This study poses the question of why national conflicts persist in the context of increasing transnational integration. From the early 1970's and especially since the end of the 'Cold War', nationalism has gained increased global significance. At the same time, seemingly hand-in-hand with the upsurge in nationalism, there has been an acceleration in transnational integration. This apparent paradox is explored in several ways: first by developing a theoretical framework for linking nationalism and transnationalism, second by analysing a particular case of national conflict in its transnationalised setting, and third by investigating the interpretation and re-interpretation of 'national' interests by key political actors. The case chosen is the national conflict in Ireland in the context of transnational integration in the European Union. In Ireland the two global tendencies - of national division and transnational integration - are focussed to a high degree of intensity. The transnational integrative process is at its most advanced in the European Community which, in 1993, became the 'European Union', one of the most ambitious examples of inter-state and trans-state regional integration to date. The national conflict in Ireland meanwhile, is more deeply entrenched than in any other Western European state and was, until the IRA ceasefire on 31 August 1994, the most highly militarised conflict in Western Europe. This study suggests that the relationships between transnational integration and national conflict are becoming a defining factor in Ireland's political development and that such relationships also pattern developments in the wider EU. Indeed, to the extent that the process of EU integration is seen as an antidote to nationalism in Western Europe, the impact of the EU in Ireland's national conflict could be interpreted as a test case of EU integration.

In recent years, historians have attempted to reassess the image of sectarian Ireland by offering an ethnically and religiously complex narrative of social intersection. Due to the changing intellectual and political climate in Ireland, archaeologists and historians can now begin revaluating the myths of the conquered and conqueror. As settlers poured into the Irish landscape to carry out the English government’s plantation schemes, they brought traditions and goods from home, and attempted to incorporate these into their lives abroad. Woodland clearance supplied timber and destroyed the wood kerne-infested fastness, and new houses erected on plantation settlements rattled a landscape still speckled with the wattle huts of its native inhabitants. Using the 1641 Depositions as the core of this dissertation, this research endeavours to contextualise evidence of material culture embedded within the written testimonies, beginning with the private world of the home and ending with the public devotional space of the church. Evidence found in the depositions will be placed alongside archaeological evidence, cartography, a small collection of wills and inventories, and seventeenth-century trade records. This thesis investigates the extent in which the English and Irish communities were at conflict in a material way: in their homes, local economy, clothing, household goods and religion.

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This thesis investigates the law of pledging as presented in the early Irish laws and draws connections to its relations within the overall system of security. At the centre of my research stands the question what pledges Irish law recognised and how their application was determined, so as to provide a paradigm for the law of pledging in its entirety. A pledge is usually a movable, material object of symbolic and economic worth that is given to another person as a security deposit for an outstanding obligation. The main findings of this thesis are a first paradigm of the law of pledging and a methodological and contextual categorisation of all types of pledges that opens doors for future research into property law. The combined discussion of pledges, hostages and sureties offers the reader insight into a triple method of security and its differences. Moreover, the close relationship between given pledges and distrained pledges is unravelled for the first time. Of further note is the comparative investigation into pledging. Therein, the reader is presented with how pledges are used in Welsh, Salic, Lombard, Visigothic, and Burgundian law. The objective is to offer the reader a view into the possibilities of pledging and to provide a framework against which the Irish evidence can be probed, which reveals how sophisticated and attentive to detail the Irish laws were. Finally, a translation of the primary source text 'Bretha im Fuillemu Gell' (Judgements concerning Pledge-interests) is made available to the reader in the Appendix.