There were at least two reasons for the incomplete nature of this conquest. One was that
the number of troops and later settlers required to ensure English control over the regions
was always insufficient. This was largely because the English kings were never as
interested in gaining control over the island as they were over parts of the larger island
such as Wales and later their interests were concentrated on more continental claims to
the French throne. The second reason lay in the nature of the underlying tribal structures
of Irish society itself.
Ireland was composed of dozens of quasi tribal chieftainships and kingships in which
inheritance and legitimacy only led to increased fragmentation. Succession was based on
an extended family unit in which the new leader was chosen from among close male
family members of individuals who had held the kingship in the immediate or near past.
Since leadership was determined by military strength this led to endemic warfare and
shifting boundaries in the subkingdoms. The legitimization of authority was ensured
through inauguration ceremonies that remained secular and to some extent pagan.
Kingship was primarily sacred and military with little or no lawmaking or enforcement
powers which lay in the hands of the Brehon lawyers who provided a common legal
system throughout Irish society.
Land was held by the tribe and farmed by the individual. In reality land was owned by
families within the tribal unit. There were some settled communities but the major value
was in animals and grazing followed transhumance patterns. There was a quasi caste
system of military, legal and artistic classes and most of this was based on families.
Those who tilled the land were divided further into free and unfree groups. While some
shift away from a tribal based society had occurred in the tenth and eleventh centuries the
earlier Viking invasions had disrupted the process and by the time the Normans arrived
the system was fairly fragmented. The population across the island shared in the same
religious community which was Christianity strongly influenced by earlier Irish forms of
ritual and still strongly marked by Gaelic paganism. There was also a linguistic
22
See Brien O Cuiv, “Ireland in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: c.1000-1169,” in Moody and Martin;
Donncha O Corrain, Ireland before the Normans, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972; as well as works on
the Norman invasion of Ireland.
19
Convention