In this Third Part is told the story of the Anglo-Norman Invasion, beginning with the expedition of Fitzstephen and Prendergast, and ending with the reign of Henry VIII, the first English monarch who assumed the title of king of Ireland,

The Conquest of Ireland, whose history we are now about to enter upon, might have been accomplished in a few years, if only proper measures had been adopted. Why it took so long was pointed out nearly three hundred years ago by Sir John Davies in his little work entitled A Discoverie of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued till the beginning of the reign of James I. [1]

The force employed, in the first instance, was wholly insufficient for conquest. The king did not reside in Dublin; and there was no adequate representative of royalty with state and power to overawe the whole people, both native and colonial. There was always indeed a governor, but never with sufficient force and influence to rule either the natives or the colonists; while at the same

1. Sir John Davies was an Englishman, James I’s Irish attorney-general, and was employed in 1603 by that king to carry out the act extending English law to all Ireland. He was a sensible, just-minded, and very able man; and his Discoverie is one of the most solid and valuable documents ever written about the invasion and Conquest of Ireland.

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time his presence rendered a native government impossible. The great Anglo-Norman lords had too much power in their hands, and for their own selfish ends kept the country in a state of perpetual warfare. Great tracts of land belonged to absentees living in England, who merely drew their rents and did nothing for the country.

But the most fatal and disastrous mistake of all was this. The native Irish, sick of anarchy, would have welcomed any strong government able and willing to maintain peace and protect them from violence. But the English government, instead of treating them as subjects to be cared for, and placing them under the law that ruled the colonists - as the Romans did to the Britons, William the Conqueror to the Anglo-Saxons, and Edward I to the Welsh - treated them and designated them from first to last as ‘Irish enemies‘, and refused them the protection of English law.

All these and much more Sir John Davies points out very clearly in his valuable essay; and they will be set forth in detail in the succeeding chapters of this book.

Henry II did not conquer Ireland: it would have been better for both nations if he had. It took more than four centuries to do that - probably the longest conquest-agony recorded in history; which ‘cost both nations unbounded treasures and outpourings of blood, and brought upon Ireland the contemptuous pity, and upon England the moral reprobation of all Europe.’ [1]

1 A Short History of the Irish People: by A. G. Richey, Q.C., LL.D.: edited by Robert Romney Kane, LL.D.

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Chapter I: Dermot Mac Murrogh

[Chief authorities: The Irish Annals: Giraldus Cambrensis: Morice Regan.]

The reader will remember that in the battle of Moanmore, the men of Leinster, fighting on the side of Turlogh O’Conor, were led by their king Dermot Mac Murrogh (p.235). This Dermot, who was in after times often called Dermot-na-Gall (of the English), was a man of great size and strength, stern in manner, brave and herce in war; and his voice was loud and hoarse from constant shouting in battle. He was cruel, tyrannical, and treacherous, and was hated in his own day as much as his memory has been hated ever since. His whole life was a record of violence and villainy. In 1135 he took the abbess of Kildare from her convent and forced her to marry one of his followers; and when the townspeople attempted to prevent the sacrilege, he killed 170 of them, including some of the nuns. The only good features of his character known to us were that he made himself in a degree popular with the lower classes, and that he was very liberal in founding and endowing churches and monasteries in his own province of Leinster.

In 1152, a few months after the battle of Moanmore, he carried off Dervorgilla the wife of Ternan O’Ruarc prince of Brefney, while O’Ruarc himself was absent from home. This was done with the consent, not only of the lady herself, but of her brother O’Melaghlin prince of Meath; and she took away with her all the cattle, furniture, and jewels she had brought to her husband as dowry. O’Ruarc appealed for redress to Turlogh O’Conor king of Ireland - the victor of Moanmore - who, although he and Mac Murrogh had hitherto been on good terms, marched with an army into Leinster (in 1153) and forced him to restore Dervorgilla and all her rich dowry. This

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transaction earned for ‘Conor, and for his son and successor Roderick, the undying hate of Dermot, who ever after, so long as any power remained in his hands, took part with the Ulster king O’Loghlin in the struggles of Ulster and Connaught for supremacy. Dervorgilla retired after a little time to the abbey of Mellifont, where she spent the rest of her days doing works of penitence and charity, and where she died in 1193 at the age of 85.

So long as king Murkertagh O’Loghlin lived he befriended Dermot and secured him in possession of Leinster. But when that king was slain - in 1166 - and Roderick O’Conor the son of Turlogh became king of Ireland, then Dermot was left at the mercy of his numerous enemies. In this very year (1166) Ternan O’Ruarc led an army against him, composed of the men of Brefney and Meath, joined by the Dano-Irish of Dublin under their king Hasculf Mac Turkill, and by the incensed people of Leinster. Seeing that resistance was hopeless, Dermot, breathing vengeance against his revolted subjects, fled across the sea, resolved to seek the aid of the great king Henry II of England. Then a solemn sentence of banishment was pronounced against him; and the princes and leaders of the invading army, having appointed a new king of Leinster, returned to their homes, fondly imagining that they had heard the last of the turbulent and hateful Dermot-na-Gall.

Many years before this time king Henry had resolved to attempt the Conquest of Ireland at the first favourable opportunity. In the very year that he became king (1154) Nicholas Breakspear, an Englishman, had been elected Pope, with the title of Adrian IV.; and Henry sent an embassy to him to congratulate him on his election. In the following year he sent John of Salisbury to Rome with a cunning and designing message. This envoy represented to the Pope that Ireland was in a most deplorable condition, that religion had almost disappeared, and that the people were sunk in ignorance and vice. He said moreover that his master was very much concerned at the condition of the country; and he asked the Pope’s

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permission for king Henry to take possession of it in order to bring back the people to a state of order and religion.

Though there were still many grave religious abuses - the natural result of nearly three centuries of war and turmoil - yet the country was, as we have seen (pp.238, 239), steadily recovering, and there is no doubt that this account of its spiritual condition was grossly exaggerated. We know that there had been a continued succession of great and good bishops in the country down to the time of the invasion, including St. Celsus, St. Malachi O’Morgair, and St. Laurence O’Toole, who seem to have been very well able, without help from outside, to grapple with such religious disorders as they encountered. St. Malachi, who knew the country well, visited Pope Innocent II in 1139, and we find nothing in the communications that passed between them pointing to such a state of spiritual degradation in Ireland as is pictured by John of Salisbury. A similar observation applies to the synod of Kells in 1152, presided over by Cardinal Paparo (p.239); and the general proceedings at this synod indicate great spiritual activity on the part of the Irish clergy. But the most signal proof of the falsehood of John of Salisbury’s report is to be found in the decrees of the synod of Cashel, which was held by direction of Henry II when he was in Ireland in 1172: a synod which was to cure the tremendous spiritual evils complained of in the report. These decrees, which are fully given by Giraldus Cambrensis, [1] all deal with matters of discipline, none with doctrine, and do not indicate any very serious spiritual degeneration in the Irish church. Moreover it is certain that what Henry had at heart was not the interests of religion as he pretended - for personally he had little or no sense of religion
- but to conquer and annex Ireland.

The Pope, yielding to Henry’s solicitations, issued a bull or letter making over to him the kingdom of Ireland, enjoining him to preserve inviolate the rights of the church, and stipulating that a penny should be paid annually to the chair of St. Peter from every house in Ireland. Some

1. Conquest of Ireland, Book I, chap, xxxiv.

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writers, and among them scholars of eminence, have questioned the issue of this bull. But the evidence is overwhelming on the other side; and there is no sufficient reason to doubt that the Pope, deceived by misrepresentation, did really issue the bull, with the firm conviction that it would be for the advancement of religion and for the good of Ireland. Perhaps too much has been made of this bull in connection with the annexation of Ireland. It did not originate the invasion, which would have taken place if it had never existed. King Henry made little or no use of it: it was only in 1175, at a synod in Waterford, that he had it made public, having indeed no need of it, except as a justification; and he did not trouble himself much about that. If he had regarded the bull as of great importance he would have exhibited it to the Irish bishops and princes when he visited Ireland in 1171.

Let us now return to Dermot. He presented himself before the king at Aquitaine, in 1168, and prayed him for help against his enemies, offering to hold his kingdom of Leinster under him, and to acknowledge him as lord and master. The king eagerly accepted the offer: but being then too busy with the affairs of his own kingdom to go himself, he gave Dermot letters, permitting any of his British or French subjects that pleased, to join the expedition.

Dermot returned to England in high spirits, and going to Bristol, he met there a man of a stamp such as exactly suited his purpose; Richard de Clare, earl of Pembroke, better known by the name of Strongbow. This nobleman, now between fifty and sixty years of age, belonged to an illustrious family; but from various causes he was at this time in a state of poverty. Seeing in the enterprise proposed by the Irish king some hope of retrieving his fortune, he eagerly entered into the design, on condition that he should get Dermot’s daughter Eva in marriage, and should succeed him as king of Leinster. An Irish king was elected and maintained in his position by his people; and Dermot had no more right to give away the kingdom of Leinster than a lord lieutenant of our own day has to give away Ireland. He knew this perfectly well,

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but cared nothing for it; all lie wanted was to induce Strongbow to help him. Strongbow was, most likely, ignorant of the Irish law: and if he had known it he would no doubt have had as little respect for it as Dermot himself.

Dermot next proceeded to St. David’s in Wales, which was then the chief residence of the Geraldine family. These Geraldines, who were of ancient and noble descent, were Normans in the male line and Welsh in the female, so that they should be called Cambro-Normans rather than Anglo-Normans. But bearing this in mind, the term Anglo-Normans, as a convenient designation, will henceforward be applied indiscriminately to all the invaders of this period. Dermot engaged a number of these; amongst others, Maurice Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzstephen, half-brothers. They were to get for their share from Dermot the town of Wexford and the adjoining district, which Dermot well knew belonged to the Danes, and had belonged to them for two centuries. And there were others who will be named as our narrative proceeds. The chief Geraldine leaders, who were nearly related to each other, and also to Giraldus Cambrensis the historian, were all needy and daring adventurers, ready to enter on any enterprise however dangerous that promised plenty of plunder. Such were the men the vindictive old king engaged to work out his traitorous designs against his country.

It was now the end of the year (1188), and Dermot, leaving his new allies to complete their arrangements, returned by secret ways to Ferns in Wexford, his capital, just two years after his expulsion. Here he remained concealed during the winter in the Augustinian monastery he himself had founded.

The Anglo-Normans, who are henceforward to play a chief part in our history, came originally from Scandinavia. About the beginning of the tenth century a great expedition led by Hollo, conquered and settled in that part of France still called from them, Normandy. In course of time they became Christians and adopted the French language, dress and customs. After a residence in France of

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about a century and a half, they conquered England; and having ruled there for another century, they established colonies in Ireland, where in course of time their sway, as in England, extended over the whole country.

In many respects the Anglo-Normans resembled the Romans of old. They were a great race, brilliant, warlike, and energetic, but cruel and relentless to those who resisted them. They were great builders, and filled England and Ireland with castles, monasteries, and cathedrals, many of which still remain to bear testimony to the magnificent architectural conceptions of the founders. They were mighty warriors. Besides being personally brave and daring, they were supremely skilful in all those arts of war suitable to the times. They wore coats of mail, were celebrated then as after for expertness in the use of the longbow; and, above all, they were under thorough discipline on the field of battle.

The Irish mode of going to battle was totally different. They were, as we have seen (p.116), individually brave, and expert in the use of their weapons; but they lacked the scientific skill of their opponents, their discipline was loose, and they fought rather in crowds than in regularly arranged ranks. They had no walled cities. Their best defence was the nature of the country, abounding in impassable bogs and forests; and their most effective strategy was to hang on the flanks and rear of an invading army, and harass and slay as opportunity offered. So long as they kept to this, they could hold their own even against superior numbers. But in open fighting their tunic-clad tumultuous crowds were, number for number, no match for the steel-cased disciplined Anglo-Norman battalions. Yet they were quick to learn; and as time went on, the invaders began to find their own military skill often successfully turned to account against themselves.

After the battle of Clontarf no attempt was made to expel the Danes; they remained in the country; but they made no great figure, and from that time forth gave little trouble. Long before the period we are now entering on,

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they had embraced Christianity, had settled down as ordinary citizens, and devoted themselves to industry and commerce. At the time of the invasion they formed a large proportion of the inhabitants of the maritime towns - Dublin, Oarlingford, Larne, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick, Cork, &c., many of which were governed by Danish chiefs, in a great measure or altogether independent of the Irish princes. They had walled and fortified their towns, while the native centres of population continued, after the Irish custom, open and unprotected. Though forming distinct communities, they intermarried a good deal with the natives, stood on the whole on good terms with them, and at first, as we shall see, generally took sides with them against the new invaders.

Chapter II: The First Anglo-Norman Adventurers

[The chief authorities for the events of the early part of the Invasion are Giralclus Cambrensis and Morice Eegan, two contemporary writers. Giraldus visited Ireland with Prince John in 1185. Regan was Dermot Mac Murrogh’s secretary. He gave his account of the invasion to a Frenchman who turned it into French verse. It is translated (imperfectly) in Harris’s Hibernic; and it has lately (1892) been published - French text and translation complete, with notes - by Mr. Goddard Henry Orpen, with the title ‘The Song of Dermot and the Earl.’ This is the edition I use: Regan’s original is lost. Giraldus’s account ends with the visit of Prince John in 1185 (Chap. VII): Regan ends with the taking of Limerick by Raymond in 1175 (Chap. V.). In the main they agree, but often differ in details. In the Irish Annals there is little detailed information about the proceedings of the Anglo-Normans for some time after their arrival; but the few notices they have are very important.]

In fulfilment of the promises made to Dermot Mac Murrogh, a force of 100 knights and men-at-arms in coats of mail [1] -[1]a and about 600 archers, under Robert Fitzstephen and Maurice Prendergast, landed in the month of May, HO[1]! \9.9 at the harbour of Bannow in Wexford. The total force was probably not less than 2,000 (see note, p.255). With them ‘also came over a man of fallen fortunes, Hervey Mountmaurice, who, having neither armour nor money.

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was a spy rather than a soldier, and, as such, acting for Earl Kichard (Strongbow), whose uncle he was. [1] ‘They were joined by Dermot and his son, Donall Kavanagh, with 500 horsemen; and as there was no army to oppose them, they advanced on the town of Wexford.

The townsmen - Danes and Irish - went forth to oppose them; but scared by the disciplined array of the strangers, and by their cavalry with bright armour, helmets, and shields, they retired behind their fortifications, burning the suburbs to deprive the invaders of shelter. Fitzstephen straightway led his troops to scale the wall; but here the townsmen resisted so valiantly, hurling down great stones and beams of timber on the assailants, that he was forced to withdraw, leaving eighteen of his men dead beneath the walls; and going to the strand he caused his men to set fire to all the ships they found lying there.

Next morning, when he was .about to renew the assault, the townspeople, urged on by the clergy, who wished to prevent further bloodshed, came to terms. Wexford was surrendered; and the people unwillingly returned to their old king’s allegiance, and gave him hostages. Then Dermot carried out his promise by going through the form of granting Wexford and the adjoining district to Kobert Fitzstephen and Maurice Fitzgerald - the latter of whom had not yet arrived. He granted also to Mountmaurice the district lying between the towns of Wexford and Waterford. And he conducted the strangers to his own city of Ferns, where he feasted them for three weeks.

And now he made up his mind to settle scores with an old enemy, Mac Gilla Patrick, prince of the neighbouring sub-kingdom of Ossory: for shortly before, that chief, in a sudden fit of jealousy, had seized upon Dermot ’s son Enna and put out his eyes. With an army of 3,000, besides the band of Anglo-Normans having Fitzstephen, Prendergast, Mountmaurice, Kobert de Barri, and Meyler FitzHenry at their head, he marched into the district. The Ossorians, under Mac Gilla Patrick, took up a strong position protected by woods and bogs, and made a brave

1. Giraldus, II, chap. iii.

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and obstinate resistance. But tempted by a feigned retreat to issue forth in pursuit of the enemy on the open plain, where the Norman cavalry could attack without obstruction, they were ultimately defeated. Giraldus tells a horrible story of Dermot’s conduct on this occasion. After the battle, 200 heads of the Ossorians were ranged out as a trophy before him. He took them up one by one, and gazed at them, till at last recognising the head of a personal enemy, he held it up by the ears and hair and tore the face with his teeth. After this his army ravaged Ossory with fire and sword, till Mac Gilla Patrick was forced to sue for peace and submit to Dermot.

