The Gaelic lordship of the O'Sullivan Beare

Colin Breen

'Colin Breen has written a detailed, focussed, innovative, readable and well-illustrated account of a Gaelic Lordship. It outlines the direction that future research must take to fully understand the history of the cultural landscape of the Beara Peninsula and it provides a template for future investigations into the late medieval lordships throughout Ireland', Matthew Stout, Studia Hibernica.

‘… an extremely important and thought-provoking, and above all, highly readable work. It embraces, on the one hand a flexible interpretive/ theoretical agenda backed up, on the other, by a solid programme of fieldwork. It is, indeed, rare for an archaeologist working in this period to tackle so many exasperating gaps in our knowledge of the period head on. Subsequent fieldworkers in the greater Cork area will owe a large debt to Colin Breen’s pioneering work, but all readers of this Journal, with a keen interest in the history and archaeology of this county [Cork], should have this book in their library, not only to greatly extend their knowledge of the period but also to see how far Irish archaeology has come', Colin Rynne, Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.

‘… liberally and strikingly illustrated throughout … let us look forward to more from this promising scholar', Seán Duffy, History Ireland.

‘This is an important book, and it marks a further step in realising the visibility of the later medieval Gael in Ireland …[Breen] deserves heaps of praise', Niall Brady, Antiquity.

‘This well produced book is a welcome addition to studies of Gaelic society and settlement in the medieval period,’ Robin Glasscock, Society for Landscape Studies.

'[This book] arrives with impeccable timing and impeachable editing. Breen, a lecturer in maritime and historical archaeology at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, builds on his expertise and dissertation on the late-medieval and early modern coastal archaeology of south-western Ireland, so as to provide site-by-site analyses of both the landscape and material remains of the lordship of the O’Sullivan Beare, in Bantry and Beara in southwest County Cork … his method is historical archaeology, an exciting and fast-growing field in Ireland (witness the recent creation of both the Irish Post-Medieval Archaeology Group and the Society for Irish Historical Settlement) … Breen’s archaeological overview opens valuable new routes for future exploration and puts a range of monuments on display, some new, some already analyzed but all freshly synthesized in a successful attempt at rescuing the national and international relevance of late-medieval and early modern Southwest Ireland', Thomas Herron, Eolas (2009).