Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín, speaking at Gresham College, traces how the Irish language was portrayed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in sixteenth century England. He argues that many of the negative stereotypes about Irish that persisted into later centuries, and that still surface in Northern Ireland identity politics today, have roots in this earlier period of English literary and political discourse. The lecture moves through Elizabethan drama and polemical writing to show how English writers characterized the Irish language as a marker of barbarism tied to colonial anxieties about Ireland. Ó Mainnín situates these portrayals within the politics of the English conquest of Ireland, showing how linguistic stereotyping served broader arguments about civility, governance, and national identity. Running just over an hour, the talk draws on literary and historical sources to explain why these sixteenth century attitudes proved so durable.