So far King Roderick had taken no steps to stay the progress of the invaders. But now at last he became alarmed; and summoning the Irish princes with their followers, he marched with a large army towards Ferns, where he found the king of Leinster and his foreign auxiliaries strongly entrenched. Dermot’s army had now however become greatly reduced by the desertion of the natives, who were seized with a panic of fear when they heard of the approach of the king of Ireland. But the feeble-minded monarch, instead of promptly attacking the rebel king and his few foreign auxiliaries, sent persuasive messages to win Dermot and Fitzstephen to submission; and Dermot, seeing he was too weak to resist, agreed to a peace merely to gain time. He was restored to his kingdom on condition - which was kept secret from his new friends - that he should send home the foreigners and bring hither no more of them; and he gave his favourite son Conor and two other relatives as hostages for the faithful fulfilment of his part of the treaty. Then king Roderick returned to his own province, satisfied that he had fully performed his duty, and quite unsuspicious of the wiles of Dermot.

No sooner had the king of Leinster succeeded in averting present danger than he broke his oathbound promises, and returned to his old work. Hearing that Maurice Fitzgerald had landed at Wexford, he hastened to meet him, and with the united forces he marched on Dublin, then

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governed by the Dano-Irish king Hasculf Mac Turkill; while Fitzstephen remained in Wexford and busied himself in building his castle at Carrick on the Slaney, two miles above Wexford. And they wasted the district round the city with fire and sword till the citizens were forced to submit.

At this critical time, while the Ard-ri was feebly struggling against foreign invaders and domestic enemies, Donall O’Brien prince of Thomond threw off his allegiance to him; and when Roderick marched south to reduce him to submission, he was repulsed by the united forces of O’Brien and Fitzstephen, and returned to Connaught defeated and humiliated. O’Brien was Dermot’s son-in-law, which to some extent palliates his conduct; but in justice to him it must be observed that - as the reader will find - his eyes were soon opened to the real state of things, and that he subsequently became a most valiant and obstinate defender of his country.

At last Dermot, elated with success, became more ambitious, and resolved to make himself king of Ireland. But feeling that he was not strong enough to enforce this claim, he sent a pressing message across the sea to Strongbow urging him to fulfil his promise. Accordingly, on the 1st of May, 1170, Strongbow despatched a small force of knights and archers, [1] under Raymond Fitzgerald, commonly called Raymond le Gros, intending himself to follow soon after. They landed on a rocky point called Dundonnell on the coast of Wexford, a few miles south of Waterford city, where they threw up a temporary fort, and laid in provisions by plundering the neighbouring district, hoping to be able to hold out till the arrival of Strongbow.

Scarcely had they completed the fort when a great multitude of Danes and Irish, with contingents from Decies under O’Faelan, and from Idrone under O’Ryan, about 3,000 in all, came marching from Waterford to attack

1. Giraldus says ten knights and seventy archers. But the total numbers were ten times larger, for Regan (p.119: ed. 1892) states that Raymond, when he joined Strongbow and Dermot in the march to Dublin, three months later, had 800 companions; none having joined him meantime. (See note, next page.)

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them. Raymond instantly made his dispositions with great skill. Within the fort was a herd of cows, which at the moment of the attack were driven out through the gate: at the same time the soldiers scared them by shouting and clashing their arms, so that the animals, affrighted with the din on every side, rushed madly among the Irish and caused horrible confusion. Just then Raymond, watching his opportunity, sallied out with his band and fell on the disordered multitude, who, after much furious fighting, turned and fled, leaving 500 dead around the fort. And besides those that fell fighting, many perished by being driven over the cliffs into the sea.

The brilliancy of this gallant defence was stained by an act of barbarous cruelty. By the advice of Mountmaurice, and against the will of Raymond - according to Giraldus - seventy of the principal citizens, who had been taken prisoners, were sentenced to be executed. Their limbs were first broken; and then the wretched captives, still living, were hurled over the sharp rocks into the sea. After this Raymond remained unmolested in his fort for three months, awaiting the arrival of his chief.

Chapter III: Strongbow

While these things were taking place in Ireland, Strongbow was diligently making preparations for his expedition. Embarking at Milford, he landed near Waterford on the 23rd August, 1170, with an army of 3,000 men. [1] He was immediately joined by Raymond le Gros with 800 men, by Miles de Cogan with 700, and by Dermot with 1,000: making in all about 5,500 men; and the very next morning they marched straight on the city of Water-

1 This is the number given by Regan (p.119: ed. 1892), who is no doubt right. Giraldus makes the number only 1,000; but he probably counts knights and archers only. But knights and archers had attendants; so that here there may be no real discrepancy between Regan and Giraldus. It is not so easy to reconcile the great disagreement in note, last page.

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ford, then governed by two Danish chiefs, Smorth and Reginald. The inhabitants made a brave defence, and twice repulsed the assailants; but at length Raymond, at the head of a small party, made a breach in the wall by pulling down a wooden house; and through this they rushed in. Then there was little more resistance; and the people, young and old, were slaughtered in vast numbers as they fled panic-stricken through the streets. At this juncture Dermot Mac Murrogh, whom the earl had sent for, arrived on the scene with Fitz Stephen and Fitzgerald, and saved the lives of the Danish chief Reginald and of O’Faelan prince of the Decies, who had been taken prisoners; and Strongbow took possession of the town. Then Dermot carried out his promise; and the marriage of Strongbow and Eva was solemnised while the streets ran red with the blood of the citizens.

Scarcely had the ceremony ended when tidings came that Hasculf of Dublin had revolted against Dermot. It should be remarked that Dermot had an old grudge against the people of Dublin; for, some years before this, they had killed his father and buried his body with a dog; and now came the opportunity for vengeance. Leaving a sufficient garrison in Waterford, Dermot and Strongbow marched direct to Dublin with an army of about 4,000 English and 1,000 Irish; and they made their way over the mountains by Glendalough; for Dermot’s scouts had reported to him that the roads and passes of the plains were beset by king Roderick all the way to Clondalkin. When the citizens beheld this formidable army pouring down the hill-slopes towards the city, and gathering before the walls, they were so terrified that they sent their illustrious and saintly archbishop Laurence O’Toole with conditions of surrender. Through his mediation a truce was agreed on till terms of peace should be settled. But even while the negotiations were going on, and after the conclusion of the truce, Raymond le Gros and Miles de Cogan, with a band of followers, forced their way into the city, and falling on the unresisting citizens butchered them without mercy. Hasculf and a large number of his people made their

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escape on board ship and sailed for the Scottish isles; all negotiations came to an end; and Dermot and Strongbow remained in possession of the city (1170).

Dermot in his hour of triumph did not forget his old foe O’Ruarc, who at this time ruled over East Meath. Leaving Dublin in charge of Miles de Cogan, he and his allies entered Meath, which they desolated with horrible barbarity, burning and plundering the villages, homesteads, and churches, and killing the people wherever they met them. King Roderick, instead of taking decisive measures, now sent a feeble message to Dermot complaining of his breach of faith, and threatening to put the hostages to death. But Dermot sent a defiant reply; whereupon the king caused the three hostages - Dermot’s son and grandson and another - to be executed.

The progress of the invaders began now to excite general alarm, and a synod of all the clergy of Ireland was convoked at Armagh, in which the arrival of the foreigners in the island was the subject of long debates and much deliberation. At length it was unanimously resolved, that it appeared to the synod the divine vengeance had brought upon them this severe judgment for the sins of the people, and especially for this, that they had long been wont to purchase natives of England as well from traders as from robbers and pirates, and reduce them to slavery; and that now they also, by reciprocal justice, were reduced to servitude by that very nation. For it was the common practice of the Anglo-Saxon people to sell their children, and they used to send their own sons and kinsmen for sale in Ireland, at a time when they were not suffering from poverty or famine. It was therefore decreed by the synod and proclaimed publicly by universal accord, that all Englishmen throughout the island who were in a state of bondage should be restored to freedom.’

1. Giraldus does not inform us how far this proclamation was obeyed.

In the spring of next year, 1171, the main cause of all these calamities, the arch-traitor Dermot, while busy

1. Girald. Cambr. Conquest of Irel. I, xviii: Bohn’s transl.

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preparing further outrages, died at Ferns. The Annals of the Four Masters and of Clonmacnoise state that he died of an unknown loathsome disease and impenitent to the last. But a contemporary writer in the Book of Leinster, who should know better, says he died a natural death, and very penitently: ‘He died at Ferns after the victory of unction and penance, in the 61st year of his age’: which is no doubt the truth. [1] Immediately after his death Earl Eichard had himself proclaimed king of Leinster.

The fame of the great conquests made by Strongbow got noised abroad, so that it came to the ears of King Henry. He had at first looked on the whole expedition with indifference and contempt: now that it was attended with success it excited his jealousy: and he dreaded with good cause that Strongbow might found a powerful independent kingdom in his immediate neighbourhood. He at once issued an edict forbidding further intercourse with Ireland, and commanding all his subjects who were there with Strongbow to return home forthwith, under penalty of treason. At the same time he began to lay plans for his own expedition. And now Strongbow found himself reduced to dire distress. He was in want of provisions, and all reinforcements were stopped, so that he was barely able to maintain himself. The little band of Anglo-Normans in the midst of these great difficulties, were soon assailed from every side and were preserved from utter destruction only by their own indomitable bravery.

Hasculf Mac Turkill since his flight from Dublin had not been idle. He collected an army and now (1171) sailed up the Liffey with sixty ships full of Norwegians and men of the Isles of Scotland, and assaulted the east gate of the city near the present Cork Hill. They were under the command of a terrible Dane from the Orkneys named John the Mad, and all were armed with mail, breastplate, and shield - iron-hearted as well as iron-armed men. Miles de Cogan the governor of the city, in no way scared, made a sally from the gate, but was driven back by superior numbers. Meantime his brother Richard de

1. Book of Leinster, p.39, col. 4, line 22.

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Cogan, passing on silently with a small party at the western gate, came round and attacked the Danes in the rear: and when those in the city heard the shouts, Miles again rushing out, fell on them. The Danes, taken front and rear, fell into confusion and fled: John the Mad, fighting desperately, just as he had lopped off the mailed thigh of a knight, was himself killed by the hand of Miles de Cogan. A vast number were slain, and Hasculf was captured just as he was entering his ship on the strand. The captive leader was brought before Miles de Cogan, and with imprudent boldness said to him: ‘This is only the beginning: if I am alive we shall come down on this city with a much more numerous band!’ Whereupon de Cogan ordered his head to be struck off on the spot.

But no sooner was this danger averted than there arose another one much more formidable. The patriotic archbishop Laurence O’Toole seeing the straits of the invaders, and thinking this a good opportunity for a combined effort to expel them, went through the country from province to province, and persuaded the kings and chiefs to join in an attempt to crush the enemy at one blow. And numerous contingents began to march from every side towards Dublin; so that a great army was soon encamped round about the city, all under the nominal command of king Roderick. And they were joined by a Danish contingent from the Isle of Man and elsewhere, who entered the Liflfey with thirty ships, and cut off communication by sea.

For two whole months (of 1171) the king let his army lie inactive in their tents; but though they never attempted an assault, they reduced the garrison to great straits by stopping all supplies. To add to the distress of the beleaguered adventurers, Donall Kavanagh, arriving from Wexford, made his way with a small party into the city with news that Fitzstephen was surrounded by the Irish in his castle of Carrick (p.254).

Then Strongbow, with the consent of his companion chiefs, sent the archbishop to King Roderick, offering to submit, and to hold his kingdom of Leinster in fealty to him. But Roderick sent back word that he would give

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Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford to the earl, but not an acre of Leinster outside the walls of those three cities: and that if these terms were not accepted, Dublin would be attacked next day. Driven to desperation by this answer, they came to the resolution to attempt to cut their way in a body through the enemy; and they selected for the attack that part of the besieging army which was under Roderick’s immediate command between Castleknock and Finglas. During all this time the king, confident in his numbers, had grown quite careless, adopting none of the precautions usual in such cases, and had allowed his army to become a mere confused mass without discipline or order, something like the crowds in a fair.

About 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the desperate little band - 600 Anglo-Normans - cavalry and footmen all well armed - with some Irish under Donall Kavanagh, suddenly sallied out and, marching towards Finglas in three divisions, took the Irish completely by surprise: so that at the first alarm they fled, making scarce any resistance. The king himself, who happened to be in his bath at this very time, escaped with much difficulty half-naked from the field. The panic spread rapidly through the whole army; and the various contingents, having no bond of unity, broke up and fled. And the garrison returned triumphant to the city, laden with booty, and with provisions enough for a whole year. [1]

Leaving Miles de Cogan once more in charge of the city, Strongbow set out for Wexford to relieve his friend Fitzstephen. He had to fight his way through some places: but he arrived at last only to find that he was too late. Fitzstephen had surrendered and was now a prisoner in the town of Wexford (which must have been recovered meantime by the Irish). Strongbow advanced on the town; but the inhabitants, first setting it on fire, retired with their prisoner to the island of Begerin. And they sent word to the earl that if he attempted to molest them, they would certainly cut ofi" the heads of all the prisoners. So he was

[1] Cambrensis and the Four Masters place the siege by Roderick after that by Mac Turkill: Regan reverses them - wrongly as I believe.

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forced to return; and with a heavy heart he marched towards Waterford.

Here he was met by Mountmaurice with a message from King Henry, summoning him to his presence. So Strongbow, hastily crossing the sea, presented himself before the monarch, whom he found with a large army preparing to invade Ireland. And after much difficulty and delay he made his peace, transferring all his possessions to the king. To him as vassal the king regranted Leinster, but reserved Dublin and a few other maritime towns. So vanished for ever Strongbow’s dream of founding an independent kingdom in Ireland.

Chapter IV: King Henry in Ireland

Henry sailed from Milford with a fleet of 400 large ships carrying 4,000 men-at-arms and 400 knights with horses and arms, accompanied by Strongbow, Hugh de Lacy, William Fitz Adelm de Burgo, and many others of his barons. On the 18th October, 1171, he landed at Crook, below Waterford. Proceeding to Waterford, he was met there by Dermot Mac Carthy king of Desmond, who was the first Irish prince to submit and pay tribute. While the king was here a number of the men of Wexford came to him bringing Fitzstephen in fetters, saying that they had arrested him, and now delivered him up, because he had dared to make war on them without the royal license, and had in this and in other ways been guilty of perfidy towards the king. They probably dreaded his anger on account of their treatment of Fitzstephen, and they made this hypocritical pretence to pass the matter off. The king’s action was as hypocritical as theirs. He pretended to be very angry with Fitzstephen, loudly rated him, and sent him back to Waterford chained to another prisoner, with orders that he should be imprisoned in Reginald’s Tower. But after a few days, ‘being touched with compas-

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sion for a brave man who had been so often exposed to such great perils, he heartily forgave and pardoned him at the intercession of some persons of rank about his court, and restored him to his former state and liberty.’ [1] The whole proceeding was a piece of acting on the part of the king, to give the Irish to understand that he had come to protect them from the rapacity of his barons.

Henry next marched leisurely by Lismore to Cashel, where he received the submission of Donall O’Brien of Limerick and of many others of the southern princes. After this he returned to Waterford; and having taken possession of Wexford, he proceeded to Dublin, where he was received in great state. Here he was visited and acknowledged by the other Irish princes, all except the Ard-ri Roderick O’Connor, and the chiefs of Ulster. O’Connor however came as far as the Shannon to meet De Lacy and Fitz Adelm de Burgo, through whom he sent his submission; but O’Neill of Tyrone held aloof, and never submitted in any shape or form.

The king on his part received graciously those that came to meet him, and confirmed them in possession of their several territories. From first to last there was no attempt at resistance, for the Irish chiefs saw that it was hopeless to contend with an army so well disciplined and equipped. King Henry spent the Christmas in Dublin, and celebrated the festival in a very sumptuous manner. The Irish princes and nobles were invited; and they were astonished at the magnificence of the display, and much pleased with the attention shown to themselves.

During his stay he made arrangements for the government of the country in accordance with the feudal model of England. Neither did he forget the afiairs of the church. It will be remembered that the main object he pretended to have at heart in the invasion of Ireland was the good of religion. To carry out this object, or to keep up the appearance of carrying it out, he caused a synod of the archbishops and bishops of Ireland and several Anglo-Norman ecclesiastics to be held at Cashel early in the

1. Girald, Cambr. Book I, chap. xxxi.

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ensuing year, 1172, in which certain decrees were drawn up for the regulation of church discipline. [1]

Henry now rewarded his barons by grants of large tracts of country, giving away the lands belonging to the natives without the least scruple. It may be said that he gave the whole of Ireland to ten of his nobles, leaving them to take possession of their several portions whenever they were able to conquer them. Leinster was granted to Strongbow with the exception of Dublin and some other maritime towns; Meath - then much larger than now - to Hugh de Lacy; and Ulster to John de Courcy. [2]

The king appointed, from among his followers, governors of all the principal towns that had submitted to him, with orders to build castles; and he granted Dublin to the people of Bristol with De Lacy as governor, who is generally regarded as the first viceroy of Ireland. [3] Having completed these arrangements, he embarked at Wexford in April, and returned to England, leaving Ireland in charge of his subordinates.

