Historia y cultura I
Cultural assimilation in Ireland

Rev. 13 October 2003

Although we say Anglo-Norman and even, eventually, Old English, the term Anglo-Irish might be quite appropriate when considering the process of assimilation that seems to have occurred. In 1367, the English government expressed serious concern over the subversive influence of Irish culture upon the "English" in Ireland -- the apparent attraction of the Gaelic society (its language, family forms and general social customs as well as the native interpreters of the country's culture, its poets, bards, storytellers, and singers) -- and, in response to their worries, the English government convoked an Parliament at Kilkenny to cope with the "degenerate English" phenomenon. That Parliament passed the Statute of Kilkenny (1367), which did the following:

• ban intermarriage with the Irish;
• ban the adoption of Irish names, dress, customs, or speech;
• impose fines for "harbouring or encouraging Irish minstrels, rhymers, or taletellers"; and
• forbid those holding land granted by the Crown to allow the Irish to graze cattle on that land.

But the effects were less than desired since many powerful Anglo-Normans had already "gone Irish".

Perhaps not so much "Old English" as "New Irish".

As Theodore Allen says, Anglo-Irish who had given a social definition to a nationality by making Hibernicus synonymous with unfree now saw the value of themselves becoming "Hibernicized". Normal tendencies of social assimilation derived added force from the attraction exerted on the Anglo-Irish by the Gaelic society, its language, family forms and general social customs; and by the native interpreters of the country's culture, its poets, bards, storytellers, and singers.