There are aspects of this that I would quibble with, and some of her stylistic choices drove me batty (why she insisted on contracting the place name Cluain Mhic Nois to Cluain is a mystery, especially given the predominance of places either called Cluain, or which have 'Cluain' as a prefix), but overall it's really an okay example of scholarship in what is still an emerging field.

I like how she uses literary representations of gender roles to dissect gender ideologies, and how she takes a more common sense (and to my mind, correct) approach as to the relative rights and freedoms which Gaelic women enjoyed in early medieval Ireland. Her lack of precision is frustrating, though; there's a lack of a chronological sense to some parts of the book, and while she states the pitfalls of the longue duree approach she uses, still falls into them at times. Reasonable introduction to the area, however. ( )