During his short stay of six months he acted with a skilful mixture of prudence and dissimulation. In order to disarm resistance he treated the Irish princes and chiefs with kindness, and led them to believe that he wished to protect them from the rapacity of the barons. It would have been better for the natives had he remained longer. While he was present the country was quiet; and no doubt he would have kept it so. For although he gave away lands that did not belong to him, the general body of the people would no doubt have remained undisturbed. He would have established some settled form of government, would have held his barons in check, and would probably have won over the Irish to a general acknowledgment of

1. The general scope of these decrees has been already noticed at p.247. They may be seen in full in Giraldus, Book i, chap, xxxiv.
2. Harris’s Ware, ii. p.190.
3. The governors of Ireland, at this time and for centuries after, were designated by various titles, such as viceroy, lieutenant, lord lieutenant, lord justice or justiciary, governor, &c. A person appointed to govern temporarily in place of an absent lord lieutenant or viceroy was designated deputy or lord deputy. A list of all the governors down to 1745 may be seen in Harris’s Ware, vol. ii, chap., xv.

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his authority. As it was he took no serious steps to maintain the authority he assumed over the country. He built no castles and planted no garrisons‘, neither left he behind him‘, says Sir John Davies‘, one true subject more than those he found there at his coming over, which were only the English adventurers.’ After his departure his arrangements were all disregarded; and his followers did just as they pleased, plundering and harassing the unfortunate natives without mercy and without restraint. The natives naturally resisted and the invaders retaliated, so that the country was soon filled with tumult and bloodshed.

The turmoil began the moment the king had left. Ternan O’Ruarc, Dermot’s old adversary, disputed the grant of his territory of Meath to De Lacy; and they agreed to hold a conference to settle the dispute on the ancient Tlachtga, now the Hill of Ward, near Athboy in Meath. But it appears obvious from Giraldus’s account that the meeting was a mere treacherous trap for O’Ruarc; and the Four Masters state so directly. De Lacy’s followers came fully armed, prepared for fight; a quarrel was provoked; O’Ruarc was killed in the fray; and his followers fled. His head was soon after spiked over one of the gates of Dublin, while the body was hung, feet upwards, at the north side of the city - the first of those ghastly exhibitions which subsequently became so common in Ireland; and after some time the head was sent to England as a present to King Henry.

Strongbow now proceeded to subjugate those portions of Leinster granted to him by the king, and, making Kildare his head-quarters, he sent to O’Dempsey chief of Offaly to demand submission and hostages, which the chief refused. Whereupon with an army of 1,000 men he devastated Offaly; but on his return laden with plunder, O’Dempsey fell on his rear in a narrow pass, slew a number of his men - among them the earl’s son-in-law De Quenci, the standard bearer and constable of Leinster - routed the marauding party, and captured the banner. Before Strongbow coi*ld take steps to avenge this defeat he was summoned to England by the king. But he had been only a

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short time there when reports of the disturbed state of Ireland came to hand; whereupon Henry, early in the following year, 1173, sent him back again as viceroy.

Chapter V: Raymond Le Gros

No sooner had Strongbow entered on his new duties as viceroy than troubles began to thicken round him. He found most of the Irish princes, notwithstanding their submission, already in revolt against the king and himself; and there was disunion among his own people. His uncle Hervey Mountmaurice, commanded the army, under whom Raymond, a far abler soldier, served as lieutenant; and between these two a bitter rivalry had grown up. The soldiers hated Mountmaurice, who was a man more inclined to peace than to war; while Raymond was their idol, for he was a brave and dashing leader, and in all his expeditions gave them full license to plunder. The money the earl had brought with him did not last long, and at length he had no pay for his soldiers. So they, having now neither pay nor plunder, presented themselves in a body before him to demand that Raymond should be placed at their head, threatening if this were not done to return to England or join the Irish. And Strongbow forced by necessity, appointed Raymond to the chief command.

The very first use Raymond made of his authority was to lead his men on one of his plundering raids. He ravaged Offaly; and from that he marched south to Lismore, which he plundered, both town and district. Loading a number of boats with part of the spoils near the mouth of the Blackwater, he sent them on towards Waterford, while he and his army set out in the same direction along the coast, driving before them 4,000 cows. The boats were attacked by a small fleet of Irish and Dano-Irish from Cork, and the land army was intercepted near Lismore by Dermot Mac Carthy prince of Desmond - he who had submitted to the king two years before. Both attacks were

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repulsed; and Raymond and his companions made their way with all the plunder to Waterford.

Raymond now growing more ambitious with continued success, solicited in marriage Strongbow’s sister Basilea, to whom he was much attached; and he asked also to be made constable or commander of Leinster. But the earl refused both requests; whereupon Raymond threw up his post, in 1174, and returned to Wales; and Mountmaurice was restored to the chief command.

Acting on Mountmaurice’s advice, Strongbow now led an expedition, composed of his own men and the Ostmen or Danes of Dublin, against Donall O’Brien king of Thomond, who had long since renounced his fealty to the English. But on their march southward they were attacked at Thurles by O’Brien and King Roderick - these two having meantime become reconciled - with the united armies of Munster and Connaught, and utterly defeated with the loss of a great part of the army - 1,700 men according to the Four Masters. And Strongbow, having escaped from the battlefield, fled southwards with a small band of the survivors, and full of grief and rage, shut himself up in Waterford.

As soon as news of this victory had got spread abroad, the Irish rose up in arms everywhere; and the earl was besieged in Waterford, so that he was in daily fear for his life. In this strait he was forced to send for Raymond, offering now all he had before refused. Raymond accordingly returned with a band of archers, rescued the earl from his perilous position, and conducted him safely to Wexford. Here he was married to Basilea, and at the same time the earl made him standard bearer and constable of Leinster.

In the midst of the festivities tidings came that Roderick had entered Meath, had expelled the English settlers and destroyed their fortresses, and was now almost at the walls of Dublin (1175). Without a day’s delay Raymond marched northward; but on his arrival at Dublin he found no enemy to contend with: for Roderick, instead of following up his success by capturing Dublin, had allowed his army.

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after the first wild raid on Meath, to disperse and return to their homes. And now Raymond made preparation to avenge on Donall O’Brien the defeat of Thurles. He led his troops to Limerick; and in the face of enormous difficulties he forded the deep and rapid river, stormed the city, and gave it up to slaughter and plunder. Then, leaving a sufficient garrison under the command of Miles de Cogan, he returned to Leinster.

Meanwhile Roderick, finding that he could not prevent the daily incursions of English raiders, and despairing of being able to hold his own province, determined to claim the protection of King Henry. Accordingly he sent three ambassadors to England, and a treaty was arranged in 1175 between the two kings. Under this treaty, which was signed at Windsor, it was agreed that Roderick was to remain king of Connaught, which he was to hold directly as vassal to Henry; that he was to rule the rest of Ireland also as vassal; and that through him the other kings and chiefs of the country were to pay tribute to King Henry. [1]

Raymond having settled his quarrel with Earl Richard, was now exposed to another and greater danger; for his enemy Hervey Mountmaurice, of whom Giraldus gives a very bad and probably prejudiced account, keeping a close watch on him, sent messengers from time to time to the king with several accusations, representing that Raymond secretly aimed at making himself king of Ireland. The king distrusted and feared the barons in Ireland, and Raymond perhaps most of all as being the ablest; so in 1176 he sent hither four commissioners, with a command to conduct him to England; two of whom returned soon after. At this very time, even while Raymond was preparing to obey the king’s command, news came that Donall O’Brien had laid siege to Limerick. And when Strongbow ordered out the army for its relief, the men refused point blank to march except under their favourite general. From this difficulty there was only one escape; and Strongbow and the commissioners were forced to yield. Raymond was replaced in command and marched

1. Hoveden, 1175. See also Harris’s Ware, ii. 67.

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away in triumph at the head of his men. On his way south the princes of Ossory and Hy Kinsella with a large body of troops joined him to guide him to Limerick and aid him against their countrymen. When O’Brien heard of Raymond’s approach, he marched from Limerick with his whole force and intercepted the advancing army on Easter-eve in a pass near Cashel (1175). But after hard fighting the Thomond men were repulsed with great loss; O’Brien submitted; and Raymond proceeded to Limerick. Having arranged matters, he went to Desmond to settle a dispute between Dermot Mac Carthy and his son. One day while he was here a courier arrived post haste from. Dublin with an odd message from his wife Basilea: ‘Be it known to your sincere love that the great jaw-tooth which used to trouble me so much has fallen out. Wherefore if you have any regard for me, or even for yourself, return with all speed,’ [1] She took this enigmatical way of telling him that her brother the earl was dead (1176). Knowing well the dangerous position of the colony in Dublin, and fearing the Irish might rise if they knew of his death, she determined to keep the matter secret till Raymond should be present. Raymond at once divined the meaning, for he had been aware of Strongbow’s illness, and he returned hastily to Limerick. Having no one of note among his followers who would undertake the command in his absence, he made a virtue of necessity and entrusted the city to the keeping of its old master Donall O’Brien; after which he set out for Dublin. But scarcely had the last of his men filed across the river when the bridge was broken down and the city set on fire by O’Brien. On Raymond’s arrival in Dublin the earl was buried in Ohristchurch Cathedral; and the funeral obsequies were conducted with great pomp and solemnity by the archbishop Laurence O’Toole. After this the two remaining commissioners, seeing that this event required new plans, embarked for England, leaving Raymond as governor till the king’s pleasure should be known. It would appear that King Henry had not got rid of his jealousy of the

1. Girald. Cambr. Book II, chap.. xiv.: Bohn’s transl.

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brilliant soldier Raymond le Gros: for as soon as he was made aware of Strongbow’s death he appointed William Fitz Adelm de Burgo viceroy (1176), with John de Courcy, Robert Fitzstephen, and Miles de Cogan to assist him. As soon as Raymond heard of their arrival he set out from Dublin with a body of troops aud met them near Wexford, and having given them a most respectful reception, he delivered up all his authority to the new viceroy without a murmur. A circumstance occurred during this ceremonial, as recorded by Giraldus, that showed the jealousy of De Burgo towards the Geraldines, and foreshadowed the long and deadly feuds of the Anglo-Irish barons among themselves. De Burgo, seeing a number of young men, Raymond’s retinue, in gallant trim, engaged in martial exercises, with shields all emblazoned with the Geraldine arms, said in a low voice to his friends: ‘I will put an end to all this parade; these shields shall soon be scattered.’ And Giraldus goes on to say that from that hour De Burgo and all the other governors envied the Geraldines and took every opportunity to injure them. [1] But we must remember that there is animus in everything Giraldus writes about the enemies of the Geraldines.

After this we hear little more of Raymond le Gros in public life. He retired to his estates in Wexford, where he resided quietly till his death, which took place in 1182.

Among the numerous families that descended from these great Anglo-Norman lords, there were three that subsequently rose to great eminence and played an important part in the history of Ireland: the Fitzgeralds or Geraldines, the Butlers, and the De Burgos or Burkes.

The Geraldines were chiefly descended from Maurice Fitzgerald. One branch of them settled in and around Kildare, and their chiefs were first created barons of Offaly, afterwards earls of Kildare, and finally, dukes of Leinster. The other chief branch had granted to them large tracts in Munster soon after the advent of the Anglo-Normans, and the heads were created earls of Desmond.

1. Conquest of Ireland, Book ii, chap.. xv.

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And there were several minor branches, such as the knight of Glin, the knight of Kerry, the seneschal of Imokilly, &c.

The founder of the Butler family was Theobald Gaultier or Walter, who settled in Ireland in the time of Henry II He received extensive tracts in Leinster, with the hereditary office of Boteler or Butler to the king of England, which imposed the duty of attending the king at coronation, and presenting him with the first cup of wine after the ceremony. For these offices the family enjoyed certain dues of plate and wine. After a time they adopted the family name of Butler instead of Fitzwalter. The heads of the family were first created earls and afterwards dukes of Ormond.

The family of De Burgo, De Burgh, or Burke, was founded by William Fitz Adelm de Burgo. They settled in Connaught, and ultimately separated into two main branches, the heads of whom became earls of Mayo and earls of Clanrickard respectively, as related farther on in Chapter XII.

Chapter VI: John De Courcy

[Chief authorities: Girald. Cambr.; Four Masters, and other Irish Annals; Ware’s Annals; Stanyhurst; Hanmer’s Chronicle.]

GiRALDUS Cambrensis gives us a very bad character of William de Burgo, the new viceroy: that he was crafty, treacherous, selfish, and avaricious. But Cambrensis, who was a Geraldine, is quite unworthy of credit in cases of this kind; for he hated De Burgo as De Burgo hated all the Geraldine race. One thing is certain, however: the new governor was from the first disliked by the English colonists in Ireland. For he wished for peace, and discouraged outrage on the natives; whereas war was what the colonists most desired, as it brought them plunder and sure increase of territory. Whether De Burgo chose peace because it enabled him the better to enrich himself by

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getting bribes from the Irish, as Giraldus says, or because of a better motive, it is now hard to determine.

In the very first year of his viceroyalty (1176) a serious disaster befel [sic] the English in Meath. Richard Fleming, one of De Lacy’s followers, had built for himself a castle at Slane, from which he constantly sent out marauding parties to plunder the surrounding districts. The Irish, provoked at last beyond endurance, marched to Slane, under the leadership of Mac Loghlin, chief of the Kinel-Owen, stormed the castle, and in their cruel rage massacred all the men, women, and children, with Fleming himself, so that not a living being escaped. The Annals of Ulster say that 100 men were killed; the Four Masters 500, which seems unlikely. This created such panic among the English of those parts that they abandoned three other castles - those of Kells, Galtrim, and Derrypatrick - and fled to a place of safety. [1]

Among all De Burgo’s followers not one was so discontented as Sir John de Courcy. He was a man of gigantic size and strength - brave and daring; and he now resolved to remain no longer inactive, but to attempt the conquest of Ulster, which King Henry II had granted to him five years before. So gathering round him a small band of knights and archers - to the number of about 320 according to Giraldus, [2] all picked men, and as discontented with forced idleness and abstention from plunder as De Courcy himself, he set out from Dublin for the north.

There were at this time certain prophecies current among both the Irish and the Welsh, some of which were believed to have been uttered by the Irish saint Columkille, and others by the Welsh wizard and prophet Merlin. It was foretold that Ulster should be conquered by a fugitive and pauper knight from another country, a white knight mounted on a white steed, bearing birds upon his shield: and the carnage was to be so great that the invaders were to wade up to their knees in blood. De Courcy believed, or pretended to believe, that he was the destined knight;

1. Four Masters, A.D. 1176.
2. He had probably 1,000 or more, counting attendants: see note, p.255.

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and he kept by him continually a book of St. Columkille’s Prophecies, though, as they were written in Irish, he could not read a word of them. It so happened, partly by accident, and partly no doubt by design, that in several striking particulars he resembled the prophesied knight: he was a pauper adventurer from beyond the sea, for he had no fortune except what he could win by his sword; he was of a fair complexion; he rode a white steed; and he had figures of birds - the heraldic bearing of his family
- painted on his shield.

Whatever may be thought of De Courcy’s sincerity, it would appear that both parties, Irish and Welsh, recognised him as the knight described in the prophecies, which, doubtless, more or less damped the spirits of the Ulstermen in resisting him. For the Prophecies of St. Columkille, though mere forgeries written long after the saint’s death, were then, and for ages subsequently, very generally known and believed in Ireland.

Passing northwards with all speed, he arrived on the morning of the fourth day - the 2nd of February 1177 - at Downpatrick, then the capital of the sub-kingdom of Ulidia. So rapid had been his march that the townspeople knew nothing of it till they were startled in the early morning by the martial sounds of bugles and the clattering of cavalry in the streets. The freebooters were half-starved as they entered the town; and now they fell upon everything they could lay hands on - they ate and drank, plundered, killed, and destroyed, till half the town was in ruins.

