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The Irish Sea

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  Posted by Catigern (U14419012) on Wednesday, 20th April 2011

  Wales-shire, that most barbarous part of English territory, has been discussed (and wittered about incoherently) on these boards before, as has rainy old Scotland, but what about the frontier zone that lay in between? The Irish Sea has a long and interesting recorded history, but I'll start with a bit of mythology...
  
  According to Giraldus Cambrensis, it was once disputed whether the Isle of Man pertained to Ireland or to the British mainland. The issue was allegedly settled in favour of Britain by reference to the fact that Man 'admitted the existence of poisonous reptiles': a toad taken there would not immediately turn over and die, as would have happened in Ireland.
  
  As for 'real' history, my own interest in the Irish Sea begins with the story of St Patrick, who was kidnapped from sub-Roman Britain and taken over to Ireland as a youth. He's particularly interesting because he's one of the few 'dark age' individuals whose life story and agenda are reasonably well known, being recorded in his own words in his 'Confessio' and 'Epistola ad Corroticum'.
  
  Early medievalists are also often inclined to treat the Irish Sea as a conduit rather than a barrier, with some treating 'the Irish Sea Province', on both sides of the water, as a coherent entity.
  
  Then there's the York-Dublin access, and the Viking realm to which it was central, and the diplomatic shennanigans that preceded and accompanied early Cambro-Norman intrusion into Ireland and Henry II's claim to lordship on both sides of the sea.
  
  In the later middle ages, The Stanleys who helped come to England's rescue at Bosworth ruled the Isle of Man, and appear to have regarded the sea as their own territory.
  
  Liverpool's significance is a relatively recent phenomenon - it was no busier a port than Whitehaven for most of the 18th century and only took over from Lancaster as the leading slave port when the river Lune silted up.
  
  

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