Galloglas were mercenary warriors from the Hebrides and West Highlands who settled in Ireland in the later thirteenth century and achieved an extraordinary prominence on Irish battlefields throughout the three hundred years following.
Fighting as heavy infantry, highly-disciplined, mail-armoured and wielding their characteristic weapon of the long-staved war-axe, they were the decisive military component in the Gaelic Irish resurgence of the fourteenth century and represented the cutting-edge of resistance to Tudor reconquest two hundred years later.
This new account of the galloglas is written from a decidedly Scottish perspective, tracing the origins of six kindreds and investigating the circumstances which brought about their relocation to Ireland. It goes on to examine the galloglas as warriors, pointing to their distinctly Norse character and proposing their battle-fury as ’the last unmistakable echo of the Scandinavian impact on the Celtic west’.
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