Killeigh Patronage
Archived: 20 October 2026
Abstract
For Ireland, 1451 is not a year dominated by one island-wide campaign or governmental act. Its surviving record is instead a set of sharply local episodes: the death of a renowned midland patron, a fire in a Franciscan friary at Cavan, a return from Rome, murders and hostage agreements, and the building of a castle in Connacht. Read together, they show an Ireland of overlapping lordships rather than a single political community: Gaelic rulers, Anglo-Irish families, religious houses and learned networks all exercised authority in particular places.The evidence has limits. The principal narratives were written or compiled in monastic and