Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century: Some evidence from the written record

Several aspects of mortuary customs in Ireland have already been studied in detail. This paper focuses on the role of hospitality on the occasion of death from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Based on a variety of written records, it discusses the attitudes of both lay and clerical commentators—officials, travellers and writers on the one hand, and the clergy on the other—to the provision of hospitality, particularly before the interment of the corpse. The meaning of hospitality for the bereaved family, the community, and the deceased is also explored.     

The age of the Cambro-Britons: hyphenated British identities in the seventeenth century

ABSTRACT

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Welsh writers including the antiquary Humphrey Llwyd, the bard Gruffudd Hiraethog, and the epigrammatist John Owen began referring to themselves as Cambro-Britons. The term was quickly adopted and popularised by English writers, often in ways that show an imperfect grasp of the intentions behind the hyphenated phrase. Whereas the Welsh had hoped that the English and Scots would adopt similar hyphenated identities, English writers tended to interpret “Cambro-Briton” as an intensified and potentially comical expression of Welshness. Though Welsh writers largely ceased to employ the term after the 1620s, the use and misuse of “Cambro-Briton” in English texts continued unabated throughout the century.