unshired

English

Etymology

un- +‎ shired

Adjective

unshired (not comparable)

1. (UK, Ireland) Not shired, not constituted into counties; (by extension) ungoverned.
   • 1897, Standish O’Grady, The Flight of the Eagle, pages 82–3:

     The young giant, Hugh Maguire, may have been to the Castle to complain of Miler’s hounds, for he had already written a complaint of such doings on the part of that mighty southern pluralist, who went about in armour like a man of war, and had his life-guard like the chief of an unshired country.

   • 1940, T. W. Moody, “The Irish Parliament under Elizabeth and James I: A General Survey”, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, volume 45, →JSTOR, page 44:

     Connacht, and Ulster apart from the two ancient counties, were still unshired, still outside the normal action of the Dublin administration.

   • 2000, R. R. Davies, The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles, 1093–1343, →ISBN, page 5:

     The last years of Rufus’s reign were critical in the assertion of Anglo-Norman, and specifically royal, control over the unshired area of what we know as England north of the Ribble in the west and the Tees in the east.