The Twelfth Century III - Normans and Angevins
Summary . Describes
the political history of Ireland in the Twelfth Century, first of Ireland before
the coming of the Normans, and the what the Normans did. As usual the petty wars
of the provincial Irish chiefs can be skipped
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The Reigns of Henry and his Sons
'Over-chiefs
of Tara'
Events in the rest of Ireland
Lords of Ireland
Background to
the Coming of the Normans
The Coming of the Normans
The King’s
Reaction
The First
Years of Henry’s Lordship (1172
– 1176)
Political
Changes after the Death of
Strongbow 1176
John, Lord of Ireland
Events during
the Reign of Richard 1189-99
John King of
England and Lord of Ireland
Postscript
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The Reigns
of Henry and his Sons
Henry was one of the luckiest and most
successful kings of England. Under him the dominions ruled by the king of England
reached an extent not to be reached again for several hundred years. He was
king of England and Wales, overlord of Scotland,
overlord of Ireland, overlord of Brittany, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou, and Duke
of Aquitaine. His lands on the Continent consisted of five distinct fiefs (that
of Aquitaine was as a vassal of the king of France),
and they stretched from Flanders to the Pyrenees. The tenure of these lands was always uncertain, and always
challenged, and the dominions were gradually whittled away until the loss of
the last one, Calais in 1558. As Henry’s father was Count of Anjou, Henry and his successors
are called Angevins, not Normans. (In England
the royal house between 1154 and 1485 was called Plantagenet, but they were
Angevins. In this book, Angevin refers to the royal family; all the others,
whether from Wales, England, Normandy, Flanders, Anjou or elsewhere are referred to as Normans. All those
of Scandinavian origin are referred to as Norsemen or Vikings.
When he
came to Ireland in 1171 at the height of his power, the Church reformers no
doubt saw him as a powerful ruler who enforced peace, enforced a scutage or
money payment instead of personal service thus dispensing with feudal levies,
made just laws, established peace in the kingdom, and protected the Church, his
quarrel with Thomas a Becket notwithstanding. In 1170 he had his eldest son and
heir, Henry, crowned as joint king of England
along with himself. Thomas a Becket whom he had promoted to be archbishop of
Canterbury was
resisting the king’s attempts to reduce the excessive jurisdiction of the
ecclesiastical courts. Taking an incautious remark of the king literally, four
of his knights murdered the archbishop inside his own cathedral. At this point
1171 he crossed over to Ireland to deal with Strongbow and then hastily returned to France to
meet the legates of a wrathful Pope. He succeeded in explaining that he had not
plotted the murder or ordered it and was absolved. The reason Henry had to
leave Ireland so hastily, and surrender so abjectly to the Papal representatives
was that his son Henry was demanding to be made actual king of England
and was prepared to side with Henry’s enemies to get his hands on actual power.
The young Henry got the support of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, of his
brothers Richard Lionheart and
Geoffrey duke of Brittany, the king of France
and various other nobles. Henry acted swiftly to crush the rebellion that broke
out in 1173 but had to draw troops from Ireland.
The struggle was not over until the autumn of 1174. Henry was reconciled with
his sons and he restored them to their fiefdoms. About this time he decided
that John could be provided with the territory of
Ireland as his
fief. Though given the title of lord he was intended to be king, and to rule as
a king, subject only to his feudal lord, the king of England
who would be able to call on him for feudal services, and prohibit him for
taking actions against his feudal lord’s allies or subjects. Presumably the
reason he was called lord and not king was to avoid angering Richard. The
patriarch of Jerusalem in person besought him to lead a crusade, but though willing to go,
he could not get the support of the English barons. Then in 1183 his sons Henry
and Geoffrey joined the nobles of Aquitaine against
him and Richard Lionheart. The sudden death of young Henry left Richard
as heir to the throne and the rebellion ended. Next Richard sided with the king
of France perhaps suspecting that Henry wished to disinherit him. Henry had
to flee for his life. For once Henry’s favourite son John turned against him.
Henry had to agree to all of Richard’s demands and he died of a fever soon
after in 1189.
Richard came to England
to be crowned, and as he had already pledged to go on crusade following the
capture of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, he set about raising money by every possible
means. He renounced the feudal homage due from William the Lion king of Scotland
for 10,000 marks. He was crowned in September 1189 and on 11 December he set
out for the Holy Land along with Philip Augustus, king of France
(1180-1223). The crusade lasted three
years, at the end of which Richard was forced to make a truce with Saladin and
returned home. On the way he was captured and held to ransom by the German
emperor. When part of the ransom was part paid and part pledged he was allowed
to return home in 1194 where his brother John was plotting against him. He
intended returning to the Crusade but was prevented from so doing by the plots
of John and Philip of France. He spent the rest of his reign until his death in
1199 trying to foil their plots. (As Saladin had died in 1193 his chances of
success would have been much enhanced.)
John has long had a reputation of being
a ‘bad king’ just as his brother Richard had a reputation of being a ‘good
king’. John was forced by the great lords of England
to grant them a charter of rights. But these rights only applied to the great
lords who had no intention of passing on those rights to their subordinates.
Eventually, in England a middle way was found between the absolutism of monarchs in France
and the shattering into a patchwork of local rulers as in Germany,
and the Magna Charta proved an
excellent starting point. But John cannot be either praised or blamed for this.
It has been suggested that the great barons disliked John because he spent most
of his time in England keeping an eye on them. Richard and Henry had spent most of their
lives abroad.
The great warlords
in England had doubts about accepting John because of his past behaviour (John
DNB) but he succeeded in gaining their assent and was crowned king of England. John’s
claim was supported by Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury and
William Marshal who considered him the best warrior to defend England
against Philip Augustus, king of France.
The chief lords in Richard’s other lands, Brittany,
Anjou, Maine, and
Touraine preferred
Arthur the son of John’s brother Geoffrey. The strict rules of primogeniture
still did not apply. But John, supported by his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine,
was able to seize the lands while his rival Arthur, still a minor, was a ward
of the king of France, the nominal overlord of the lands on the Continent.
Philip, for the moment, was unable to overcome John so he came to terms with
him.
In 1201 John got
involved in another war, and this time Philip was more prepared and initially
had considerable success. John managed to capture Arthur and put him to death,
and drove off Philip. Philip however began to conquer the castles in
Normandy with the
connivance of some of the Norman lords, and repulsed an attack by John. In 1204
John returned to England to collect more money from the nobles and the Church. Meanwhile
Philip completed the conquest of Normandy. This had the result that those lords who formerly had lands in
both Normandy and England were compelled to remain on their English estates and became wholly
English in feeling. In 1206 John reconquered Poitou but avoided meeting
Philip in a decisive battle. A truce was made for two years, John surrendering
his claim to all lands north of the Loire. John returned to England
to raise more money especially by a levy on Church lands, which was refused. On
the death of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1205 John tried to get the clergy to elect a favourite of his
John de Grey. Two elections were held and the case referred to Rome where the
Pope, Innocent III, set both aside and told the monks of Canterbury in the
delegation to elect Cardinal Stephen Langton. John refused to recognise him, so
the Pope laid an interdict on England
so that the sacraments could not be celebrated publicly. John seized the revenues
of the Church in England, forced William the Lion of Scotland and the Welsh chiefs, and the
major lords to give hostages, and defied the Pope. He evicted the Cistercians
from all their monasteries and only allowed them to return on the payment of
large fines. The wife of William de Braose however refused to give her children
as hostages, so in 1210 John set out for Ireland
to deal with him, and with the de Lacys who were supporting him. Walter de
Lacy, 2nd Lord of Meath, was a marcher lord with extensive lands along the
Welsh border and in Normandy, and was married to a daughter of William de Braose. Walter
immediately submitted to John but the king seized Irish lands. Such seizures
were not intended to be permanent, but the king got the benefit of their
revenues until such time as he might restore them. They were in fact largely
restored in 1213. The quarrel with de Braose apparently sprung from the fact
that the latter had not paid monies he owed the king. His wife had also refused
to hand over hostages, and his son was one of the bishops who sided with the
Pope. Strangely enough, it seems that John’s quarrel was principally with de
Braose’s wife Maud de St.Valerie, who is said to have accused him of murdering
his nephew Arthur. She with her grown-up son fled to Meath, and when John
followed fled to Scotland but was captured by Duncan of Carrick and handed back to John at
Carrickfergus. She and her son were imprisoned in Windsor castle and
it is said starved to death. William fled to France.
John returned to England
and extorted money from the Jews, invaded north Wales and
planted castles there. As he refused to return the property of the Church he
was excommunicated in 1212 by the Pope, who also deposed him and authorised
Philip Augustus to effect the deposal. John made an alliance with the Count of
Flanders and submitted his land to the suzerainty of the Pope and swore to
return the lands to the Church and allow the bishops who had fled overseas to
return. Philip invaded Flanders but an English fleet destroyed the French fleet. John built up an
alliance on the Continent against Philip and landed in France.
He had considerable initial success but Philip decisively defeated his army at
Bouvines in 1214 and his allies deserted him. John returned to England
where he found the barons determined to force him to grant them a written
charter of their rights such as they claimed to have enjoyed under Henry I.
This he was forced to concede in 1215. John however went back on his word and
civil war broke out. John had considerable success at first in crushing the
rebellion. Some of the lords elected Louis the son of Philip as king. He landed
in England with some French lords and the war began to go against John. The
latter died suddenly while campaigning the following year. His nine-year-old
son, Henry III, succeeded him. Bouvines also re-established the power of the
king of France and weakened that of the Holy Roman emperor who was John’s ally.
In Wales, after the death of Owain Gwynedd
in 1170 the most powerful chief in Wales was
the Lord Rhys. Owain was a chief in the largely unconquered north of Wales, but
Rhys ap Gruffydd was a chief in south Wales which had been successfully
conquered by Norman adventurers at an early date. These Normans had married
Welsh women, and from them the adventurers who crossed to Ireland
were chiefly drawn. Fighting equally against Owain Gwynedd, the local Normans, and Henry II he established himself in
a powerful position in south central Wales, and had his position recognised by
Henry on his way to and from Ireland. The understanding with the king was
important in another way, for the Normans of south Wales did not feel threatened and could leave their lands to seek more
lands in Ireland. Rhys supported Henry during the rebellion of his sons in 1173. In
1176 a local Norman marcher lord, William de Braose invited seventy of the
heads of the leading local Welsh families to a banquet and murdered them
preparatory to seizing their lands. (Cattle raiding was also endemic. That a
marcher lord should try to kill the thieves and seize their lands was
considered normal.) One of those killed, however, was a brother-in-law of Lord
Rhys. Rhys took no action against him, but the murders were to become one of
the national grievances of Wales.
