More Irish than the Irish themselves

"More Irish than the Irish themselves" (Irish: Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin; Latin: Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis) is a phrase used in Irish historiography to describe a phenomenon of cultural assimilation in late medieval Norman Ireland. == History == The descendants of Anglo-Norman lords who had settled in Ireland in the 12th century had been significantly Gaelicised by the end of the Middle Ages, forming septs and clans after the indigenous Gaelic pattern, and became known as the Gall or "Old English" (contrasting with the "New English" arriving with the Tudor conquest of Ireland).

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