Callan's style is vivid and evocative of her level of comfort with the topic. Discussion of each trial relies heavily on descriptions from witness testimonies as well as the available legal records, allowing Callan to reconstruct the circumstances of each trial for her readership. Her deft handling of interdisciplinary approaches and the extensive usage of primary sources to set up the trials discussed makes this book an entertaining read for both students and seasoned scholars of Irish studies.- Sarah J. Sprouse (Comitatus 47) Heresy in Ireland has been a neglected topic, and this well-researched work is a welcome contribution to our understanding of it.- Art Cosgrove (American Historical Review) Maeve Brigid Callan weaves Irish and wider European patterns together convincingly in her account of incidents concerning heresy and witchcraft that occurred in Ireland between 1310 and 1360.... [T]his is a bold, fresh and scholarly account that will be warmly welcomed by medieval historians and the general reader wishing to enter the stormy world of fourteenth-century Ireland.- Brendan Smith (The Tablet) Maeve Callan's readable, well-structured, and scholarly book examines Irish medieval heresy trials of the volatile fourteenth century through the lens of three little-studied, interlocking case studies.... Callan's book is a novel, commendable study of the political, interpersonal, and to a lesser extent ethnic issues that underpinned "artificial" Irish heresy trials in the fourteenth century. It displays a deep understanding of the period and the people involved and will be read with profit by students of all levels of late medieval Ireland, as well as those studying sorcery trials in the prewitch-hunt period.- Andrew Sneddon (Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft)
