the growth of order from any native root of influence or
authority, but not complete enough to carry order with itself.
In the full sense of the term it was never a conquest. It was
rather a persistent invasion, continued and repeated through
more than five centuries. In every generation it inflamed anew
the fierce animosity which an incomplete conquest will not
suffer to die out, until the very descendants of the older
intruders were infected with the native hatred of their
later-coming kindred. After four hundred years of inconclusive
conflict, the English were hardly nearer to mastery, the Irish
hardly nearer to submission, than at first.
Then arose between them a new difference to embitter their
antagonism. The Reformation of religion was accepted by one
race as naturally as it was rejected by the other. But
Protestantism under English patronage assumed a more hateful
aspect in Irish eyes, and Irishmen as Papists became doubly
odious to the English mind. So political hostilities and
religious enmities fomented one another, from that time, while
the primitive antagonism of race gave energy to both.
Under Cromwell and under William of Orange the subjugation was
completed at last in the spirit of a Protestant crusade, and
used as crusading victories have been wont to be used. The
triumphant Church, planting its strong settlements in the
land, assumed to itself all civil and political rights. Every
office and every honorable profession were closed against the
adherents of the defeated faith; its ministrations were
forbidden; its priests were expelled.
(Green)
But this was not all. As British commerce grew and British
industries were built up, they contributed yet another to the
malign confederacy of passions which oppressed the Irish
people. The merchant, the manufacturer, the landowner and the
farmer, on the English side, were banded by common jealousies
to suppress competition in Ireland. They hindered the
improvement of its resources and paralyzed its energies by
atrocious legislation. They reduced its population to
dependence on the most restricted production, leaving little
except husbandry for a vocation, and that under grinding
terms. They created by such measures a nation of peasants, as
poor and as helpless as serfs, living wretchedly on precarious
holdings of soil, at the mercy of landlords who regarded them
with dislike and contempt.
It was under such crushing conditions as these that Ireland
remained until near the end of the eighteenth century, always
hating the oppressors, often resisting the oppression, but
weakly or rashly, without judgment or enduring resolution.
Then began a great change in the tenor of her history. Two
influences of the age came into play, one acting on the
conscience of the English people, the other on the mind and
temper of the Irish. One has worked to the yielding of
justice, the other to the firmer pressing of demands for it.
At this day it may be said that oppression in Ireland, whether
religious or political, is wholly and forever extinct; that
whatever remains in dispute between Celt and Saxon is from
questions such as rise in every nation, and that the
bitterness which stays in Anglo-Irish politics is the
lingering rancor of a hateful past, not quickly to be
extinguished.
----------A Logical Outline of Irish History: End--------
IRELAND:
The name.
"Ireland was known by many names from very early ages. Thus,
in the Celtic it was called Inis-Fall, the isle of destiny;
Inis-Ealga, the noble island; Fiodh-Inis, the woody island;
and Eire, Fodhla, and Banba. By the Greeks it was called
Ierne, probably from the vernacular name of Eire, by
inflection Erin; whence, also, no doubt, its Latin name of
Juverna; Plutarch calls it Ogygia, or the ancient land; the
early Roman writers generally called it Hibernia, probably
from its Iberian inhabitants, and the later Romans and
mediæval writers Scotia, and sometimes Hibernia; and finally
its name of Ireland was formed by the Anglo-Normans from its
native name of Eire."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 76, note.
See, also,
SCOTLAND: THE NAME;
and IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.
{1755}
IRELAND:
The primitive inhabitants.
"The first people … of whose existence in Ireland we can be
said to know anything are commonly asserted to have been of
Turanian origin, and are known as 'Formorians.' As far as we
can gather, they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race,
although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish
legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant. They
were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and
fishermen, ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the
use of fire; using the stone hammers or hatchets of which vast
numbers remain in Ireland to this day, and specimens of which
may be seen in every museum. How long they held possession no
one can tell, although Irish philologists believe several
local Irish names to date from this almost inconceivably
remote epoch. Perhaps if we think of the Lapps of the present
day, and picture them wandering about the country, … it will
give us a fairly good notion of what these very earliest
inhabitants of Ireland were probably like.
See FOMORIANS.
Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the Firbolgs, who
overran the country, and appear to have been of a somewhat
higher ethnological grade, although, like the Formorians,
short, dark, and swarthy. Doubtless the latter were not
entirely exterminated to make way for the Firbolgs, any more
than the Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans, Milesians, and
other successive races; such wholesale exterminations being,
in fact, very rare, especially in a country which like Ireland
seems specially laid out by kindly nature for the protection
of a weaker race struggling in the grip of a stronger one.
After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to be obliged to
say how long after, fresh and more important tribes of
invaders began to appear. The first of these were the
Tuatha-da-Danaans, who arrived under the leadership of their
king Nuad, and took possession of the east of the country.
These Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large,
blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and possibly
ancestors of those Norsemen or 'Danes' who in years to come
were destined to work such woe and havoc upon the island. …
What their end was no man can tell you, save that they, too,
were, in their turn, conquered by the Milesians or 'Scoti,'
who next overran the country, giving to it their own name' of
Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of the
twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them,
who thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the
forests, whence they emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant
effect upon their conquerors, as another defeated race did
upon their conquerors in later days."
E. Lawless,
The Story of Ireland,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
volume 1, chapter 5.
IRELAND:
Tribes of early Celtic inhabitants.
"On the northern coast dwelt the Veniconii, in the modern
county of Donegal, and the Robogdii, in Londonderry and
Antrim. Adjoining to the Veniconii, westward, were the Erdini
or Erpeditani, and next to them the Magnatæ, all in Donegal.
