This article explores the legal strategies of negotiation employed by Gaelic lords in early modern Munster through a case study of the O'Driscoll lordship of Collymore, County Cork. The late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced an environment of intense legal contestation, as indigenous legal practices and hierarchies were methodically attacked by the colonial administration. But, as English administrators attempted to eradicate Irish legal precedent (and with it the legitimacy of the Gaelic aristocracy), Gaelic lords responded with new and often innovative legal strategies. The territory of Collymore presents a microcosm of the legal tensions produced by and under the Munster plantation, subject to competing claims by rival O'Driscoll heirs, MacCarthy Reagh overlords, ‘Old English’ neighbours and incoming planters. This article offers a reconstruction and analysis of the complex legal disputes surrounding Collymore. It argues that through otherwise routine legal interactions like inheritance disputes and chancery suits, Irish lords reframed their authority in the vocabulary of English law, trading tanistry for primogeniture and the language of overlordship for that of landlordship. Through these rhetorical and theoretical shifts, they attempted to redefine the very basis and nature of their authority.

中文翻译：

---

霸主、霸主和地主：在种植园明斯特谈判土地和领主

本文通过对科克郡 Collymore 的 O'Driscoll 领主的个案研究，探讨了现代早期明斯特盖尔领主所采用的法律谈判策略。16 世纪末和 17 世纪产生了激烈的法律争论环境，因为土著法律实践和等级制度受到殖民政府有条不紊的攻击。但是，当英国行政人员试图根除爱尔兰的法律先例（以及盖尔贵族的合法性）时，盖尔领主以新的且通常是创新的法律策略作出回应。Collymore 领土是 Munster 种植园及其下产生的法律紧张局势的缩影，受到竞争对手 O'Driscoll 继承人、MacCarthy Reagh 霸主、“古英语”邻居和新来种植园主的竞争要求的影响。本文对围绕 Collymore 的复杂法律纠纷进行了重构和分析。它认为，通过继承纠纷和大法官诉讼等其他例行的法律互动，爱尔兰领主用英国法律的词汇重新定义了他们的权威，用长子继承权交易长子继承权，用霸主的语言代替地主的语言。通过这些修辞和理论的转变，他们试图重新定义他们权威的基础和性质。