It happened that at this very time Cardinal Vivian, the Pope’s legate, was in Downpatrick, and was witness of the whole proceedings. He tried to induce De Courcy to withdraw to his own territories, promising, at the same time, that Mac Dunlevy, the prince of Ulidia, would pay tribute, in accordance with the treaty of Windsor (p.267); but De Courcy rejected the proposal. Whereupon the cardinal, indignant at the outrage on an unoffending people, exhorted the Ulidians to fight for their fatherland, and expel the strangers. At the end of a week, Mac

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Dimlevy, who had made his escape on the first appearance of the invaders - having no means of opposing them - returned with a large undisciplined army, and advanced on the town. De Courcy, nothing daunted, went out to meet them, and chose a favourable position to receive the attack. The Irish rushed on with tumultuous bravery, but they were not able to break the disciplined ranks of the enemy; and after a furious fight they were repulsed with great loss, and chased over the country.

In this battle it was believed that a portion of St. Columkille’s prophecy was fulfilled; for the victors, pursuing the Irish along the shore, sank to their knees in the sand, already wet with the blood of the wounded fugitives. After this victory, De Courcy erected a fortress at Downpatrick, in which he entrenched himself; and his army was continually recruited by other adventurers from Dublin.

Notwithstanding this defeat and the discouragement caused by the prophecies, the Ulidians continued to offer the most determined resistance. The valiant De Courcy battled bravely through all his difficulties, and three several times in this same year, 1177, he defeated in battle the people of the surrounding districts. But as time went on he met with many reverses, and he had quite enough to do to hold his ground. In the following year, 1178, he went on a plundering raid into Louth, and was returning with a great prey of cows, when he was attacked in his encampment in the valley of the Newry river by the armies of Oriell and Ulidia, and routed with the loss of 450 of his men. Soon after this - in the same year - he made an incursion into Dalaradia, when he was intercepted and defeated by the Dalaradian chief Cumee O’Flynn. He escaped from this battlefield with only eleven companions; and having lost their horses, they fled on foot for two days and two nights, closely pursued, without food or sleep, till they reached a place of safety. But in several other battles he was victorious, so that as years went by he strengthened his position in Ulster; and as opportunities offered he built many castles in suitable situations. When Prince John was recalled from Ireland in 1185 (p.280), De

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Courcy was appointed viceroy, and took up his residence in Dublin. Some time after this he was created earl of Ulster. During his viceroyalty he determined to attempt the conquest of Connaught, which was then torn and weakened by internal strife (Chap. VIII). Collecting all the English forces at his command, he crossed the Shannon in 1188, and began to burn and waste after his usual fashion. But before he had advanced far into the province he was confronted by the two kings of Connaught and Thomoud - Conor Mainmoy and Donall O’Brien - with their united armies. Not venturing to give battle to this formidable force, he retreated northwards, his only anxiety now being to save himself and his army from destruction. But when he had arrived at Ballysadare on the coast of Sligo, he found himself in worse plight than before; for the news of the filibustering expedition had spread quickly, and now his scouts brought word that Flaherty O’Muldory prince of Tirconnell was at Drumcliff, a little way north, marching down on him in front, while his pursuers were pressing on close behind. Setting fire to Ballysadare, he fled south-east; but as he was crossing the Curlieu Hills, he was overtaken by Conor Mainmoy and O’Brien, who fell upon him and killed a great number of his men; and it was with much difficulty he escaped with the remnant of his army into Leinster.

When De Courcy was removed from the governorship of Ireland in 1189 to make way for his rival Hugh de Lacy (p.282), he retired to Ulster, greatly offended. Here he resumed his wild raids, burning, ravaging, and plundering, like the Danes of old, and like them often suffering disastrous defeats. And he lived as an independent prince, building castles and founding churches all over Ulster, making war and peace as he pleased, and acknowledging no authority. He even coined silver money in his own name. [1] His influence in North-east Ulster was greatly strengthened by his marriage with Affreca daughter of Godred, the Norse king of Man and of the Western Isles.

1. Gilbert, Viceroys of Ireland, p.60.

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In 1196 he marclied north-west till he came to the Bann; and he built a castle at Mount Sandal, on a high bank over the river, a little above Coleraine, which he left in command of an officer named Russell. This Russell, issuing daily from his fastness, devastated all the district; till venturing too far west, he was intercepted by Flaherty O’Muldory, at Faughanvale on the shore of Lough Foyle, and defeated with great loss. Soon afterwards O’Muldory died; and De Courcy, apparently taking advantage of this, crossed the Foyle westward to invade Tirconnell. Being opposed by O’Doherty, the newly elected chief, he defeated and slew him, together with 200 of his men; after which he plundered Innishowen and carried off vast spoils.

Next year (1198) he again marched west from Downpatrick, plundering and burning churches and homesteads as he went along, and encamped at Derry, then a mere village, where he remained nine days devastating all Innishowen. When O’Neill prince of Tyrone heard of this, he sailed to the coast of Antrim and attacked the English settlement there by way of reprisal, prudently avoiding a direct encounter with De Courcy. Whereupon the English of those parts mustered their forces and intercepted him; but O’Neill defeated them; and afterwards, during their hasty flight, he routed them five several times before they reached their ships. As soon as intelligence of this reverse reached De Courcy, he hastily left Derry and made his way back to Downpatrick, probably dreading an attack on his head-quarters in his absence.

Two years later (1200) he was induced to try his fortune a second time in Connaught; but with no better result than before. He and Hugh de Lacy were both induced by Cahal Crovderg to come to his assistance in the struggle for the throne. But the rival king, Cahal Carrach, caught the allies in an ambuscade in a wood near Kilmacduagh in Galway, and inflicted on them a crushing defeat, slaying more than half of the English army. De Courcy had a narrow escape here, being felled from his horse by a stone. Recovering, however, he fled from the battlefield northwards till he reached Rindown Castle on

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the western shore of Lough Ree, where he proceeded to convey his army in boats across the lake. He had been a week engaged at this, when, on the very last day, Cahal Carrach pounced down on those that still remained at Rindown and killed and drowned great numbers of them; while De Courcy and the rest, being safe at the far sicle, made good their escape.

The chequered career of this extraordinary man ended in ruin and disgrace. There was a bitter feud between him and the De Lacys; and Hugh de Lacy (the younger) took every means to poison King John’s mind against him. We are told, too, that De Courcy let fall some imprudent expressions against the king, which, being reported, tended further to draw the royal vengeance on him. He was proclaimed a rebel and a traitor; and De Lacy, now lord justice, was commissioned to arrest him. After several unsuccessful attempts he was at length betrayed by some of his own servants, who led De Lacy’s men to his retreat at Downpatrick, where he was taken (1204). Some records relate that his enemies came down on him on Good Friday, when he was barefoot and unarmed, doingpenance in the cathedral of Downpatrick, and that he snatched the nearest weapon - a great wooden cross standing on a grave - with which he dashed out the brains of thirteen of his assailants before he was overpowered.

It would appear from a somewhat obscure entry in the Irish Annals under 1204, that on his arrival in England he was forced to go to Palestine on a crusade. After this we lose sight of him; for though there are plenty of legends handed down by English writers, we do not find him mentioned subsequently in any authentic historical records. Some peerage compilations of the last century, of doubtful authority, make him the father of Miles de Courcy whom Henry III created baron of Kinsale, and whose descendants for many generations claimed the strange privilege of wearing their hats in presence of the king.

After his departure from Ireland, the earldom of Ulster was conferred on Hugh de Lacy the younger.

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Chapter VII: Hugh De Lacy (The Elder) - Prince John

In the second year of De Burgo’s viceroyalty (1177) there was an invasion of Connaught by the English, which was disgraceful to the Irish prince that instigated it, and equally so to the English; for it must be remembered that Roderick 0’Conor had Connaught secured to him only two years before by the treaty of Windsor (p.267). Roderick’s son Murrogh, having some quarrel with his father, induced Miles de Cogan to head an expedition into the province; and Morrogh himself was their guide. But the Connaught people, having notice of their approach, retreated to the mountains with their cattle, burned some churches and all the houses, and destroyed whatever provisions they could not bring away or hide. The English advanced by Roscommon to Tuam, destroying everything - houses, churches, and farmsteads - but soon began to suffer from want of provisions; and hearing that Roderick was coming down on them with his army, they fled precipitately towards the Shannon. But they were overtaken at the ford of Athleague at Lanesborough before they had time to cross, where a great number of them were killed, and the rest escaped with difficulty. The traitor Murrogh was captured by the Connaughtmen, who with the consent of his father put out his eyes. [1]

William de Burgo became at last so unpopular with the colonists that King Henry removed him from the viceroyalty (1178), and appointed Hugh de Lacy in his place, with Robert le Poer to assist him. At the same time the king made a grant of South Munster to Miles de Cogan and Robert Fitzstephen, and another of North Munster to Philip de Braose; and he appointed Robert le Poer

1. Four Masters and Ann. of Innisfall, A.D. 1177. Giraldus (11. xvii.) gives an improbable account of this expedition and its results.

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constable of Waterford and Wexford. De Cogan and Fitzsteplien proceeded to Cork, where they were well received; and they made an allotment between them of their new territory. They then marched towards Thomond with De Braose and a large party, to help him to take possession of his district. But when they approached Limerick they saw the city in flames; for the citizens had set fire to it rather than let strangers take possession of it. Whereupon De Braose was so intimidated that, in spite of the expostulation of his friends, he at once returned to Cork and left the country for the time.

Soon after De Lacy’s appointment he married (in 1180) a daughter of King Roderick O’Conor. This marriage greatly increased his power and influence among the Irish, insomuch that it excited the jealousy and suspicion of the king, who in consequence dismissed him from his office. But De Lacy yielded up his authority with such prompt obedience that the suspicions of his royal master were for a time allayed, and after three months he was reinstated (in 1181). During the whole time of his administration he busied himself with great energy in building castles at points of vantage, not only in his own principality of Meath, but all over Leinster; of which the ruins of many remain to this day.

The country still continued to be very much disturbed by the raids of the colonists, by the reprisals of the L'ish, and by the mutual quarrels of all. King Henry, rightly believing that it required only a strong hand to put an end to these destructive turmoils, determined at last to send bis son Prince John to govern the country, hoping that his presence would restore tranquillity. In order to prepare for his reception, the king, in 1184, sent over John Comyn, an Englishman, who had been appointed archbishop of Dublin on the death of St. Laurence O’Toole. And being still jealous of De Lacy and suspicious of his intentions, he removed him once more from the viceroyalty and appointed Philip of Worcester in his place. This man is described as a brave soldier and very liberal; yet one of his first acts was a raid on Armagh during Lent, when he

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extorted an immense sum of money from the clergy, while his soldiers plundered from them all they could lay hands on. Prince John, then nineteen years of age, sailed from Milford and landed at Waterford on the Wednesday after Easter with a splendid retinue and a large body of cavalry. He had for his adviser Ralph Glanville, a great lawyer, chief justice of England; and his secretary and tutor was a Welsh priest named Gerald Barry, now better known as Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald of Wales. Though the prince had eight years before been created king of Ireland by his father, he did not now assume that title, but designated himself lord of Ireland and earl of Moreton.

King Henry’s expectations of his son’s government were doomed to early disappointment. The prince soon raised the whole country in revolt by his silly and vicious conduct. He turned even the colonists against him; for he and the worthless young fops by whom he was surrounded looked down on the brave rough barons, and took every occasion to show their contempt for them. Then, even at that early time, began that fatal policy of favouring the ‘new English’ and slighting the old, which brought heart-burnings and jealousies and countless evils for centuries afterwards. Giraldus was sharp enough to see this: ‘As the veteran soldiers by whose enterprise the way into the island was opened were treated with suspicion and neglect, and our counsels [i.e. the counsels of Prince John and his court] were communicated only to the new comers, who only were trusted and thought worthy of honour, it came to pass that as the veterans kept aloof, and rendered no assistance to those who did not ask for it, the others [i.e. the new comers] had little success in all their undertakings.’ [1] The Irish chiefs crowded to the prince in Waterford, both to pay him respect and to acknowledge him as their lord; but his insolent young associates - close-shaven dandies - ridiculed their dress and manners, and insulted them by plucking their beards, which they wore long, according to the custom of the country.

1. Conquest of Ireland, TI. xxxv.: Bohn’s transl.

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Incensed by this treatment, the proud Irish nobles withdrew to their homes, brooding mischief. Sending their women and children to the west for safety, the several septs combined for a general attack on the English settlements; while John continued his miserable career unmindful of the ominous signs gathering everywhere around him. He had built castles in Lismore, Ardfinnan, and Tibberaghney, from wliich parties continually issued to plunder the surrounding districts. But suddenly the storm-cloud burst; the settlements were attacked at all points; and the most active of the assailants was the valiant Donall O’Brien of Thomond. A great number of the strongholds were taken, and many of the bravest of the Anglo-Norman chiefs were slain. The colonists were driven to take refuge in the towns; and almost the whole of John’s splendid army perished in the various conflicts.

When the country had been for some time in this state of turmoil, King Henry heard how matters stood, and at once recalled the prince after a stay of about eight months, appointing De Courcy viceroy, in 1185. The prince, both before and after his return, threw the whole blame of the disturbances on De Lacy, who, he said, exasperated by his dismissal from the viceroyalty, instigated the Irish to revolt; and he accused him moreover of seeking to make himself king of Ireland. This was probably true; for he had settled in Meath a great number of powerful barons and leaders, all of whom built strong castles, and were completely at his command; and from them descended some of the chief Anglo-Norman families of Ireland.

De Lacy never lived to clear himself. He had demolished the venerable monastery of Durrow - St. Columba’s chief establishment in Ireland, the fame of which even yet survives in the exquisite Book of Durrow (p.105); and he had erected a castle on the site. When the building was nearly finished he came one day to inspect the works, attended by only three soldiers, when a young Irishman named O’Meyey suddenly drew forth a battleaxe which he had concealed under his cloak, and smote off the great baron’s head with a single blow, so that body

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and head both fell into the trench (1186). Instantly taking flight, he escaped from his pursuers through the neighbouring wood of Kilclare, and never halted till he reached the house of his foster father, O’Caharny or Fox, chief of the district, to announce the news. It is believed that this deed was instigated by O’Caharny to avenge the seizure of his lands by De Lacy, as well as the desecration of St. Columkille’s sanctuary.

Thus fell the greatest of the Anglo-Norman barons. He was not the greatest warrior; but he was more farseeing - more of a statesman - than any of his contemporary barons. He seems to have been well disposed towards the natives, and we have seen how he married the daughter of the Irish king Eoderick. It is probable that if he had got his own way, he would - once they had submitted - have given them fair play, and would have protected them from violence and spoliation.

Chapter VIII: Cahal of the Red Hand King of Connaught

Ever since the treaty of Windsor (p.267) King Roderick confined himself chiefly to his own kingdom of Connaught, making little or no pretensions to the sovereignty of Ireland. But he was not permitted to possess even that in peace; for in 1179 King Henry, in open violation of the treaty, granted Connaught, with the city of Limerick, to William de Burgo (Fitz Adelm) and his heirs. It does not appear that De Burgo made any attempt to depose or expel the old king - no doubt for lack of power - though he took possession of some Connaught territory.

But King Roderick’s worst troubles came from another quarter; for his latter years, like those of his great contemporary, Henry II , were embittered by the misconduct of his sons. Wearied with care, both public and domestic, he retired for a time (in 1183) to the monastery of Cong,

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leaving his son Conor Mainmoy to govern in his place. But when, two years later, he returned, his son refused to reinstate him: and an unnatural and destructive war ensued, the end of which was that Conor Mainmoy banished his father into Munster, in 1186, and retained the sovereignty. He was however a brave and active king; and we have seen (p.274) how in 1188, in conjunction with Donall O’Brien, he defeated De Courcy. After a short reign he was assassinated in 1189 at the instigation of his own brother; and Connaught was once more plunged into civil strife.

King Henry died in the year 1189 and was succeeded by his son Richard the Lion Hearted. Richard took no interest in Ireland, and left the whole management of its affairs to his brother John, who, in 1189, appointed Hugh de Lacy (son of the great De Lacy) lord justice, in place of John de Courcy. De Lacy held office till 1191, when the viceroyalty was conferred on William Earl Marshal of England and Seneschal of Leinster, who retained it till 1194. Marshal married Isabel, the only child of Strongbow and Eva; and through her, as the daughter of Strongbow and granddaughter of Dermot Mac Murrogh, he inherited vast territories both in England and Ireland, including nearly the whole of Leinster. William Marshal and Isabel had five sons and five daughters: the five sons died without issue; and the whole of Leinster was divided among the five daughters, all of whom married English noblemen.