Farther south were the Auteri, in Sligo; the Gangani, in Mayo;
and the Velibori, or Ellebri, in the district between Galway
and the Shannon. The south-west part of the island, with a
great portion of the interior, was inhabited by the Iverni,
who gave name not only to the great river but to the whole
island, and who may, perhaps, be considered as the aboriginal
inhabitants. … In the modern counties of Waterford and
Tipperary, Ptolemy places a tribe called the Usdiæ or Vodiæ,
according to the variations of the manuscripts. In the modern
county of Wexford dwelt the Brigantes; and northward from them
were the Coriondi, in Wicklow; the Menapii, in Dublin; the
Cauci, on the banks of the Boyne; the Blanii, or Eblani, on
the bay of Dundalk; the Voluntii, in Down; and the Darini,
bordering on the Robogdii, in Antrim. Three, at least, of the
tribes who held the eastern coast of Ireland, the Brigantes,
the Menapii, and the Voluntii, were, no doubt, colonies from
the opposite shores of Britain."
T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 2.
IRELAND:
5th-8th Centuries.
The coming of St. Patrick and the Christianizing of the Island.
Its Schools and its Missionaries.
"Lying on the extreme verge of Europe, the last land then
known to the adventurous Scandinavian, and beyond which fable
had scarcely projected its dreams, it was in the fifth century
since the Redemption that Christianity reached them.
Patricius, a Celt of Gaul it is said, carried into Erin as a
slave by one of the Pagan kings, some of whom made military
expeditions to North and South Britain, and even to the Alps
and the Loire, became the Apostle of Ireland. Patrick escaped
from slavery, was educated at Rome, but in mature manhood
insisted on returning to the place of his bondage, to preach
Christianity to a people who seem to have exercised over the
imagination of the Apostle the same spell of sympathy which in
later times subdued strangers of many nations. He was received
with extraordinary favour, and before his death nearly the
whole island had embraced Christianity. The coming of Patrick
took place in the year of our Lord 432, and he laboured for
sixty years after; planting churches and schools, rooting out
the practices and monuments of Paganism, and disciplining the
people in religion and humanity. It was a noble service, and
it impressed itself for ever on the memory of the race whom he
served. … In the succeeding century the Church which he
planted became possessed by a passion which it has never
entirely lost, the passion for missionary enterprise. Its
fathers projected the conversion of the fierce natives of the
Continent to the new creed of humility and self-denial, and by
the same humane agents which Patrick had employed in
Ireland—persuasion and prayer; a task as generous as any of
which history has preserved the record. In this epoch Ireland
may, without exaggeration, be said to have been a Christian
Greece, the nurse of science and civilisation. The Pagan
annals of the country are overlaid by fable and extravagance,
but the foundation of Oxford or the mission of St. Augustine
does not lie more visibly within the boundaries of legitimate
history than the Irish schools, which attracted students from
Britain and Gaul, and sent out missionaries through the
countries now known as Western Europe.
{1756}
Among the forests of Germany, on the desert shores of the
Hebrides, in the camp of Alfred, at the court of Charlemagne,
in the capital of the Christian world, where Michelet
describes their eloquence as charming the counsellors of the
Emperor, there might be found the fervid preachers and subtle
doctors of the Western Isle. It was then that the island won
the title still fondly cherished, 'insula sanctorum'. The
venerable Bede describes nobles and students at this epoch as
quitting the island of Britain to seek education in Ireland,
and he tells us that the hospitable Celts found them teachers,
books, food and shelter at the cost of the nation. The school
at Armagh, where St. Patrick had established the primacy of
the Church, is reputed to have attracted 7,000 students, and
there were schools at Lismore, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, and Mayo,
which rivalled it in importance. Monasteries multiplied in a
still greater number, and with results as beneficial. …
Writers who are little disposed to make any other concession
to Ireland admit that this was a period of extraordinary
intellectual activity, and of memorable services to
civilization. The arts, as far as they were the handmaidens of
religion, attained a surprising development. The illuminated
copies of the Scripture, the croziers and chalices which have
come down to us from those days, the Celtic crosses and Celtic
harps, the bells and tabernacles, are witnesses of a distinct
and remarkable national culture. The people were still partly
shepherds and husbandmen, partly soldiers, ruled by the Chief,
the Brehon, and the Priest. … After this generous work had
obtained a remarkable success, it was disturbed by contests
with the Sea Kings. … The Cathedral and city of St. Patrick,
the schools of Bangor, the cloisters of Clonmacnoise, and many
more seats of piety and learning, fell into their hands. The
sacred vessels of the altar were turned into drinking cups,
and the missals, blazing with precious stones, were torn from
their costly bindings to furnish ornaments for their sword
hilts, and gifts to the Scalds who sang their achievements.
These pagans burned monasteries, sacked churches, and murdered
women and priests, for plunder or sport. … Before the
dangers and troubles of a long internecine war, the School of
the West gradually dwindled away, and it had fallen into
complete decay before Brian Borhoime, at the beginning of the
11th century, finally subdued the invaders."
Sir C. G. Duffy,
A Bird's Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,
pages 7-12 (or chapter 4, in "Young Ireland").
