This ground-breaking work of social history examines the culture and lived experience of Irish townspeople during an extended period of profound change. Spanning the years c.1400 - c.1640, it explores how Irish towns and cities recovered from the crisis of the Black Death to become a potent force during the early modern period.The book explores how urban communities built strong institutions and communities and fostered a lively associational culture comparable to that found in Renaissance Europe. Through their civic rulers, the secular and religious spheres of the towns were increasingly fused, creating a pronounced corporativeness in guild, fraternity, parish and neighbourhood. This informed the towns' resistance to the religious and political reforms of the centralising English state following the Reformation and its aftermath.Ranging extensively in time and place, the book considers how Irish townspeople drew upon strong communal bonds and sensitivity to the urban past to foster inclusiveness of ethnicity, gender and the urban poor.