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Ireland
to 1166
'Over-chiefs
of Tara'
Murtagh (or Muirchertach) O’Brien
1086-1119, son of Turlough
(Donal MacLoughlin 1083-1121,
MacLoughlin branch of Cenel Eogain)
Turlough O’Connor 1121-1156, son of Rory, (Ui
Briuin Ai)
Murtagh MacLoughlin 1156-66,
grandson of Donal of Cenel Eogain
Rory O’Connor, 1166-72, (Ui Briuin Ai)
son of Turlough.
The
twelfth century in Ireland
is one in which the political pattern is most difficult to follow or remember.
It was the only one in which there were real attempts made by various chiefs to
be the over-lord of the whole of Ireland. In
each province, except Munster,
there was only one family regularly challenging to be the over-chief of the
province. The exception was Munster
where the O’Briens and MacCarthys were fairly equally matched. Only four of the
five provincial families were in a position to seek that power, the exception
being Meath where the O’Mellaghlins of Clann
Cholmain were reduced to secondary rank like the MacCarthys of the Eoganacht Caisil. Within each province
there was considerable consolidation, and there was always a handful of warring
chiefs of the second rank seeking to expand.
The O’Briens were dominant up
to roughly 1125, the O’Connors from 1125 to 1150 though relatively weak after
1135, and the MacLoughlins from 1150 to 1166. Rory O’Connor managed to rule for
five years until Henry of Anjou took control. Dermot MacMurrough, though he
established himself securely in Leinster, and was frequently at war outside it never really got to a
position to challenge for the over-chiefdom. His best chance was frustrated by
the sudden revival of the power of the MacLoughlins, so his hour passed. The
year 1171 was therefore a pivotal one in Irish history for it established in
Dublin the state
which was finally to subdue all the others, never itself being subdued by any
of the others.
Murtagh O’Brien was
continuing his attempt to dislodge Donal MacLoughlin. In 1101 he invaded the
North, and destroyed the fortress of Aileach, which may have been abandoned at
that date. His fleet along the coast accompanied his march to the north. He
failed to defeat Donal, but took hostages from the Ulaid whose support or neutrality he needed. In 1098 Magnus Barelegs son of the king of Norway,
led a great expedition to restore the influence of the Norse crown. His fleet
was raiding at the mouth of the Shannon in 1101. (Magnus was killed two years later attacking the Ulaid on his way home to Norway.)
Murtagh made an alliance with him and gave him one of his daughters as his
son’s wife. He also married another daughter to Arnulf de Montgomery, earl of
Pembroke, the brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury who was in rebellion against
Henry I. Murtagh dispatched a fleet to the earl’s assistance. It would seem that
O’Brien did not quite trust him when he came to Ireland
and that he had designs on O’Brien's lands. So too probably had Magnus. In any
case the promised help was too late to save the Earl of Shrewsbury. Magnus
seems to have assisted O’Brien in his attack on MacLoughlin, and was killed
while campaigning in Ulster in 1103. In 1103 MacLoughlin inflicted a heavy defeat on O’Brien.
Which of them was the strongest was never really decided because two successive
abbots of Armagh succeeded on several occasions in getting them to agree to truces.
In 1114 Murtagh fell seriously ill and was deposed by his brother Dermot, but
he recovered his throne the following year. He handed over the ancestral lands
of the Eoganacht of Cashel to the
Church to endow the see of Cashel. In Meath and Connaught he expelled the
ruling dynasties and installed puppets of his own. He broke up conquered
chiefdoms if this suited him. These practices were to be developed in Ireland
in the course of the century (O’Corrain 150). The traditional rights of the
various grades of lord and chief were ignored, and their land confiscated, and
given to the chief’s own family or to others. Murtagh died in 1119 and Donal
MacLoughlin died in 1121.
Turlough O’Connor became over-chief of Connaught in 1106 but for many
years he was powerless against the O’Briens and MacLoughlins, so he played them
off against each other. Though he was the most successful warrior of his time,
and his family the most powerful he suffered strong opposition all his days. (I
have dated for convenience sake, and to avoid overlapping, his pretension to
the overchieftainship to 1121 following the death of Donal MacLoughlin.) He
first had to secure his position in Connaught against the O’Rourkes of Breifne who had succeeded in wresting the
overlordship from the Sil Muiredaig
(O’Connors) Turlough O’Connor became overlord in 1106 and died in 1156.). The
chief representative of the O’Rourkes, Tiernan O’Rourke, became chief of his
family in 1128 and died in 1172, but in his long life was never able to wrest
the overlordship from the O’Connors. He was however the most powerful ruler
ever produced by the Ui Briuin Breifne.
Turlough’s first
objective was to reduce the power of the O’Briens but first he had to make Connaught secure against attacks
from Munster or anywhere else. He surrounded his territories with castles, and
built an even greater fleet than that of the O’Briens. What was called ‘the
first castle in Ireland’ was built in 1129. The castles were probably of wood and earth,
but would have had the same purpose as the Norman castles in England.
The fact that his castle building is mentioned reminds us that traditionally
there were no fortified defended sites. The defenders retreated into the
forests or other naturally inaccessible spots. He built bridges over various
rivers to allow him to advance and to withdraw. Bridges were made of wood, and
always had to be guarded on both banks. Cavalry had been noted in Ireland
about the time of Brian Boru, and now
being used more often in Ireland
as elsewhere in Europe.
Turlough O’Connor
marched into Munster following the death of Dermot O’Brien the overchief of the Dal Cais in 1118, and partitioned it
between Dermot’s sons and the MacCarthys. Murtagh O’Brien was still overlord of
Cashel, but he was very old and he and his sons were ignored. In 1121 Turlough
ravaged Munster burning 70 churches in the process. He continued his ravages in the
two following years. This was how warfare was conducted when defeated chiefs
refused to surrender. The tactic was the same as that applied by William the
Conqueror in the North of England. Turlough O’Connor wished to build up the Eoganacht of Cashel, the MacCarthys, as
rivals to the O’Briens, and partitioned Munster between
them in 1127. The sphere of the O’Briens was restricted to North Munster, called Thomond
in Norman times, and that of the MacCarthys South Munster, or Desmond. (Munster is roughly
diamond-shaped, sitting on one point. Later, North Muster was divided and part
of it to the east was called East Munster, or Ormond.) In practice, the O’Briens were around Limerick with most of their
lands to the north of it, and the MacCarthys around Cork with most of
their lands to the west of it. As the O’Briens and MacCarthys at times
preferred to unite against the Connaughtmen the tactic was not very successful.
The boundary between them was neither defined nor fixed, and depended on which
could control the chiefs of the small intervening tuatha. These tuatha were
to form the path of entrance of the Normans.
Cormac McCarthy was
chief of Desmond from 1123 until he was murdered by the O’Briens in 1138. He is
chiefly famous for the little Romanesque chapel on the Hill of Cashel known as
Cormac’s Chapel. The O’Briens in Thomond had two brothers as joint chiefs, Turlough
and Conor O’Brien, from 1118 to 1142, and Turlough alone until 1167. A third
O’Brien brother, Tadg (Taigue) was chosen in 1122 but deposed the following
year. With the accession to sole rulership of Turlough O’Brien in 1142, and
disputes with the MacCarthys over the succession resolved, O’Brien rose to be
the strongest chief in Munster.
Turlough O’Connor
was attacked in 1124 by a coalition led by O’Mellaghlin of Meath including
Tiernan O’Rourke and Enna MacMurrough. For centuries the Ui Briuin Breifne had been trying to break out of the poor lands of
Leitrim into the more fertile lands of Meath at the expense of the Conmaicne and Gailenga. Now was their chance. The alliance soon broke up.
Turlough defeated them and partitioned Meath into three petty states, and
extended the lands of Tiernan O’Rourke of Breifne (Ui Briuin Breifne) who suddenly changed sides and supported him. He
then imposed a king on Leinster from among the Ui Dunlainge
in order to foment disputes with the MacMurroughs. Tiernan O’Rourke was first
mentioned in 1124, and Dermot MacMurrough in 1126. MacMurrough died in 1171 and
O’Rourke in 1172. Though only chiefs of the second rank, it was largely their
quarrels that brought the Normans into Ireland.
After Donal MacLoughlin died in 1121 Turlough had no serious rival
left in Ireland until 1131 when his enemies from the MacLoughlins, O’Briens,
MacCarthys, and O’Rourkes combined against him. In 1128 O’Connor wasted Leinster, assisted by Tiernan
O’Rourke. Leinster was then left alone for three years. Dermot MacMurrough however
succeeded in getting control in Leinster and re-establishing the power of the Ui Chennselaig, and then invaded Ossory. After the attack in 1131
the O’Briens ravaged Connaught and the MacCarthys assisted by Tiernan O’Rourke. By 1135 Connaught was seriously
weakened, which allowed Leinster under Dermot MacMurrough to assert itself. MacMurrough invaded
Munster and
succeeded in getting the submission of the O’Briens and MacCarthys. Finally
after 1140 the power of the O’Connors was limited by the growing strength of
Turlough O’Brien on one side and Murtagh MacLoughlin on the other. Nevertheless
for twenty six years between 1125 and his death in 1156 he was often the most
powerful single chief in Ireland.
During the period of O’Connor’s weakness (c. 1135) he was
forced to give hostages to Murchad O’Mellaghlin, thus losing his claim to be
king of Ireland. O’Connor made various attempts to throw off the control of
O’Mellaghlin, but was unsuccessful until 1141 when he forced him to give
hostages and recognise his overlordship. During a revolt at home his son was
blinded to exclude him from the succession. Also, the unconsidered Conmaicne raided his territory. Turlough
O’Connor's prime objective therefore became to reduce neighbouring Meath to
subjection and to break it up so that the O’Mellaghlins would never be a
threat. MacMurrough preferred to defend Meath or capture it himself, so
O’Connor backed off temporarily. But Dermot, wishing to attack
Munster, gave
hostages to O’Connor who was then able to invade and partition Meath between
Donnchad O’Mellaghlin, O’Rourke, and MacMurrough in 1144. In the same year
O’Connor and O’Brien made a peace at the monastery of Terryglass, and agreed to
partition Meath between two O’Mellaghlins. This immediately drove MacMurrough
and O’Rourke to revolt against O'Connor.
