Miss Kelly blames everybody but the Vatican.Ireland did not fall prey to jus primae noctis as much as their fellow Celts of Scotland or Wales. The Normans and Irish Gaels mixed from the beginning. Consolidation , they called it. It took centuries before the Norman Lords married native Angles and Saxons. Such a slavish people , the English. Defeated by William of Normandy in one day. Read Patrick W. Joyce for the facts re Ireland. Kelly's novel is nothing more than anecdotal nonsense.

Could we be a bit more accurate about blaming everything on "the English"? Most of the people in England at that time were just getting by, and had nothing to with the oppression of the large part of the Irish people. In addition, there was a class of Irish landlords who were more or less as oppressive as the aristocratic British land owners.

Hey! (Just a little kneejerk nationalism here.) Don't lump all the British into one group. The Welsh and the Scots were also brutalized by the English. Shakespeare makes several disparaging comments about the Welsh in his plays. The texts of the English going back 1000 years make clear that all the Celts were "The Other" and treated accordingly. (As many around the world treat "The Other" to this day.)