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Irish clergy and the diocesan church in the ‘four obedient shires’ of Ireland, c.1400–c.1540

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2015

Sparky Booker
Sparky Booker*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Trinity College Dublin
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Extract

In 1435 the Irish council complained to Henry VI that there is not left in the nether parts of the counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare, that join together, out of the subjection of the said enemies and rebels scarcely thirty miles in length and twenty miles in breadth, thereas a man may surely ride or go in the said counties to answer to the king’s writs and to his commandments.

The letter was accompanied by a request that the king render payment due to the lord lieutenant Thomas Stanley for his service in Ireland, and also suggested that the king should travel to the colony to help fight off its enemies. Accordingly, the perilous state of English Ireland was almost certainly exaggerated to strengthen the arguments for financial and military support from the crown. Nevertheless this letter demonstrates that in the minds of the settler elite, which staffed the Irish council, the four counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare were the bastion of English rule in Ireland, beset, the council would have us believe, by enemies on all sides. This picture of the ‘four counties’ as the political, and to a certain extent the cultural, stronghold of Englishness in Ireland can be found in other contemporary sources, as the region was perceived as both distinct and distinctly English.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 154 , November 2014 , pp. 179 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2014

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References

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4 Historians agree that the region emerged in this period, although it is difficult to fix a date to this ongoing process. Evidence from the patent rolls suggests that the late 1380s may be a reasonable starting date as a series of writs issued in 1386–7 called for men in Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare to investigate the extortions of Philip Courtney, who was the king’s lieutenant. A date c.1400 has also been suggested, and this slightly more conservative estimate reflects the proliferation of legislation exclusively for the four shires in the first decades of the fifteenth century: Frame, Robin, ‘Munster in the later middle ages’ in Stalley, Roger (ed.), Limerick and south-west Ireland: medieval art and architecture (Leeds, 2011), pp 5–18Google Scholar; Ellis, Steven, ‘Region and frontier in the English state: Co. Meath and the English pale, 1460–1542’ in Holm, Helge Vidar, Laegred, Sissel and Skorgen, Torgeir (eds), The borders of Europe: hegemony, aesthetics and border poetics (Aarhus, 2012), pp 53–4Google Scholar; Rot. pat. Hib., p. 136, nos 205–6, p. 165, no. 228, p. 209, nos 171, 187, 188, 190; Patent roll 10 Richard II, nos 236–7 in Peter Crooks (ed. and trans.), A calendar of Irish Chancery letters c.1244–1509 (CIRCLE), chancery.tcd.ie; Booker, Sparky, ‘Gaelicisation and identity in the “four obedient shires” of Ireland, 1399–1534’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Trinity College Dublin, 2011), pp 16–19.Google Scholar

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12 They thus fit more appropriately into the category of ‘frontier of convergence’ rather than ‘frontier of separation’, as defined by historians and geographers of frontiers. The two types should not be seen as entirely exclusive but rather a matter of emphasis, as most medieval frontiers were characterised by both militarisation and acculturation: Power, Daniel and Standen, Naomi, ‘Introduction’ in Power and Standen (eds), Frontiers in question, p. 2Google Scholar; Berend, Nora, ‘Preface’ in Abulafia, David and Berend, Nora (eds), Medieval frontiers: concepts and practices (Aldershot, 2002), p. xiGoogle Scholar; Ellis, , ‘Region and Frontier’, pp 50Google Scholar, 68.

13 The first mention of the term ‘Pale’ in an Irish context was in Poynings’ parliament in 1494–5, when the parliament called for ditches to be built to protect much of the four shires region. The term Pale may be borrowed from the Pale of Calais, where Poynings had served in the year before he came to Ireland: Conway, Agnes, Henry VII’s relations with Scotland and Ireland, 1485–1498 (New York, 1972), p. 127Google Scholar; Stat. Ire., RIII–Hen. VIII, p. 93; Ellis, Steven, ‘An English gentleman and his community: Sir William Darcy of Platten’ in Carey, Vincent P. and Lotz-Heumann, Ute (eds), Taking sides? Colonial and confessional mentalities in early modern Ireland (Dublin, 2002), pp 22–5Google Scholar.

14 Ellis tracks this increasingly military character of the frontier with the construction of the Pale but acknowledges that it was still ‘porous’. It is uncertain whether the Pale was ever fully enclosed, and ‘even at its largest … it could not have kept out a marauding band of Irish rebels, intent on wreaking havoc’ but it did prevent cattle from being driven into Irish areas: Ellis, Steven, ‘Defending English ground: Tudor frontiers in history and historiography’ in Ellis, Steven and Esser, Raingard (eds), Frontiers and the writing of history, 1500–1850 (Hannover-Laatzen, 2006), pp 77–8Google Scholar; Ellis, , ‘Region and frontier’, pp 58–9Google Scholar; Murphy, Margaret and Potterton, Michael, The Dublin region in the middle ages (Dublin, 2010), p. 271Google Scholar; Booker, , ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 37–8.Google Scholar

15 This term was used as early as 1430: Stat. Ire., Hen. VI, p. 35.

16 Ellis, , ‘Darcy of Platten’, p. 22.Google Scholar

17 Ellis, Stephen G., Ireland in the age of the Tudors 1447–1603 (1998), p. 71Google Scholar; Alen’s reg., pp 250–1.

18 For ties between march and maghery see Booker, , ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 22–4Google Scholar.