Murtagh MacLoughlin
in Ulster had again gathered the forces of the Cenel Eogain together and in 1149 was able to take hostages from
all the provincial chiefs, including O’Connor who again lost the
overchieftainship, except in Munster. MacMurrough extended his rule unchallenged to all Leinster. However O’Connor
defeated Turlough O’Brien finally at Moin Mor in 1151, and Munster was again
partitioned between the O'Briens and MacCarthys. MacMurrough, O’Mellaghlin, and
O’Rourke supported O’Connor. Moin Mor was one of those rare events in Ireland,
a hard-fought pitched battle, beloved of the annalists, which would seem to
indicate that O'Brien considered he had a good chance of defeating O’Connor.
Apparently this was MacMurrough’s first experience of a major battle.
O'Connor's losses were heavy, but O'Brien's much heavier. O’Connor still had to
give hostages to MacLoughlin, who was now for all practical purposes the
over-chief of Ireland. Moin Mor was the last attempt of an O’Brien to seize the
overlordship of Ireland. Donnchad O’Mellaghlin, a very successful warrior, was in theory
chief of Meath from 1106 to 1153, but he was deposed and replaced on several
occasions. This was the last chance Clann
Cholmain was ever to have. That it survived so long in its divided state
was due only to the fact that O’Brien and MacLoughlin both chose to prop it up
against O’Connor.
In 1150 MacLoughlin
partitioned Meath between O’Rourke, O’Connor, and O’Carroll of Oriel. In 1152
O’Rourke, who had reputation for obnoxious behaviour equalled only by
MacMurrough's, quarrelled with both O’Connor and MacMurrough. MacLoughlin,
O’Connor, and MacMurrough invaded and devastated Breifne, and MacMurrough
carried off Devorgilla, O’Rourke's wife, either willingly on her part or not.
Devorgilla was a daughter of Murchad O’Mellaghlin, but O’Rourke was constantly
at war with his father-in-law. Meath was once again re-partitioned. MacLoughlin
added two sub-chiefdoms in north Leinster Ui Faelain (Offelan) and Ui Failge (Offaly) to O’Mellaghlin’s
territory to strengthen him. Dermot MacMurrough never gave up the claim to
them, Offaly was not the present county but a small barony in Kildare.
The incident of
O’Rourke's wife was significant because it led to a bitter and life-long
hostility between O’Rourke and MacMurrough. But there was another factor
involved, and that was divorce under Brehon Law. If Devorgilla wanted to
divorce her husband, an honour price had to be paid to the husband. MacMurrough
refused to pay this. But the reforming clergy wanted the law changed so as to
be in accord with Christian doctrine. The several partitions of Meath had the
important result that the Normans were able to establish themselves in the shattered and fragmented
province after the power of Clann
Cholmain had been broken. The partitioning of Munster had the
same effect for the Normans were able easily to establish themselves in the lands between the
O’Briens and MacCarthys. In the following century, a family feud between the
O’Connors allowed the Normans to establish themselves in Connaught, while another family dispute among the Ulaid allowed them to establish themselves in Ulster.
Turlough O’Connor died in 1156 and was succeeded by his son Rory, but
MacLoughlin maintained his superiority. The situation changed in 1166 when
MacLoughlin blinded the captured chief of the Ulaid Eochaid MacDonlevy in violation of guarantees given by the
archbishop of Armagh and Donough O’Carroll of Oriel. This led to a revolt in the north
in which MacLoughlin was killed.
MacLoughlin was the
last chief of the Cenel Eogain to
exercise power outside of Ulster.
Like Mael Sechlainn II of Clann Cholmain
he was one of the greatest warriors of his race, but he had no successor of
equal stature. The events in the reign of Rory O’Connor will be dealt with
below.
[Top]
Events in the rest of Ireland
At the beginning of
the twelfth century in Ulster the ever-expanding Cenel
Eogain remained the most powerful kinship group. But the Cenel Conaill and the Ulaid had established powerful chiefdoms
(what elsewhere would have been called earldoms or counties). The Oirgialla were partly swallowed up be
the Cenel Eogain, but also succeeded
in establishing a powerful chiefdom in the south of the province.
The MacLoughlin
family had eclipsed the O’Neill branch with regard to the chieftainship of
Aileach. But the MacLoughlins were not able to resist Murtagh O’Brien. They nevertheless
kept up pressure on the Ulaid. When
Murtagh O'Brien retired to a monastery in 1119 Donal MacLoughlin made an
unsuccessful attempt to be recognised as overchief. The Cenel Eogain was at the same time conquering new lands from the Oirgialla to the west of Lough Neagh. In
1121 Conor MacLoughlin succeeded Donal and the pattern persisted with constant
strife between the Ui Neill and with
the Ulaid. In 1127 the Ui
Neill attacked the newly re-founded monastery of Bangor in the
territory of the Ulaid where St
Malachy was commencing his reform movement. The Cianachta were still holding out around Dungiven in
county
Londonderry
even though the centre of O’Neill power had moved to Tyrone in Mid-Ulster.
Conor MacLoughlin
attacked the Ulaid and by 1131 had subdued
them sufficiently to raid outside the province into Turlough O’Connor’s lands,
with some of the Ulaid in the host.
The strength of any chief depended on how many subchiefs he could order, or
entice, or force to come to his hosting. The following year he raided in
county
Louth. The
MacLoughlins were fatally weakened by their perpetual struggle with the
O’Neills of Tullaghogue. Successive O’Neill pretenders were slain by the
MacLoughlins until 1176. There were also other feuds. Conor MacLoughlin (1121-36)
was deposed in 1128 in favour of his uncle Magnus, and restored the following
year. Murtagh MacLoughlin (1136-66) was deposed in 1143 in favour of Donal
O’Gormley, but was restored with the help of the Cenel Conaill.
Murtagh
MacLoughlin, nephew of Conor succeeded in 1136. His father, Niall MacLoughlin
had been chief of the Cenel Conaill. His
youth had been spent in minor wars in Ulster,
and then became engaged in a three-cornered fight, apparently between equals,
with the Ulaid and the O’Carrolls of
Oriel. But Murtagh finally emerged about 1149 as the dominant chief, and the Cenel Conaill, the Ulaid and the Oirgialla
gave him hostages. We can assume that thereafter they were forced to join his
hostings. The role of a hostage was not a happy or secure one. Even though they
were the sons of chiefs they were regarded as pawns to be sacrificed if
necessary. The later career of Murtagh has been described earlier. The end came
in 1166. In 1165 the Ulaid revolted,
and Murtagh suppressed the revolt. The Ulaid
chief, Eochaid MacDonlevy was deposed and restored after an intervention by
Donough O’Carroll and the archbishop of Armagh. The following year, Murtagh blinded him, despite his compact with
O’Carroll and the archbishop. His supporters melted away and he was slain by
O’Carroll in a minor skirmish. At the same time, Dermot MacMurrough, similarly
hard pressed fled to England to seek support.
All the branches of
the Cenel Eogain were expanding at
their neighbour’s expense. At this time the O’Cahan (O’Kane) branch of Clann Connor of Magh Ithe, itself a branch of the Cenel Mhic Earca branch of the Cenel
Eogain began to come to the fore. By
1138 the O’Cahans were overlords of the Cianachta
and their neighbours the Fir na
Croebe and the Fir Li in eastern
Londonderry, so presumably they had not at that time absorbed their
territories. The O’Cahans were also fighting another branch of the Ui Neill, the Cenel Binnig. (This latter group soon after lost out to the
O’Cahans but survived in the area as separate families of O’Hamills, Toners and
Kellys to this day.) The dynamics of these internal wars are not clear. The Cenel Feradaig branch of the Ui Neill (the MacCawells) was
establishing itself in Clogher in the heartland of the Oirgialla just at the time when the O’Carrolls of the Oirgialla were conquering Co. Louth. The
Cenel Moen branch (O’Gormleys)
gradually occupied the lands of the Ui
Fiachrach Ardsratha (Ardstraw) around Strabane. Along with the O’Cahans,
the O’Gormleys attacked and took the lands of the Cenel Enda, originally the third branch of the Northern Ui Neill along with the Cenel Eogain
and the Cenel Conaill. The O’Cahans
supported the MacLoughlins. The Ui
Tuirtre, a branch of the Oirgialla,
under pressure from the O’Cahans, established themselves on the other bank of
the Bann, became the leading clan in the area, and was subdued later by de
Courci. It is clear that a static picture of Irish politics before the Norman
invasion is false, and that the Normans were profiting from a very fluid situation. From this, as from
other evidence, it is obvious that the great Irish chiefs had little interest
in fighting the Normans, and every interest in keeping the Normans on their
side. They were far more interested in taking the land of their immediate
neighbours. About this time the Cenel
Binnig and the Fir Li disappear
from the annals. During the Middle Ages the Ui
Tuirtre (O’Flynns) acknowledged the Normans as
overlords.
For various obscure
reasons, the Cenel Eogain lost
control of their original homeland in Inishowen to a branch of the Cenel Conaill (later the O’Dohertys).
The Cenel Conaill launched a major
attack on the peninsula in 1117 and seized part of it. The O'Mulfoyle chiefs of the Cenel Eogain were not finally dislodged
for another century. (A later distribution of surnames seems to indicate that
they fled to north Connaught.) The Cenel Conaill were
consolidating themselves. Though never very successful at extending their
borders, being hemmed in by the O’Neills on one side and the O’Connors of Connaught
on the other, they were not without their successes in inching their frontiers
forward. The Ulaid continued to be a powerful compact chiefdom. It was able to
prosper while the infighting among the O’Neills continued. Its greatest power
was under Cu Ulad MacDonlevy (1131-57). The events surrounding the death of
Murtagh MacLoughlin have been mentioned above.
The O’Donnell
chiefdom, though isolated in Donegal, and the O’Flaherty chiefdom in west Connaught belonged to the less
successful branches of the dominant families in their provinces. Later too, the
other great chiefly families sprouted off sub-families, the O'Sullivans from
the MacCarthys, the MacNamaras and O’Kennedys from the O’Briens, and the
O’Cahans from the O’Neills. With the decline of Clann Cholmain the O’Rourkes of Breifne and the O’Carrolls of Oriel
were gradually encroaching on the northern parts of Meath and of Louth. The
latter was included in the diocese and chiefdom of Clogher, while the region
around Clogher itself was gradually occupied by the Cenel Feradaig, the MacCawells.
