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Abstract: This article traces the development of the term ‘outrages’, which by the nineteenth century was used in an almost exclusively Irish context. It argues that British and Irish politicians used the term to communicate the collective insecurity they felt particular forms of Irish violence exposed, especially concerning the stability of the Act of Union. ‘Outrages’ was deployed rhetorically to brand Irish violence as politically subversive. Simultaneously, its meaning was systematized by the newly reformed Irish constabulary who surveilled particular forms of Irish violence and quantified its existence. Politicians used these statistics as one vital measure of British progress in Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death of Earl Richard Marshal at Kildare in 1234 at the hands of his Irish enemies could not be let pass by his family and political affinity. The sources are such that we are able to follow the actions and motives of his younger brother and heir, Gilbert Marshal, in punishing Richard's opponents and re-establishing his family's damaged prestige. Gilbert can be seen to be both an exploiter and victim of the social mechanism called by contemporaries 'mortal enmity'. Gilbert's actions bring us nearer to an understanding of aristocratic honour and mores in the high middle ages, at a time when the aristocracy was pitted against the statist impulses of royal government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]