19 To determine what is march, and what maghery, I rely on the written definition from 1488, and the maps generated from this description: Alen’s reg., p. 250, N.H.I., ix, p. 44; Murphy, and Potterton, , Dublin region, p. 266.Google Scholar

20 Ellis, , ‘Region and frontier’, pp 63–6Google Scholar.

21 The reckoning thus includes all of modern County Meath. Delvin was described as adjoining ‘the Irish land’ in 1475–6 and was an important marcher holding: Statute rolls of the parliament of Ireland: King Edward the fourth, part I, ed. Berry, Henry F. (Dublin, 1914), pp 279–81Google Scholar. Rathwire was likewise on the outer edge of the region, and was held by the Darcy family of Platten, another staunchly English marcher family: Ellis, , ‘Darcy of Platten’, p. 29.Google Scholar

22 In 1479–80 the Irish parliament attempted to protect the markets at Athboy, Kells, Fore, Mullingar, and Oldcastle, calling them ‘ancient English market towns’ and banning English traders from trading in Cavan, Granard and Longford town: Stat. Ire.,12–22 Edw. IV, pp 819–21. It again interfered in Mullingar in 1493: Stat. Ire., RIII – Hen. VIII, pp 111–13. The exclusion of the very west of medieval County Meath is also based on the fact that people from the far west of Meath were rarely called to parliament and it did not attempt to exercise power there. There was no one dominant family in the area but several different Irish and gaelicised English families were powerful there: Nicholls, Kenneth, Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages (2nd edn, Dublin, 2003), pp 208–9Google Scholar.

23 Nicholls, , Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland, p. 206Google Scholar; Cléirigh, Cormac Ó, ‘The O’Connor Faly lordship of Offaly, 1395–1513’ in R.I.A. Proc., lcvi, sect. C (1996), pp 87–102.Google Scholar

24 Rot. pat. Hib, p. 123, no. 21. It was not an anomalous usage, and appeared with some regularity thereafter: Rot. pat. Hib., p. 134, no. 124; p. 151, no. 16; p. 167, no. 30. The partition suggested by John Alen in 1537 and subsequently adopted was roughly from Athboy westward: S.P. Hen. VIII, p. 499; Potterton, Michael, Medieval Trim: history and archaeology (Dublin, 2005), p. 116.Google Scholar

25 The Irish parliament lamented in 1465 that Norragh ‘stands in the frontier of the march and has no help save God’ and ordered that a £10 subsidy be collected from County Kildare to build a castle to defend it. It was, at this point, still within the remit of the parliament and controlled by the Wellesley family: Stat. Ire., 1–12 Edw. IV, p. 369.

26 Millett, Benignus, ‘Dioceses in Ireland up to the fifteenth century’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, xii, no. 1 (1986), pp 11–15.Google Scholar

27 Jefferies, Henry, Priests and prelates of Armagh in the age of reformations, 1518–1558 (Dublin, 1997), pp 17–18.Google Scholar

28 Between 1400 and 1540 six or seven of the eleven archbishops of Armagh were from England, three or four were of the English of Ireland, and one, Octavian del Palatio, was Italian. There are arguments about whether Archbishops Swayne, Prene, and Bole were from the English community of England or that of Ireland. Smith argues that Swayne could be either, while Walsh asserts that he was from Kildare. Bole was from a Louth family, according to Anthony Lynch, while Aubrey Gwynn argued that he was English: Smith, Brendan, ‘John Swayne, (d. 1439×42)’, in Oxford D.N.BGoogle Scholar; Walsh, Katherine, ‘The Roman career of John Swayne, Archbishop of Armagh, 1418–1439: plans for an Irish hospice in Rome’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, xi, no. 1 (1983–1984), p. 7Google Scholar; Lynch, Anthony, ‘The administration of John Bole, archbishop of Armagh, 1457–71’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, xiv, no. 2 (1991), pp 39–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gywnn, Aubrey, The medieval province of Armagh (Dublin, 1946), p. 2.Google Scholar

29 Archbishop Colton made a visitation of Derry in 1397, while his successor Archbishop Fleming visited Armagh at least four times and once celebrated Christmas there. Archbishops Swayne and Bole both repeatedly visited Armagh, and Archbishop Mey made a visitation of Down and Clogher: Johnson, Robert L., ‘How Nicholas Fleming became Archbishop of Armagh’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xiii, no. 3 (1955), pp 279–87Google Scholar; Watt, J. A., ‘John Colton, justiciar of Ireland (1382) and archbishop of Armagh (1383–1404)’ in Lydon, James (ed.), England and Ireland in the later middle ages: essays in honour of Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven (1981), pp 196–213Google Scholar; Smith, , ‘John Swayne’; Registrum Iohannes Mey: the register of John Mey, Archbishop of Armagh, 1443–1456, ed. Quigley, W. G. H., and Roberts, E. F D. (Belfast, 1973), pp lxxxiiGoogle Scholar, 273.

30 Booker, , ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 103–6Google Scholar.

31 Haren, Michael, ‘Social structures of the Irish church: a new source in papal penitentiary dispensations for illegitimacy’ in Schmugge, Ludwig (ed.), Illegitimität im Spätmittelalter (Munich, 1994), p. 212.Google Scholar

32 O’Byrne, Emmett, War, politics and the Irish of Leinster, 1156–1606 (Dublin, 2003)Google Scholar; Millett, , ‘Dioceses in Ireland’, p. 16.Google Scholar

33 Richard Talbot, archbishop of Dublin (1417–49) was deputy lieutenant of Ireland on and off from 1419 to 1448, Archbishop Walter FitzSimons (1484–1511) served as deputy lieutenant in 1492–3 and 1503, while John Alen (1529–34) was joint chief governor of Ireland when he ruled as part of a secret council of three men in 1529–30: N.H.I., ix, pp 475–80.