. The origins of
the chiefdom of Oriel out of the small tuatha
of the Oirgialla in south Ulster, the
Mugdorna, the Ui Meith, the Dartrige,
the Fir Rois, and the Fernmag is obscure. A chief called
Donough O’Carroll (Donnchad Ua Cerbaill)
succeeded in building up quite a powerful chiefdom among the tuatha of the Oirgialla, for the future to be called Oriel or Uriel. This
chiefdom, like the comparable chiefdoms of the O’Rourkes of Breifne, and the
MacGillaPatricks of Ossory, the O’Farrells of Annaly (Longford), the O’Connors
of Offaly (O’Connor Faly), and the O’Mores of Leix (Loigse) lay in difficult boggy and forested lands between the great
chiefdoms. It was the prime aim of both the great Gaelic chiefs and later of
King John to root them out, but that was easier said than done. The internal
feuding among the O’Neills on one side and the O’Mellaghlins on the other
allowed Donough O’Carroll and Tiernan O’Rourke to expand their domains far
beyond what would have been normally possible. In 1138 Donough joined Turlough
O’Connor and Tiernan O’Rourke in attacking Dermot MacMurrough of Leinster. After Murtagh
MacLoughlin had established himself as overlord of Ulster,
Donough O’Carroll submitted to him, and joined in his expedition against Meath.
For this he was duly rewarded by the grant of territories, or recognition of
his conquests. O’Carroll had succeeded in extending his rule over the whole of
county Louth as far as the Boyne before 1140, for in that year O’Carroll was
able to give a grant of land to the Cistercians for the foundation of Mellifont
in the very south of the county not far from the Boyne. At its greatest extent
Oriel extended over the three counties of Monaghan, Armagh, and Louth or the
combined dioceses of Clogher and Armagh.
By 1166, the
chiefdoms in the North had been effectively reduced to four, the O’Neill
chiefdom of Tullaghogue or Tir Eogain
(Tyrone), Ulaid (or Ulster to
give it its Norse name), Oriel, and Tir
Conaill of the Cenel Conaill,
with a single overchief of the province, a MacLoughlin. By Ulster in
those days was meant counties Antrim and Down, and by Tyrone was meant counties
Tyrone and Derry.
Meanwhile the great
struggle between the O'Neills and MacLoughlins continued. The tide began to turn
in 1160 when Aed im Macaem Toinlesc
(which has been translated as Hugh the Lazy-arsed youth, Burke.) slew the
MacLoughlin who had slain his father. He became undisputed chief of the Ui Neill in 1176. A medieval French poem
claimed that he brought 3,000 men to aid Rory O’Connor. The MacLoughlins killed
him in 1177. He was succeeded by Mael Sechlainn MacLoughlin, but in 1196 his
own son, Aed Meth (the Fat)
(1196-1230) recovered the chieftainship.
In Meath the various branches of the Southern Ui Neill had split into mutually hostile fragments which were to be easily
conquered by the Normans. The O’Mellaghlins were declining slowly. They were still a major
power in Meath, but never a match for the over-chiefs of the other provinces.
Like other chiefs before him, Henry II claimed the overlordship of Meath, and
distributed sufficient lands to his followers to enable them to enforce the
king’s will. Hugh de Lacy was designated the Lord of Meath. This Meath had
suffered from the encroachments of Donough O’Carroll and Tiernan O’Rourke
amongst others. The O’Farrells of Annaly (Longford) remained in place and were
more or less independent. To the north of Meath, Tiernan O’Rourke was steadily
expanding his chiefdom. It is recorded that a body of horsemen commanded by him
defeated a similar body of horsemen under Conor MacLoughlin in 1128. In 1130 he
defeated and killed Dermot O’Mellaghlin. He was engaged in most of the major
campaigns until his death in 1172, and slowly but steadily increased his
territory annexing much of Cavan His territory equalled the present diocese of
Kilmore, approximately Leitrim and Cavan. He has been described as a restless
meddler who never let a year of his life go by without interfering in some
strife (Furlong)
Interestingly, when
the various dioceses were being delineated in 1152, the territories of
MacLoughlin, O’Carroll, and O’Rourke were roughly equal in size. This though
reflects the temporary weakness of the MacLoughlins, less the lands of the
O’Neills, and the expansion of O’Carroll and O’Rourke. It also shows how easy
it was for the strongest power in a province, once he got an advantage, to
compel the other chiefs to joint his hosting. They in turn had to force the
subchiefs to join the hosting, so that he could raise a large army to attack
the other provinces.
Leinster was a province about
the size of Normandy, dominated by MacMurrough, but quite large tracts of the
province were left under the local rulers (ruiri),
the O’Mores (Loigse in Leix), the
O’Connors (Ui Failge Offaly), the
MacGillaPatricks (Osraige
Ossory/Kilkenny), the O’Byrnes and the O’Tooles (Wicklow). Eleven more or less
independent chiefs were recognised in Leinster, where the concentration of power had not proceeded as far as in Ulster.
There was surprisingly little good land in Leinster, and most of this was in one band perhaps twenty miles wide,
curving inland from Dublin to the west of the Wicklow
Mountains, and
curving back to meet the sea at Wexford. Three of the five suffragan dioceses
assigned to Dublin, Kildare, Leighlin and Ferns were in this belt, the other two being
Glendalough, an ancient monastery, and Ossory.
These rulers of the badlands were no more
unruly or warlike than the great feudal families in Ireland
or elsewhere in Europe. Among their woods and bogs and broken hilly country they were
surprisingly difficult for anyone, whether Gaelic chief or Norman earl to
dislodge. They may have been little different from bandits, surviving on
cattle-raiding and blackmail, but there was little anyone could do about them.
In this century the dominant force in Leinster was Dermot MacMurrough. The MacMurroughs of the Ui Chennselaig controlled the southern
part of the fertile band, corresponding to the county of
Wexford or the
diocese of Ferns. As one of the leading families of Leinster they often had the
title of chief of Leinster. On the death of Enna MacMurrough in 1126, Turlough O’Connor
determined to reduce Leinster, like Munster and Meath to impotence. He tried successively to impose his own
son, and then a chief of the Ui
Dunlainge, over Leinster. Enna’s son Dermot refused to give up his claim, so Turlough
O’Connor, assisted by the opportunist Tiernan O’Rourke wasted Dermot’s lands.
It was something, that Dermot, still apparently in his teens, never forgot. In 1128 on the death of the Ui Chennselaig abbess of Kildare,
MacMurrough's appointment was ignored and MacFaelain of Ui Faelain (Offelan) made an appointment. The Ui Failge (Offaly)
contested this and war ensued and the abbess was not installed until 1132.
Dermot attacked the town and abbey and had the abbess raped, and appointed a Ui Chennselaig abbess,
a MacMurrough; Dermot then imposed his authority on the other Leinster chiefs,
the Ui Failge ruled by
O’Connor Failge (O’Connor Faly); Ui Faelain ruled by MacFaelan in N.
Kildare (Furlong). By 1134, with the help of
the Norse of Dublin, Dermot was firmly established in Leinster.
The Ui
Chennselaig, from the days of Dermot mac Mael na mbo had claimed to be the rightful chiefs of Dublin and
Enna MacMurrough had that title. Dermot
regarded the title as his own, calling himself King of Leinster and the
Foreigners. It would seem that the wrath of Turlough O’Connor was aroused by a
claim of Dermot to the pretensions of Dermot mac Mael na mbo. Dermot’s first years were devoted to securing himself
against Ossory and the Ui Dunlainge,
but his defeat of Conor O’Brien and his capture of Waterford in 1137 secured
him recognition as a power in Munster. He was inclined to favour the O’Briens
over the MacCarthys. For most of his life he was only a secondary player, but
he pursued his own policies in Munster
and Meath. In 1137 turned north, and made a treaty of
mutual assistance with Murrough O’Mellaghlin, whose daughter Devorgilla, was to
marry Tiernan O'Rourke. He took hostages from the O’Tooles, one of whom
was Laurence the future Archbishop, and married Mor, Laurence’s sister. In 1138 O’Mellaghlin called of Dermot’s assistance when
O’Connor, O’Rourke, and O’Carroll attacked Meath. Dermot and O’Mellaghlin
gathered their forces; O’Connor withdrew (Furlong). MacMurrough’s action on
this occasion merely postponed the partition of Meath. In 1140 Dermot
savagely crushed an attempted uprising in north Leinster
blinding, in accordance with current practice, 17 of his chief opponents. He
had no further trouble in Leinster
for a quarter of a century. In 1142 he was forced to give hostages to O’Connor.
In 1151 he was with O’Connor at the great battle at Moin Mor where the O’Briens
were disastrously defeated. Furlong notes that this was Dermot’s first
participation in a major battle. Much of his life was spent trying to
out-manoeuvre O’Rourke for the spoils of Meath. Dermot joined the Church
reformers, introduced new religious orders and got a letter of thanks from St
Bernard of Clairvaux. He was no worse than the other chiefs and kings of his
time. In general MacMurrough allied himself with Murtagh MacLoughlin while his
archenemy O’Rourke had to ally himself with O’Connor. He was virtually
untouchable while MacLoughlin was alive but on the death of the latter in 1166
he became vulnerable.
Dublin had lost its independence, but not its importance. Each of those
who claimed the overlordship of Ireland
also claimed to be the ruler of Dublin or claimed the right to appoint him. The Norse fleet of
Dublin was probably
still the most powerful in Ireland.
Dublin was not the
only trading port, for Waterford and Wexford to mention the most important traded directly with Britain.
Norse chiefs were again established in Dublin from about
1127 when the O’Briens and MacMurroughs failed to impose chiefs. It was said
that Dermot MacMurrough’s father, Enna mac Donough MacMurrough, chief of Leinster, was murdered by the
citizens of Dublin in 1126 and buried along with a dog. It was to take Dermot over
fifty years before he could avenge his father.
Munster was now divided between the two rival families contending for the
overlordship of Munster, the MacCarthys (Eoganacht
Caisil) and the O’Briens (Dal Cais).
The MacCarthys had been expelled from their centre of power in north
Munster, but the
O’Briens failed at this time to occupy and hold the land. Only later in the
Middle Ages did offshoots of the O’Briens, the O’Mulryans and the O’Kennedys
wrest the land from the Butlers. These lands in north Munster were
allotted by the crown to various Norman lords at the end of the century, as
were the lands of the collapsed Ui
Fidgente that the O’Briens had failed to secure. The O’Brien chiefs who
followed Brian Boru seem to have had
a very narrow powerbase. Though they extended the lands they controlled
directly or indirectly in the Middle Ages they never were more than a secondary
chiefdom.
The Eoganacht Caisil, like the O’Briens and the Ui Neill, were gradually swallowing up those minor clans adjacent to them.