On the death of Conor Mainmoy his father Roderick made a feeble attempt to regain his throne; but he soon laid down his arms in despair, and again retired to the monastery, while two stronger claimants contended: Calial Carrach son of Conor Mainmoy, and Cahal Crovderg (of the Red Hand) Roderick’s youngest brother, one of the most able and valiant chiefs of that period. After a short struggle Cahal Crovderg triumphed for the time, and in 1190 became king of Connaught.

Some stirring events took place in the south about this period. The English of Leinster set out in 1192 with a

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large force on an expedition into Munster, and, making leisurely march, erected on their way the castles of Knockgraffon and Kilfeakle in Tipperary. But Donall O’Brien prince of Thomond intercepted them at Thurles and defeated them with great loss. To avenge this they crossed the Shannon at Killaloe, intending to ravage Thomond: but they had scarcely arrived on the farther bank when they were unexpectedly attacked by O’Brien, who drove them back after slaying great numbers. This brave king died two years later (1194); and his death delivered the Anglo-Normans from the most active and formidable opponent they had yet encountered.

In 1198 the old King Roderick ended his troubled career in peace and penitence in the monastery of Cong. That he was king of Ireland when the invaders came was the crowning misfortune of the country. Had he possessed even moderate foresight and strength of character he would have crushed the invasion at its insignificant beginning, before it had time to grow formidable. But he had neither the judgment to realise the gravity of the situation nor the ability to grapple with serious difficulties when they arose. Nevertheless, while we despise him for his feebleness and indecision, it is impossible not to feel a degree of pity for him in his misfortunes as the last representative of independent Irish monarchy.

Cahal of the Red Hand held the throne of Connaught for eight or nine years undisturbed, and appears to have been very active; for we read in the Four Masters that in 1195, with some English and Irish allies, he made an incursion into Munster as far as Emly, and destroyed four large castles belonging to the English, and several small ones. In 1199, however, Cahal Carragh, instigated by William de Burgo, whose interest it was that the Irish princes should be at strife, reasserted his claim to Connaught, and brought De Burgo and the English of Limerick to his aid: and Connaught was again all ablaze with civil war. Cahal Crovderg was defeated and fled north to Hugh O’Neill prince of Tyrone and to John de Courcy: and the victors committed frightful outrages over a large

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part of the province - sparing neither church nor homestead, neither priest nor layman. Twice again he attempted to regain the throne, aided on the first occasion by O’Neill, and on the second (in 1200) by the redoubtable John de Courcy and by Hugh de Lacy as already related (p.275); but in the resulting battles he and his auxiliaries were utterly defeated by his rival.

Cahal Crovderg, in no way cowed by these terrible reverses, again took the field, aided this time by the cunning De Burgo, who had now changed sides; and he encamped with a large force at Roscommon. Cahal Carrach, nothing daunted, attacked him, but was killed in an obscure skirmish (1201); and Cahal Crovderg once more took possession of the throne.

Now that the war was ended, Cahal and De Burgo directed their men to go among the people of Connaught and levy their pay by coyne and livery: after which they both proceeded to Cong. While the English were thus dispersed, a false report went round that William de Burgo was dead: whereupon the people rose up simultaneously, and each householder murdered his own guest. The Four Masters (under 1201), in their brief notice of this event, say that De Burgo intended foul play towards Cahal, and that accordingly the Connacians attacked his men and slew 700 of them: but the annalists of Lough Key (under 1202) tell the horrible story in detail, and do not attempt to hide the people’s treachery - a striking testimony to their fairness. They add that 900 or more were killed. There is no reason to believe that Cahal had any hand in this foul business. A few years later (1204) De Burgo died, after playing a very important part in this great invasion.

From this period forward Cahal ruled without a native rival. With all his power, however, he saw that he could not, unaided, preserve his dominions from the greedy and powerful English barons who had settled on his borders. Accordingly, in 1206, in order to secure even a portion, he surrendered two parts of the province, and agreed to hold the remaining third from the king, for which he was

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to pay 100 marks yearly. And lie presented himself to John on the occasion of that king’s visit to Ireland in 1210 (next chapter) and made formal submission to him. Yet in the face of these treaties the king (in 1215) granted the whole of Connaught to William de Burgo, as it had formerly been granted to his father Fitz Adelm. And in 1218 this grant was confirmed by Henry III to Richard de Burgo, but with a proviso that it should not take effect till the death of Cahal.

Cahal defended his territories with great spirit against the illegal encroachments of the barons. Thus when in 1220 the De Lacys of Meath went to Athleague on the Shannon, and began to build a castle on the eastern bank to serve as a key to Connaught, he promptly crossed the river into Longford, and so frightened them that they were glad to conclude a truce with him; and he demolished the castle, which they had almost finished.

Cahal seems to have remained faithful to his engagements with the English monarchs, notwithstanding their breaches of trust with him. For in 1221, when De Lacy landed in Ireland in open rebellion against Henry III (p.289 infra), Cahal joined Earl Marshal against him, and wrote to the king to warn him, complaining in his letter how hard he found it to maintain his position against the king’s enemies - De Lacy and others.

Cahal of the Ked Hand was an upright and powerful king, and governed with firmness and justice. The Annals record of him that he relieved the poor as long as he lived, and that he destroyed more robbers and rebels and evil-doers of every kind than any other king of his time. In early life he had founded the abbey of Knockmoy, into which he retired in the last year of his life; and in this quiet retreat he died in the habit of a Cistercian monk in 1224.

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Chapter IX: King John in Ireland

King Richard died in 1199 and was succeeded by his brother John. The new king appointed as governor Meiler Fitz Henry, who had come over as a youth with the first Anglo-Normans: he was lord justice during the first four years of John’s reign.

The years immediately following the death of Donall O’Brien (in 1194) present a weary record of strife and turmoil. The Irish chiefs were encouraged in their dissensions by the English nobles - though indeed they needed but small encouragement; and while they continued to enfeeble each other, their watchful enemies gradually extended their possessions and tightened their grasp on the country. These English nobles also quarrelled among themselves; and their broils caused quite as much devastation and misery as those of the Irish chiefs. Hugh de Lacy became governor as lord justice in 1203 in succession to Fitz Henry. This did not mend matters: for his tyranny in exacting taxes for King John caused great exasperation and several downright rebellions. In 1208 a battle was fought at Thurles between the colonists on the one side, aided by the natives, and the lord justice on the other, in which a great number of the royal troops were killed.

Even Dublin, the centre of government, felt the effects of the general state of lawlessness. The reader will recollect that Henry II granted this city to the citizens of Bristol in 1172 (p.263). The dispossessed people took refuge among their kindred, the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles of Wicklow, brooding over their wrongs and biding the time for vengeance. The settlers were in the habit of resorting for amusement on holidays to a place a little south of the city, then and still called Cullenswood. While they were so engaged on Easter Monday, 1209, a party of the O’Byrnes

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and O’Tooles, who had been lying in ambush, suddenly fell on them and killed 300 of them. [1] In memory of this event Easter Monday was for generations afterwards called by the name of Black Monday; and the place, which is now being built over, is to this day called the Bloody Fields. It ought to be remarked that the authorities for this story are exclusively English: it is not mentioned at all in the Irish annals, so that we have no opportunity of hearing the other side.

King John was kept well informed of the disturbed state of the country. What seems to have troubled him most, so far as Ireland was concerned, was that some of the great nobles, and notoriously William de Braose and Hugh de Lacy, had followed in the footsteps of De Courcy, throwing off all authority and making themselves to all intents and purposes independent princes. With the object of reducing these turbulent barons to submission and of restoring quiet, and probably also in order to forget for a time the troubles his own tyranny and misgovernment had brought on his head in England, the king - at this time under excommunication - resolved to visit Ireland. He landed at Crook, near Waterford, in the month of June, 1210, with a formidable army. The mere presence of such a force was enough to awe the restless chiefs, Irish and English; and from the very day of his landing the whole country became tranquil. The two De Lacys - Hugh and his brother Walter - fled to France. De Braose also made his escape, but his wife and son fell into the king’s hands, and having been brought to England were, aiter some time, starved to death in prison by the tyrant’s order.

A romantic story is told of the adventures of the De Lacys. They were reduced to destitution in France, and had at last to earn their bread by working as garden labourers for two or three years in the abbey of 8t. Taurin. The abbot, thinking he saw in them something above the common, at last questioned them, and gradually drew from them a confession of their name and rank, and the whole story of their misfortunes. He appealed on their behalf [1] Hanmer’s Chronicle, ed. 1809, p.370.

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to King John, who restored them to their estates (about 1213) on the payment of fines, Hugh 4,000 marks for the earldom of Ulster, and Walter 2,500 marks for Meath. The story adds that they brought the abbot’s nephew with them to Ireland, and, having made him a knight, bestowed on hiDi the lordship of Dingle.

The king proceeded to Dublin, and from thence to Meath, where Cahal Qrovderg, who at this time ruled his Connaught kingdom in peace (p.285), visited him and ‘came into his house‘, as the Four Masters express it - that is, made formal submission. John received him kindly and made him a present of a splendid charger, which Cahal - first removing the saddle - mounted, and with his retinue accompanied the king for a long distance. Many other Irish kings and chiefs came also and submitted; but these submissions were, as Sir John Davies says‘, a mere mockery and imposture‘, made under compulsion, and quite disregarded from the moment the king’s back was turned.

As John had no fighting to do, he employed himself more usefully in making arrangements for the better government of the country. Those parts of Ireland which were under English jurisdiction he parcelled out into twelve shires or counties: namely, Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Uriel (or Louth), Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. He directed that in all these counties the English laws should be administered, and for this purpose he erected courts of justice and appointed sheriffs and other officers. But it must be always borne in mind that all these arrangements, including the administration of the law, were for the settlers only, not for the natives, who were then and long afterwards outside the pale of the law.

The king returned to England in August 1210, leaving John de Grey lord justice, to whom he committed the task of carrying out his arrangements. During the remainder of his reign Ireland was comparatively quiet, and no events occurred necessary to notice here.

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Chapter X: A Century of Turmoil

[Chief authorities for Chaps. X. and XL: Irish Annals; Clyn’s Annals; Histories of Ireland by Mac Geoghegan, Cox, and Leland; Ware’s Annals; Gilbert’s Viceroys; Hanmer’s Chronicle; Davies’s Discoverie; Carew Papers; Eichey’s Short History.]

King John was succeeded, in 1216, by Ms son Henry III, who was then a boy of nine years old.

The century that elapsed from the death of John to the invasion of Edward Bruce was a period of strife and bloodshed, from which scarce any part of the country was free, a period of woe and misery for the common people. There was as usual no strong central government, and the whole nation was abandoned to anarchy. It is necessary to relate the most important events of this period, so as to make a connected narrative, and in order that the reader may have some idea of the hard ordeal of suffering the country had to pass through.

We have seen that, according to the tradition, Hugh de Lacy, three or four years after his expulsion by King John in 1210, was permitted to return at the instance of the abbot of St. Taurin. Whatever truth may be in this tradition, we find that he was abroad in 1219 watching his opportunity, when William Marshal the great earl of Pembroke - the husband of Eva’s daughter - died, leaving his titles and estates to his son William Marshal the younger. De Lacy seeing his powerful antagonist gone, determined on an attempt to regain his lost earldom, and the Irish annalists record that in 1221 he landed in Ulster in defiance of the wishes of the king, and in open rebellion. He enlisted Hugh O’Neill of Tyrone on his side; and they invaded Ulster, Leinster, and Meath, demolished the castle of Coleraine, and committed terrible ravages all over the three territories. The young Earl William Marshal, a man of energy and foresight, having been appointed lord justice,

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at once crossed over - in 1224 - to oppose De Lacy; and he was aided by most of the other English leaders, as well as by some native chiefs, among them Cahal Crovderg, who had good reasons for hostile feelings towards the De Lacys.

The contest that followed, in which public as well as private interests were enlisted, and which continued till the whole of Meath was wasted, attained almost the magnitude of a civil war: it is indeed sometimes designated as the War of Meath. At last when both parties were wearied out they made peace; a peace in which the De Lacys and O’Neill acknowledged no error and gave no hostages; and obtained very much their own terms.

Let us now turn to the west. We have seen how Henry III, in violation of treaties with Cahal Crovderg, granted Connaught to Richard de Burgo. But the O’Conors clung to their territory, so that De Burgo found it no easy matter to dislodge them; and when Cahal died (in 1224) his son Hugh assumed the government. Whereupon the English king directed William Marshal the lord justice to seize on the province and deliver it up to De Burgo. At the same time the two sons of the old King Roderick claimed the throne, in opposition to both De Burgo and their cousin Hugh; and among these several claimants the ill-fated province was plunged into a long and desolating civil war.

Marshal appears to have made no immediate attempt to execute the king’s order. Adopting a more astute coarse, he remained with his army at Athlone, on the border of the province, to watch the course of events, leaving the Irish to fight it out among themselves, and taking a part only when asked to do so.

The sons of Roderick, aided by O’Neill of the north, were at first successful, and one of them was actually inaugurated king. But no sooner had O’Neill returned home, than Hugh applied to Marshal, who gladly marched to his assistance from Athlone. The new king and his brother, being now forced to fly, were pursued by Hugh and his English allies, who ravaged the country mercilessly

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as they went along. The annalists, when recording this terrible and cruel raid (1225), mention a pathetic incident, which gives us a vivid insight into the miseries suffered by the poor people. A frightened crowd of peasants - men, women, and children - fleeing northwards from the pursuing army, perished by scores on the way. In their headlong flight they attempted to cross the wide and deep river flowing from Bellacong Lake in Mayo, half-way between Ballina and Foxford, where great numbers were drowned; and next day the baskets of the fishing weirs were found full of the bodies of little children that had been swept down by the stream.

This state of horror lasted in Connaught for many years; and the struggles among the several claimants of the O’Conor family went on unceasingly: battles, skirmishes, and raids without number. The English, under Marshal, De Burgo, or others, were mixed up iu most of these contests, now siding with one of the parties, now with another, but always keeping an eye to their own interests. And thus the havoc and ruin went on unchecked. Meantime the wretched hunted people had no leisure to attend to their tillage; famine and pestilence followed; and the inhabitants of whole towns and districts were swept away.

At length Felim the brother of Hugh - for Hugh had been killed in a private broil - established himself, in 1249, by sheer force of energy and bravery, on the throne of Connaught, in spite of all enemies both English and Irish, and reigned without interruption till his death in 1265.

We have sketched the War of Meath: there was also a War of Kildare, which resulted in the destruction of one of the noblest of the Anglo-Irish earls by the villainous treachery of one man, and of those he induced to join with him in the conspiracy. William Marshal the younger died in 1231, while still a young man, leaving all his titles and estates to his brother Kichard, a handsome, valiant, and noble-minded knight. This young man, like most spirited Englishmen of the time, very properly resented the king’s

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foolish preference for Frenchmen; whereupon the king banished him from the kingdom: most ungratefully, for he owed his crown to the young earl’s father. Richard now entered into alliance with Llewellyn prince of Wales, and made open war on King Henry, who thereupon confiscated all his vast estates. Geoffrey Marisco now induced the lord justice Maurice Fitzgerald, Hugh de Lacy, and Richard de Burgo to enter into a base conspiracy for the ruin of Marshal, hoping to share his estates among them. He began by forging letters purporting to be from the king, ordering the Irish vassals to arrest Earl Richard for treason if he should appear among them. Having accomplished this, he put on the guise of friendship, and induced the young nobleman to come to Ireland to defend his estates against De Lacy and De Burgo; and when it was ao-reed to hold a conference of the hostile parties on the Curragh of Kildare, he persuaded him to insist on such terms as he knew De Lacy and the others would reject.

At this conference (1234) a quarrel was provoked; and when they prepared to fight, all Earl Richard’s men, having been previously bribed, left him. with the exception of fifteen faithful knights. The treacherous De Marisco too, professing all along to be on his side, abandoned him at the last moment; and then for the first time it flashed upon him that he was betrayed. Seeing his young brother Walter, who was a mere boy, following him into the fray, he sent him back with an attendant to a place of safety; and then he and his fifteen companions dashed in among their enemies. The chief conspirators, fearing to encounter Marshal, had withdrawn to shelter and left the fighting to their mercenaries. Richard, who was a man of great strength, and renowned as a swordsman, did terrible execution. With one blow he lopped off the two hands of a gigantic Irishman who had stretched out his arms to seize him: and he cleft the body of another mercenary from head to waist. The unequal struggle went on for six hours - 15 against 140 - but it could have only one termination. They brought the noble knight to his feet at last by disabling his horse; and then while he was en

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gaged with his enemies in front one of the rascals plunged a dagger into his back through a joint of the armour, and he was overpowered. This ended the fight. He was taken to the castle of Kilkenny, where he would have recovered by his native strength of constitution; but the doctor who attended him - bribed like the others - wilfully killed him with the severity of his treatment. Geoffrey Marisco met some punishment. He was banished by the indignant king, to whom the whole villainous plot had been revealed, and died in exile; and his son who had espoused his cause, having been captured, was executed by being torn in pieces between horses.