"Ireland, that virgin island on which proconsul never set
foot, which never knew either the orgies or the exactions of
Rome, was also the only place in the world of which the Gospel
took possession without bloodshed. … From the moment that
this Green Erin, situated at the extremity of the known world,
had seen the sun of faith rise upon her, she had vowed herself
to it with an ardent and tender devotion which became her very
life. The course of ages has not interrupted this; the most
bloody and implacable of persecutions has not shaken it; the
defection of all northern Europe has not led her astray; and
she maintains still, amid the splendours and miseries of
modern civilisation and Anglo-Saxon supremacy, an
inextinguishable centre of faith, where survives, along with
the completest orthodoxy, that admirable purity of manners
which no conqueror and no adversary has ever been able to
dispute, to equal, or to diminish. … The Irish communities,
joined by the monks from Gaul and Rome, whom the example of
Patrick had drawn upon his steps, entered into rivalry with
the great monastic schools of Gaul. They explained Ovid there;
they copied Virgil; they devoted themselves especially to
Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, from no
discussion. … A characteristic still more distinctive of the
Irish monks, as of all their nation, was the imperious
necessity of spreading themselves without, of seeking or
carrying knowledge and faith afar, and of penetrating into the
most distant regions to watch or combat paganism. This monastic
nation, therefore, became the missionary nation 'par
excellence'."
Count de Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
book 7 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 10-14 (volume 1),
and chapter 18 (volume 2).
D. DeVinné,
The Irish Primitive Church.
See, also, CHRISTIANITY; 5TH-9TH CENTURIES.
IRELAND: 9th-10th Centuries.
The Danish conquests and settlements.
"The people popularly known in our history as Danes comprised
swarms from various countries in the north of Europe, from
Norway, Sweden, Zealand, Jutland, and, in general, from all
the shores and islands of the Baltic. … In the Irish annals
they are variously called Galls, or foreigners; Geinti, or
Gentiles; and Lochlanni, or inhabitants of Lochlann, or
Lake-land, that is, Norway; and they are distinguished as the
Finn Galls, or White Foreigners, who are supposed to have been
the inhabitants of Norway; and the Dubh Galls, or Black
Foreigners, who were probably the people of Jutland, and of
the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. A large tract of
country north of Dublin still retains the name of the former.
… The Danes never obtained the dominion of Ireland as they
did that of England."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapters 13-14.
"Ireland was as yet [in the 9th century] a more tempting prey
for the pirates than even Gaul. It was at the monasteries that
these earlier raids were mainly aimed; and nowhere were the
monastic houses so many and so rich. It was in these retreats
indeed, sheltered as men deemed by their holiness from the
greed of the spoiler, that the whole wealth of the country was
stored; and the gold work and jewelry of their shrines, their
precious chalices, the silver-bound horn which king or noble
dedicated at their altars, the curiously-wrought covering of
their mass-books, the hoard of their treasure-chests, fired
the imagination of the northern marauders as the treasures of
the Incas fired that of the soldiers of Spain. News spread
fast up dale and fiord how wealth such as men never dreamed of
was heaped up in houses guarded only by priests and shavelings
who dared not draw sword. The Wikings had long been drawing
closer to this tempting prey. From the coast of Norway a sail
of twenty-four hours with a fair wind brings the sailor in
sight of the Shetlands; Shetlands and Orkneys furnished a base
for the advance of the pirates along the western shores of
Britain, where they found a land like their own in the dales
and lochs of Ross and Argyll, and where the names of Caithness
and Sutherland tell of their conquest and settlement on the
mainland; while the physical appearance of the people still
records their colonization of the Hebrides. Names such as that
of the Orm's Head mark their entrance at last into the Irish
Channel."
J. R. Green,
The Conquest of England,
chapter 2.
{1757}
"The 9th century was the period of Danish plunder, and of
settlement along the coasts and in convenient places for
purposes of plunder. Towards the latter end of this century
the Irish in Ireland, like the English in England, succeeded
in driving out the enemy, and there was peace for forty years.
Then came the Danes again, but bent more definitely than
before on permanent settlement; and their most notable work
was the establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, with
its centre at one of their old haunts, Ath Cliath on the
Liffey, where the city of Dublin was built by them. The
establishment of this kingdom dates from the year 919, and its
extent may be traced to-day as conterminous with the diocese
of Dublin, extending from Holmpatrick and Skerries on the
north, to Arklow and Wicklow on the south, and inland no
farther than seven or eight miles to Leixlip. Until quite
recently this was also the district over which extended the
jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of Dublin as Admiral of the
Port of Dublin. On College Green used to be held the assembly
of the freemen of the kingdom of Dublin, while the chiefs took
their seats on the steep hill that once stood where St.
Andrew's Church now stands, opposite to 'the old house on
College Green,' which is so dear to the national aspirations
of the modern Irishmen. There the Danes held their
parliaments, agreeing on laws, consenting to judgments and
contracts, feasting and making merry, just as the old Irish
held their parliaments at Tara, Carman, Armagh, and elsewhere.
Nor was Dublin the only Danish city. Limerick, Cork,
Waterford, Wexford, all became the centres of petty Danish
kingdoms, active in commerce, skilful for those times, in
domestic architecture, and with political and legislative
ideas identical in their essence with those of the people
among whom they settled. In the course of the 10th century the
Danes nominally became, for the most part, converts to
Christianity. But it appears that they derived their
Christianity mainly from English sources; and when they began
to organize their Church, they did so after the Roman manner,
and in connection with the see of Canterbury. It was not,
however, till after the wars of Brian Born that Danish
Christianity became either very real or at all organized."
S. Bryant,
Celtic Ireland,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
C. Haliday,
The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin.
C. F. Keary,
The Vikings in Western Christendom,
chapter 6.