34 Simms, Katharine, ‘The archbishops of Armagh and the O’Neills 1347–1471’ in I.H.S., xix, no. 73 (Mar., 1974), pp 38–55Google Scholar. The ongoing dispute between Dublin and Armagh over primacy in the Irish church ensured that the archbishops of Armagh were reluctant to visit Dublin, so they could not be as heavily involved in the colonial government: Watt, John, The church and the two nations in medieval Ireland (Cambridge, 1970), pp 208–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lynch, , ‘Administration of Bole’, pp 70Google Scholar, 105.

35 St Patrick’s cathedral chapter, for example, sought to, and for the most part succeeded in, excluding Irish members, and the 1505 will of John Aleyn, dean of St Patrick’s, stipulated that only ‘faithful Catholics of good repute, honest life and English nation [my italics]’ would be received in the poor house he endowed: Alen’s reg., pp 258–9, 263; Murray, James, Enforcing the English reformation in Ireland: clerical resistance and political conflict in the diocese of Dublin, 1534–1590 (Cambridge, 2009), pp 48–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Alen’s reg., pp 243–5, 254–5.

37 Stat. Ire. John to Henry V, pp 273, 420, 435, 445, 481, 560–1. Irish clerics sought dispensations to hold benefices in the colony and Geoffrey Hereford, bishop of Kildare (1447–64), William Sherwood, bishop of Meath (1460–82), and Walter FitzSimons, archbishop of Dublin (1484–1511), were all punished for investing Irish priests or given dispensations to do so: Richardson and Sayles, Irish parliament in middle ages, p. 90; Stat. Ire., 1–12 Edw. IV, p. 477; Stat. Ire., RIII–Hen. VIII, p. 47; Stat. Ire., 1–12 Edw. IV, p. 769; Quinn, David B., ‘The bills and statutes of the Irish parliaments of Henry VII and Henry VIII’ in Anal. Hib., x (July 1941), p. 87Google Scholar; Stat. Ire., RIII–Hen. VIII, pp 65, 83.

38 The register of Octavian de Palatio, archbishop of Armagh 1478–1513, ed. Mario Alberto Sughi (2 vols, Dublin, 1999), ii, 44–5.

39 A parliamentary dispensation to the archbishop of Dublin from 1485 notes that ‘various English clerks who are fit to have the cure of souls are inexpert in the Irish language, and of those who are practiced in the same, some disdain to live among the Irish people and others dare not, whereby divine service is diminished and the cure of souls sadly neglected’ and the dispensation given in 1471–2 to the bishop of Meath stipulated that he could invest Irish priests where no Englishman would wish to live. In practice, however, Irish priests served even in areas of high English population that were firmly under the control of the colonial administration: Stat. Ire., 1–12 Edw. IV, p. 769; Quinn, , ‘Bills and statutes’, p. 85Google Scholar; Stat. Ire., RIII–Hen. VIII, pp 65, 83.

40 Davis, Virginia, ‘Irish clergy in late medieval England’ in I.H.S., xxxii, no. 126 (Nov. 2000), pp 152–7Google Scholar; Campbell, Bruce, ‘Benchmarking medieval economic development: England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, c.1290’ in Economic History Review, lxi, no. 4 (Nov. 2008), p. 902.Google Scholar Mortality may have been higher for the English than the Irish: Kelly, Maria, A history of the Black Death in Ireland (Stroud, 2001), p. 91.Google Scholar

41 Murray, James, ‘The sources of clerical income in the Tudor diocese of Dublin, c.1530–1600’ in Archiv. Hib., xlvi (1991/1992), pp 144–5Google Scholar; Jefferies, , Priests and prelates, pp 32–3Google Scholar; Jefferies, Henry, The Irish church and the Tudor reformations (Dublin, 2010), p. 32.Google Scholar

42 Simms, Katharine, ‘Frontiers in the Irish church – regional and cultural’ in Barry, T. B., Frame, Robin, and Simms, Katharine (eds), Colony and frontier in medieval Ireland: essays presented to J. F. Lydon (London, 1995), p. 184Google Scholar; Haren, , ‘Social structures’, p. 212.Google Scholar

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44 Gwynn, , Medieval province of Armagh, p. 3Google Scholar; Simms, , ‘Frontiers in the Irish church’, p. 184.Google Scholar The name of a keeper of the bell from this family, ‘Cathalan O’Mealchalland’ is actually inscribed on the shrine: Morris, Henry, ‘The shrine of St Patrick’s bell’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., i, no. 4 (1907), p. 26.Google Scholar

45 T.C.D. MS 557, ‘Register of Archbishop Prene’ (2 vols), transcribed by Bishop Reeves, v, p. 191; Faulkner, Pádraig, ‘The clergy of the parish of Dunleer’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xxiii, no. 2 (1994), p. 219.Google Scholar

46 Iomhair, Diarmuid Mac, ‘Two old Drogheda chronicles’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn, xv, no. 1 (1961), p. 95.Google Scholar

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50 Reg. Octavian, ii, 392.

51 Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, viii, no. 3, p. 266.

52 Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 334; Lynch, ‘Administration of Bole’, pp 51, 96–7. An Ó Luchráin was bishop of Connor in 1420: N.H.I., ix, p. 278.

53 A member of this family became bishop of Raphoe in 1562: Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, ix, no. 2, p. 129; N.H.I., ix, p. 353; MacLysaght, , Surnames, p. 131.Google Scholar

54 Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, viii, no. 2, p. 177; Reg. Octavian, ii, 223–4.

