These remarkable books ought to be read by anyone with an interest in Irish history. For historians and archaeologists they offer exemplars of what can be achieved by studying the Irish past through multidisciplinary approaches and with very keen intelligence. Curley outlines the challenges he confronted in focusing on an important Irish lordship for which detailed socio-economic documentation is scant before the late sixteenth century. In its relative absence he devised a theoretical framework ‘built around the complementary concepts of “landscape archaeology” and “contextual archaeology” and a methodology followed that brings all available archaeological, historical, literary, place-name and cartographical evidence together to create as full a picture as possible’ (5). After an extensive desk-based assessment to identify promising targets, he conducted fieldwork across his study area: O’Kelly country in what is now south Roscommon and much of east Galway. As well as visiting sites in person, he made use of archive and modern aerial photography, Airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), drones and a number of geophysical sensing techniques to build up an extraordinary picture of the Uí Chellaig lordship. He also used a wide range of historical records, including the annals, prose narratives such as Caithréim Thoirdhealbhaigh and the Uí Chellaig genealogies, as well as toponymical evidence embedded in placenames.

Curley traces the origins of the Uí Chellaig to the very dawn of Irish history. Their ancestors were already significant people before the Battle of Claenlock in 538. The eponymous forefather of the Uí Chellaig was a powerful man named Ceallach who lived at the turn of the tenth century: Uí signifies ‘grandson of’. It is very interesting to learn that the Uí Chellaig were another example of an Irish dynasty that played a major part in Irish politics on the eve of the English invasion and proved to be tough enough, resilient enough and sufficiently adaptable to survive and revive after the coming of the English, along with the O’Briens and McCarthys in Munster, the O’Connors in Connacht and the O’Neills in Ulster. Research in Irish history focuses very disproportionately on the English in Ireland, explaining and sometimes even seeming to legitimise English policies and actions in Ireland: Curley’s book helps to redress that prevailing imbalance in Irish historical studies. He highlights the agency exercised by generations of the Uí Chellaig through fluctuating conditions over centuries, identifies their lordly centres (cenn áiteanna) and explores the landscape and economy of the Uí Chellaig lordship. Curley shows in detail how the wealth and power of the Uí Chellaig elite was directly related to agriculture and the exploitation of other natural resources in the area under their authority. Some striking manifestations of that wealth and power can still be seen today. Historians of Gaelic Ireland have long bemoaned the relative lack of documentary evidence — but have often overlooked the abundance of physical evidence of the past dotted around the Irish countryside. Curley’s expert handling of an impressive range of archaeological evidence, much of it gleaned from his own fieldwork, and the clarity of his exposition, and the marvellous array of illustrations presented, make this an outstanding book. He succeeds in conveying clearly the wide range of habitation types used throughout the late medieval period and the striking continuity of habitation at many sites extending over a thousand years. His discussion of the bódhún (cow fort) is especially interesting and important. He also highlights a distinct cultural trend, ‘post c.1400, or perhaps a decade or two earlier’, in the adoption of the tower house castle (264), a form that became ubiquitous across almost all of the country. Curley suggests that intermarriage between lordly families of Gaelic and English descent may have encouraged the growing homogeneity in the style of lordly residences. It may, however, be more useful instead to investigate the backgrounds, training and employment of the teams of masons who designed and constructed the myriad tower houses, churches and friaries that were built in extraordinary numbers during the building boom of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In his final chapter, Curley expresses his concern that many Irish historians still routinely shy away from the very valuable results and interpretations of their colleagues in other disciplines. Reading this book should cure any cases of silly prejudice or myopia in Ireland’s historical establishment. Gaelic Ireland will never be the same again thanks to Curley’s book.

Moygara Castle, with its four towers, gatehouse and high curtain walls, is one of the most impressive masonry-built monuments in north Connacht. It was the centre of the O’Gara lordship of Coolavin in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This book was the brainchild of its current owner, P. J. O’Neill, who set up the Moygara Castle Research and Conservation Project in 2005 with the help of Maura O’Gara-O’Riordan, the O’Gara clan and members of the local community. The book’s editor, Kieran O’Conor, is to be complimented very warmly indeed for overseeing the publication of this splendid volume of ten chapters, two of which he wrote himself and three others he collaborated on, which discuss the history of the castle and the O’Garas of Coolavin, the castle’s architecture, its siting and its wider context, together with reports on topographical and geophysical surveys, recent excavations, the dating of its mortar and a description of the land denominations surrounding it. Like Curley’s book, this is copiously illustrated. The quality of the illustrations and indeed the overall production of both books are outstanding. Four Courts Press and everyone else involved have done themselves proud.