Nerys Patterson (1943–2007) was a Visiting Scholar at University College of North Wales, Bangor.
“... Nerys Patterson has given a fresh and lively account of Irish
society from a sociological point of view, based on considerable
familiarity with translated editions of the Old Irish law texts and
literary sources in Old, Middle and Early Modern Irish. She has a
number of thought-provoking observations to make about points of
detail, such as the Irish attitude to sheep (pp 84-5), the varying
social status accorded to druids (p. 41), and the anomalous
distribution of the cró and díre compensation payments among a
victim’s patrilinear and matrilinear kin (pp 53-4). More
importantly, she has an overall view based on comparative studies
of other societies of how economic and social pressures should have
operated within early Irish society.”—Irish Historical Studies
“This book ought to send a new generation of archaeologists into
the countryside of the Emerald Isle. A few more studies of this
caliber will set a very different scenario for Celtic studies in
the 21st century.” —Antiquity
“This book taps into the rich but tantalizingly obscure body of Old
and Middle Irish law which dates from the seventh and eight
centuries. . . . Nerys Patterson uses the six volumes of early
Irish law to reconstruct the complex hierarchical and familial
relationships, which constituted secular Irish society in the
centuries before and sometime after the Vikings arrived in Ireland.
[Patterson’s] sociological approach is a significant addition to
our understanding of early historic Irish Celtic society.” —History
Ireland Autumn
“Cattle Lords and Clansmen presents a strikingly new and fruitful
study of early Irish history through the application . . . of a
resourceful and pertinent sociological method. It is a deeply
learned and brilliantly original contribution.” —ACIS Prize
Committee
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