Except the small territory conquered by De Courcy, Ulster had up to the present preserved its independence. But here also dissension opened the way for the invader. Maurice Fitzgerald, second baron of Offaly, one of the conspirators in the war of Kildare, who had been twice lord justice, and who had on a former occasion temporarily reduced both O’Neill and O’Donnell, now resolved to bring Ulster completely under English rule. He marched with his army northwards through Connaught in 1257; but was intercepted by Godfrey O’Donnell chief of Tirconnell, at a place called Credran-Kill at the Rosses near Sligo town, where a furious battle was fought. The two leaders, Fitzgerald and O’Donnell, met in single combat and wounded each other severely; the English were routed aud driven out of Lower (or North) Connaught; and Fitzgerald retired to the Franciscan monastery of Youghal, where he died the same year, probably of his wounds.

As for O’Donnell, he had himself conveyed to an island in Lough Veagh in Donegal, where he lay in bed for a whole year sinking daily under his wounds; and all this time the Tirconnellians had no chief to lead them.

There had been for some time before much dissension between this O’Donnell and Brian O’Neill the neighbouring prince of Tyrone; and now O’Neill, taking advantage of his opponent’s helplessness, instead of greeting him as he ought, after his victory over Fitzgerald, gathered an

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army, and marching towards Tirconnell, sent to demand submission and tribute. O’Donnell, as soon as he had received this message, ordered a hasty muster of his people; and summoning the chiefs to his bedside, he told them of O’Neill’s demand, and of his determination to resist it; and as he was not able to march with them - expecting death daily - he directed them to make him a bier, on which they were to carry him at the head of his people to meet O’Neill (1258).

On they marched till they met the men of Tyrone face to face at the river Swilly; and while the bier supporting the dying chief was raised aloft in full view of the Kinel Connell, the two armies attacked each other. After a long and fierce struggle the Tyrone men were routed and fled, leaving many of their men dead on the battlefield. Then the victors set out on their homeward journey; but had proceeded only as far as Letterkenny when they had to lay down the bier, and the heroic chief died. And the same bier from which he had witnessed his last victory was now made use of to bear him to his grave.

In this year (1258) some of the Irish chiefs, including Teige O’Brien of Thomond, made a feeble attempt to unite against the common enemy; and they chose Brian O’Neill of Tyrone as their leader. But this confederacy was of short duration; for two years later, in 1260, in a bloody battle fought at Downpatrick against the English of the north of Ireland, O’Neill was defeated and slain, together with a large number of the chiefs of Ulster and Connaught.

The south had its own share of disturbance, and here the English were less fortunate. The Mac Oarthys of Desmond, seeing their ancient principality continually encroached upon by the Geraldines, became exasperated; and led by their chief Fineen or Florence, attacked them in the year 1 261 at Callan near Kenmare; where the Geraldines were defeated and a great number slain, including several of their chiefs. The Irish followed up this victory by demolishing the English castles over a great part of Desmond; and for a dozen years, as we are told, no Geraldine durst put a plough in the ground. But the Irish began

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soon again to quarrel among themselves, and the Geraldines gradually recovered all they had lost.

There was almost as much strife among the English themselves as there was between Irish and English. The two great families of Fitzgerald and De Burgo had a bitter dispute, which began in 1264, about some lands in Connaught, so that they filled the whole kingdom with war and tumult. At last the king intervened, and wrote, in 1265, commanding peace. Two years later David Barry the lord justice ended the dispute by depriving the Fitzgeralds of all their Connaught lands; and he forced the parties to make peace; which was however of no long duration.

But the country got no rest; for the Irish rose up and burned and spoiled the English settlements everywhere. In Connaught there was a dispute between Walter de Burgo earl of Ulster and the Connaught king Hugh O’Conor the son of Felim (p.291), so that they proceeded to open war. The earl accompanied by the lord justice, who now became alarmed at the general rising of the Irish, crossed the Shannon and invaded Connaught in 1270; but he was defeated in battle by Hugh, who slew nine of his principal knights and a great number of men. These wars were followed as usual by great famine and pestilence.

While this universal strife was raging in Ireland, Henry III died, and was succeeded by Edward I (1272).

The manner in which the natives were despoiled of their lands at this period and for many a generation afterwards, is well exemplified in the proceedings of Thomas de Clare son of the earl of Gloucester; and the story shows how the native chiefs facilitated the work of conquest by their own miserable dissensions. This nobleman had been granted a large tract of land in Clare, a part of Thomond. It happened at this time (1277) that there were two native competitors for the principality of Thomond, Brian Roe O’Brien and Turlogh O’Brien, who were at open war with each other; and De Clare instantly turned their quarrel to his own advantage. He first took the part of Brian Roe and helped him to defeat his opponent; after

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which he entered into solemn bonds of friendship with him.

But soon afterwards he took the other side; and having inveigled Brian Roe into his power, he treacherously seized him and had him torn asunder by horses. [1] Then he took possession of all the district east of the river Fergus, distributed the land among his followers, and built two strong castles at Clare and Bunratty. The sons of the murdered prince however rose up against De Clare, and defeating him in several engagements, drove himself and his father-in-law - Maurice Fitz Maurice Fitzgerald- to take refuge in the solitudes of the Slieve Bloom mountains. Here they were reduced to such want that they subsisted for a time on horseflesh. They had to yield themselves prisoners at last, and were treated by the Irish with more clemency than they had a right to expect: they were set at liberty on engaging to give satisfaction for O’Brien’s death, and to surrender the castle of Roscommon.

After the English settlement in 1172 there were two distinct codes of law in force in Ireland - the English and the Brehon. A man might live safely enough under either; but it was very unsafe and dangerous for an Irishman to live under both. Yet this was the position of a large proportion of the native Irish, viz., of all those who in any way came in contact with the colonists. The English law did not apply to them. An Irishman who was in any manner injured by an Englishman had no redress. He could not seek the protection of English law; and if he had recourse to the Brehon law, the Englishman need not submit, and would naturally repudiate it. An Englishman might even murder an Irishman with impunity, for Irishmen ‘were so farre out of the protection of the Lawe, as it was often adjudged no fellony to kill a meere Irishman in the time of peace.’ [1] Accordingly we find that when Robert de Waleys was put on his trial in Waterford in 1310 for the murder of John Macgillemory, he admitted the murder,

1. Ann. Four Masters, and Ann. Clonmacnoise, 1277. Davies, Discoverie, ed. 1747, p.102.

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but pleaded that it was no felony, inasmuch as Macgillemory was a mere Irishman: and the plea was admitted in court, so that he was let off without any punishment. [1] But an Irishman who injured an Englishman came at once under English law: and if Macgillemory had murdered De Waleys he would have been hanged for it.

Yet the Brehon law was often made use of by the English, but almost always perverted for their own purposes. We have seen (p.78) how the old Irish custom of coiney was abused in the form of coyne and livery. But there was something much worse than this. We know that under the Brehon law, if a man were in debt and absconded his family had to pay (p.53). This law was turned to use against the natives in a most convenient way: in a manner indeed that would hardly be credited if we had not the Act of Parliament before us.’ a.d. 1476, 16 Edward IV. In a parliament held at Dublin, the following act was passed: If any person of Irish name, not sufficient or amenable to the common law, commit any offence to any of the king’s subjects, it shall be lawful to him [the person injured] and his aiders to arrest and take such Irish persons as shall be sufficient, being of the nation of him which committed the offence, and to retain them with their goods and chattels until they and the remnant of the same nation make amends according to the discretion of the governor and council.’ [1] This means that if an Irishman were indebted in any manner to a colonist and was unable to pay or absconded, the colonist might arrest any Irishman he pleased, or any number of Irishmen, and seize their goods, till the debt was paid.

Although it was no felony to kill a native, yet we must not judge of this state of things more severely than it deserves. It was not so much a positive law as the absence of law; and when the government placed the colonists under English law and took no cognizance of the Irish people, we must not suppose the authorities made the omission with any direct intention that Englishmen

1. Gilbert, Account of Facsimiles of Nat. MSS. of Ireland, p.I01.’ Carew Papers, 1515-1574, p.320.

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should have unlimited license to kill or rob or injure Irishmen: probably they never thought of the consequences at all. And when an attempt was made to bring an Englishman to justice for murdering or maltreating an Irishman, he was let off, not because the judges had any sympathy wdth him or his evil deed, but simply because they had no power to try the case: it was not within their jurisdiction.

At the same time we must not let ourselves be carried too far on the other side by these mitigating considerations. There was something more than mere negation or neglect in the act of 1476 quoted above: and we know that the attention of the government was more than once directed
- and directed in vain - to the need of legal protection for the native Irish. It was no wonder that under the circumstances the Irish should wish to have the protection of the law; and accordingly many individuals and families, from the time of Henry II to the accession of James I, obtained from the government, by purchase or for some other reason, what were called ‘charters of denization‘, which gave them the benefit of English law - which protected them from injury on the part of any colonist, and enabled them to sue a colonist the same as if they themselves were colonists: [1] but this was always granted as an act of special favour. And there were five Irish families who for some reason, not now known, had from an early time the benefit of English law: ‘By this record it appeareth that five principal blouds or septs of the Irishry were by special grace enfranchised and enabled to take benefit of the lawes of England: namely, O’Neill of Ulster; O’Melaghlin of Meath; O’Conor of Connaught; O’Brien of Thomond; and Mac Murrough of Leinster.’ [2]

But perhaps the most discreditable record of all is this. On two well-known occasions, the first in the reign of king Edward I, and the second in that of Edward III, the general body of the Irish petitioned the king that an act might be passed to make all the Irish subject to the

1. Carew Papers, 1515-1574, p..320; Gilbert, Acct. of Nat. MSS., pp.101-2-3; Davies, Discoverie, ed. 1747, p.105.
2. Davies, Discoverie, ed. 1747, p.104; Harris’s Ware, ii, 88.

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English law. These two great kings would have been glad to comply with the prayer of their Irish subjects; but it did not suit the selfish purposes of the Anglo-Irish barons, who ‘persuaded the king of England that it was unfit to communicate the Lawes of England unto them; that it was best pollicie to holde them as Aliens and Enemies and to persecute them with continuall warre .... wherefore I must stil cleare and acquit the Crown and State of England of negligence or ill pollicie, and lay the fault uppon the Pride, Covetousnesse, and ill Counsell of the English planted heer, which in all former ages have been the chiefe impediments of the final Conquest of Ireland.’ [1]

Elsewhere in the same essay Davies writes: ‘This then I note as a great defect in the civill policy of this Kingdom, that the English lawes were not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit and protection thereof allowed unto them, though they earnestly desired and sought the same.’ [2] This measure ‘would have prevented the calamities of ages, and was obviously calculated for the pacification and effectual improvement of their country. But it would have circumscribed their [the barons'] rapacious views and controlled their violence and oppression.’ [3] The barons accordingly opposed it on various pretences, and the two petitions came to nothing. [4]

The Irish, totally unprotected as they were, and heartily sick of turmoil, would have been only too glad to live under English law and be at peace with their English neighbours; for then, as now, they would cheerfully submit to the law if they believed it to be just: ‘For there is no nation of people under the sunne that doth love equall and indifferent (i.e. impartial) justice better then the Irish; or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it bee against themselves; so as they may have the protection and benefit of the law, when uppon just cause they do desire it.’ [5]

1. Davies, Dlscoverie, pp.145, 146.
2. Ibid. p.118.
3. Leland, Hist. of Ireland, i. 245.
4. Ibid. i. 243, 289. See also Carew Papers, 1603-1624, p.165; and Richey’s Short History of the Irish People, pp.176, 177.
5. This is the concluding sentence of Davies’ thoughtful and valuable essay, A Discoverie of the True Causes, &c.

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The war and turmoil continued without intermission till the end of this reign. Neither did the accession of the new king, Edward II (1307), bring any improvement; for Ireland was left to work out its own miserable destiny; and under the circumstances change of kings was a matter of scarcely any consequence to the Irish people.

Chapter XI: Edward Bruce

About the time of the beginning of Bruce’s invasion, the Irish princes under the leadership of Don all O’Neill king of Ulster wrote a dignified remonstrance, in the form of a letter to Pope John XXII, which is a most interesting arid important document. [1]

After glancing at the early history of Ireland, and drawing attention to the zeal for religion of its clergy and people, they say that Pope Adrian IV., an Englishman, moved by false representations, unjustly transferred the sovereignty of Ireland to Henry II, the instigator of the murder of Thomas a Becket. They show that Henry and his successors had violated the conditions of the bull, and instead of reforming the Irish, had plundered the church and perverted the papal grant to their own selfish purposes. They complain that they are not protected by law: that an Englishman may prosecute an Irishman in any action, but that an Irishman cannot prosecute an Englishman; that if an Englishman kill an Irishman there is no way to prosecute, and no penalty on the murderer; that an Irishwoman who marries an Englishman is, on her husband’s death, deprived of one-third of her property; that if an Englishman compass the death of an Irishman by violence, he can seize all the Irishman’s property; and that Irishmen are excluded from monastic institutions governed by Englishmen; with many other grievances.

1. The original Latin is in Fordun’s Chronicle, and in O’SuUivan’s Hist. Cath. Hib. ed. 1850, p.70. There is a translation of the most important portions in Mac Geoghegan’s History of Ireland, p.323.

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They then go on to say that they have resolved to defend their lives and liberties by force of arms; and they inform his Holiness that they have invited Edward Bruce, the descendant of their own ancient kings, to come to their aid.

The Pope did not reply directly to this remonstrance; but he did what perhaps was better; he sent the document to King Edward II, with a letter earnestly recommending that he should take all these matters into consideration and redress the grievances of the Irish. He complains that neither Henry nor his successors paid any regard to the object of Adrian’s bull; but that on the contrary they heaped upon the Irish unheard-of miseries and persecutions, and imposed on them a yoke of slavery which could not be borne.

Immediately after this, the Pope, probably through English influence, issued instructions to the Irish archbishops to excommunicate all those Irish who should take up arms to help Edward Bruce, or who should aid him in any way, openly or secretly, by furnishing counsel, arms, horses, or money. It was enjoined that all such persons were to be shunned as under the ban of the church; and the sentence of excommunication was to be read aloud by the clergy on Sundays and holidays, with candles lighted and bells tolling. [1]

The preceding hundred years I have designated a century of turmoil; but it was peace itself compared with the three and a half years of Bruce’s expedition to Ireland.

The Irish people, especially those of the north, viewed with great interest and sympathy the struggles of their kindred in Scotland for independence; and Robert Bruce’s glorious victory at Bannockburn filled them with joy and hope. Soon after the battle, the native chiefs of Ulster, headed by Donall O’Neill prince of Tyrone, with the De Lacys and with the Bissets who then owned Glenarm and Rathlin, despatched deputies praying Bruce to send his brother Edward to be king over them. He eagerly accepted the invitation; and on the 25th of May, 1815, Edward Bruce, accompanied by many of the Scottish

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.137; Leland, i. 275.

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nobles, landed at Larne with an army of 6,000 of the best soldiers of Scotland. He was immediately joined by Donall O’Neill, and by numbers of the northern Irish; and the combined forces overran a great part of Ulster, destroying everything belonging to the English that came in their way, and defeating them in several battles. Moving southwards, they stormed and burned Dundalk and Ardee; and at this latter place they set fire to the church in which a number of people had taken refuge and burned them all to death.

From first to last the campaign was carried on with great cruelty, and with reckless waste of life and property. All food, except what was needed for the use of the army, was destroyed, though there was a famine and the people were starving all over the country. The Bruces were humane, high-minded men. It is related that on one occasion during the hurried march fi'om Limerick to Ulster described further on (p.306), a poor washerwoman was taken with the pains of childbirth; and Robert Bruce, at a time when every hour was a matter of life and death to him, halted the whole army till the woman was fit for travel. Let us not, then, heap more blame on them than they deserve for the barbarous conduct of the campaign. It was the custom of the time; if indeed that can be accepted as a palliation of inhumanity. Wallace did much the same in England, and the English often enough in Scotland. But it would be satisfactory to have to record a different and more merciful line of action on the part of the Bruces.

