English power was clustered around Dublin, an urban fortress, a nation within a nation. The siege mentality grew even stronger when a physical boundary went up—the Pale, from the Latin word palus, for stake. In places, it was an actual fence, marked by said stakes. By the late 1400s, the Pale covered four counties. Inside the Pale was an Anglo-Norman kingdom with armed security, a structured feudal system and a sense of settled superiority. Beyond the Pale—that was beyond all civilization, an unruly Ireland living on its own terms.
