Walter de Islip

[4] He developed strong links with Kilkenny, where he usually lodged with the Outlaw family, who were at the heart of the witchcraft trials.

During the Scottish Invasion of Ireland 1315-18 he was the official principally charged with raising funds for the defence of Dublin.

Serious questions were raised about Islip's integrity, and in one of the first examples of an official inquiry in Ireland, a Dublin jury was selected to determine the truth of the allegations of fraud and corruption against him.

Alexander de Bicknor, the Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was accused of the same offences.

Islip was finally removed from office as Treasurer: he was imprisoned for a time in the Fleet Prison, and his goods were seized.

[9] De Grauntsete was soon afterwards removed from the Bench for a time: the reason for this was apparently not his conduct in Court, but the fact that he had read out letters of excommunication directed to Islip from the Pope, thus allegedly subverting the Royal authority.

[1] The Kilkenny witch trials of 1324, in which the principal accused were Alice Kyteler, her son William Outlaw and Petronilla de Meath, deeply divided the Anglo-Irish ruling class.

This was partly because many of them were connected to Kyteler through her four marriages (notably her brother-in-law Roger Utlagh, or Outlawe, Prior of the Knights Hospitallers at Kilmainham), (the brother of her first husband, William Outlawe senior) and partly because the English-born Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede, the driving force behind the prosecutions, was bitterly unpopular.

[10] He was also on the best of terms with Prior Roger Utlagh, his sister-in-law Alice Kyteler's firm champion: when dining at Kilmainham, Walter, as a special mark of favour, was always seated beside his host.

Although Walter, unlike his cousin Simon, did not reach the highest ranks of the Church, his career is a striking example of religious pluralism.