55 Egan, Patrick K. and Costello, M. A., ‘Obligationes pro annatis diocesis Clonfertensis’ in Archiv. Hib., xxi (1958), pp 54Google Scholar n. 7, 57; Reg. Octavian, ii, 473–4; MacLysaght, , Surnames, p. 271.Google Scholar

56 A.U., ii, 143, iii, 17, 319; A.F.M., iv, 1147; MacLysaght, , Surnames, p. 58.Google Scholar

57 Reg. Octavian, ii, 116–7, 173–5, 631–2, 668–9; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, vii, no. 4, pp 520, 523, viii, no. 2, pp 176–8, 183, viii, no. 3, pp 266, 268–70, 272.

58 Jefferies, Henry, ‘Derry diocese before the plantation’ in O’Brien, Gerard (ed.), Derry and Londonderry: history and society (Dublin, 1999), pp 181–2Google Scholar, 189, 192; idem, ‘The diocese of Dromore on the eve of the Tudor reformations’ in Proudfoot, Lindsay (ed.), Down: history and society (Dublin, 1997), pp 127–9Google Scholar; Booker, , ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 106–11Google Scholar; Simms, , ‘Frontiers in the Irish church’, p. 184.Google Scholar

59 Reg. Octavian, ii, 43.

60 Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, viii, no. 2, p. 181, viii, no. 4, pp 333, 335; Jefferies, Henry, ‘The role of the laity in the parishes of Armagh inter Anglicos, 1518–1553’ in Archiv. Hib., lii (1998), p. 75Google Scholar; Jefferies, , Priests and prelates, p. 44.Google Scholar

61 Gwynn, , ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 2, p. 120.Google Scholar

62 Gwynn, , Medieval province of Armagh, p. 87.Google Scholar

63 Murray, L. P., ‘Calendar of the register of primate George Dowdall, commonly called the “Liber Niger” or “Black Book”’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., vi–vii (1926–1930), vii, no. 2 (1926), p. 95Google Scholar [hereafter Murray, ‘Calendar Dowdall’ with volume and issue number given]; Reg. Octavian, ii, 44–5.

64 Murray, ‘Calendar Dowdall’, vi, no. 2 (1926), p. 95.

65 Griffith, M.C. (ed.), Calendar of inquisitions formerly held in the office of the Chief Remembrancer of the Exchequer (I.M.C., Dublin, 1991), p. 7Google Scholar; Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 335, 338; Jefferies, , ‘Role of laity’, p. 75.Google Scholar Ó Dubhthaigh is numerous in every province but Munster, and is particularly common in Monaghan: MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 92.

66 Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, viii, no. 4, p. 335.

67 Dowdall deeds, ed. MacNeill, Charles and Otway-Ruthven, A. J. (Dublin, 1960), pp 225–34Google Scholar; Cal. papal letters, v, p. 331; The register of Nicholas Fleming: archbishop of Armagh 1404–1416, ed. Smith, Brendan (Dublin, 2003), pp 62–3Google Scholar, 67, 131; The register of John Swayne, archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, 1418–1439, ed. Chart, D. A. (Belfast, 1935), pp 38Google Scholar, 60.

68 Booker, Sparky, ‘An English city? Gaelicisation and cultural exchange in late medieval Dublin’ in Duffy, Seán (ed.), Medieval Dublin X (Dublin, 2010), pp 288–91.Google Scholar

69 Lennon, Colm and Murray, James (eds), The Dublin city franchise roll 1468–1512 (Dublin, 1998), p. 28Google Scholar; CIRCLE, Patent roll 13 Henry VI, no. 13.

70 For examples of anti-Irish enactments in Dublin see Stat. Ire., Hen. VI, pp 45, 417– 19; Calendar of the ancient records of Dublin, ed. Gilbert, J. T. (18 vols, Dublin, 1889), i, 139Google Scholar, 280, 286, 298.

71 Register of wills and inventories of the diocese of Dublin in the time of Archbishops Tregury and Walton 1457–1483, ed. Berry, Henry F. (Dublin, 1896–1897), pp 41–5Google Scholar, 149–51; Reg. Swayne, p. 57.

72 Ellis, ‘The common bench plea roll’, p. 55; Lennon, and Murray, , Dublin city franchise roll, p. 25.Google Scholar

73 Christ Church deeds eds. McEnery, M. J. and Refaussé, Raymond (Dublin, 2001), pp 98Google Scholar, 154, 158, 161; Anc rec. Dublin, i, 340, 347–9, 357–68; Wills Tregury and Walton, pp 22–3; Lennon, and Murray, , Dublin city franchise roll, p. 47.Google Scholar

74 Cal. papal letters, ix, p. 292.

75 Ellis, Steven, Tudor frontiers and noble power: the making of the British state (Oxford, 1995), p. 130CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 47–54.

76 ‘Idlemen’ was the term often used, and it probably meant migrants or anyone without an established home or occupation, although it may have sometimes been used with the more specific meaning of ‘kern’, the Irish foot soldiers employed in the retinues of Irish and English lords: Katharine Simms, pers. comm.; Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 56–7, 61–2.

77 Reg. Fleming, pp 112, 161–2, 173–4; Reg. Swayne, p. 56; MacIvor, Dermot, ‘The church of Kildemock’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, ii, no. 2 (1957), p. 403.Google Scholar

78 Reg. Octavian, ii, 306, 493–4, 713–16. This dropping of the ‘O’ or the ‘Mac’ patronymics was common in anglicised Irish people living in the four counties: Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 36–8.

79 CIRCLE, Patent roll 3 Henry V, no. 158, Patent roll 8 Henry IV, no. 85, Patent roll 29 Henry IV, no. 37, Patent roll 1 Henry V, no. 54; Rot. pat. Hib., p.154, no. 158, p. 186, no. 81, p. 203, no. 14, p. 266, no. 37. Coyne is usually rendered as Ó Cadhain, but that is a Connacht name, while Ó Cuinn is a common Ulster surname: MacLysaght, , Surnames, pp 62Google Scholar, 252.