See, also,
NORMANS: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES,
IRELAND: A. D. 1014.
The Battle of Clontarf and the great defeat of the Danes.
By a revolution which occurred in the year 1000, Malachy II.
of the dynasty which had reigned long at Tara, was deposed
from the chief sovereignty, and Brian Boromh or Boru, of the
royal family of Munster, who had fought his way up to
masterful power, became the Ardrigh or over-king of Ireland.
In 1014 Brian was called upon to face a great combination
which the Danes of Dublin had effected with their fellow
Northmen, including those of Denmark, Norway, Scotland and all
the isles. It was the Danish intention now to accomplish
completely the conquest of Ireland and bring their long
struggle with its Celtic inhabitants to an effectual close,
King Brian and his countrymen made equal exertions on their
side to meet the attack, and the great battle of Clontarf,
fought on Good Friday of the year 1014, gave them a decisive
victory. "Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches
along the crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbor, from
the ancient salmon weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the
promontory of Howth. Both horns of the crescent were held by
the enemy, and communicated with his ships: the inland point
terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the seaward marked by
the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between sloped
gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad
duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present
less positive vantage ground to combatants on either side. The
invading force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's
army, which had first encamped at Kilmainham, must have
crossed the Liffey higher up, and marched round by the present
Drumcondra in order to reach the appointed field. The day
seems to have been decided on by formal challenge. … The
forces on both sides could not have fallen short of 20,000
men. … The utmost fury was displayed on all sides. …
Hardly a nobly born man escaped, or sought to escape. The ten
hundred in armor, and 3,000 others of the enemy, with about an
equal number of the men of Ireland, lay dead upon the field.
One division of the enemy were, towards sunset, retreating to
their ships, when Brodar the Viking, perceiving the tent of
Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on
his knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a
single blow, and then continued his flight. … The deceased
hero took his place at once in history, national and foreign.
… The fame of the event went out through all nations. The
chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of
Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles, all
record the event. … 'Brian's battle,' as it is called in the
Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general
northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland.
Not that the country was entirely free from their attacks till
the end of the 11th century; but, from the day of Clontarf
forward, the long cherished Northern idea of a conquest of
Ireland seems to have been gloomily abandoned by that
indomitable people."
T. D'Arcy McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapter 21 (volume 2).
See, also,
NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.
IRELAND: 12th Century.
The great tribes and kingdoms and the ruling families.
"Ireland was now [immediately before Strongbow's conquest]
divided into four confederations of tribes. The O'Neils held
Ulidia, which is now called Ulster; the O'Connors Conacia, or
Connaught; the O'Briens and the M'Carthys Mononia, or Munster;
and the Macmurroughs Lagenia, or Leinster—all under the
paramount but often-disputed rule of a branch of the Ulster
O'Neils. The royal demesne of Meath, the appanage of the
Ulster family, which included Westmeath, Longford, and a part
of King's County, was sometimes counted a fifth kingdom. In
the wild north, O'Neil, O'Donnel, O'Kane, O'Hara, O'Sheel,
O'Carrol, were mighty names.
{1758}
On the northern-most peninsula, where the Atlantic runs into
Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly, O'Dogherty reigned supreme. In
Connaught, O'Rourke, O'Reilly, O'Kelly, O'Flaherty, O'Malley,
O'Dowd, were lords. In Meath and Leinster, MacGeogeghan,
O'Farrell, O'Connor, O'Moore, O'Brennan, Macmurrough, ruled.
In Munster, by the western shore, MacCarthy More held sway.
MacCarthy Reagh swayed the south, by the pleasant waters of
Cork Bay. O'Sullivan Beare was lord of the fair promontory
between Bantry Bay and Kenmare River. O'Mahony reigned by
roaring Water Bay. O'Donoghue was chieftain by the haunted
Killarney Lakes. MacMahon ruled north of the Shannon. O'Loglin
looked on Galway Bay. All Ireland, with the exception of a few
seaport towns where the Danes had settled, was in the hands of
Irish chiefs of old descent and famous lineage. They
quarrelled amongst themselves as readily and as fiercely as if
they had been the heads of so many Greek states. The Danes had
been their Persians; their Romans were now to come."
J. H. McCarthy,
Outline of Irish History,
chapter 3.
IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.
The Anglo-Norman conquest.
"The conquest of Ireland is among the most important episodes
in the reign of Henry II. … There were reasons, besides the
mere lust of conquest, why an English king should desire to
reduce Ireland. It had given harbours and recruits to the
Northmen on their expeditions; Irish soldiers had fought at
Brunanbeorh [or Brunnanburgh] against Athelstane; English
exiles, like the sons of Harold, repeatedly fled to the
island, and awaited the opportunity of reprisals upon their
own government. Irish pirates infested the English coasts, and
carried off prisoners, whom they sold as slaves. Accordingly,
William the Conqueror had meditated subjugating Ireland, if he
lived two years longer; William Rufus once declared, as he
stood on the coast of Wales, that he would bridge St. George's
Channel with a fleet of ships. But it was reserved for John of
Salisbury to obtain from his intimate friend, the English
pope, Adrian IV., a grant of Ireland to the English crown [by
the Bull 'Laudabilitur'] as a hereditary fief (A. D. 1154).
