As per the current reading thread I have just finished Andy Halpin's PhD thesis on archery in medieval Ireland. He states that the Welsh archers who accompanied Strongbow et al weren't equipped with longbows as we would define them but with shorter weapons, effective because used en masse. He doesn't find any real difference between Welsh and English bows of the 12th and 13th centuries and suggests that the longbow proper developed later as a response to the growing use of plate armour. Although several medieval bows have been found in Ireland only one was a longbow, but that was pre-Norman (probably Norse).
I know the subject has been hotly debated over the years and new information may have come to light since his thesis was written in 1999. Would anyone care to comment?
As you say, it's been a while since the thesis but I think Halpin may have been the first to suggest the Welsh shortbow. The idea is probably well established these days. The late medieval origin doesn't work, IMO. Personally, I suspect the English had longbows around since a Viking introduction in small numbers. Expansion in longbow use probably followed rather than led the increased interest in raising archers under Edward I-III (IMO). The archery "revolution" needed to develop an infrastructure - bowyers, fletchers, stringers and increasingly practiced archers who could handle heavier bows. The Welsh probably adopted longbows from the English from the 14th century, displacing their native weapon. IIRC the first actual evidence for longbows in Wales is in 14th century Welsh poetry. I have read Halpin's thesis but it was a while ago. Does he suggest the Irish bow is the same as/descended from the Welsh one?
Thanks for that. He suggests that the Irish bow (also used by the Anglo-Irish outside the Pale) was descended from the short Welsh (and English) bows used by the original Anglo-Norman invaders and that native Irish military archery was an innovation dating from the late 13th century (though there is a 12th century reference to a body of Irish archers, IIRC).