What is "irish pale"

Pale \Pale\, n. [F. pal, fr. L. palus: cf. D. paal. See Pole a stake, and 1st Pallet.]

1. A pointed stake or slat, either driven into the ground, or fastened to a rail at the top and bottom, for fencing or inclosing; a picket.

   Deer creep through when a pale tumbles down.
   --Mortimer.

2. That which incloses or fences in; a boundary; a limit; a fence; a palisade. ``Within one pale or hedge.''
   --Robynson (More's Utopia).

3. A space or field having bounds or limits; a limited region or place; an inclosure; -- often used figuratively. ``To walk the studious cloister's pale.''
   --Milton. ``Out of the pale of civilization.''
   --Macaulay.

4. Hence: A region within specified bounds, whether or not enclosed or demarcated.

5. A stripe or band, as on a garment.
   --Chaucer.

6. (Her.) One of the greater ordinaries, being a broad perpendicular stripe in an escutcheon, equally distant from the two edges, and occupying one third of it.

7. A cheese scoop.
   --Simmonds.

8. (Shipbuilding) A shore for bracing a timber before it is fastened.

   English pale, Irish pale (Hist.), the limits or territory in Eastern Ireland within which alone the English conquerors of Ireland held dominion for a long period after their invasion of the country by Henry II in 1172. See note, below.

   beyond the pale outside the limits of what is allowed or proper; also, outside the limits within which one is protected.
   --Spencer.

   Note: The English Pale. That part of Ireland in which English law was acknowledged, and within which the dominion of the English was restricted, for some centuries after the conquests of Henry II. John distributed the part of Ireland then subject to England into 12 counties palatine, and this region became subsequently known as the Pale, but the limits varied at different times.