… Nevertheless, the difficulty of invading Ireland seemed
greater than any profit likely to result from it. The king's
council opposed the enterprise; and for some years the project
was suffered to sleep. But the wretched disorders of Irish
politics invited the invader." Diarmaid MacMurchad, king of
Leinster, having been driven from his dominions, "repaired to
the court of Henry II. in Aquitaine. The offer to hold
Leinster, if Henry would reinstate him, as an English fief,
procured Diarmaid free quarters in Bristol, to which he
speedily returned, and letters patent authorizing any English
subject to assist him. Diarmaid published these, and promised
large rewards in land to those who would help him to win back
his kingdom. The most powerful ally whom Diarmaid's offers
attracted was Richard de Clare, surnamed Strongbow, earl of
Pembroke, and distant cousin to the king. … Three other
adventurers were enlisted. Two of them, Robert Fitz-Stephen
and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, were sons, by different fathers, of
Nest, a Welsh princess; the third was Maurice de Prendergast."
In May, 1169, Fitz-Stephen, with a small following, crossed
the channel and captured Wexford. Some other successes soon
enabled Diarmaid to make peace with his enemies and recover
his kingdom, even before Strongbow's expedition had left
Wales. "Diarmaid was reinstated, and English subjects had no
authority to carry on war on their own account in Ireland.
Strongbow accordingly went to Normandy, and asked permission
to push the advantages gained. Obtaining only an ambiguous
answer from the king, he determined to consider it in his
favour, and went back into Wales to prepare an expedition. In
May, A. D. 1170, he sent over Raymond le Gros, Fitz-Stephen's
half nephew, as his precursor." Raymond defeated the Irish
with great slaughter, in a battle near Waterford, and savagely
murdered seventy prisoners. "In August, A. D. 1170, as
Strongbow was preparing to embark, he received an explicit
order from the king not to proceed. Quietly disregarding it,
he crossed with a little army of 1,200 men, out of whom 200
were knights. The storm of Waterford was his first exploit;
and it illustrates the Irish architecture of the times, that
the city walls were trenched by cutting away the wooden props
of a house that was built into them. The frightful carnage of
the storm was succeeded by the earl's marriage with Eva
[daughter of King Diarmaid], who brought a kingdom as her
dower. Then the united forces marched upon Dublin." The Danish
city was treacherously stormed in the midst of a negotiation,
and "the inhabitants experienced the worst miseries of the
conquered. Hasculf [the Danish or Norse governor], and Asgall,
king of the Northmen, escaped on board some small vessels to
their countrymen in the Orkneys." The next year Hasculf
reappeared with 60 ships from the Orkneys and Norway and laid
siege to Dublin. He was defeated, taken prisoner and killed;
but another fleet soon arrived and Dublin was again under
siege. Reduced to a desperate strait, the small garrison
sallied and routed the besiegers; but meantime Strongbow had
lost ground elsewhere and Dublin and Waterford were the only
possessions he retained. The anger of King Henry at his
disobedience caused many of his followers to desert him, and
he soon found it necessary to make peace with his offended
sovereign. Crossing over to England, he succeeded in winning
the royal pardon, and Henry returned to Ireland with him, to
assist in the completing of the conquest. They were
accompanied by a fleet of 400 ships and some 4,000 men. The
appearance of the king was followed by a general submission of
the Irish princes, and he made a royal progress to Cashel,
where, in 1172, a synod was held to effect the Church reforms
which were, ostensibly, the chief object of the conquest. "The
court held at Lismore to establish order among the English
settlers is better evidence than any synod of the real objects
of the conquest. The country was partially distributed among
Norman nobles; but as the English conquest of Ireland, more
rapid than the Norman of England, had been effected by fewer
men, and was more insecure, the changes in the property and
laws of the nation were proportionately smaller. Meath, as the
appanage of royalty, of course accrued to the English crown,
and Henry assigned the whole of it to Hugh de Lacy, whom he
made justiciary of the realm and governor of Dublin. The
object of this enormous grant, no doubt, was to balance
Strongbow's power.
{1759}
The families of Desmond, Ormond, and Vernon received other
estates. But the number of those invested was small. … The
slightness of the change, no doubt, mainly contributed to the
readiness with which the supremacy of the English crown was
accepted. In April, A. D. 1172, Henry was able to return to
England, leaving only Ulster behind him nominally unsubdued. A
series of petty wars between Irish chiefs and Norman nobles
soon broke out. The precarious nature of the English dominion
became manifest; and Henry was forced to publish the papal
grant of Ireland, which he had hitherto suppressed. At last,
in A. D. 1175, Roderic O'Connor [king of Connaught, and
previously recognized over-king of Ireland] made a treaty with
the English crown, and agreed to render homage and submission,
and a tribute of every tenth hide, in return for royal rights
in his own kingdom of Connaught. At the same time, the limits
of the English pale, as it was afterwards called, were
defined. This district, which was immediately subject to the
king of England and his barons, comprised Dublin with its
appurtenances, Meath, Leinster, and the country from Waterford
to Dungarvon. … From the English point of view, the kings of
England were henceforth lords-paramount of Ireland, with the
fee of the soil vested in them, and all Irish princes in
future were no more than tenants-in-chief. From the Irish
point of view, the English kings were nothing more than
military suzerains in the districts outside the pale."
C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 30.
ALSO IN:
Mrs. J. R. Green,
Henry the Second,
chapter 8.
A. G. Richey,
Short History of the Irish People,
chapters 6-7.
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 2, chapters 1-2.
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
chapters 26-29.
F. P. Barnard, editor,
Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland:
From Contemporary Writers.
IRELAND: 13th-14th Centuries.
Under the Anglo-Norman conquerors.
