Abstract

This study considers the frequently stated claim that the economy of Gaelic-speaking lordships in Ulster during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was predominately pastoral and uncommercialised, by drawing on a variety of sources not usually combined. It proposes that the increased European demand for fish and the growth of the fish industry across northern Europe played a crucial role in stimulating trade between the coastal areas of Ulster on the one hand, and Britain and continental Europe on the other. This led to the establishment of permanent markets and towns, which joined at least two new inland towns in the southern parts of the province, bringing about a commercial presence in most of the Ulster lordships before 1600. Gaelic lords consolidated this development by building castles and friaries at these fixed trading places.