Local churches and social power in early medieval Ireland: a case study of Fir Maige

A lot has been written in recent years on the patronage of major Irish Churches by provincial and regional kings, but rather less attention has been paid to the relationships between local elites and local churches. One of the challenges in approaching this subject is to distinguish between churches in terms of function and character, a vital issue if we are to understand the motivations of their secular patrons. Contrary to the traditional view. it now seems that only a minority of church sites were monastic in character. For example, some were established for a particular local kingdom or subdivision thereof, while others seem to have been proprietary churches associated with particular kin-groups.