"The feudal system as established in Ireland differed in
important respects from that existing in England. It is usual
for Irish writers to attribute much of the sufferings of
Ireland to the misgovernment of England and the introduction
of feudalism, whereas most of these evils may be referred
rather to English non-government and to the peculiar anomalies
of the Irish feudal system. The feudal system as introduced
into Ireland, like most other institutions imported from
England, was altered in such a manner as to retain all its
evils, and lose all its advantages. The Crown in Ireland
possessed no power of controlling its vassals. … In Ireland
there were no manor or valuable estates that the Crown could
appropriate—the entire country had to be conquered; and as
the Crown did not assist in the conquest, it received no part
of the spoils. Thus we find the Crown had absolutely no
demesnes of its own, and, being deprived of any military force
of its own, it had to rely upon such of the great feudal
vassals as might remain loyal for the purpose of crushing
those who might be in rebellion. The inevitable result of this
policy was to kindle a civil war and excite personal feuds in
the attempt to maintain order. … We have thus a feudal
system, in which the Crown is powerless to fulfil its duties,
yet active in preventing the greater nobles from exercising
that influence which might have secured a reasonable degree of
order. The whole energy of the nobles was turned away from
government to war; and lest they should become local
potentates, they were allowed to degenerate into local
tyrants. But what, meanwhile, had become of the Irish nation?
As the feudal system ignored their existence, we have
permitted them to fall out of our view; but they still
existed, and still were politically independent. The invaders
had occupied the flat country, suitable for the operation of
their forces, and the original inhabitants had retired into
either the mountainous districts, impassable to cavalry, or
into districts protected by the bogs, and difficult of access;
nay, even in some parts of the island, where the Normans were
not in force, they had re-occupied large portions of the open
country. They did not retire as disorganised fugitives, but
the tribes retreated, keeping their social organisation
unbroken; and, although removed from their original
habitations, still preserved their social identity. The
remarkable point in the conquest was, that the Celtic
population was not driven back upon anyone portion of the
kingdom, but remained as it was, interpolated among the new
arrivals. … The Celtic population possessed no definite
legal position, filled no place in the feudal hierarchy, and
was in the eyes of the English Government hostile and alien;
the only exception to this was the case of the O'Briens, who,
though not actually feudal vassals, had their estates secured
by a charter, and five Irish families, through some unknown
reason, were considered as the king's men and entitled to his
protection; these were known as the five bloods, who enjoyed
the law of England to the extent of the privilege to sue in
the king's courts, viz., O'Neill, O'Molaghlin, O'Connor,
O'Brien, and M'Murrough. … The Irish in Ireland were treated
by the king's courts in Ireland as an alien and hostile
nation; an Irishman out of the king's peace could not bring an
action against an Englishman. … But, though legally ignored,
the Irish tribes could not be politically disregarded. The
English Government used their assistance to repress the
rebellions of insurgent vassals. … They were called on to
furnish assistance to the English armies, and on many
occasions we find their chiefs summoned by writ of Parliament,
as if feudal vassals; but the mode in which they were treated
depended upon the immediate objects and want of the English
Government, and the general course of conduct pursued towards
them was such as has been previously stated. … We thus find
the English and Irish races hopelessly at variance, and it
would seem that one or other must have been crushed out in the
contest; but such was not the result; they both survived, and,
contrary to reasonable expectations, the Irish exhibited the
greater vitality. The expulsion of the English colony was an
effort beyond the power of the disunited Irish tribes; for in
the darkest hours of the English settlement the power of
England was ready, by some sudden effort, to reassert the
English supremacy. But why did the Anglo-Normans wholly fail
to subdue the Irish? …
1. The large extent comprised in the grants made to the first
colonists led to a dispersion of the Norman nobles over the
more fertile portions of the country. The English colony never
formed one compact body capable of combined action. …
{1760}
2. The military equipment of the Normans, and their mode of
carrying on war, rendered their forces wholly inefficient,
when, leaving the flat country, they attempted to penetrate
the fastnesses of the native tribes. …
3. From the absence of any central government, civil wars
continually arose between the several Norman lords; thus the
military power of the colonists was frittered away in
dissensions. …
4. The English Government continually called upon the Irish
barons for aids and military service, to be employed in wars
elsewhere than in Ireland. …
5. Many of the estates of the Norman nobles descended to
heiresses who married Englishmen already possessing estates in
England: hence arose absenteeism.
6. Even the lords who resided constantly upon their Irish
estates gradually lost their Norman habits, and tended to
assimilate themselves to the manners, and to adopt the
language, of the Irish."
A. G. Richey,
Short History of the Irish People,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN:
P. W. Joyce,
Short History of Ireland,
part 3.
See, also,
PALATINE, THE IRISH COUNTIES;
and GERALDINES.
IRELAND:
The Celticizing of the Anglo-Norman conquerors.
"Prior to experience, it would have been equally reasonable to
expect that the modern Englishman would adopt the habits of
the Hindoo or the Mohican, as that the fiery knights of
Normandy would have stooped to imitate a race whom they
despised as slaves; that they would have flung away their very
knightly names to assume a barbarous equivalent [the De Burghs
became Bourkes or Burkes, the M'Sweenies had been Veres in
England, and the Munster Geraldines merged their family name
in that of Desmond.—Foot-note]; and would so utterly have
cast aside the commanding features of their Northern
extraction, that their children's children could be
distinguished neither in soul nor body, neither in look, in
dress, in language, nor in disposition, from the Celts whom
they had subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary fact.
