact and highly distinctive Hook peninsula in south-west county Wexford and places its layered archaeological legacy in an historical context. The Hook forms the eastern boundary of Waterford Harbour, the gateway to south-east Ireland. Because of its strategic nature, the harbour has played a central role in Irish history and this is reflected in the physical remains around its shores. This book connects these remains in the Hook peninsula with the historical record and places the local story into a wider narrative. The origins of present-day families are also discussed. By using a wide range of maps, colour photographs (many of them aerial) prints and illustrations, the gradual evolution of the cultural landscape from earliest times to the present day is traced. The need for modern developments to appreciate and respect the inherited environment, and to conserve it for future generations, is also examined.

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Wexford Castles
Billy Colfer

ISBN: 978-1-85918-493-6
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 728.81

From the publisher’s website:
Billy Colfer’s Wexford Castles expands the IRISH LANDSCAPES series by taking a thematic approach, while still staying loyal to the central landscape focus. Rather than adapting a narrowly architectural approach, he situates these buildings in a superbly reconstructed historical, social, and cultural milieu. County Wexford has three strikingly different regions – the Anglo-Norman south, the hybridised middle and the Gaelic north – which render it a remarkable version in parvo of the wider island. Colfer’s wide-angle lens takes in so much than the castles themselves, as he ranges widely and deeply in reading these striking buildings as texts, revealing the cultural assumptions and historical circumstances which shaped them.

In this most cosmopolitan of counties, we range far and wide in search of the wide-spreading roots of its cultural landscape – from the Crusades and the Mani peninsula in Greece to the Bristol Channel, from Crac des Chevaliers to Westminster, from the Viking north and the cold Atlantic to the warm Mediterranean south. The book breaks new ground in exploring the long-run cultural shadow cast by the Anglo-Normans and their castles, as this appears in the Gothic Revival, in the poetry of Yeats and in the surprisingly profuse crop of Wexford historians and writers. While most books on a single architectural form can end up visually monotonous, creativity has been lavished on this volume in terms of keeping the images varied, fresh and constantly appealing. The result is a sympathetic and innovative treatment of the castles, understood not just as a mere architectural form, but as keys to unlocking the mentality of those who lived in them. Wexford Castles: landscape, context and settlement is a worthy conclusion of Billy Colfer’s superb trilogy of landscape studies.

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Medieval Wexford – essays in memory of Billy Colfer
Edited by Ian W. Doyle & Bernard Browne

ISBN: 978-1-84682-570-5
Wexford Library catalogue reference: 941.885

From the publisher’s website:
This volume explores the medieval period in Co. Wexford, in southeast Ireland, as seen through history, archaeology, language, settlement and landscape. These essays acknowledge the interests and writings of the late Dr Billy Colfer as well as the esteem in which he was held by a wide number of colleagues. Billy has left a deep mark on Co. Wexford history through his numerous publications and he also inspired a large number of students through his encouragement and generosity with knowledge.

The landscapes of Wexford are closely associated with the Anglo-Norman conquest of the twelfth–thirteenth centuries. This rich legacy is illuminated in this collection by papers on Dunbrody abbey, the deserted medieval boroughs of Bannow and Old Ross as well as the history and archaeology of the towns of New Ross and Wexford and the villages of Ferns and Taghmon. The history and architecture of the thirteenth-century Tower of Hook lighthouse is detailed and a new analysis is presented of the ecclesiastical buildings at Ferns. The role of the medieval frontier and the interactions between Gaelic-Irish and colonizers is set out in studies on personal names and plantation settlements, and in the identification of a brehon law school settlement at Ballyorley. The book also includes essays on post-medieval millstone extraction and on the chequered career of the antiquarian and genealogist Colonel Hervey de Montmorency-Morres.

The results of new research and discoveries from archaeological investigations are presented, many for the first time, so as to provide a compelling overview of why the Wexford landscape is crucial in the study of Irish medieval settlement and the interaction of native and colonial identities.

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