In Thomond the O’Briens were continuing to grab the lands of the tuatha around them, and gradually they
and their sub-families came to own and occupy county
Clare. They
also took over the little chiefdom that formed the diocese of Kilfenora. They
contended with the O’Flahertys for control of the Aran Islands. Later in the
Middle Ages they had a common frontier with the Norman Burkes of Connaught. The great dispute in
Munster was between the O’Briens and MacCarthys, and in Munster at least
the policy, inaugurated by King John, of keeping the main contenders apart
worked permanently.
In Connaught there was no change. The O’Connors were dominant, and they pursued
their ambition to rule the whole of Ireland.
There was an unexpected revival of the fortunes of the Ui Briuin Breifne. The last of the O’Rourke overchiefs of Connaught was Donal mac Tiernan
O’Rourke (1098-1102). Rory (Ruaidri,
Roderick) O’Connor, son of Turlough, was accepted as over-chief, and
immediately imprisoned three of his brothers and blinded one of them. He then
took hostages from the O’Briens. Rory tried to emulate his father in the rest
of Ireland, but was checked by Murtagh MacLoughlin. The O’Connors kept the
overlordship for the next century despite all the efforts of the O’Rourkes.
[Top]
Ireland After 1166
Lords of Ireland
Henry of Anjou
1172-76
Richard I Lionheart,
1189-99, son of Henry (feudal overlord)
John Lackland
1176-1216, son of Henry
Kings of England
Henry II 1154-1189, Henry
Fitzempress of Anjou
(Plantagenet)
Richard I Lionheart,
1189-99, son of Henry
John Lackland 1199-1216,
son of Henry.
[Top]
Background
to the Coming of the Normans
Changes there were, but Gaelic society was always
changing by introducing changes from abroad. Gaelic society was evolving
towards a feudal structure, and the greater Gaelic chiefs saw great benefits
for themselves in promoting this change. To be able to hold land in perpetuity,
to have the succession to the chiefdom from father to son, to have all the
minor chiefs as subinfeudatory tenants, appealed to the Gaelic provincial
chiefs. Henry, and the Normans respected the rights of all the Gaelic chiefs,
whether they had submitted to Henry or not, and there is no doubt that Henry
and John wished to regard all of the chiefs, Norman and Gael, as equal
subjects.
Nor did the Gaelic chiefs have any wish to get
rid of the Normans. The were prepared to recognise Strongbow as the chief of Leinster,
and de Lacy as the chief of Meath, to have them as allies, to marry their
daughters or sisters to them, to grant them lands in return for services,
provided only the Normans recognised the Gaelic chief as his over-chief. Their
attitude towards the Normans seems no different to their attitude to the later Scottish
gallowglasses from Scotland. If Henry wanted to remain over-chief of Tara it was up to him to
establish his rule in the traditional manner, by conquering all the chiefs in
turn.
It is not clear how many actual foreigners
monks, clerics, or laymen, came to Ireland
in the twelfth century before the military invasion of the Normans. The
example of Mellifont shows that monks could be sent abroad to be trained. But
no doubt there was quite a number. There would also be a number of merchants
and craftsmen. Much legal, clerical, and administrative work in the courts of
the chiefs would have been done by clerics, and all correspondence with
foreigners which required a fluent knowledge of written and spoken Latin. These
were not necessarily high-ranking clerics; they might for example have received
only the tonsure or short clerical haircut.
Some of these too may have either have been foreigners or received some
training abroad.
What is surprising is that the Irish chiefs were
so slow in seeking the assistance of the knights and men-at-arms. These would
have to be paid in land, but as the land would have been seized from somebody
else that did not count. Soon after this the Irish chiefs began the policy,
which was to last for centuries, of employing mercenaries from Scotland,
the gallowglasses. As it was, the Normans were established in Wales and
Scotland for a hundred years before they ventured into Ireland.
The chief who eventually asked for their assistance was one of those on the
east coast.
When he made the first move the pattern that had
been established in Scotland and Wales for a hundred years quickly established itself, and most of the
chiefs, or sub-chiefs, sought their help. The advantages of bringing in the
Normans were so
great, that it is again surprising that it had not been tried before. There
were little towns in Ireland, founded by the Vikings, though the local chiefs controlled all of
them that survived. But William the Lion in Scotland
recognised the need to establish proper towns with proper charters, organised
and controlled by guilds of merchant to systematically develop crafts, markets,
and trade, and to introduce feudal law and custom to the countryside to promote
and develop agriculture to produce and export surplus production. In Wales the
marcher lords did likewise. When John de Courci moved into Ulster
the transformation was put into place immediately. Fifteen boroughs with
markets, not all successful, were established in an area amounting to about
half of the present counties of Antrim and Down. Skilled craftsmen moved in
from England. So the mystery remains why was this not done earlier?
In the general rush to get Norman alliances and
assistance the O’Neills of Tyrone seem to have been unusual, resisting
intermarriage, the assistance of Norman troops, the introduction of towns, and
the development of agriculture to produce a marketable surplus. But the ruling
families were succeeding well with the existing system at least by their own
traditional standards. They succeeded in conquering most of the unimproved
lands in mid-Ulster, being themselves largely invulnerable to invasions. Their
standard of living might be very low, and the lives of the cultivators of the
soil utterly miserable. But they were satisfied with their success and saw no
reason to share it with outsiders who might become greedy. This mentality was
probably the common one in Ireland
before the arrival of the Normans. But when one chief made the break, most of the others rushed to
join him.
[1166] There was no particular reason why the
year 1166, the year Murtagh MacLoughlin died, should have marked a turning
point in Irish history. Had there been a powerful successor to Murtagh MacLoughlin
in the North matters would have been very different. Or if Rory O’Connor had
been as significant a warrior as Murtagh MacLoughlin or Turlough O’Connor and
able to crush the small Norman forces, history also would have been different.
But in the five years between 1166 and 1171 the course of Irish history and the
development of Irish society changed dramatically.
. In Connaught, the O’Connors were supreme, but for adventures outside their
province depended on the support of Breifne. The O’Connors had one great
advantage. Dynastic disputes following the death of Turlough O’Connor in 1156
were quickly, if brutally, settled and his son Rory was soon the undisputed
master of Connaught. Rory proceeded to do what anyone with pretensions to establishing a
permanent kingship in Ireland had to do, and that was to split the opposition in the other
provinces (Curtis 46). In Munster the O’Briens and MacCarthys neutralised each other, and Rory
confirmed both in their respective areas. Cormac MacCarthy remained chief of
Desmond. In Thomond Turlough O’Brien died in 1167 and was succeeded by his son
Murtagh O’Brien in 1167 and by Donal O’Brien in 1168.
In the North the dispute between the
MacLoughlins and O’Neills allowed chiefs of second rank in Ulster,
Oriel, and Breifne a rather unusual freedom to expand. (Donough O’Carroll was
murdered in 1186 and Oriel ceased to be important.) Murtagh MacLoughlin was
succeeded in 1166 by his son Conor,
who was deposed in 1167, and was succeeded by his brother Niall MacLoughlin who
was forced by Rory O’Connor to share the chiefdom with Aed O’Neill from the
rival branch at Tullaghogue. This was Aed im
Macaem Toinlesc which has been
translated as Hugh the Lazy-arsed youth (Burke). Whatever about the nickname he
was a vigorous warrior, and restored the fortunes of the O’Neill branch
In Meath,
the O’Mellaghlins (Clann Cholmain),
riven by disputes, had sunk to second rank. Rory partitioned Meath between
O’Mellaghlin and O’Rourke. In Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough, also profiting by disputes and divisions had
raised the provincial status of Leinster, but Rory had plans to partition that province as well. Dermot had
depended on support from the MacLoughlins. Tiernan O’Rourke’s great ambition in
life was to get as much of the O’Mellaghlin lands as he could. He also wished
to avenge himself on MacMurrough, something he had never been able to do when
Murtagh MacLoughlin was alive.
As it was, Rory O’Connor, over-chief of Connaught since 1156 became the
over-chief of Tara in 1166, and the MacLoughlins no longer protected MacMurrough in Leinster. Rory was inaugurated
as high king of Ireland in Dublin, the first time that city was used for the ceremony, and which
indicated the growing importance of that city. On MacLoughlin’s death, the
chiefs of north Leinster revolted against MacMurrough, who could only rely on the Ui Chennselaig. Dermot submitted to
O’Connor, but Tiernan O’Rourke was intent on getting his revenge. He intended
at least blinding MacMurrough (Furlong). He and Dermot O’Mellaghlin marched
into Leinster, aided by a revolt of the Norse of Dublin and the chiefs of north Leinster, Offelan and O’Connor
Faly. The MacLoughlins were involved in a succession dispute. Up to this MacMurrough had relied on support
either from Munster or Ulster, but it was not forthcoming at this point. So he sought assistance
in England
Dermot's decision
to invoke the assistance of the Norman knights was the act that provoked a
flood of Normans into Ireland, the intervention of the king of England
to control them, and the establishment of central Irish government on the
latest continental model in Dublin. But it is now recognised that it was only a matter of time when
the Normans came. For them one pretext was as good as another.
[Top]
The Coming
of the Normans
The sequence of events between the departure of
Dermot MacMurrough to Bristol in August 1166 to the departure of Henry II from Ireland
in April 1172 was as follows. The isolated Dermot goes to England,
follows Henry to France, returns to England, recruits in Wales,
and returns quietly to Wexford with a handful of Normans and Flemings in August
1167. He spent the winter quietly in the Augustinian monastery in Ferns, and in
1168 was forced again to submit to Rory O’Connor, who left in possession of the
ten cantreds of Ui Chennselaig. In
May 1169, the first major group of the Normans arrived led
by the ‘brood of Nesta’. With these, Dermot is able to capture Wexford, and to
conquer Ossory and most of north Leinster. Rory O’Connor again led an army against him, but Dermot again
submitted, and promised to dismiss the Normans. In May
1170 Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke and Striguil known as Strongbow,
arrived with a powerful following and Dermot was able to take Dublin. As
promised, Dermot married his daughter to Strongbow. O’Connor again advanced but
seeing the Normans in possession of Dublin, which he did not wish to besiege, withdrew for the year. Dermot
took the opportunity to settle scores with Offelan and Offaly, and then ravaged
all of Tiernan O’Rourke’s land before returning to Ferns for the winter,
leaving the Normans to hold Dublin. In the spring of 1171, Henry II recalled all the Norman knights,
but Strongbow dissuaded him. MacMurrough died unexpectedly in May, leaving
Strongbow as his heir. As usual, the families of north Leinster revolted while Rory
O’Connor gathered an army to besiege Dublin. The
Normans won an
unexpected victory over O’Connor, and the revolt against Strongbow collapsed.