The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their
defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in
yielding, yielded only to fling over their new masters the
subtle spell of the Celtic disposition. In vain the government
attempted to stem the evil. Statute was passed after statute
forbidding the 'Englishry' of Ireland to use the Irish
language, or intermarry with Irish families, or copy Irish
habits. Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines,
forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for
such offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on
irresistibly. Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the
system, but only for themselves or their children to be swept
into the stream; and from the century which succeeded the
Conquest till the reign of the eighth Henry, the strange
phenomenon repeated itself, generation after generation,
baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralysing every effort
at a remedy."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 8 (volume 2).
IRELAND: A. D. 1314-1318.
Edward Bruce's invasion.
The crushing defeat of the English by the Scotch at
Bannockburn (1314) rekindled a spirit of rebellion in Ireland,
and the discontented chiefs made haste to solicit aid from
Scotland, offering the sovereignty of their island to Edward
Bruce, brother of king Robert, if he would come to their help
and conquer it. "By consent of king Robert, who was pleased to
make a diversion against England upon a vulnerable point, and
not, perhaps, sorry to be rid of a restless spirit, which
became impatient in the lack of employment, Edward invaded
Ireland at the head of a force of 6,000 Scots. He fought many
battles, and gained them all. He became master of the province
of Ulster, and was solemnly crowned king of Ireland; but found
himself amid his successes obliged to intreat the assistance
of king Robert with fresh supplies; for the impetuous Edward,
who never spared his own person, was equally reckless of
exposing his followers; and his successes were misfortunes, in
so far as they wasted the brave men with whose lives they were
purchased. Robert Bruce led supplies to his brother's
assistance, with an army which enabled him to overrun Ireland,
but without gaining any permanent advantage. He threatened
Dublin, and penetrated as far as Limerick in the west, but was
compelled, by scarcity of provisions, to retire again into
Ulster, in the spring of 1317. He shortly after returned to
Scotland, leaving a part of his troops with Edward, though
probably convinced that his brother was engaged in a desperate
and fruitless enterprise. … After his brother's departure,
Edward's career of ambition was closed at the battle of
Dundalk, where, October 5th, 1318, fortune at length failed a
warrior who had tried her patience by so many hazards. On that
fatal day he encountered, against the advice of his officers,
an Anglo-Irish army ten times more numerous than his own. A
strong champion among the English, named John Maupas, singling
out the person of Edward, slew him, and received death at his
hands. … A general officer of the Scots, called John
Thomson, led back the remnant of the Scottish force to their
own country. And thus ended the Scottish invasion of Ireland,
with the loss of many brave soldiers."
Sir W. Scott,
History of Scotland,
chapter 11 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Moore,
History of Ireland,
volume 3, chapter 36.
IRELAND: A. D. 1327-1367.
Oppressions of the reign of Edward III.
"Of all the legislative measures of this period the most
notable was the Statute of Kilkenny, passed at a Parliament
held in that town, in the last year of the decade, in the Lent
session of 1367. This 'famous, or infamous,' enactment
gathered up into one, and recapitulated with additional
aggravations and insults, all the former oppressive,
exasperating, and iniquitous ordinances by which English
legislation for Ireland had hitherto been disgraced. … Among
the earliest measures passed in the reign of Edward III. was a
statute directed against absenteeism, obliging all Englishmen
who were Irish proprietors either to reside on their estates
or to provide soldiers to defend them. But this enactment was
unproductive of good results. The O'Neills drove the colonists
out of the 'liberty of Ulster,' and the English De Burghs, so
far from helping to uphold English ascendency, appropriated to
themselves the entire lordship of Connaught, made common cause
with the native tribes, and adopting their dress, language,
and customs, became 'Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,' threw off
their allegiance to King Edward, and bade defiance to the
King's authority. Thus it came to pass that before many years
of this reign had elapsed more than a third part of the
territories of the Pale was again in the hands of its original
possessors. … Edward III. inherited the barbarous and
iniquitous traditions of English rule in Ireland, but he
improved upon them.
{1761}
He ordered all his officers in that country who had Irish
estates to be removed and give place to Englishmen with no
Irish ties. He next declared void every grant of land in
Ireland since the time of Edward II., and made new grants of
the lands thus recovered to the Crown. The tendency of this
monstrous measure was to create two more antagonistic parties
in Ireland, destined by their bitter dissensions to bring
about the result that ere long 'all the King's land in Ireland
was on the point of passing away from the Crown of England,'—
viz., the 'English by blood,' as the established settlers were
called, and the 'English by birth,' or new grantees. Some of
the chief of the former, in despair of a career, or even of a
quiet life, at home, were about to bid good-bye to Ireland and
seek their fortunes elsewhere, when they were arrested by a
proclamation making it penal for any English subject capable
of bearing arms to leave the country. … The 'English by
blood' became more and more intimately connected and
identified with the native Irish, and the 'English by birth'
became more and more powerless to maintain the English
ascendency; till at last, in 1361, the King determined on
sending over a viceroy of the blood royal, and appointed to
the post his son Lionel, created shortly afterwards Duke of
Clarence, whom he had married to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter
and representative of the last Earl of Ulster. But though
Prince Lionel, on his arrival, took the precaution of
forbidding any man born in Ireland to approach his camp, his
position soon became so critical that the King issued writs
commanding all the absentee Irish lords to hasten to Ireland
to the assistance of the Prince, 'for that his very dear son
and his companions in Ireland were in imminent peril.' The
next step was the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny. It
re-enacted the prohibition of marriage and foster-nursing,
rendered obligatory the adoption of the English language and
customs, forbade the national games of 'hurlings and
quoitings,' and the use of the ancient Gaelic code called the
Senchus Mor; a code by which the native brehons, or judges, of
the Irish septs had decided causes among them since the time
of the conversion of the race to Christianity in the fifth
century."