80 Reg. Swayne, p. 143; Reg. Octavian, ii, 54–5; MacLysaght, Surnames, pp 227–8. My thanks go to Dr Brendan Smith for providing me with advanced copies of sections of his monograph: Smith, Brendan, Crisis and survival in late medieval Ireland: the English of Louth and their neighbours, 1330–1450 (Oxford, 2013), pp 196–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Reg. Swayne, pp 141–3.

82 Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 70–1, 74; Reg. Swayne, p. 130; Rot. pat. Hib., p. 158 no. 115, p. 215, no. 53, p. 241, no. 7; N.A.I., MS RC8/37, p. 63.

83 Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, p. 74.

84 Rot. pat. Hib, p. 188, no. 37. Irish citizens of Waterford had to be denizens before becoming citizens: 10th report of Historical Manuscripts Commission, appendix V (London, 1885), pp 299, 308; Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, p. 59.

85 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz, p. 33.

86 CIRCLE, Patent roll 12 Henry IV, no. 2.

87 Lynch, Anthony, ‘A calendar of the reassembled register of John Bole, archbishop of Armagh, 1457–71’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, xv, no. 1 (1992), p. 130Google Scholar. For more on the secular statutes against Irish styles, see Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 264–73.

88 Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 106–12.

89 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz., pp 2, 22, 26–8, 30–1, 39; Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 87–8.

90 If there had been complaints about Irish clerics they could have been addressed in the consistory courts. Parishioners could exert a good deal of influence over who their priests were: Jefferies, ‘Role of laity’, pp 75–6.

91 Duffy, Eamon, The stripping of the altars: traditional religion in England 1400–1580 (New Haven, 2005), p. 54.Google Scholar A fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscript associated with St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin contains directions for hearing confession and uses the seven deadly sins as a guide: Hand, Geoffrey, ‘Cambridge University Additional MS 710’ in Reportorium Novum, ii, no. 1 (1958), p. 21.Google Scholar In the late fourteenth century, Archbishop Colton ordered that each person in Armagh go to confession at least once a year: Reg. Swayne, p. 9.

92 Empey, Adrian, ‘The layperson in the parish, 1169–1536’ in Gillespie, Raymond and Neely, W. G. (eds), The laity and the church of Ireland, 1000–2000 (Dublin, 2002), pp 17, 19–25Google Scholar; Jefferies, , Irish church and the Tudor reformations, pp 15–38Google Scholar; Mharcaigh, Máirí Ní, ‘The medieval parish churches of south-west County Dublin’ in R.I.A. Proc., xcvii, sect. C (1997), p. 256Google Scholar; O’Neill, Michael, ‘The medieval parish churches in County Meath’ in R.S.A.I. Jn., cxxxii, (2002), p. 46Google Scholar; O’Neill, Michael, ‘The medieval parish churches of Kildare’ in Kildare Arch. Soc. Jn., xix, no. 3 (2005), p. 406.Google Scholar

93 Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 38–54.

94 Jefferies, , Irish church and the Tudor reformations, p. 32.Google Scholar

95 For Irish customs and the Irish language in the four shires see Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, chap. 4–5.

96 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 2, p. 177; Reg. Octavian, ii, 223–4.

97 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, p. 334.

98 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 1, p. 48.

99 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 3, pp 269, 272, viii, no. 4, pp 334, 347, ix, no. 2, p. 128.

100 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, vii, no. 4, pp 518, 521–3; Reg. Fleming, p. 291.

101 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 2, p. 183, viii, no. 3, pp 262, 265, viii, no. 4, p. 335; Jefferies, Priests and prelates, pp 40–1.

102 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 3, pp 265, 267.

103 Smith, Crisis and survival, p. 196. This surname could be several different Irish names, but Mac Eoghain, a common Ulster surname, is most likely: MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 177.

104 Reg. Swayne, pp 100–101, 159–61.

105 Reg. Swayne, pp 55–6, 91–2, 101.

106 Reg. Swayne, pp 154–5, 183, 191–2; Registrum Iohannes Mey, pp 27–8, 66, 67, 53– 4, 70–1; Reg. Prene, v, pp 221–4; Reg. Octavian, ii,. 69.

107 CIRCLE, Patent roll 1 Henry VI, no. 78.

108 Reg. Octavian, ii, 572.

109 Reg. Swayne, pp 32–3, 126–8; Reg. Fleming, p. 82; Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, p. 104, n. 62. He was again called erenagh of Derrynoose in 1445: Registrum Iohannes Mey, p. 120.

110 Gyllabrony McKewyn was granted portions of office of the staff in St Bromana, Kilbroney in 1428: Reg. Swayne, p. 101.

111 Reg. Swayne, pp 55–6, 91–2, 101, 177; Registrum Iohannes Mey, pp 338–9; Rot. pat. Hib., p. 228/76(a).

112 Reg. Octavian, ii, 440–1.

113 Reg. Octavian, ii, 176–8, 183–4, 550–2.

114 Reg. Octavian, ii, 19–20, 144–7, 152–4, 280–2, 654–5, 736.

115 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 2, p. 120; x, no. 3, p. 175; Gwynn, , Medieval province of Armagh, p. 87Google Scholar; Murray, ‘Calendar Dowdall’, vi, no. 2 (1926), p. 93.

116 Reg. Octavian, ii, 26–7, 29–30, 105–7; Lynch, ‘Administration of Bole’, pp 78–9.

117 Reg. Octavian, ii, 340–1, 412-16; Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, pp 15–17; Lynch, ‘Administration of Bole’, p. 81. For the excommunication of Sherwood, see Reg. Octavian, ii, 237–41.