King Henry arrived in October 1171 confirmed Strongbow in his wife’s lands,
namely Leinster, but not in the Viking towns, made arrangements to prevent
Strongbow becoming too powerful, received the submission of many of the Gaelic
chiefs and departed in April 1172.
Once again we have to issue a warning about
sources, or lack of them. The outlines of the story are well known. Besides the
snippets of information given in the Annals
there are two almost contemporary accounts. Both are from the Norman side, one
given by Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald de
Barri, a fitz William fitz Gerald, who belonged to the ‘brood of Nesta’ on his
mother’s side) and the other a Poem in Norman French translated as Dermot and the Earl (Roche). It follows
that there is room for considerable speculation, especially about motives.
[August 1166] In August 1166 Dermot sailed to
Bristol to consult
the Robert Fitzharding the portreeve of Bristol with whom
he had connections. Whether Dermot had intended seeking the permission of Henry
II before he started may be doubtful, but the portreeve would have told him it
was very advisable. Henry was not interested in Ireland
at this stage and made no attempt to accommodate Dermot. Meanwhile O’Rourke
slighted Dermot's palace fortress at Ferns (Fearna),
Dermot's brother Murrough was made chief of the Ui Chennselaig, and Donal
MacGillapatrick, the chief of Ossory was given lands in south Leinster and the custody of
Dermot's son.
[Spring and summer
1167] MacMurrough had to follow the king as far as Gascony and it was
well into 1167 before he caught up with him and paid feudal homage to him.
Henry would not go to Ireland himself but allowed Dermot to recruit among the knights in Wales.
Dermot returned to Bristol where Fitzharding advised him to approach Richard de Clare, Earl of
Striguil, known as Strongbow. Dermot
promised him his daughter's hand and the right of succession to the chiefdom of
Leinster,
which Dermot would have called a kingdom. Strongbow would doubtless have been
useful if he could actually be persuaded to come and bring his followers, but
it seems he only promised to come if nothing better turned up, or if the king
gave his permission. As an earl he would have had to get personal permission
from a suspicious Henry. Strongbow knew too that Dermot's licence was to
recruit knights and such like, not earls. Meanwhile he took care to be
represented by his nephew Hervey de Monte Marisco (Mountmaurice). Dermot also
went to see Rhys ap Gruffydd, the Lord Rhys, the Welsh chief in South Wales, who had Robert
fitz Stephen in his hold. Rhys agreed to release him if he went with Dermot to Ireland.
Others of the ‘brood of Nesta’ joined Robert. Robert fitz Stephen and Maurice
fitz Gerald were to receive the (Norse) town of Wexford and two
adjacent cantreds or parts of tuatha.
In the course of 1167
Rory had assembled as many of the chiefs and bishops as he could from the
northern half of Ireland, including O’Mellaghlin, O’Rourke, O’Carroll, and Ragnal, chiefs of
the Danes of Dublin and got them to recognise his claim.
In August 1167 Dermot MacMurrough returned to
Ireland accompanied by a small group of Normans, Welsh, and Fleming settlers in
Wales under Richard fitz Godebert de la Roche, and displaced his brother.
(Roche, who remarks that his ancestor was among the very first of the
Normans to arrive,
53).
[1168]
Rory O’Connor, probably returning from Munster which he again
partitioned between the O’Briens and
MacCarthys, fought two battles and taking hostages, was content to let Dermot
hold the traditional Ui Chennselaig
lands to the extent of 10 cantreds in south Leinster. He also allowed him to
retain the chieftainship of the Ui Chennselaig .These lands were made
directly subject to O’Connor. In fact, O’Connor was making the Ui Chennselaig lands into a quasi-feudal
fiefdom, as was the growing practice of the Gaelic chiefs of the period. Dermot
had to give up his claim to Leinster and to Dublin and Waterford, which Dermot was unwilling to do. Dermot recognised Rory’s claims
to the high kingship of Ireland, and gave hostages. He was however only biding his time until the
Normans could come
from Wales.
Rory held the Aonach or general meeting at Taillten (Telltown) with the usual
games, and it was for the last time. Adjudicating between MacMurrough and
O’Rourke he said that Dermot must pay 100 ounces of gold as an eric because of
the abduction of his wife. Besides the
award to O’Rourke from MacMurrough, Rory decreed Dermot O’Mellaghlin should pay
a compensation of eight hundred cows to O’Carroll. O’Mellaghlin's people paid
the compensation and promptly deposed O’Mellaghlin. Donal Bregach O’Mellaghlin replaced him in 1169. Clann Cholmain had descended into internecine strife just as the
greatest threat ever was about to engulf them. Rory was doing, what anyone who
wished to be king of Ireland had to do, namely splitting the opposition in the other provinces
. Rory was now
unopposed in Connaught, and the opposition was divided in the other four provinces, so
there was nobody in a position to oppose him. There was no reason to believe
that this state of affairs would not last, and Rory devoted his attention to
ecclesiastical affairs. He granted in 1169 ten cows a year to the lector of Armagh, said to have been the
first endowment for education in Ireland
Donal O’Brien
succeeded his brother Murtagh who was
chief of the O’Briens for only one year when the MacCarthys murdered him in
1168. He was determined to restore the fortunes of the O’Briens, and was known
as Donal Mor (the Great) O’Brien. He
married a daughter of Dermot MacMurrough. To overcome the MacCarthys he had
first to shake off the control of the O’Connors. The ruler of Ossory, Donal
MacGillapatrick then blinded Dermot's son whom he was holding as a hostage,
thus ensuring that he would be the first to be attacked when Dermot was
established. The promised help from Wales
still had not arrived.
[May 1169] Finally,
in May 1169 Robert fitz Stephen arrived at Bannow in
County
Wexford. Fitz Stephen had only
390 men with him, among whom were his nephews Robert de Barry, Meiler fitz
Henry, and Miles fitz David. Maurice de Prendergast joined him the following
day with a force consisting chiefly of Flemings, most of whom were archers.
These latter were a very useful addition to the force. Dermot gathered several
hundred men and they attacked and took
Wexford. Then he attacked and neutralised Ossory before proceeding to deal with
north Leinster. Dermot had a personal grudge against MacGillapatrick for the
blinding of his son. At this time Dermot still ruled only the ten cantreds or tuatha around Ferns allowed to him by
O’Connor. (Presumably, here cantred was used as a direct translation of tuath, though in grants of land to the
Normans we would
expect the Welsh usage to prevail.) He went north and recaptured most of north Leinster. Rory led a strong army
against him, exacted a promise to send back the Normans and not to
bring in more foreigners as soon as Leinster was subdued, and took his son and grandson hostages. The leniency
with which Rory O’Connor dealt with Dermot seems to indicate that he had a personal
regard for him, and also that he wished to see him restored to the
overchieftainship of Leinster as a counterbalance or alternative ally to Tiernan O’Rourke. Dermot
however still wanted to get Dublin back.
Dermot also lent some of the Norman troops under Robert fitz Stephen to assist his
son-in-law Donal O’Brien in Munster. who wished to attack the MacCarthys, but had to fight off an
incursion by Rory O’Connor first. Rory’s attack was not particularly effective,
and the Normans enabled O’Brien to defy O’Connor. There is no reason to believe
that Dermot wanted particularly to defy O’Connor, or to take the field
personally against him.
Questions raise themselves, why did Rory
O’Connor attempt to banish the Normans from Ireland, and who counselled him so to do? The genie was out of the bottle
and there was no way it could be put back. Why did he not offer bigger rewards
to them? Had he done so as the Scottish kings had done, he could have
established a really powerful and modern kingship, centred possibly on the
largest and richest town, Dublin.
[May 1170]
Emboldened by his easy success in getting back Leinster, Dermot next wished to
recapture Dublin, and may even have considered that with more Norman help he could
attain the highkingship himself. How seriously he entertained this ambition we
do not know. He may have just being holding a tempting bait before Strongbow.
Neither he nor Strongbow made practical moves to get more than Leinster. Both he and Strongbow
were quite elderly. He urged Strongbow to come quickly. Strongbow preferred to
regain the favour of Henry II, and was only stung into action when Henry
taunted him that if he wanted lands he could get them in Ireland
(Furlong).
Strongbow
sent on Raymond le Gros fitz Gerald,
who came in May 1170 followed by Hervey de Monte Marisco. The Norse of
Waterford and the O’Phelans of the Decies (Deisi) attacked Raymond’s camp at
Baginbun. 'At the creek of Baginbun, Ireland was lost and won' Their territories had for a long time been claimed by Dermot, so
presumably they considered a pre-emptive strike advisable. Strongbow came
himself then came on 23 August 1170. The attack on
the Norman camp was beaten off, Waterford was captured on 25 August. Only then did Dermot come to the
assistance of the Normans who had been besieged at Baginbun since May. It would
seem that Dermot was carefully considering his options, and if Strongbow had
not decided to come he would have backed Rory O’Connor. Strongbow married
Dermot's daughter Aoife as promised. Dermot was now able to consider a frontal
attack on the walls of Dublin. Raymond le Gros and Miles de Cogan captured the
town, and the Norse chief Asculf and his followers escaped in their ships. This
provoked a response from Rory O’Connor saying that the terms of the agreement
had been breached, and Rory, at the instigation of O’Rourke, killed the
hostages Dermot had given, including Dermot’s youngest son. Rory marched
against Dublin, but as the Norse had begun to seek terms he did not follow up the
attack. Donal O’Brien was considered a
greater priority.
Dermot had other scores to settle. He dealt with
the Ui Faelain (Offelan) branch of
the Ui Dunlainge in north Leinster. Immediately he proceeded to attack O’Rourke's newly acquired
lands in Meath, the ostensible reason being to
assist Donal Bregagh
O’Mellaghlin who submitted to him in 1170. In 1137 Dermot had made a treaty
with Murrough O’Mellaghlin pledging to assist him against an army of equal
power, provided he was left undisturbed in possession of Ui Faelain (Offelan) and Ui
Failge (Offaly=the baronies of East and West Offaly in Kildare.) The
assassination of Conor MacLoughlin in the cathedral precincts of Armagh, showed Dermot that no
help could yet be expected from that direction. O’Connor withdrew without fighting but Dermot followed up the campaign, ravaging
Breifne aided by the new O’Carroll, Murrough, of Oriel. Most people had scores
to settle with Tiernan O’Rourke. O’Carroll and Donal, the chief of Brega, gave
hostages to Dermot and recognised him as overlord. From the list of places more
or less in a line ravaged by Dermot, beginning with the monasteries of Clonard
and Kells, we may conclude that O’Rourke had established himself as overlord of
Meath as far south as the Boyne. It was a simple cattle raid as far as Breifne and back.
