On Wednesday 16 October, a large attendance at the Step House hotel in Borris heard Dr David Heffernan speaking on ‘The Kavanaghs of Carlow and the Tudor Conquest of Ireland c.1515-1603’
He outlined how the sixteenth-century saw the gradual erosion of the Kavanagh lordship in Carlow by the encroaching English state. He also explored how the Tudor regime utilised a variety of methods, including legal imperialism, administrative reform and straight-forward military engagement and colonisation, to gradually dismantle the lordship and impose English control over the region.
Dr David Heffernan is a historian of early modern Ireland and recently held an R.J. Hunter Postdoctoral Fellowship at Queens University Belfast. His publications include ‘Debating Tudor Policy in Sixteenth-Century Ireland: ’Reform’ Treatises and Political Discourse’ (Manchester University Press, 2018) and ‘Walter Devereux, first earl of Essex, and the colonisation of North-Ulster, c.1573-1576 ’(Four Courts Press, 2018)
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