Merchants and Mariners in Medieval Ireland.
Author: O’NEILL, Timothy.
Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1987. 164 pages. Illustrated. Paperback.
“The political history of medieval Ireland is a story of wars and divisions between the Gaelic Irish and the Anglo-Irish. The breakdown of law and order is a constant theme in the government records and decline is the term most frequently used to describe the social scene during the period. This survey shifts the emphasis from politics to commodities and by examining the activities of the citizens of the country’s towns and cities focuses on trade and enterprise rather than on conflict and destruction. Using material gleaned mainly from printed sources and from a wide variety of local studies this book shows medieval Ireland as a relatively prosperous country, practically self-sufficient.
It is clear that the prosperity of the merchants and the towns was completely dependent on relations with the local Irish and Anglo-Irish. The main trading commodities — cowhides, wool, fish, flax and furs — all came from outside the town walls; so also did essential supplies of corn, meat, fuel and building materials. The townspeople in their turn offered wine, salt, iron and fine cloth to the population of the hinterland and a market for their produce in England and on the continent. The net result was an interdependence of producers and merchants that transcended politics, demonstrating that, although politically there were two nations in medieval Ireland, economically there was only one.
The bulk of Ireland’s foreign trade in the later Middle Ages was with England and passed through the ports of Bristol and Chester. In addition to English merchants and shipmasters, French, Breton, Spanish, Portuguese and Italians frequented the Irish ports, bringing wine, salt and luxury goods and departing with local produce.
Irish merchants operated just as their European counterparts did — banding together to organise a cargo or to hire vessels at home or in foreign ports. ‘In the name of God and of profit’, they ventured inland and abroad and faced the hazards of shipwreck and the ever-present menace of piracy. The colourful tapestry woven from scores of examples cited will fascinate the general reader and provide the historian with a view of the life and work of ‘ordinary’ people, townsfolk and sailors — the merchants and mariners of medieval Ireland.”
ISBN: 071652399X
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