He then
retired to Leinster for the winter. Dublin was provided with a garrison under Miles de Cogan, while Strongbow
went to Waterford, now threatened by Dermot McCarthy, who apparently also had designs
on Waterford. Wexford had been consigned to the care of Robert fitz Stephen.
Nothing is recounted of the last six months of Dermot’s life. We might suspect
that he had suffered a stroke, but this is not mentioned.
[Top]
The King’s Reaction
[Spring 1171]
Before they could act the following year Henry II commanded all the Norman
knights to return to England by Easter 1171. Strongbow sent Raymond le Gros to Henry to surrender all his conquests to the king. Then
on 1 May 1171 Dermot died.
Before Dermot died
he had recovered his chiefdom of Leinster, captured Wexford, Waterford, and
Dublin, neutralised Ossory, subdued the rival clans in north Leinster, talked
his way out of confrontation with O’Connor, launched a successful foray into
O’Rourke's lands, and established control over Ui Faelain and Ui Failge
the two unruly border chiefdoms in north Leinster.
By Dermot’s death
comparatively little Gaelic land had changed hands. Two cantreds of largely
wasteland had been granted in Wexford, and the Normans instead of
the Norse controlled the towns of Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford. Strongbow had married Dermot's daughter and had been promised the
right of succession. Much has been made by the purists in the supposed Brehon
Law that Dermot had no right to confer
his chiefdom in this fashion. But there is no reason to suppose that
Dermot was doing more than indicating his preference and placing him in the
best position to secure the chiefdom for himself. If the other claimants
thought they would make a better chief they could assert their belief in the
traditional manner. Gaelic chiefs by the twelfth century had found the means of
keeping the succession normally within the ruling family, just as the Angevins
did.
Thomas a Becket was
murdered at the very end of December 1170. At about the same time news was
brought to Henry of the success of the Earl of Pembroke in Ireland,
and indeed of the probability that Dermot
and Strongbow his adopted heir would overthrow Rory O’Connor and
establish themselves as masters of Ireland.
His first order requiring all the Norman
knights to return to England by Easter on pain of forfeiture of their lands would seem to
indicate that Henry had no intention of pursuing his claim to Ireland
under the terms of Hadrian’s Bull. Strongbow sent Raymond le Gros fitz Gerald to France to
see Henry. The king accepted Strongbow's
offer of the surrender of his lands, and decided to leave him in possession of
Dermot's chiefdom. Henry's decision was not made until July 1171, long after Easter,
at Argentan in Normandy. He decided to go to Ireland
himself, a decision which may have been prompted chiefly by a wish to avoid the
papal legates approaching from Pope Alexander III with instructions to lay his
lands under interdict, a prohibition of celebrating the sacraments. He may also
have been influenced by an appeal from some persons in Ireland
to intervene personally. At any event he sent back Hervey de Monte Marisco to
Strongbow to inform him of his decision. Before setting out for Ireland he
ordered that all clerics coming from the
Continent should be prevented from landing. By August he was in
Portsmouth and by
September he was in Pembroke.
[Summer 1171]
Meanwhile in Ireland, Strongbow had to deal with the troubles in Leinster and in the rest of Ireland
that followed the death of Dermot. He asked Fitz Stephen to transfer some of
his forces from Wexford to
Dublin to face
O’Connor Though Strongbow declared
himself chief, the north Leinster chiefs naturally refused to accept him. So too did most of the Ui Chennselaig led by Murrough MacMurrough, Dermot's nephew,
who expected and got the chieftainship himself. Only Donal Cavanagh an illegitimate son of Dermot, supported Strongbow.
Strongbow alienated more people in Leinster by appointing his own officials. It is far from clear how much
opposition there was to Strongbow within Leinster, and within the Ui
Chennselaig, but we can assume that it fluctuated as various rumours were
carried about. There was no doubt that Strongbow intended introducing some
Norman law and practices.
Four separate
attacks on Strongbow and his supporters developed. Dublin was attacked
by the Norse with assistance from Man and the Scottish Isles and was beaten
off. Then Rory O’Connor gathered an immense army and advanced against
Dublin. Murrough
MacMurrough, Dermot's brother, at least part of the Ui Chennselaig and the chiefs of north Leinster advanced with the high
king. The Norse of Waterford assisted by Dermot McCarthy re-took
Waterford that was
probably largely denuded of defenders. The Norse of Wexford attacked Robert
fitz Stephen in Wexford. Fitz Stephen had built a small defensible fort at
Carrig about two miles outside Wexford, and this he held with five knights and
some archers (with presumably some local troops and hangers-on) while the main
body of his force was sent under his
half-brother Maurice fitz Gerald and his nephew Raymond fitz Gerald to assist
Strongbow.
Rory O’Connor
proceeded to attack the main Norman force in Dublin where
Strongbow, expecting the attack had concentrated it.. With O’Connor were
O’Brien of Thomond, Murrough O’Carroll
of Oriel, Murrough MacMurrough of Leinster, and of course Tiernan O’Rourke. We can assume that all the chiefs
of Connaught were with Rory, but that Donal O’Brien only attended because he was
forced. Absent were the O’Neills, MacLoughlins, and MacCarthys. Ansculf's
premature attack had been driven off, but the Norse chief of Man was still
blockading the port, and in any case Henry had forbidden any more
Normans to proceed
to Ireland. Strongbow's decision to defend Dublin rather than to advance
against O’Connor as the Normans preferred was probably due to the fact that he
dared do nothing to anger Henry II. He also knew that the Gaels knew nothing
about attacking walled towns, and that a large army could only be kept in one
place for a short time before food and fuel ran out. Dublin was loosely
surrounded for two months, enough to prevent supplies getting in. According to
one account the Gaelic cavalry burned the crops in north Leinster, a report which is
likely to be true. The siege lasted two months and food was getting short.
Donal Cavanagh slipped in bringing
news that Fitz Stephen was being besieged outside Wexford. Strongbow sent a
message to Rory offering to hold Leinster under him, but this offer was rejected. Maurice fitz Gerald
was anxious to get back to Wexford to
assist his half-brother Robert fitz Stephen, and proposed that the
Normans sally out
and fight in the open. About ninety mounted knights and others, probably mostly
archers, to a total of about six hundred sallied out and attacked the dispersed
forces of the Gaelic chiefs. Rory's host melted away. It is said that Rory and his entourage were bathing
in the river and every man grabbed his garment
and fled (Hayes-McCoy).
This battle
transformed the whole situation. The fitz Geralds claimed that if they had been left alone they would have
conquered all Ireland. Their first objective was to relieve Robert fitz Stephen, but he,
deceived by a report sworn by two Gaelic bishops that Dublin had been
taken by O’Connor, had surrendered. When Maurice fitz Gerald approached they
took their prisoners to a small island and threatened to murder them if
attacked. Strongbow and Maurice did not attack, but garrisoned Wexford and
Waterford, both
apparently abandoned by their occupiers.
Both Donal O’Brien and Strongbow were married to daughters of Dermot
MacMurrough, and together they now attacked MacGillapatrick of Ossory. Maurice
fitz Gerald had already sent assistance to Donal O’Brien against O’Connor, though
O’Brien had felt it prudent to muster with O’Connor earlier in the summer. He
was now back assisting Strongbow, who also had a shared grievance against the
MacCarthys. MacGillapatrick asked for terms. Then Murrough MacMurrough did
likewise. Murrough was confirmed as chief of the Ui Chennselaig with presumably the lands about Ferns, in return for
recognising Strongbow as over-chief of Leinster. Donal Cavanagh was
granted the pleas of Leinster, which seems to mean he was made Strongbow’s seneschal for the rest
of Leinster. Strongbow's own main strongholds and sources of revenue were the
three towns, a sign of how things were changing in Ireland.
Also it would seem that Strongbow had seized lands in Kildare probably from a branch of the Ui Dunlainge like the O’Tooles. He
certainly had a territorial base in north Leinster separate from the Ui
Chennselaig lands around Ferns in south Leinster. Miles de Cogan was again made constable of Dublin. Doubtless
this was a post with considerable emoluments.
At this point
Hervey de Monte Marisco returned saying that Henry was coming to Ireland,
and was summoning Strongbow to meet him in England.
Strongbow appointed Gilbert de Borard constable of Waterford and went
to meet Henry, finding him in Gloucestershire. Again Strongbow surrendered all
his lands and cities into the king's hands. Henry restored his lands in
Normandy, England,
and Wales, but not the Irish towns. He allowed him Leinster, which was considered
to be his wife's dowry, and not the result of conquest. The charter by which
Strongbow received Leinster as a feudal fief with the obligation to provide the service of a
hundred knights has not survived, but it must have existed. Also there, were
Murrough MacMurrough and the Norse of Wexford, claiming to hold the felon fitz
Stephen whom they wished to hand over to the king. Henry promised to deal
sternly with fitz Stephen for them. There is little doubt too that all or most
of the Gaelic chiefs and bishops sent representatives to meet Henry in England
with a view to protecting themselves, and this role of protector Henry was
willing to assume. Nevertheless, Henry led a full feudal host complete with
siege equipment to Ireland, prepared to deal with Gael and Norman alike. He probably had
little doubt about the cautious Strongbow, who besides his circumspect nature
had much land to loose, but more about the able and impetuous brood of Nesta
who had little to lose and much to gain by defying the king. Getting possession
of fitz Stephen would provide a useful way of controlling them. He assembled
five hundred knights, over three thousand archers and men-at-arms. Those feudal
tenants not accompanying the king paid scutage so that Henry could proceed as
if cost were no obstacle.
[October 1171]
Henry's chief objective was to prevent any of his subjects acquiring too much
land in Ireland so that he became unmanageable. To this end he had to provide a
counterbalance in the form of Hugh de Lacy, with lands in Meath, and
established a government in Ireland,
subject to his own control to maintain the balance. He was prepared to accept
the Gaelic chiefs nominally as feudal tenants, though he had no intention of
imposing feudal law on them, provided they did not attack any of his
possessions, or any of the lands held from the crown. It was in Henry's
interest that the Gaelic chiefs should confine their fighting to among
themselves. In July he dispatched his steward William fitz Aldhelm to Ireland
to act as his representative until he could come himself,
Henry arrived in
Waterford on 17th October 1171. Strongbow did homage for his wife's lands and received them as a
feudal fief. It was the first instance of 'surrender and re-grant' whereby a
chief surrendered a traditional Gaelic title and received the corresponding
title and all its legal implications from the king. Strongbow was not given a
new title, but only the lands of his wife to add to his existing lands. He was
not allowed to keep Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, for Henry wanted those for the support of his own
government. The king appointed Robert Fitzbernard as constable of
Waterford, and on
his departure from Ireland, Hugh de Lacy as constable of Dublin and king's
representative supported by a council. Robert fitz Stephen was handed over to
the king and cast into prison. Fitz Stephen and Maurice fitz Gerald were
deprived of their cantreds. William fitz Aldhelm was made constable of Wexford.