W. Warburton,
Edward III., 4th decade,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
W. Longman,
Life and Times of Edward III.,
volume 2, chapter 1.
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1).
IRELAND: A. D. 1494.
Poynings' Laws.
During the Wars of the Roses, "if Ireland had any preference
for either of the great contending parties in England, it was
… for the House of York; and from this cause chiefly sprang
the change of Henry VII.'s mode of governing the dependency
which on ascending the throne he had found all but severed
from his dominions. At first he had thought it best to employ
the native nobility for this purpose, and had chosen for
Deputy the Earl of Kildare—setting him, as the story ran, to
rule all Ireland, because all Ireland could not rule him.
When, however, he had time to reflect on the dangers springing
from the Irish support of Simnel and Warbeck, from which he
and his dynasty had escaped so narrowly, he perceived the
necessity of bringing the country under a more regular
government. Accordingly he sent over in 1494 (at the time when
Warbeck was preparing for his descent on England) Sir Edward
Poynings as Lord Deputy, a statesman and commander well
experienced in the most important affairs of the time."
C. E. Moberly,
The Early Tudors,
chapter 6.
After some military operations, which he found to be beset
with treacheries and difficulties, the new Lord Deputy held a
Parliament at Drogheda—"perhaps the most memorable that was
ever held in Ireland, as certainly no other Parliament in that
country made laws which endured so long as two which were then
enacted, and were known for centuries afterwards as the
'Poynings Acts.' By the first of these it was ordained that no
Parliament should be held in Ireland in future until the
king's Council in England had approved not only of its being
summoned, but also of the Acts which the Lieutenant and
Council of Ireland proposed to pass in it. By the second the
laws enacted before that time in England were extended to
Ireland also. Thus the Irish legislature was made entirely
dependent upon England. The Irish Parliament had no power to
originate anything, but was only free to accept or (if they
were very bold) to reject measures drawn up by the Irish
Council and approved already by the king and his Council in
England before they were submitted to discussion. Little as
this looks like parliamentary government, such was the state
of subjection in which the Irish Parliament remained by virtue
of this law for nearly three centuries later. Almost the whole
time, that is to say, that Ireland had a separate Parliament
at all it remained in this manner restricted in its action by
the legislation of Sir Edward Poynings. … It should be
remembered, however, that Henry VII. merely sought to do in
Ireland what there is every reason to suppose he practically
did in England. Legislation was not at this time considered to
be the chief business of a Parliament."
J. Gairdner,
Henry the Seventh,
chapter. 8.
ALSO IN:
R. Bagwell,
Ireland Under the Tudors,
chapter 8.
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 2, chapter 4, section 7.
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 18 (volume 3).
IRELAND: A. D. 1515.
The English Pale and the Clans and Chiefs beyond it.
"The events on which we are about to enter require for their
understanding a sketch of the position of the various chiefs,
as they were at this time scattered over the island. The
English pale, originally comprising 'the four shires,' as they
were called, of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel or Louth,
had been shorn down to half its old dimensions. The line
extended from Dundalk to Ardee; from Ardee by Castletown to
Kells; thence through Athboy and Trim to the Castle of
Maynooth; from Maynooth it crossed to Claine upon the Liffey,
and then followed up the line of the river to Ballimore
Eustace, from which place it skirted back at the rear of the
Wicklow and Dublin mountains to the forts at Dalkey, seven
miles south of Dublin. This narrow strip alone, some fifty
miles long and twenty broad, was in any sense English. Beyond
the borders the common law of England was of no authority; the
king's writ was but a strip of parchment; and the country was
parcelled among a multitude of independent chiefs, who
acknowledged no sovereignty but that of strength, who levied
tribute on the inhabitants of the pale as a reward for a
nominal protection of their rights, and as a compensation for
abstaining from the plunder of their farms. …
{1762}
These chiefs, with their dependent clans, were distributed
over the four provinces in the following order. The
Geraldines, the most powerful of the remaining Normans, were
divided into two branches. The Geraldines of the south, under
the Earls of Desmond, held Limerick, Cork, and Kerry; the
Geraldines of Leinster lay along the frontiers of the English
pale; and the heads of the house, the Earls of Kildare, were
the feudal superiors of the greater portion of the English
counties. To the Butlers, Earls of Ormond and Ossory, belonged
Kilkenny, Carlow, and Tipperary. The De Burghs, or Bourkes, as
they called themselves, were scattered over Galway, Roscommon,
and the south of Sligo, occupying the broad plains which lie
between the Shannon and the mountains of Connemara and Mayo.
This was the relative position into which these clans had
settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with
little variation. The north, which had fallen to the Lacies
and the De Courcies, had been wholly recovered by the Irish.
The Lacies had become extinct. The De Courcies, once Earls of
Ulster, had migrated to the south, and were reduced to the
petty fief of Kinsale, which they held under the Desmonds. The
Celtic chieftains had returned from the mountains to which
they had been driven, bringing back with them, more intensely
than ever, the Irish habits and traditions. … The O'Neils
and O'Donnells had spread down over Ulster to the frontiers of
the pale. The O'Connors and O'Carrolls had recrossed the
Shannon and pushed forwards into Kildare; the O'Connor Don was
established in a castle near Portarlington, said to be one of
the strongest in Ireland; and the O'Carrolls had seized Leap,
an ancient Danish fortress, surrounded by bog and forest, a