Search Results - The Pale

From the thirteenth century onwards, the Hiberno-Norman invasion in the rest of Ireland at first faltered then waned. Across most of Ireland, the Norman knights, and their servants who were mostly from Wales and Cornwall assimilated to Ireland. A series of alliances with their neighbouring autonomous Gaelic chieftains developed. The Norman lords in the provinces behaved as kings in their own right in their own areas, as the Gaelic chieftains had previously.

This left a section of territory that did not have any independent ruler overlord, which came directly under control of the English crown. The power of the crown itself was greatly weakened by the Hundred Years War, and Wars of the Roses. A parliament was created, which mostly sat in Drogheda, until the Tudors took direct interest in Irish affairs and moved it back to Dublin. The Pale generally consisted of fertile lowlands, which were easier for the garrison to defend from ambush, than hilly or wooded ground. For reasons of trade and administration, a version of English became the official and common language, whose closest modern derivative would be the accent used by natives of Fingal.

In 1366, in order for the English Crown to assert its authority over the settlers, a parliament was assembled in Kilkenny and the Statute of Kilkenny was established. The statute decreed that inter-marriage between English settlers and Irish natives were forbidden. It also forbade the settlers using the Irish language and adopting Irish modes of dress or other customs. This however was never implemented successfully, even in the Pale itself, as the first expansion of Dublin was to an area known as Irishtown.