The two leading Anglo-Irish noblemen at this time were Richard de Burgo the Red Earl of Ulster, and Sir Edmund Butler the lord justice. The Red Earl was lord of the two provinces of Connaught and Ulster, the earldom of Ulster having come to his father by marriage with the daughter and heiress of De Lacy; and he was by far the most powerful nobleman in Ireland: even the lord justice was of small account in comparison with him. He raised a large army, chiefly in Connaught, and set out in quest of the invaders. His march north through the Irish districts was perhaps more savagely destructive than that of

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Bruce, if indeed that were possible. No doubt he considered that all the Irish were in sympathy with Bruce, which was not the case. On his way he met Sir Edmund Butler with a Leinster army, bound also for the north; but he haughtily rejected the lord justice’s aid, asserting he was himself quite a match for Bruce. He found the Scottish army posted near Ardee in Louth, and there was some skirmishing; but Bruce, acting on the advice of O’Neill, retraced his steps northwards, followed by De Burgo, and took up a position on the Bann.

Among the Red Earl’s adherents was Felim O’Conor, the young king of Connaught, with a large contingent of native Irish. But having received some secret messages from Bruce, O’Conor became desirous to withdraw; and as he heard at the same time that one of his kinsmen had taken advantage of his absence to revolt and proclaim himself king, he returned to Connaught to suppress the rebellion.

The Bed Earl, finding himself weakened by this defection, retreated eastwards, but was overtaken by Bruce at the village of Connor near Ballymena; where after a furious contest he was utterly defeated, losing a great part of his army. His brother William and several English knights were taken prisoners, and he himself fled back crestfallen to Connaught, with the broken remnants of his forces. A body of the English fled eastwards to Carrickfergus and took possession of the castle, which they gallantly defended for months against the Scots. Soon after the battle Bruce had himself proclaimed king of Ireland and formally crowned.

Towards the end of the year he received some reinforcements from Scotland, and having vainly endeavoured to take Carrickfergus Castle, he left a small party to carry on the siege and marched into Meath. At Kells he routed an army of 15,000 men under Sir Roger Mortimer, who had come over from England to defend his Irish lands. The De Lacys, who had been in the English army, stood by and took no part in the fight, and soon afterwards they openly joined the Scots, x[1]fter the battle the victorious general proceeded with his army to Lough Sewdy,

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now called Lough Sunderlin, in Westmeath, where he halted and spent the Christmas. At the opening of the new year (1316) he marched to Kildare; and beside the great moat of Ardscull near Athy, he defeated the lord justice, Sir Edmund Butler, who lost a great number of his best men.

Bruce had now been successful everywhere; and the native Irish rose up in many parts of the country. Among the insurgents were the O’Tooles and the O’Byrnes of Wicklow, and the O’Moores of Leix; but they were all promptly crushed, and with great loss, by the lord justice.

The harvest had been a bad one, and scarcity and want prevailed all over the country. Nevertheless the Scottish army, wherever they went, continued to ravage and destroy all they could not consume or bring away, multiplying tenfold the miseries of the people, both English and Irish. Their proceedings reacted on themselves at last, for Bruce was forced by want of provisions to retire to Ulster, where for a time he held court and discharged all the functions of a king.

Felim O’Conor, having crushed in blood the revolt in Connaught, now declared for the Scots; and being joined by the chiefs of Connaught and by O’Brien of Thomond, he made preparations to expel the English wholly from the province. Marching to Atbenry with a large army, he was there confronted by an army of English equally numerous, under William de Burgo and Richard Bermingham. The English were well armed, well equipped in every way, and well disciplined; while the Irish fought as usual in their irregular fashion, clad only in their saffron tunics. The pitched battle that followed was long and desperately contested; but at length the Irish were utterly defeated, leaving 11,000 men dead on the field. The brave young Felim, then only twenty-three years of age, from whom, as the Four Masters say, the Irish had expected more than from any other Gael then living, fell himself, fighting side by side with his men. This was by far the most decisive and fatal defeat inflicted on the Irish since the invaders first set foot on Irish soil. In it almost all the native

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nobility of Connaught perished; and the Irish annalists state that in the whole province there remained of the O’Conors only one chief - Felim’s brother - able to bear arms. For this service King Edward created Bermingham baron of Athenry.

But the English, while victorious at Athenry, suffered serious reverses soon after in the south. They were defeated by O’Carroll in Ely in South Leinster; [1] and the O’Briens inflicted a much worse defeat on the De Clares in Dysart O’Dea, where fell Richard de Clare himself, and a vast number of his followers, both Irish and English. [2]

The band of English who had taken possession of Carrickfergus Castle held out most heroically; and now Bruce himself came to conduct the siege in person. Meantime, towards the end of the year, King Robert arrived from Galloway with reinforcements, and was joyfully received by his brother. The brave garrison were at last driven to extremity by downright starvation; and they surrendered on condition that their lives should be spared. Our admiration of their bravery is somewhat damped by an act of treachery during the siege. At one time they agreed to surrender the castle; but when thirty Scottish soldiers were sent to take possession, instead of carrying out their promise, they seized the Scots on entrance and cast them into the dungeon. Here the prisoners were starved to death; and we are told that the famishing garrison devoured their bodies.

The brothers having now an army of about 20,000 Scots, and some Irish, set out early in spring (1317) for Dublin, burning, wasting, and destroying everything on their march. They encamped at Castleknock; but the citizens of Dublin took most determined measures for defence, burning the suburbs in their desperation, both houses and churches, to deprive the Scots of shelter; so that the Bruces did not think it prudent to enter on a siege; and they resumed their destructive march till they reached Limerick. But as they found this city also well prepared for defence, and as there was still great scarcity

1. Four Masters, 1318.
2. Glyns Annals, 1318.

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of provisions, they returned northwards after a short stay. They had to traverse the very districts they had wasted a short time before; and in this most miserable march vast numbers of them perished of cold, hunger, and disease - scourged by the famine they had themselves created. Half-starved, helpless, and demoralised as they were during this retreat, the Scottish army could have been quite easily crushed by the English; yet such was the terror inspired by Bannockburn and the name of Bruce, that though the Anglo-Irish leaders had an overwhelming army of 30,000 ready for action, they did not dare to attack; and the famishing Scots reached Ulster in the beginning of May, greatly reduced by deaths and desertion.

And now Robert Bruce, having seen things with his own eyes, and being convinced that it was hopeless to attempt to conquer the country, and unite the divided people under one stable government, returned to Scotland; but Edward remained behind, determined to hold his ground as king of Ireland. During all this time the country continued in the same miserable state: starvation, sickness, death, and gloom everywhere, aggravated by this most pitiless war.

The two armies remained inactive till the autumn of the next year (1318), probably on account of the terrible dearth. But now came an abundant harvest, and both sides prepared for action. Bruce turned south for another conquering progress; at the same time Sir John Bermingham with an army very much more numerous marched north from Dublin to intercept him, and came in sight of the Scottish army at the hill of Faughart, two miles north of Dundalk, where they had encamped. Bruce’s chief counsellors, both Scottish and Irish, earnestly advised him to wait for reinforcements daily expected from Scotland, and not to engage a force so much larger than his own: but he was naturally rash; and now his long series of victories - eighteen without a reverse - had rendered him so confident, that he declared he would fight even if the enemy were four times more numerous.

The battle fought here on Sunday, 14th of October, 1318,

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terminated the war. The issue was decided chiefly through the bravery of Sir John Maupas, an Anglo-Irish knight, who made a dash at Bruce and slew him in the very midst of the Scots. Maupas was instantly cut down; and after the battle his body was found pierced all over, lying on that of Bruce. The Scottish army was defeated with great slaughter; and the main body of the survivors, including Hugh and Walter de Lacy, escaped to Scotland. Bermingham, with barbarous vindictiveness, had the body of Bruce cut in pieces, to be hung up in the chief towns of the colony, and brought the head salted in a box to King Edward II, who immediately created him earl of Louth and gave him the manor of Ardee. ‘John de Lacy and Sir Bobert de Culragh, who fell into the hands of the colonial government, were, as adherents of Bruce, starved to death in prison, under a sentence which allowed each of them but three morsels of the worst bread and three draughts of foul water on alternate days, till life became extinct.’ [1]

And so ended the celebrated expedition of Edward Bruce. It was crushed by the colonists themselves without any help; for at this time ‘England was not able to send either men or mony to save this Kingdome.’ [2] Though it resulted in failure, it shook the Irish government to its foundation and weakened it for centuries. Ulster was almost cleared of colonists; the native chiefs and clans resumed possession; and there were similar movements in other parts of Ireland, though not to the same extent. In proportion as the invasion enfeebled the central authority, the lords both of Irish and English blood became more independent, and consequently more tyrannical. Having now no check, they made incessant war on each other; and they ground down and robbed the wretched inhabitants by merciless exactions of all kinds. The law had almost ceased to act: the will of the local lord was now the law.

There had been such general, needless, and almost insane destruction of property, that vast numbers of the

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.147.
2. Davies, Discoverie, ed. 1747, p.86.

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people lost everything and sank into hopeless poverty. Settlers and natives, peasants as well as the chiefs who depended on them, the dwellers of the farmsteads[1] and the masters of the castles, all alike shared in the general ruin. The whole country was thrown into a state of utter disorder from which it did not recover till many generations had passed away. And to add to the misery there were visitations of famine and pestilence - plagues of various strange kinds - which continued at intervals during the whole of this century.

The Irish annalists regarded Bruce’s expedition with great disfavour. They looked upon it as having caused the whole - and it was indeed answerable for a large part
- of the evils and miseries that afflicted their unfortunate country. The following record of the Four Masters may be taken as an example: ‘1318. Edward Bruce, the destroyer of [the people of] Ireland in general, both English and Irish, was slain by the English, through dint of battle and bravery at Dundalk... . And no achievement had been performed in Ireland for a long time before, from which greater benefit had accrued to the country than from this; for, during the three and a half years that this Edward spent in it, a universal famine prevailed to such a degree that men were wont to devour one another.’

Chapter XII: Fusion of Races -
The Statures of Kilkenny

[Chief authorities: Irish Annals; Ware’s Annals; Richey’s Short History; Davies’s Discoverie; Gilbert’s Viceroys.]

Edward III succeeded to the throne of England in 1327, after the death of his father Edward II.

The Irish government emerged from the Bruce struggle weak: it now grew weaker year by year, engaged in defence rather than invasion; and the causes were not far to seek. The Irish, taking advantage of the dissensions and helplessness of the English, recovered a great part of

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their lands. The English all over the country were fast becoming absorbed into the native population; and the natural tendency to incorporation was powerfully stimulated by two artificial influences. In the first place, the colonists, seeing the natives prevailing everywhere around them, joined them for mere protection, intermarrying with them and adopting their language, dress, and customs.

The second influence was this. We have seen that as early as the time of the visit of Prince John the distinction began to be made between old English and new English, English by blood and English by birth (p.279), a distinction which then and afterwards was the cause of endless trouble. In other words, the government favoured Englishmen, appointing them to almost all situations of trust or emolument over the heads of the older settlers, those who had borne the brunt of the struggle. These imported officials looked down with contempt on the colonists and never lost an opportunity of humiliating them. This most unwise and exasperating policy estranged a large proportion of the Anglo-Irish from the government, converted them from loyal to disloyal subjects, and was a powerful additional inducement to them to merge into the Irish.

From these causes combined the movement of incorporation became very general during the present reign among the English settlers of all classes, high and low. These ‘degenerate English‘, as they were called, were regarded by the loyal English with as much aversion as the Irish; they returned hate for hate quite as cordially; and in later times some of the most determined and dangerous leaders of rebellion were Anglo-Irish noblemen. So completely did they become fused with the native population, that an English writer complained that they had become Hiberniores Hibernicis ipsis more Irish than the Irish themselves.

The whole country was now feeling the consequences of the Bruce invasion. It would be wearisome to relate the murderous broils, at this time of constant occurrence among the English themselves; and the reader may be content with an account of a few of the most sanguinary

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and notorious. Sir John Bermingliam had, it seems, drawn on himself the envy and hatred of some of his neighbours on account of his victory at Faughart. At Bragganstown near Ardee, in 1329, he was led into a trap and treacherously slain, together with his brothers, nephews, and retainers, to the number of 160, by the Gernons and Savages. Among those that fell were the great harper Mulrony Mac Carroll and twenty of his pupils, who were on a visit with Bermingham. Such was the weakness of the government that the murderers successfully resisted all attempts to bring them to justice, and this great crime was never punished. About the same time a similar outrage was perpetrated in Munster, when Lord Philip Hodnet and 140 of the Anglo-Irish were massacred by their brethren, the Barrys, the Roches, and others.

The uprising of the Irish became so general and alarming that, in 1330, the viceroy called in the aid of the most powerful nobleman in the country, Maurice Fitzgerald, who was at the same time created first earl of Desmond. This only made matters worse; for though the viceroy had promised to pay all expenses, he was in the end unable to do so for want of money; and Fitzgerald, after some successful expeditions against the Irish, quartered his army, to the number of l0,000, on the colonists, to pay themselves by exacting coyne and livery. This, it appears, was the first time the English adopted the odious impost, which afterwards became so frequent among them.

When Fitzgerald was made earl of Desmond, Kerry was granted to him as a ‘county palatine'; Tipperary having been two years before, in 1328, granted in the same way to James Butler earl of Carrick, who was then created first earl of Ormond. These counties palatine, of which there were now nine altogether, occupying about two-thirds of the whole English colony, had great special privileges. The lords who ruled over them were allowed to make war or peace as they pleased; they held royal courts, created barons and knights, appointed their own judges and sheriffs, erected courts for civil and criminal cases, and took

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into their hands the entire administration of the law. They were in fact petty kings, exercising royal jurisdiction; and within their districts the king’s officers had no authority. The palatine counties were originally instituted partly to enrich and ennoble individuals, and partly that they might be a barrier against the native Irish; and their rulers, unrestrained by any check from above, kept the people, both natives and settlers, in a state of complete subjection.

Nothing could better illustrate the vacillating character of the government of Ireland than the treatment dealt out to those great Anglo-Irish lords. The king, with good reason, feared their vast power; and he had before his eyes every day the tremendous evils resulting from it: the people oppressed, the country in perpetual civil war, the very existence of the settlement endangered. Yet in order to purchase their loyalty, and to use them as a protection against the ‘Irish enemies‘, he made some of them more powerful than ever by conferring on them higher titles, and by creating them sovereigns, nominally subordinate, but practically independent.

And after all this had been deliberately done, King Edwai'd changed his mind, and came to the resolution to pull down those he had only lately raised up, especially the earl of Desmond‘, the most exorbitant offender of all.’ He made three attempts by three different governorsj and failed in all.

The first was Sir Anthony Lucy, a stern Northumbrian baron, who was sent over in 1331 as lord lieutenant. Soon after his arrival he held two parliaments, one in Dublin and the other in Kilkenny; and as some of the lords refused to attend, he had them arrested, among others the earl of Desmond and Sir William Bermingham. Bermingham, who was suspected of being implicated in a rebellious outbreak that had lately taken place in Leinster, was executed in the following year.

Shortly after this, Lucy was recalled and Sir John d'Arcy was appointed lord justice. One of his first acts was to release the earl of Desmond, after an imprisonment of

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eighteen months. How little Lucy, with all his severity, had done to end the feuds of the Anglo-Irish was shown a year after his recall by the murder (in 1333) of William de Burgo the Brown Earl of Ulster, grandson and successor of the Ked Earl of Bruce’s days: a crime that caused more fierce indignation than any other in the dark record of those days. The young earl, then only twenty-one years of age, was on his way to Carrickfergus church on a Sunday morning, and when crossing a stream, he was struck down from behind by Richard de Maudeville, his own uncle by marriage, and killed by him and his confederates. This crime had been instigated by Mandeville’s wife, the earl’s aunt, for motives of private revenge; but it did not pass unavenged like the Bermingham massacre. The Anglo-Irish people of the neighbourhood, with whom the earl seems to have been a favourite, rose up in a wild and passionate burst of vengeance, and seizing on all whom they suspected of having a hand in the deed, killed 300 of them. Many were captured also by the lord justice D'Arcy, and afterwards hanged and quartered.

