Happy St Brigit's weekend! (For links to Brigit content see below). Instead of Brigit we were eager to release an episode we recorded just before Christmas with the brilliant Dr Colin Veach, from the University of Hull, on the English colonisation of Ireland, which may be known to some of you as the Anglo-Norman Invasion. Today’s episode mostly focusses on the English perspective of the conquest. Whether it was inevitable, how we should frame the events, English or Anglo-Norman etc. We talk Diarmaid Mac Murchada or in English, Dermot McMurrough and Strongbow, King Henry II and the bad King John, but we’ll cover Rory O’Connor and other aspects in more detail in future episodes. We’ve an extra super short bonus episode which we will release next week on the initial propaganda that was released justifying the English invasion and how historians should approach the sources today.

Suggested reading:

Colin Veach, From Kingdom to Colony: Framing the English Conquest of Ireland , The English Historical Review, 2024;, ceae210, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceae210

Brigit links:

Niamh on the Bitesize Irish Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-vObx_1gg

Tiago's article on RTÉ Brainstorm: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0130/1493745-medieval-ireland-kildare-women-st-brigid-darlugdach-gnathnat-sebdann-muireann-and-coblaith-sarnat/

Podcast episode with Prof. Catherine McKenna last year:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1GYSJHylMlTNuKUSSzLhN1?si=fcdf72608d9142b7

Email: [email protected]

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music