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.

The descendants of Hiberno-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). The Statutes of Kilkenny, 1366, complained that " ... now many English of the said land, forsaking the English language, manners, mode of riding, laws and usages, live and govern themselves according to the manners, fashion, and language of the Irish enemies".

The phrase (in Latin) was used by the Irish priest and historian John Lynce (c1599–1677) in his work Cambrensis Eversus. He was strongly influenced by the writings of the historian Geoffrey Keating (1569 – c. 1644), whose History of Ireland he translated into Latin.Cambrensis Eversus was translated from the Latin, with notes and observations, by Theophilus O'Flanagan, Dublin, 1795.

John Henry Wilson, in his Sketch of Johnathan Swift (1804), wrote that Swift used the phrase ("Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis") in a discussion with his landlord.

The phrase remained in use by romantic nineteenth century nationalists to promote the common Irishness of 'Planter and Gael'. An example is found in the 1844 poem by the Young Irelander, Thomas Davis called 'The Geraldines', which concerns the FitzGerald dynasty:

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