Faith and Patronage

The Franciscan friar Flaithri O Maolchonaire was a man of many roles: Gaelic scholar and educator, special envoy, and consummate politician with deep religious convictions. Benjamin Hazard has written a fascinating and engaging study of this flawed yet brilliant man and his times. O Maolchonaire left Ireland in the 1590s after Tudor state-building policies had spread from the Pale into regions previously controlled by his family's powerful Gaelic allies. He studied at the University of Salamanca…