118 Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, pp 15–18.

119 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, p. 351, x, iii, p. 170; Griffith, Calendar of inquisitions, p. 24. The name is certainly Irish and Jefferies gives it as O Cahan: Jefferies, Priests and prelates, pp 35–6; MacLysaght, Surnames, pp 36, 176.

120 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 322, 346–7, 350.

121 Though his was a Derry family originally, men bearing the name ‘Ocane’ or ‘Okane’ lived in Louth and Meath in the early fifteenth century, so they were not new to the region: Smith, Crisis and survival, p. 126; CIRCLE, Patent roll 4 Henry IV, no. 105, 5 Henry VI, no. 18.

122 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz, p. 23.

123 Jefferies reads this name as McColkin, while Murray gives McCowin: Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, x, no. 2, p. 117; Jefferies, , Priests and prelates, pp 35–6.Google Scholar

124 Murray, ‘Cromer’s Reg.’, x, no. 3, p. 170. Murray and Jefferies agree that Cormac Roth was an anglicised Irishman, while Gwynn had asserted he was English: Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, pp 71–2; Murray, Enforcing English reformation, pp 85–6; Jefferies, Priests and prelates, pp 45, 47, 92, 136, 139.

125 The use of Irish first names was uncommon, though not unknown, for men of English ancestry in the four shires: Booker, Sparky, ‘Ashamed of their very English names? Identity and the use of Irish names by the English of late medieval Ireland’ in Rolker, Christof and Signori, Gabriela (eds), Konkurrierende Zugehörigkeit(en): practiken der Namengebung im europäischen Vergleich (Konstanz, 2011), pp 143–5.Google Scholar

126 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz., i, p. 32; Murray, Enforcing English reformation, p. 85; Steven Ellis follows Gwynn in suggesting that he was probably related to the earl of Kildare’s ‘trusty and welbelovyd servant John Rothe’ who was probably John Rowth of Ballynesragh, near the bog of Allen: ‘The Kildare Rebellion and the early Henrician Reformation’ in Historical Journal, xix, no. 4 (Dec. 1976), p. 821.

127 Reg. Octavian, ii, 237–41.

128 He was a supporter of the Geraldines: Ellis, ‘Kildare Rebellion’, p. 821.

129 Murray, Enforcing English reformation, pp 85–6; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 1, pp 45–6, viii, no. 2, p. 185; Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, p. 48.

130 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 337, 340, 348, 351; x, no. 2, p. 123; x, no. 3, p. 174. The archdeacon of Armagh lived in County Louth ‘in close co-operation with the archbishop and took little part in the normal activities of the chapter’. Until 1471, the archdeacons were always English: Lynch, ‘Administration of Bole’, p. 75; Lynch, Anthony, ‘The archdeacons of Armagh, 1417–71’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xix, no. 3 (1979), pp 218–19Google Scholar, 221.

131 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 2, passim; Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, p. 61.

132 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 3, p. 170.

133 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 3, p 175, 176, 178; Murray, Enforcing Englis reformation, p. 85.

134 Murray, Enforcing English reformation, p. 85; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, vii, no. 4, pp 519, 524; viii, no. 1, p. 45; viii, no. 3, p. 263; viii, no. 4, p. 334; ix, no. 1, p. 38; x, no. 2, p. 124.

135 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz, p. 39. I have not been able to locate Kilmake, but this cleric was presumably serving somewhere in the colony if he felt it necessary to purchase English law.

136 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 3, pp 170–1; Murray, Enforcing English reformation, p. 86; Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, pp 127–31; Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII– Eliz, p. 2.

137 A Thaddeus Reynolds was collated to the vicarage of Clonard in 1534: Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 2, p. 127.

138 Griffith, Calendar of inquisitions, pp 38–9.

139 Alen’s reg., p. 250; Conway, Agnes, Henry VII’s relations with Scotland and Ireland, 1485–1498 (New York, 1972), p. 127Google Scholar; S. P., Hen. VIII, iii, no. 2, p. 22; N.H.I., ix, p. 44; Murphy and Potterton, Dublin region, p. 266.

140 Irish benefices were poor by comparison with England, and also with Scotland and Wales, so in that sense most Irish benefices were poor. This analysis will compare the values of Irish benefices to one another, not to those outside Ireland. Campbell, ‘Benchmarking medieval economic development’, p. 902; Jefferies, ‘Role of the laity’, p. 75; Ellis, Steven, ‘Economic problems of the church: why the reformation failed in Ireland’ in Jn. Ecc. Hist., xli, no. 2 (Apr. 1990), p. 248.Google Scholar

141 Gwynn, Medieval province of Armagh, p. 3; Simms, ‘Frontiers in the Irish church’, p. 184.

142 James and John could be the same man, as different, but similar first names could easily be due to a scribal or editorial error. However, it was relatively common for men of the same surname to hold benefices, so they may also have been two different men who held it in succession. The purchase of English law by an Irishman named William Broun of Drogheda in 1309 and the presence of a Cornelius O Brune in 1518 as a monk in Newry suggest that Brune was the name of an Irish family resident in the diocese of Armagh: Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, vii, no. 4, p. 520; viii, no. 1, pp 42, 47; Crooks, Peter, ‘Crossing the race line in medieval Ireland: charters of English law in context’ paper delivered in James Lydon Research Seminar (T.C.D., 2011).Google ScholarCalendar of the Patent rolls, Edward II (London, 1894), p. 183; Jefferies, Priests and prelates, p. 40; MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 29.