The murder of this young earl lost a great part of Ireland to the government, and helped to hasten the incorporation of the English with the Irish. He left one child, a daughter, who according to English law was heir to her father’s vast possessions in Ulster and Connaught, about one-fourth of the whole Anglo-Irish territory. The Connaught De Burgos, members of the family, refused to be vassals of an infant girl, knowing that whenever she got married the estates would pass from their family to her husband. Accordingly two of the most powerful of them, Sir Ulick (or William) Burke, ancestor of the earls of Clanrickard, and Sir Edmund Albanach Burke, ancestor of Viscounts Mayo, seized the estates, declared themselves independent of England, and adopted the Irish dress and language. ‘On the banks of the Shannon, in sight of the royal garrison of Athlone, they stripped themselves of their Norman dress and arms, and assumed the saffron robes of Celtic chieftains.’ [1]

1. Richey, Short History, p.202.

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They took also, after the manner of the Irish (p.119), a family name by prefixing ‘Mac’ to the christian name of their father Sir Y/illiam Burke, who had been viceroy in 1308. As Sir Ulick owned South or Upper Connaught, he called himself Mac William Oughter (Upper), while Sir Edmund, who was lord of North or Lower Connaught, took the name of Mac William Eighter (Lower). And the rebellious chiefs, in spite of the authorities, kept the estates, which subsequently descended to their families. As the De Burgos were great and powerful, their example was followed by many other Anglo-Irish families, especially in the west and south.

The loss of territory in Connaught was followed by other disasters in rapid succession. The strong and important castles of Athlone, Eoscommon, Rindown, and Bunratty were wrested from the English; the Leinster septs recovered a large part of the south-east of the province; the districts of Leyny and Corran in North Connaught were seized; and O’Moore regained his ancestral fortress of Dunamase and many other castles. The settlers of the county Louth felt themselves so much at the mercy of the neighbouring native clans that they made a public written compact with the sept of O’Hanlon, agreeing to pay a yearly tribute for protection from the attacks of the natives. Agreements such as this became afterwards very common, and the payments were known as ‘black rents.’

After a considerable interval, Sir John Morris came in 1341 as deputy (for Sir John d'Arcy) to attempt what Lucy had failed in. The proud Irish lords were very indignant that a mere knight should be sent to govern them; but Morris was not deterred by their contemptuous reception. He began with a very sweeping measure. Following out the instructions given him, he took back all the lands and all the pri\dleges which either the king himself or his father had granted; and he re-claimed all debts that had been cancelled. This order had two objects: to raise money for the king, which he much needed on account of his continental wars: and to humble and lessen the power

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of the nobles. It was followed by a much more humiliating decree: and now the policy of administering the affairs of the country solely by Englishmen was for the first time openly promulgated. The king issued an ordinance in ] 342 that all natives, whether of Irish or English descent, who were married and held public offices in Ireland, should be dismissed, and their places filled up by English-born subjects who had property in England.

These measures caused intense surprise and indignation among the Anglo-Irish of every class. Morris became alarmed at the storm he had raised, and summoned a parliament to Dublin in October 1342, hoping in some way to allay the excitement. But the lords, headed by Desmond and Kildare, refused to attend, openly spoke of armed resistance, and convened a parliament of their own in Kilkenny. Here they drew up a spirited remonstrance to the king. They complained bitterly of the intolerable conduct of the English officials, exposed their selfishness and fraud, and represented that to their corruption and incompetency were due the recent losses of territories and castles. They exposed the evils of absenteeism, and showed that many colonial districts had been ruined, as their proprietors, resident in England, extorted as much money as they could and cared for nothing else, never expending a farthing either to protect or improve their properties. They enumerated their own services and those of their ancestors, and prayed the king that they might not be deprived of their justly earned rewards. The appeal was successful; which was owing not so much to the king’s appreciation of the justice of their case as to the fact that he was just then beginning a war with France. He granted almost everything they asked: the resumed estates were after some time restored, and the dismissal of the Anglo-Irish officials ceased for the time. These concessions the king accompanied by a request for further assistance in his French wars.

But after all this, still another attempt was to be made. Sir Ralph Ufford, who was now (1344) appointed lord justice, and whose wife was Maud, widow of the Brown Earl

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of Ulster, applied himself with great determination to the task of reducing the refractory colonial lords. But strong as he was, his efforts were no more successful than those of his predecessors. He attempted, by the king’s order, to recover the lands seized by the De Burgos and others in Connaught and Ulster, but the settlers’ resistance was so determined that he was unable to do so.

He summoned a parliament, and again Desmond refused to attend: whereupon Ufford, marching south, in 1345, seized his estates, captured two of his chief castles in Kerry, and hanged the two knights who had command of them. Having captured the earl’s seneschal, John Cotterel, he had him hanged, and his limbs and head set up on spikes; and by a piece of treachery he seized Maurice the fourth earl of Kildare, and threw him into prison, because he had been one of the leaders of the parliament held in Kilkenny three years before.

It would be wearisome to recount all this viceroy’s arbitrary proceedings, which caused the ruin of numerous colonists. But he overshot the mark; and his harshness at last caused a universal uprising against him. The chronicles of the time say that, in addition to his violence, he was dishonest, and enriched himself by robbery and unjust exactions. His wife was worse than himself, and, it was believed, instigated him to some of his worst deeds. He died in 1346 in the midst of his plans for crushing the Anglo-Irish lords - ‘to the great joy of everyone ‘; and so fierce was the rage of the people against him that his wife, who had lived with the grandeur and state of a queen, had now to steal away from Dublin Castle through a back gate, with the coffin containing her husband’s body.

Very soon after Ufford’s death his whole administration was reversed, Desmond’s wrongs were redressed, the earl of Kildare was released, and both noblemen were received into the king’s favour. Kildare joined the royal army in 1347 at the siege of Calais, where the king knighted him for his bravery. Desmond rose so far in the favour of bis royal master that, in 1355, he was made lord justice for life; a distinction he did not long enjoy, for he died

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half a year afterwards. With these proceedings of Ufford’s the attempts of the king to break down the power of the Irish nobles may be regarded as having terminated.

During all this time the natives continued to encroach, the English lost castles and territories, and the Pale became more and more circumscribed. The government had to secure the services of several chiefs near the borders, to protect the English from further inroads, by paying them ‘black rents’ - among others the O’Tooles and the Mac Murroghs.

While all these wars and high political games were passing, the people of the country, English and Irish alike, were sunk in a state of misery that no pen can describe. At this time the black death was in full swing. Coming from the East, it swept over Europe and killed one-third of the inhabitants; in England one-half of the people perished. Eriar Clyn, the Kilkenny Franciscan, has left us in his annals (at 1348) a vivid picture of its ravages in Ireland. Once it entered a house all the family generally fell victims; and it swept away the inhabitants of whole towns, villages, and castles. A mere touch was enough to convey the infection; people were afraid to visit the sick or bury the dead; and so swiftly came contagion and death that the penitent and his confessor were often borne together to the grave. I have already mentioned that during the whole of the fourteenth century there were frequent plague visitations in Ireland; but this was probably the most destructive of all. Clyn describes it during the first months of 1348 when it was at its worst; before and after it was not so bad. The plague was not all: the people’s cup of misery was filled to overflowing by perpetual war and all its attendant horrors.

The Pale was, if possible, in worse plight than the rest of Ireland. The Irish septs, notwithstanding the payment of black rents, continually harassed the districts near the marches; and the misery was greatly intensified by continual squabbles between ‘English by blood’ and ‘English by birth.’ Troops were kept near the borders for defence against the Irish; but they were almost as oppressive on

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the colonists as the Irish themselves, for they exacted payment by coyne and livery, and practised all sorts of knavery. A trooper might have a billet for six horses but kept only three, while he exacted livery for the whole six; and often a single trooper having a billet took livery in two or three places. The purveyors for the viceregal household got the goods but seldom paid, keeping the money for themselves. The Irish prelates, lords, and commons, wrote to the king that these hardships had reduced the colonists to ‘a state of destruction and impoverishment, and caused them even to hate their lives.’ [1] The colonists, exposed to all these exactions and hardships, and scourged by pestilence, quitted the doomed country in crowds - everyone fled who had the means - and the settlement seemed threatened with speedy extinction. The king attempted to stop the emigration by a proclamation, which seems to have had little effect either then or subsequently.

In this critical state of affairs King Edward resolved to send over his third son Lionel, afterwards duke of Clarence, as lord lieutenant: ‘For’ - wrote the king - ‘our Irish dominions have been reduced to such utter devastation, ruin, and misery, that they may be totally lost if our subjects there are not immediately succoured.’ This young prince had married Elizabeth the only child of the Brown Earl of Ulster, and in her right had become earl of Ulster and lord of Connaught. With a force of 1,500 experienced English soldiers he came to Ireland in 1361, having two main objects in view - to save the colony from destruction, and to recover the estates of his wife, which had been taken by the Irish and by the ‘degenerate English.’ At the same time proclamation was made in England that all persons having lands in Ireland should proceed thither or send proper persons to represent them.

He had an insane hatred of the Irish, whether of native or English blood, partly inspired by his wife, who remembered the murder of her father and the treatment of her mother; and he showed it in a very indiscreet manner immediately after his arrival, reviving in its bitterest form

1. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.291.

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the old distinction between English by birth and English by blood. Being about to march with his English army against the O’Briens of Thomond, he issued an ill-conditioned order that none of the old English should join him, or even come near his camp. But a very little experience brought him to his senses. Having no person who knew the country to guide him, he continually lost his way or got entangled in bogs and forests; and his march was harassed by the O’Briens, who killed great numbers of his men. The upshot was that he issued another order for the settlers to join him, which they did - being themselves anxious for the defeat of the natives; and he soon succeeded in dispersing the Munster army. But his conduct of the war in Ireland was on the whole unsuccessful, so that in the following year the king was obliged to send aid to ‘his very dear son and his companions who were in imminent peril.’

The prince came to Ireland three times as lord lieutenant: in 1361, 1364, and 1367; and believing, after this much experience, that it was impossible to subdue the Irish, he caused the government, during his last visit, to frame and pass an act of parliament - the celebrated Statute of Kilkenny - in order to save the miserable remnant of the settlement.

This act [1] contains thirty-five chapters, of which the following are the most important provisions.

Intermarriage, fosterage, gossipred, traffic, and intimate relations of any kind with the Irish, were forbidden as high treason - punishment death.
If any man took a name after the Irish fashion, used the Irish language, or dress, or mode of riding [without saddle], or adopted any other Irish customs, all his lands and houses were forfeited, and he himself was put into jail till he could find security that he would comply with the law. The Irish living among the English were permitted to remain, but were forbidden to use the Irish language

* It is published with translation and valuable notes by James Hardiman, M.R.I.A., for the Irish Archaeological Society, in the volume Tracts relating to Ireland, 1847.

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under the same penalty. To use or submit to the Brehon law or to exact coyne and livery was treason.

The act complains that the Irish, when defeated in war by individual English leaders, were often let off with a small tribute. Accordingly no Englishman was to make war on the Irish without the special warrant of the government, who would conduct, supply, and finish all such wars‘, so that the Irish enemies shall not be admitted to peace until they be finally destroyed or shall make restitution fully of the costs and charges of that war.’

The Irish were forbidden to hooley or pasture on those of the march lands belonging to the English: if they did so the English owner of the lands might impound the cattle as a distress for damage; but in doing so he was to keep the cattle together, so that they might be delivered up whole and uninjured to the Irish owner if he came to pay the damages. This clause, which seems fair, and which shows some consideration for the natives, was probably framed to prevent quarrelling between English and Irish.

According to Brehon law, the whole sept were liable for the offences and debts of each member. In order to avoid quarrels, the act ordains that an English creditor must sue an Irish debtor personally, not any other member of the sept. This at least was a wise provision.

No native Irish clergyman was to be appointed to any position in the church within the English district; and no Irishman was to be received into any English religious house.

It was forbidden to receive or entertain Irish bards, pipers, story-tellers, or mowers, because these and such like often came as spies on the English.

The Statute of Kilkenny, though not exhibiting quite so hostile a spirit against the Irish as we find sometimes represented, yet carried out consistently the vicious and fatal policy of separation adopted by the government from the beginning. It was intended to apply only to the English, and was framed entirely in their interests. Its chief aim was to withdraw them from all contact with

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the ‘Irish enemies’ - so the natives are designated all through the act - to separate the two races for evermore; or so far as there was to be any unavoidable intercourse between them, to make it an intercourse of hostility: ‘Whereby it is manifest that such as had the government of Ireland under the crowne of England, did intend to make a perpetuall separation and enmity betweene the English and the Irish - pretending (no doubt) that the English in the end should roote out the Irish; which the English not being able to do, did cause a perpetuall warre betweene the two nations, which continued foure hundered and odd yeares.’ [1]

This measure it was hoped would put a stop to all further fusion of the races, would reclaim many of those who had already gone over to the Irish, and would preserve the settlement from further degeneracy and diminution. But it proved to be impracticable, as anyone who knew Ireland might have foreseen. The Irish and English all over the country had been living for generations - when their rulers let them - on terms of kindly intercourse, and had intermarried, trafficked, gossiped, and fostered with each other. Human nature proved too strong for law, and it was now too late to arrest the intermixture of the races by artificial restrictions. The new law designed to effect so much, turned out after a little while a dead letter. Coyne and livery continued to be exacted from the colonists by the three great earls, Kildare, Desmond, and Ormond, and the Irish and English went on intermarrying, gossiping, fostering, and quarrelling on their own account, just the same as before.

Moreover some of the provisions turned out to be more prejudicial to the colonists than to the natives: and there were soon many petitions from the inhabitants of towns to be permitted to traffic with the Irish - otherwise ruin was certain or taxes could not be paid - to foster and parley with them, to entertain Irish minstrels, and other such petitions; most of which seem to have been granted. [1]

1. Davies, Discoverie, ed. 17i7, p.114.
2. Gilbert, Viceroys, p.289.

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The act had more effect on the church than on the laity. But the prohibition against Irish clergy and monks was of much older standing than the Statute of Kilkenny: for we see that it formed one of the grounds of complaint of the Irish chiefs to the Pope in the time of Bruce (p.300): it was indeed as old as the invasion. So stringently and consistently was it carried out, that we find the government often granting licenses, for one reason or another, to the Anglo-Irish bishops to appoint certain individual Irishmen to benefices within English territory. But this separation, which was chiefly the work of the government, did not constitute ‘two churches,’ as is sometimes erroneously stated. There was one church all through, of which the clergy and religious belonging to the two nations simply kept - or perhaps we should rather say, were kept - apart. ‘There are no grounds for supposing that throughout the island there was any dispute or difference as to doctrine, or that in the fifteenth or sixteenth century there was any variance even as to questions of discipline. There was an English population in allegiance to the English crown, which had an English clergy. There was also a population styled by the English the Irish enemy, which had an Irish clergy. Their respective clergies preached and prayed with their respective flocks.’ [1]

The reign of Edward III was a glorious one for England abroad, but was disastrous to the English dominion in Ireland. Great battles were fought and won for the French possessions, bringing glory and nothing more; while Ireland, which was more important than all the French possessions put together, was neglected. The country was simply going to destruction. At the very time of the battle of Cressy the settlement had been almost wiped out of existence - not more than four counties now remained to the English; and the English power did not extend beyond the Pale: for the three great earls of Kildare, Desmond, and Ormond acted as independent princes, and did not acknowledge the authority of the English king.

1. Richey’s Short History of the Irish People, p.272.

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If one half of the energy and solicitude expended in France had been directed to Ireland the country could have been easily pacified and compacted into one great empire with England.

Almost as soon as the English had made permanent settlements in Ireland the evil of absenteeism began to make itself felt. A number of speculators got possession of large tracts of land, and while they lived out of the country and discharged none of the duties expected from holders of property, they drew their rents from their Irish estates and drained the country of its capital. Things became much worse in this respect towards the close of Edward’s reign; for, as we have already stated, there was a vast exodus of the well-to-do Anglo-Irish to England, who left their Irish properties to be managed by local agents.

Many attempts to remedy this evil were made about this time. The parliament of 1368 complained that the Irish continued to despoil the English territory, so that the land was likely to be wholly lost, and declared that the country could not be saved unless those persons who had properties in Ireland came to reside on them in person or sent proper representatives. And complaints to this efiect were now very frequent. In 1369 an act was passed to enforce residence on pain of forfeiture, and many estates were seized whose owners did not comply with the order.

During the reign of Richard II, who succeeded Edward III in 1377, there was more determined legislation in this direction. A law was passed that all having estates in Ireland should reside on them, or if absent for reasonable cause should send responsible persons to live on and defend them, otherwise they should give up two-thirds of their Irish incomes for that purpose. And later on, in 1392, an attempt was made to revive the same law. [1] This law was for some time enforced, but only by fits and starts. Under its provisions there were many seizures of land in Ireland during this and the next three reigns. But many evaded it, and at last it gradually fell into disuse. It pro-

1 Cox, ed. 1689, p.137.

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duced no lasting results; and absenteeism has descended through seven centuries to our own times, one of the permanent and one of the worst evils of Ireland.