In 1166 Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Leinster, lost his territory to his enemies and fled Ireland to seek the help of England's King Henry II in his effort to regain it. Thus began the English conquest of Ireland, never completed, but changing forever England's imagination of Ireland and the Irish people. During the Middle English period, 1200-1500, England began to establish its Irish colony, and it is here we must look for the roots of later English perceptions of the island and its people.

Little has been written on English attitudes toward Ireland before the sixteenth century, however, except from historical and political perspectives.

Superficial approaches to Middle English literature have only confirmed the cliche of the "wild Irish." Drawing on a wide variety of texts, Colonial Ireland in Medieval English Literature investigates, first, ways in which Middle English literary reference to Ireland and the Irish reflect English attitudes toward the island and her people during the first three centuries of colonial presence.

In addition, author Elizabeth L. Rambo considers to what extent these references have influenced the views of English readers, especially educated laypersons. She divides the Middle English literature into three broad classes (chronicles, romances, and hagiographies and other religious writings), ordering works in each class more or less chronologically, and examining references to Ireland and the Irish in each work in the light of the different origins and purposes of the genres.

What was the influence of Giraldus Cambrensis's anti-Irish bias on Middle English chronicles? What influences led to the emphasis in English hagiography of only three Irish saints out of hundreds? What made Ireland an attractive site for several romances? How did Arthurian legends support England's colonization of Ireland? In considering these questions, the author finds that the "wild Irish" are but one of three colonial images of Ireland and the Irish.

The other two, the Wasteland and the Otherworld island, though not necessarily either positive or negative, also reflect England's alienation from Ireland and the Irish.