Women's Power and Patronage with Tiago Veloso Silva

Due to popular demand our podcast producer Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva has finally come on to the other side of the mic as one of our expert guests! We chat ‘soft power’, definitions of patronage, Agnes Ní Máelsechlainn ‘An Caillech Mór’ (d.1196), St Mary’s Arrouaisian monastery, Clonard, & reflections on the study of medieval Irish history. Tiago is over half way through his PhD research in the Department of Early Irish, Maynooth University, under the supervision of Dr Wycherley, working on the Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland Pathway project ‘Power and patronage in medieval Ireland: Clonard from the sixth to twelfth centuries’. 

Tiago’s research aims to understand how women exercised power and authority in medieval Ireland by operating socio-cultural and political networks of patronage. This investigation is framed around noblewomen and religious women of the 12th century due to its intense and transformative character, but it allows certain chronological flexibility in order to understand the development of the concept and exercise of female power. To fill this epistemological lacuna, he employs an interdisciplinary approach anchored in a wide array of sources such as the corpus of secular genealogies, the Banshenchas and annalistic evidence. 

Suggested reading:

• Tiago Veloso Silva, The other Brigids: meet the forgotten mighty women of Medieval Ireland, https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0130/1493745-medieval-ireland-kildare-women-st-brigid-darlugdach-gnathnat-sebdann-muireann-and-coblaith-sarnat/

• Tracy Collins, Female Monasticism in Medieval Ireland: An Archaeology (Cork, 2021)

• Burke, Peter. History and social theory (Cambridge, 2005)

• Hall, Dianne. Women and the Church in Medieval Ireland (Dublin, 2008)

Regular episodes every two weeks (on a Friday)

Email: [e-mail]

X (formerly Twitter): @EarlyIrishPod

Supported by the Dept of Early Irish, Maynooth University, & Taighde Éireann (formerly Science Foundation Ireland/Irish Research Council).

Views expressed are the speakers' own.

Production: Tiago de Oliveira Veloso Silva.

Logo design: Matheus de Paula Costa

Music: Lexin_Music