Late Middle Ages · Europe · Politics

1366

Statute of Kilkenny tries to wall off Anglo-Ireland

1366

The English parliament in Ireland forbade Anglo-Norman colonists from speaking Irish, intermarrying with the natives, riding bareback, or fostering their children among Gaels. The statute confessed how thoroughly the colony had Gaelicized and proved completely unenforceable, as generations of intermarriage had blurred the lines between colonizer and colonized. Ireland kept absorbing its conquerors.