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Project title

Environments of Conflict: Warfare and Climate Change in Late Medieval Ireland 1300 to 1530.

Primary Funding Agency

Taighde �ireann-Research Ireland

Co-Funding Organisation(s)

Lead Organisation

Trinity College Dublin (TCD)

Lead Applicant

Not listed

Project Abstract

Around the year 1300, Europe began to undergo an environmental and climatic shift often referred to as the Little Ice Age (LIA). The prevailing climate became more unstable and generally cooler, with colder, longer winters and shorter, dryer summers. It was also around this time that the Gaelic world underwent a period of expansion, often at the expense of the English colony in Ireland. Large swathes of territories fell back into Irish hands while Gaelic lords began to reconstruct the regional hegemonies that the Anglo-Normans had worked so hard to break since their arrival in 1170. It comes as no surprise then, that during this time of worsening environmental conditions and reconquest that warfare became endemic in Ireland. Regional warfare became constant and more intense, with Gaelic and Anglo-Irish lords alike becoming warlords above all else. This project will use the pioneering methods of environmental history to examine how environmental and demographic paradigms shifted during the years 1300 to 1530, resulting in increased and intense warfare in medieval Ireland. This project will transform our understanding of how, why and when warfare occurred in this period as well as challenging the prevailing notion within the historiography of late medieval Ireland that warfare was primitive and static. It will explore how warfare was dynamic and innovative, reacting and adapting to shifting environmental, economic, demographic regimes.

Grant Approved

�62,000.00

Research Hub

Climate Change

Research Theme

3. Climate Solutions, Transition Management and Opportunities

Start Date

09/01/2024

Initial Projected Completion Date

31/08/2026