Following and expanding on his 2002 volume, The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400–1534, this historical survey of the lifestyle and impact of the four Friar orders in Ireland from their beginnings until the dissolution of the religious houses in 1540 is a welcome addition. As well as locating the histories of the Augustinians, Carmelites, Domincans and Franciscans within the wider religious history of Ireland and of Europe at that time, it also highlights the many parallels and some of the significant differences between the four orders. Rather than withdrawing from the world, the friars sought to evangelise it while, at the same time, maintaining a strong contemplative dimension. The Carmelites and Augustinians were notable for their fidelity to the hermit traditions from which they had emerged. The introduction to this book, which describes the nature of the extant sources, recognises the difficulties to be faced in analysing the Irish mendicant phenomenon as a whole and it gives some sense of the historiographical skill and courage of the author in attempting a comprehensive analysis of the available data. The first three chapters provide a chronological overview of the arrival, expansion and governance of the friars up to and including their second flowering in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Although there are important extant narratives of the arrivals of the Franciscans and Dominicans, none of the narratives concerning the origins of the Augustinans or Carmelites in Ireland have survived. The seven chapters that follow constitute the most significant and interesting part of this work. They outline the friars' relationships with their patrons and critics, their formation and lifestyle, their liturgy, devotion, architecture and art, and their pastoral impact. The majority of Irish friaries owed their origins to the patronage of aristocratic families but the friars also cultivated close links with members of the merchant class. In general, the friars enjoyed a better diet than many of the laity but they also observed a greater number of fast days when the only meal, excluding meat, eggs, oil, animal fats and dairy products, was taken at around two o'clock in the afternoon. Contemporary collections of papal bulls assembled by Irish friars have been preserved in Trinity College Dublin (a sixteenth-century Franciscan codex) and in Lambeth Palace (the privileges granted to the Carmelites) and these privileges led to considerable resentment on the part of certain sections of the clerical and monastic establishments. Only a small number of manuscripts concerning the liturgical and devotional life of the friars has survived and among the most significant are the fifteenth-century breviary and missal from the Carmelite priory at Kilcormac, Co. Offally. The many illustrations and the twenty-two colour plates included in the volume give important insights into many aspects of the life of the friars. The epilogue, covering the suppression of many Irish friaries in the period 1530–40, attributes the survival of the friars to their poverty, the respect in which they were held, the loyal support of their patrons and, last but not least, the goodness and providence of God.