ABSTRACT
At the beginning of May 1169, a small force of Anglo-Norman soldiers, under the command of Robert Fitz Stephen, landed at Bannow Bay, Co. Wexford, an event which initiated an attempted conquest of Ireland. Despite the subsequent failure of this venture, the Normans made a vitally important contribution to the development of an urban system in the island, for the invasion was followed in later years by an influx of settlers which led directly to a century of new-town building. Research into the medieval settlement of Ireland has been very much neglected in the past and comparatively little is known of Irish medieval towns, despite the importance of the period to the genesis of the urban system within the island. The boroughs of medieval Ireland possessed three basic groups of functions which were characteristically urban, namely, general economic functions, specialised economic functions and military functions.
