NAISC Research Showcase

NAISC Research Showcase 
Revealing Normandy and Ireland Settlement Connections Project 

The Anglo-Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland was one of the most important events in the country’s history. Beginning in the late 1160s, waves of Norman knights invaded and began to conquer large swathes of Ireland. Immediately they began to establish settlements throughout the country, as far west as Dingle and as far north as Inishowen. These estates were then populated with vast throngs of their tenants, many ultimately also of Norman origin. These links connecting Ireland to Normandy left their mark in each locality, determining the names of families and places, shaping settlement patterns and underpinning religious patronage.

In many cases the Norman origin of these conquerors and their descendants is clear from their surnames. For instance, if we look at the conqueror of Ulster John de Courcy, his family hailed from Courcy-sur-Dives in Calvados, while his compatriot Hugh de Lacy, conqueror of Meath, had his roots in Lassy, southwest of Caen. These men were in the vanguard of this transformation and forged a landed nexus which connected their spoils of conquest in Ireland with their ancestral lands in Normandy and territories acquired along the way in Wales and England.

Prominent families such as the Courcys and Lacys are well known to historians and the public alike, yet there are countless people in Ireland today, and among the Irish diaspora, who bear surnames that testify to this Norman connection but about which little is known for certain. To take the case of Wexford, which proudly marks its Norman heritage through The Norman Way heritage trail, so many of the surnames which abound there still are traceable back to this Norman connection—Codd, Colfer, Devreaux, Furlong, Hore, Prendergast, Sinnott, and a great many more—while such links are also found in places such as Adamstown, Busherstown, Harristown, Marshalstown, Piercestown, and countless others, each named after its founding family. Of course, these links are to be found across much of Ireland and in the names of many of the diaspora community.

Having begun in July 2026, the NAISC project (Normandy and Ireland Settlement Connections) investigates and maps these links. Over the course of 2027, the NAISC team will journey around the island of Ireland giving talks to members of the public highlighting the project's rich research and revealing the connections between these different regions and Normandy. 

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