Cork's 'practically topless' women gave royal visitors an eyeful in 1518

A delegation of royal visitors to Cork in the 16th century found women clothed in such loose fitting dress that breasts of “every size” were visible.

An aid to Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg, who arrived in Kinsale on June 6, 1518, seeking shelter from stormy weather, wrote an explicit account of meeting “practically topless” women.

The account, originally written in Old French, has been translated to form part of a new book documenting the archduke’s unexpected four-day visit to Ireland.

Aged about 16 at the time, he was travelling with a fleet of ships forced to take shelter in Kinsale. The elaborate account of the visit was written by Laurent Vital, a member of the household whose role may have been connected to wardrobe or costume, according to author and University College Cork historian Hiram Morgan.

“He describes the women as more or less topless and he’s quite surprised by this and by how friendly they are. He is quite explicit in his account,” said Mr Morgan.

Mr Vital describes seeing and feeling “breasts of all sizes and shapes, both young and old”.

“It is as common there to see or feel the breast of a girl or woman as it is to touch her hand,” he wrote.

Though their dresses were loose-fitting their morals weren’t, according to the book’s author.

“He says all the women he met were virtuous,” said Mr Morgan. “The account is particularly valuable because he gives a detailed description of Irish dress and hairstyles of that time, which is something that we don’t have elsewhere for the early 16th century.”

The book, titled Ireland 1518, Archduke Ferdinand’s visit to Kinsale and the Durer Connection, tells of Mr Vital’s eye-witness account of a “clandestine” Irish marriage, in which a man pulls a woman by the hair before a church where the pair make the sign of the cross and then leave hand in hand.