The Statutes of Kilkenny

Thirty-five acts were promulgated five years after the arrival in Ireland of Lionel, duke of Clarence, and through his marriage to Elizabeth de Burgo, also earl of Ulster and lord of Connacht. Written in Norman French, which remained the legal language of the time, they sought to create a permanent division between the native, or “mere” Irish, and the Anglo-Irish colonizers—on the basis of language, law, and customs—in an early form of “apartheid.” These acts ultimately helped to create the complete estrangement of the two ‘races’ in Ireland for almost three centuries.

A STATUTE OF THE FORTIETH YEAR OF KING EDWARD III., ENACTED IN A PARLIAMENT HELD IN KILKENNY, A.D. 1367, BEFORE LIONEL DUKE OF CLARENCE, LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND

IV. Also, whereas diversity of government and different laws in the same land cause difference in allegiance, and disputes among the people; it is agreed and established, that no Englishman, having disputes with any other Englishman, shall henceforth make caption, or take pledge, distress or vengeance against any other, whereby the people may be troubled, but that they shall sue each other at the common law; and that no Englishman be governed in the termination of their disputes by March law nor Brehon law, which reasonably ought not to, be called law, being a bad custom; but they shall be governed, as right is, by the common law of the land, as liege subjects of our lord the king; and if any do to the contrary, and thereof be attainted, he shall be taken and imprisoned and adjudged as a traitor; and that no difference of allegiance shall henceforth be made between the English born in born in Ireland, and the English born in England, by calling them English hobbe, or Irish dog, but that all be called by one, name, the English lieges of our Lord the king; and he who shall be found doing to the contrary, shall be punished by imprisonment for a year, and afterwards fined, at the king’s pleasure; and by this ordinance it is not the intention of our Lord the king but that it shall be lawful for any one that he may take distress for service and rents due to them, and for damage feasant as the common law requires.

For information on The Statutes of Kilkenny see: A Statute of the Fortieth Year of King Edward III, James Hardiman, (Dublin).