143 MacIvor, Dermot, ‘County Louth churches and church lands in Primate Swayne’s register’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, iii, no. 2 (1959), pp 371Google Scholar, 375. The value of Dunleer vicarage was recorded as worth £4 2s. Irish, in Valor beneficiorum cclesiasticorum in Hibernia (Dublin, 1741), p. 2.Google Scholar

144 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 333, 335; Jefferies, Henry, ‘The role of the laity in the parishes of Armagh inter Anglicos, 1518–1553’ in Archiv. Hib., lii (1998), p. 75Google Scholar; Jefferies, Priests and prelates, p. 44.

145 Griffiths, Calendar of inquisitions, p. 24; Valor beneficiorum, p. 2. The lower initial value may be in £ sterling, which were worth 50 per cent more than £ Irish. If this were the case, the benefice would in fact have dropped in value over those ten years.

146 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, p. 334.

147 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 1, p. 49. O Daly was also assistant curate of Killincoole at some point in his career: Jefferies, Priests and prelates, p. 41.

148 Smith, Crisis and survival, p. 196.

149 Reg. Octavian, ii, 27.

150 Valor beneficiorum, p. 2; MacIvor, ‘County Louth churches’ p. 372. The 1431 and 1433 subsidy were presumably reckoned in £ Irish, as was usual in the fifteenth century, while some of the Valor assessments are in £ Irish and some in £ sterling. Steven Ellis gives an equivalency of £15 Irish to £10 Sterling: Ellis, ‘Economic reasons’, p. 249.

151 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 3, pp 265, 267; Reg. Octavian, ii, 44–5.

152 MacIvor, ‘County Louth churches’, p. 371.

153 Cal. papal letters, v, p. 240; Cal. papal letters, viii, p. 511. Ó Cathaláin is a County Armagh/Monaghan name: MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 34.

154 Cal. papal letters, xii, p. 284.

155 Reg. Octavian, ii, 11–13.

156 Valor beneficiorum, p. 4.

157 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 3, p. 170; MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 179; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, p. 351; Griffith, Calendar of inquisitions, p. 35.

158 Warner, George and Gilson, Julius, Catalogue of Western manuscripts in the old Royal and King’s collections (4 vols, London, 1921), ii, 303–4.Google Scholar

159 Ware, James, The works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland, ed. Harris, Walter (2 vols, Dublin, 1745), i, 229–30Google Scholar; Jefferies, , Irish church and the Tudor reformations, p. 45.Google Scholar

160 Valor beneficiorum, p. 9.

161 Lawlor, H. J. (ed.), The Fasti of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin (Dundalk, 1930), p. 136.Google Scholar

162 Lawlor, Fasti, p. 197.

163 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz., p. 23.

164 Cal. Papal letters, v, p. 595. The archdeaconry was worth £42 5s. 8d. in 1539–40: Valor beneficiorum, p. 9.

165 Mason, William Monk, The history and antiquities of the collegiate and cathedral church of St Patrick near Dublin (Dublin, 1820), p. lxxiv.Google Scholar

166 Lyons, Mary Ann, Church and society in County Kildare c.1470–1547 (Dublin, 2000), p. 17.Google Scholar

167 The archbishops also exercised control over the marches, certainly, and collations to benefices in the marches of Meath can be found in the Armagh registers. However, particularly as the archbishops could not generally rely on the support of the ‘secular arm’ in the marches or in Irish areas, there was greater scope even on the marches for the disputes over benefices that were so common in Gaelic Ireland. If, as often occurred, one party petitioned the papacy for support, these disputes then were preserved in the papal registers.

168 Jefferies, , Irish church and the Tudor reformations, p. 32.Google Scholar

169 Valor beneficiorum, pp 2, 9.

170 Reg. Fleming, pp 112, 161–2, 173–4; Reg. Swayne, pp 56, 136; Griffiths, Calendar of inquisitions, p. 7; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 335, 338; Jefferies, ‘Role of laity’, p. 75; Murray, ‘Calendar Dowdall’, vi, no. 3 (1927), p. 154.

171 In those benefices in unstable areas or areas of endemic violence, it was difficult to support clerics economically; some benefices in this situation were assessed as having no value. Perhaps the threat of the Uí Néill from the north and powerful north midlands septs like the Mac Mahon in the west decreased the value of this benefice: Valor beneficiorum, p. 2.

172 Valor beneficiorum, p. 2.

173 Reg. Octavian, ii, 572; S. P., Hen. VIII, iii, no. 2, p. 22.

174 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 3, p. 167; Alen’s reg., p. 250.

175 Reg. Octavian,, ii, 176–8, 183–4, 550-2; Valor beneficiorum, p. 5.

176 This entry is undated but it appears in Fleming’s register, surrounded by 1410 material: Reg. Fleming, pp 142–3. MacNab is the name of a Scottish family that settled in Ulster, and it established itself as a prominent clerical family in the Irish area of the archdiocese of Armagh by the late fourteenth century. Although Scottish, they were from the Gaelic west of Scotland, from a community that, when it came to Ireland, integrated with the Irish, rather than the English community: Sughi, Mario A., ‘The family of Comedinus Offercheran, the authority of the archbishop of Armagh and the dispute over the rectory of Tamlaghtlege, 1414–1449’, in Seanchas Ardmhacha, lvii, no. 2 (1996), pp 30–1Google Scholar; The register of Milo Sweteman, archbishop of Armagh, 1361–1380, ed. Smith, Brendan (Dublin, 1996), pp 136–7Google Scholar, 155; MacLysaght, Edward, More Irish families (rev. ed., Dublin, 1982), p. 165.Google Scholar

177 Reg. Prene, v, p. 87.

178 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 4, pp 334–5; Lynch, ‘Administration of Bole’, pp 51, 96. The O and Mac together in ‘O Macreill’ are repetitive and may be a scribal error.

