I finished reading Maria Kelly’s History of the Black Death in Ireland on the bus this morning. One of the author’s main points is that the plague’s effects were not uniform across the population. Specifically, the English, who had conquered most of the island in the previous century, were hit much harder than the native Irish. This was frequently noted by contemporary Anglo-Irish observers, often linked to an appeal for help from the English crown.

Anglo-Irish society, like that of England, was based around settled manors and towns, That of the native Gaelic Irish was rural and pastoral–all of the cities in Ireland were founded by invaders. The denser population, and accompanying infrastructure, of the former, made it much more vulnerable to the plague.

Even before the plague the Gaelic Irish were recovering ground from the English. After the plague this trend was accelerated, and in the next century the territory actually controlled by the crown was limited to a small fortified region around Dublin (The Pale). Many of the Anglo-Irish families in the rest of the island survived, but they did so by “going native”, adopting Irish customs and actively participating in the world of their Gaelic neighbors. The English government did not seriously reassert its claim to rule the island until well into the 1500’s.