Before the awarding of the town's Charter in 1613, there were other defining moments in Tralee's history: the founding of Holy Cross for the Dominicans, probably in 1243, and the creation of the earl's Palatinate in 1329, to name but two. King James I's Charter of 1613 provided the town with a parliamentary representation which lasted to 1885, and placed municipal government on a sound footing. The native Gaelic clans governed the region before the Anglo-Normal Fitzgeralds (the Geraldines), who governed for nearly four hundred years until the killing of the 'Rebel' Earl of Desmond in 1583. Thereafter the Denny family occupied the Great Castle of the Geraldines (which stood on the site of the later Denny Street), remaining a presence in Tralee until nearly 1900. 

The Geraldine earls of Desmond were not the sole rulers in their era: they had to contend with fellow Anglo-Normans like the FitzMaurices, lords Lixnaw, andnative clans such a MacCarthy of Killarney. The same internecine conflict was true of the Denny era: this book reveals a long-running struggle for control of the Corporation between the Dennys and the Ballyseedy Blennerhassetts, who came originally to the Tralee district as head tenants of the Dennys.