In 1366, the Irish Parliament, convened at Kilkenny, enacted a series of laws known as the Statutes of Kilkenny, designed to prevent the English colonists from adopting Gaelic customs and culture. The statutes forbade intermarriage between English and Irish, the use of the Irish language, and the adoption of Irish dress and legal practices. The legislation aimed to maintain a strict cultural and racial divide between the colonizers and the native Irish, reflecting the English Crown's anxiety about the 'Gaelicization' of the Old English.

The Statutes of Kilkenny are a landmark in the history of Irish cultural suppression, and they are frequently cited in Irish poetry as evidence of the systematic effort to erase Gaelic identity. The statutes' prohibition of the Irish language made the preservation of Gaelic poetry an act of resistance. Later poets, from the bards of the 14th century to the revivalists of the 19th, invoked the statutes as a symbol of the cultural warfare that accompanied political conquest.