By Patrick Wadden
Published in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature, January 2026.
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Abstract

To date, relatively little attention has been paid to immigration as a feature of early medieval Irish society, or to the experience of immigrants in early medieval Ireland. This is in spite of the fact that immigrants and immigration are both well attested across a variety of extant sources from the period, including histories and chronicles, legal texts, sagas, hagiography, and the archaeological record. This article surveys these diverse sources to highlight the scope and significance of immigration in early Ireland. Within the limits imposed by the sources, it examines the different kinds of immigrants who came to Ireland in the early period in terms of their social status (before and after their migration), gender, and ethnicity, as well as the motives that brought them to Ireland, their experiences as immigrants, and local attitudes toward them. It demonstrates the considerable diversity that characterised both the immigrants themselves and their experiences.