The John Grove Memorial Lecture
Lords in a Foreign Land: the Mortimers (and Yorks) and Ireland
The 2025 John Grove Memorial Lecture is an online conference.
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This event is only available remotely via Zoom
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Non-Members – £12
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The Programme
‘A difficult inheritance: The Mortimer Earls of March and Gaelic Ireland’
Dr Simon Egan
It is a well-known fact that Edmund Mortimer, third earl of March, acquired a vast property portfolio by virtue of his marriage to Philippa, daughter of Lionel of Clarence, in 1368. Edmund, however, not only gained a sizeable Irish lordship, he also inherited a complex relationship with the Irish aristocracy. This talk explores the relationship between the earls of March and the Irish aristocracy. It considers to what extent the Mortimers sought to emulate their de Burgh predecessors in their dealings with the Irish nobility and explores, where the evidence permits, their engagement with the literary and political culture of Gaelic Ireland.
Simon Egan lectures on Ireland in the long Middle Ages (c.1100-c.1600) at Queen’s University Belfast. Prior to this he worked at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Glasgow. Recent publications include articles on lordship in late medieval Ireland and Scotland in Irish Historical Studies and the English Historical Review. He is also the editor of a forthcoming collection entitled Beyond the Pale and Highland Line: The Gaelic Irish and Scottish World, c.1400-c.1630 with Manchester University Press.
The 2025 John Grove Memorial Lecture: A Fatal Expedition: The Irish Lieutenancy of Edmund Mortimer, fifth earl of March and seventh earl of Ulster, 1423-1425
Dr Patrick McDonagh
It is a commonly held opinion of medieval English historiography that the fifth earl of March went to Ireland in 1424 as an exile from the Lancastrian court in the probable (and soon-fulfilled) hope that he would die on the island as had happened to his father and grandfather. However, this simplistic viewpoint downplays the significance of Edmund’s personal position in Ireland as the greatest of the absentee English lords and his own interests there. This lecture will offer a new perspective of Edmund’s lieutenancy, contextualising it against the growing political conflict in the English colony of Ireland as well as the troubled beginnings of the reign of Henry VI.
Patrick McDonagh carried out his doctoral thesis at Trinity College Dublin on the transnational lordship of the Mortimer earls of March and Ulster across Wales, Ireland, and England during 1368-1398. Since being awarded his doctorate in 2023, he has worked in University College Dublin, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland, and is now currently employed by the National Library of Ireland. He has published in the Journal of the Mortimer History Society, a chapter in the society’s edited volume Dynasty of Destiny, and later this year Irish Historical Studies will publish his article on a popular urban revolt in Galway during the late fourteenth century. He is currently engaged in editing and expanding his thesis into a monograph which will encompass all three Mortimer earls of March and Ulster during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries and provide the first major study of their mighty transnational lordship.
Richard, duke of York: The Mortimer Legacy in Ireland
Matt Lewis
In 1460, Richard, Duke of York ended a decade of spiralling relations with the English crown by laying claim to the throne himself. He did so not as the heir of the House of York, but as the heir of his mother’s family, the House of Mortimer. York began his family’s long and close relationship with Ireland, serving as Lord Lieutenant but arriving there as Earl of Ulster. What impact did York have during his time in Ireland? Why did he return there as his problems grew in 1459? And what influence did York’s Irish experiences as the Mortimer heir have on him and his political career? Matt Lewis will explore the Irish connection of the man dubbed King by Right.
Matt Lewis is an author and historian of the medieval period with a particular interest in the Wars of the Roses and Richard III. Matt is Senior Presenter at History Hit, co-hosting the Gone Medieval podcast, hosting Echoes of History, and presenting documentaries for History Hit. His books include Richard, Duke of York: King by Right, The Survival of the Princes in the Tower, and Richard III: Loyalty Binds Me.
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