THE TERRITORIAL ORGANISATION OF GAELIC LANDOWNERSHIP AND ITS TRANSFORMATION IN COUNTY MONAGHAN, 1591–1640

Abstract

In the absence of large-scale confiscation by the Crown, Gaelic landownership persisted in a declining condition in Monaghan until the Cromwellian confiscation. It evidently consisted of a complex and stable territorial system encompassing barony, ballybetagh and tate, which was closely associated with ecclesiastical territorial order, and through which the exigencies of Gaelic kinship were expressed. This social and territorial structure shows clear signs of disintegration in the face of expanding colonial landownership in the early decades of the seventeenth century.