179 Smith, Crisis and survival, p. 196; Registrum Iohannes Mey, pp 151–2; Reg. Octavian, ii, 73–5, 97.

180 MacIvor, ‘County Louth churches’, pp 372, 375; Valor beneficiorum, p. 2. Clonkeen was under lay patronage, like a number of other benefices, but both lay and clerical patrons seem to have had little problem appointing Irish clerics: Jefferies, ‘Role of the laity’, pp 74–5.

181 Griffith, Calendar of inquisitions, p. 35; Lynch, Anthony, ‘A calendar of the reassembled register of John Bole, archbishop of Armagh, 1457–71’ in Seanchas Ardmhacha, xv, no. 1 (1992), p. 144.Google Scholar The Mac an Chlérigh family was based in Cavan, and a possible progenitor of the sept was bishop of Down until his death in 1175: A.F.M., iii, 19; MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 45.

182 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz, p. 16.

183 Valor beneficiorum, p. 4. This valuation of Meath is dated in the printed Valor to the 31st regnal year of Henry VIII (1539–40), but Steven Ellis argues that it was probably actually completed in the previous year: Ellis, ‘Economic problems’, p. 246. Delvin was described as adjoining ‘the Irish land’ in 1475–6 and was an important marcher holding: Stat. Ire., 1–12 Edw. IV, pp 279–81.

184 Cal. papal letters, vii, p. 489; Cal. papal letters, vii, p. 191; Cal. papal letters, xii, p. 70. For a discussion of Carbury’s inclusion in the four counties region see Booker, ‘Gaelicisation and identity’, pp 125–6.

185 Valor beneficiorum, p. 10.

186 Cal. papal letters, xii, p. 220.

187 Valor beneficiorum, p. 11.

188 Cal. papal letters, viii, p. 112; Cal. papal letters, ix, p. 347. This is presumably the Harristown in the south, near Nurney, and not that near Naas, as the more southerly settlement had a prebend associated with Kildare cathedral and in the gift of the bishop of Kildare: Otway-Ruthven, A. J., ‘The medieval county of Kildare’ in I.H.S., xi, no. 43 (Mar., 1959)Google Scholar, map; Lewis, Samuel, Topographical dictionary of Ireland (2 vols, London, 1837), i, 52.Google Scholar

189 Reg. Octavian, i, 162, ii, 717–18.

190 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz, pp 28, 30.

191 We have already seen above that Carolus Okaan employed a curate, and this must have been the case for many of the most active members of the archbishop’s court. Pluralities were also not uncommon, as two or more poor benefices were held by one cleric in an effort to provide them with a decent living. Curates were also necessary when clerics were living abroad, as often occurred when they went to be educated outside of Ireland. Both the ecclesiastical and secular administrations routinely issued these licences to be absent and employ a curate, as seen in Reg. Fleming, pp 63–4, 165; N.A.I., MS RC 8/33, pp 209, 213, 236–7, N.A.I., MS RC 8/34, p. 143; N.A.I., MS RC 8/36, pp 256, 289.

192 Jefferies, , Irish church and the Tudor reformations, p. 32.Google Scholar

193 James Bane and James Boy, Henry Magallan, Nicholas Lannergan, and Terence McGyllecossyll were Irish chaplains in Ardee chantries in this period: Murray, L. P., ‘The ancient chantries of Co. Louth’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., ix, no. 3 (1939), p. 185.Google Scholar Colm Lennon notes that most chaplains in Meath were of English descent, but he names some Irish chaplains serving in the county as well: ‘The parish fraternities of county Meath in the late middle ages’ in Riocht na Midhe, xix (2008) p. 93.

194 Reg. Prene, v, p. 325. ‘MacGlew’ is associated with Louth, but the Irish form is uncertain: MacLysaght, Surnames, p. 129.

195 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 2, p. 124; Murray, ‘Calendar Dowdall’, vi, no. 3 (1927), pp 149, 150, 157.

196 Reg. Octavian, ii, 44–5.

197 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 2, pp 180, 187.

198 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 2, pp 117–18.

199 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 3, pp 266, 270.

200 Reg. Octavian, ii, 44–5; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, x, no. 3, p. 166.

201 Reg. Swayne, p. 175; Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 1, p. 48.

202 N.A.I., MS RC 8/36, pp 537, 561, 578–9, 593, 635.

203 Murray, ‘Cromer’s reg.’, viii, no. 1, p. 42.

204 Anc. rec. Dublin, i, p. 320; Christ Church deeds, pp 203.

205 Ellis, ‘The common bench plea roll’, p. 55; A. J. Otway-Ruthven, transcription/translation of the ‘Talbot papers’ for 14 May, 1512, Trinity College Dublin (courtesy of Dr Peter Crooks).

206 Crosthwaite, J. C., The Book of obits and martyrology of the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ Church, Dublin, (Dublin, 1844), p. 42.Google Scholar

207 Reg. Octavian, ii, 534. Unlike most of the clerics of the four shires who came from Ulster or midland families, his surname is usually associated with Munster; Maelbrighde Ua Flannáin (d. 1129) was an anchorite in Lismore and an Ua Flannáin was bishop of Cloyne (d. 1167): A.F.M., ii, 1031, 1163.

208 Cal. Pat. Rolls Ire., Hen. VIII–Eliz, p. 13.

209 Murray, Enforcing English reformation, pp 20–6. Jefferies calculates that average rectories in Meath, Ossory and Ferns were worth more than they were in Dublin, but Dublin was among the wealthier dioceses overall and may have been particularly attractive because so much of the diocese was relatively safe and secure: Jefferies, Irish church and the Tudor reformations, p. 25.