Medieval life has fascinated those interested in history for generations. Our curiosity is stimulated by a macabre interest in the harshness of daily life – the casual murder rate was twenty times higher than it is today, people died from curable diseases on a daily basis and you were old at forty. While this may seem tough, daily life reached unprecedented harshness in medieval Ireland after 1270. Amid war and famine vast tracts of territory became known to the Normans as Terra Guerre – The land of war. The following article contains the stories of people who lived in what was a land of war when you were lucky to live to forty or survive to die of disease…
Background
After 1270 Ireland entered a crisis caused by a changing climate coupled with internal political problems. This provoked a series of famines and wars between the Gaelic Irish and the Normans. Unsurprisingly this made daily life extremely difficult, for example a peasant who lived at Castlekevin in east Wicklow reaching the grand old age of forty-five in 1315 had seen Castlekevin decimated at least six times in their lifetime – twice during the 1270s, 1295, twice in 1308 and then again in 1315.
These lands east of Castlekevin were in what the Normans referred to as the Land of War by the late 13th century. Book your place on the upcoming tour of this fascinating region now
