Much to the frustration of modern historians, the Tudors were, for the most part, remarkably incurious about Gaelic Ireland. Though they had for decades struggled to come to terms with that society, extended commentaries on the nature of Gaelic culture, its socio–political structures and its customs began to appear only in the last quarter of the century. And even then the earliest attempts were, like Stanihurst's, highly derivative of older Anglo–Norman descriptions, while the later ones, like Spenser's, were designed with a radically polemical purpose in mind. It was not until early in the following century, in the writings of men like Fynes Moryson and Sir John Davies that sustained analyses and comparative descriptions of that apparently exotic culture were to be essayed. But for the bulk of the Tudor period those most actively engaged with the Gaelic lordships preferred to eschew such high generalisations, and chose instead to confine themselves to close examinations of the balance of power in particular regions, measured assessments of the dispositions of individuals, and detailed elaborations of the policy to be applied in specific cases.

Such an apparent lack of interest in the distinguishing features of Gaelic Ireland was the result neither of ignorance nor of intellectual limitation.