Strongbow however later gave fitz Gerald the middle cantred of Offelan, around
Naas in Kildare.
After Strongbow from Leinster, came Dermot McCarthy
of South Munster (Desmond) who did homage and swore fealty, and gave hostages for
the regular payment of a yearly tribute. Donal O’Brien of North Munster
(Thomond) likewise submitted at Cashel. The king then placed garrisons of his
own in Cork and Limerick. Henry advanced towards Dublin and received
the submission of various chiefs of Leinster, and of O’Rourke and O’Carroll. Chiefs who submitted to him then or
later were reinvested with their lands. Neither O’Connor, MacLoughlin, nor
O’Neill submitted.
In
Dublin, he granted
the city to the men of Bristol with a charter similar to that of Bristol, but there
is no evidence that the men of Bristol were particularly numerous among the new inhabitants of the city.
Henry called a synod of the Irish Church that met at Cashel, and there the bishops swore fealty to him. It
was presided over by Giolla Chriost O’Conarchy, the disciple of Malachy who had
trained as a monk in Clairvaux, became first abbot of Mellifont, and then
bishop of Lismore, and former papal legate. It would seem that tithes were
adopted as the chief means of providing for the Church. The Use of Sarum was to
be adopted in the whole of Ireland,
though it probably had been widely adopted before then (Dolley 69). He sent two
members of his household, Hugh de Lacy and William fitz Aldhelm to Rory
O’Connor, but the latter did not offer his submission. He also established a
royal government in Dublin based on the model of the government of England.
The re-building of the cathedral in Dublin, now called
Christ
Church,
commenced in 1173. Because of the news of a rebellion being fomented by his
eldest son Henry, he returned to England
in April 1172. Before departing he made a feudal grant of lands in Meath to Hugh
de Lacy of Herefordshire who had come over with Henry at the service of 50
knight’s fees. It would seem that he did not partition Meath, but simply
removed Donal Bregach O’Mellaghlin
from his nominal position of provincial overchief and replaced him with Hugh de
Lacy. Donal would have remained chief of the O’Mellaghlins and retained their
lands. But the dues and gifts as provincial overchief would go to de Lacy if he
could collect them. In other words he had to provide fifty knights to the
king’s service when this was demanded. A knight’s fee varied from 10 to 20
ploughlands or townlands, each of about 120 acres of tillable land, which most
of Meath was. Henry’s aims in Ireland
were to restrict the growth of the lands of Strongbow and his followers, and to
show himself a loyal and zealous member of the Church by holding a reforming
synod. Raymond le Gros, the ablest
leader among the Normans, returned to England.
It is
remarkable what he did not do. He placed his own men in charge of the Norse
lands to prevent the Normans exploiting them. He also, following the example of the Irish high
kings, put his own ruler into Meath, to keep out either Strongbow, O’Connor, or
O’Rourke. De Lacy, like Strongbow, would hold the provincial chieftainship, but
as a feudal tenant-in-chief. Whether he left the lesser Irish chiefs in their
places, or whether he made grants of land to his own followers was immaterial,
so long as he maintained 50 loyal knights. Donal Bregach simply ignored Henry’s dispositions. Henry does not seem to
have officially appointed anyone to overall charge, but rather left de Lacy and
Strongbow in the position of marcher lords, each responsible for his own
district. Even when he later got round to appointing a chief representative, he
was called merely a procurator. A procurator was a fiscal officer, responsible
chiefly for seeing that the dues to the king were promptly paid, and reporting
to the king if they were not. He would have had overall responsibility for
overseeing the constables of the towns. Though it is possible that de Lacy was
appointed justiciar briefly. Responsibility for law and order, justice etc, and
defence of the boundaries would have lain with the local feudal lords, like de
Lacy, Strongbow, MacCarthy or O’Brien. There is little doubt that Henry
intended returning frequently to Ireland,
perhaps ever two or three years. (Some regard Hugh de Lacy as a justiciar in
1172-3 even though he was only a procurator from 1177 to 1181. It is more
likely that justiciars properly so called commenced in 1185 when Prince John
was made Lord of Ireland.)
[Top]
The
First Years of Henry’s Lordship (1172 – 1176)
[April 1172] De
Lacy had to proceed gradually with the subinfeudation, starting with Norse
county Dublin, and then dealing with Brega and finally dealing with the lands
of Clann Cholmain. Subinfeudation in itself would not amount to an enormous
amount of land, as most of the townlands would remain with their original
cultivators, and the traditional contributions and exactions to the local
chiefs would be made to the knight. The exact social standing of the knight is
not clear, though in most cases he would have belonged to a land-owning family
in Britain or Normandy, even if he were only a younger son. The holder of a knight’s fee
was called a baron, showing that words had not always arrived at their later
meanings. The knight would correspond to the oglaech.
. De Lacy
was not in favour of dispossessing any Irish chiefs. Nor was Strongbow. Among
the Irish the Normans were not regarded as different from the Norse, even if the spoke a
different language in everyday speech. They had a common religion and a common
written and spoken language in Latin. Nobody had any objection to giving their
daughters to men of the other groups if there was any advantage to them in so
doing. Very soon, the whole aristocracy of Ireland
was of a mixed race even though in particular castles a different language was
spoken.
Though the Norse chiefs or rulers of
Dublin,
Waterford, Limerick, and Wexford were
dispossessed and their cities taken directly under the royal constables the
only Gaelic chief dispossessed was O’Mellaghlin, and seemingly only from the
overlordship of Meath, and here Henry was not innovating. The O’Connors and
MacLoughlins had been imposing their own rulers for much of the century, while
O’Rourke and O’Carroll were determined to seize as much of it as they could for
themselves. No doubt Dermot MacMurrough (and Strongbow) would also have seized
all or part of it, as the O’Mellaghlins were clearly unable to defend it. It
matters little if he was primarily concerned at keeping it out of Strongbow's
or O’Connor's hands when he forestalled them and granted it to Hugh de Lacy. de
Lacy would have to conquer it for himself, and hold it by subinfeudation.
de Lacy's
first grants were in the present county
Dublin, and
were probably Norse lands belonging to the Norse warriors who had fled. He
advanced into Meath to forestall any attempt by Strongbow to take over lands
claimed by Dermot MacMurrough. Tiernan O’Rourke came to him to claim lands in
Meath that he had held in 1169, but was killed accidentally as the result of a
quarrel (1172). He did not long survive his great rival from Leinster, and with his death
the power of the O'Rourkes declined. Two small motte-and-bailey castles were
built in Meath, one at Trim and the other at Duleek, obviously aimed at
protecting that part of Meath from O’Rourke.
The castle of Trim was given to Hugh Tyrel. Then he was summoned to Henry in France
and did not return until the death of Strongbow in 1176. The small wooden
motte-and-bailey castles at Trim and
Duleek were too small to hold out against a major hosting from Connaught, and presumably were
never intended to. He sub-infeudated the lands around Dublin, and later
made similar grants in Meath, but not apparently before the invasion of
O’Connor in 1174. Nothing was done for the moment to sub-infeudate Meath.(Some
historians consider the attack on the O’Farrells of Conmaicne unwarranted and a clear case of Norman landgrabbing. The Conmaicne had been subject to Clann Cholmain for centuries, and
latterly had been forcibly subjected to O’Rourke. In seizing Conmaicne the aim was to keep out the O’Rourkes. In fact the
O’Farrells came to an agreement by which they kept most of their land until the
end of the Middle ages.)
[Spring 1173] In the spring of 1173 de Lacy and Strongbow
were both summoned to assist Henry in his war in Normandy. William
fitz Aldhelm was sent to act as Henry’s representative as bailiff of
Dublin. Fitz
Aldhelm held a synod at Waterford, and for the first time, Hadrian’s Bull Laudabiliter which gave Henry papal sanction to establish law in Ireland
was published. Hervey de Monte Marisco (Herv– de Mount Maurice), Strongbow’s uncle, was left in charge of Leinster in Strongbow’s
absence.
In the autumn the king appointed Strongbow as a custos or guardian, possibly also of
Dublin. Most of the
Norman knights were summoned to assist Henry and he then sent fitz Stephen and
others to assist the king against the rebels in England.
Strongbow led an expedition against Offelan in North Leinster and finally
reduced it. Raymond le Gros had to be
recalled and he led a plundering expedition against the Ui Failge. It was essential to prepare for a permanent strong
government in Leinster, such as Dermot MacMurrough had achieved for ten years. Henry
restored to him the small but useful ports of Wicklow and Wexford. He built
castles of the motte-and-bailey type at New Ross, Kilkenny of Ossory, Dunamase
in Ui Failge and other points. The
building of these castles was something Dermot could have done years before,
but the Irish tradition was simply to take hostages and murder them if there
was any rebellion. Maurice fitz Gerald was made Lord of Naas. The ever-rebellious
Offelan was divided between Maurice fitz Gerald, who got the middle cantred,
Robert fitz Stephen, and Meiler fitz Henry. Tethmoy or Carbury was given to
Robert de Birmingham. Robert de Carew received the baronies of Idrone and Forth
(Ui Drona Idrone had long since been
occupied by the Sil Cormaic branch of
the Ui Chennselaig, only the name
remaining. This does not mean that the Sil
Cormaic appreciated being in turn
displaced.) In Wexford, grants were made to the Prendergasts and others. By
this time Strongbow was completely established in Leinster, having taken hostages
of all the noble families. By the time of his death had had sub-infeudated most
of Leinster, though the MacMurroughs were left with considerable parts of the Ui Chennselaig lands. MacGillapatrick
was left with most of Ossory, apart from the lands assigned to the castle at
Kilkenny, and the Loigse lands were
largely untouched. A line was drawn between those who supported Dermot
MacMurrough and Strongbow and those who opposed them. The displaced chiefs like
O’Byrnes and O’Tooles had then to seize the lands of lesser chiefs in less
fertile areas. The O’Tooles seized the lands of the Ui Mail, and so on.
He then led an attack on the O’Phelans of the
Decies who were again advancing on Waterford. The
incident which provoked his attack on the Decies was probably very slight,
perhaps no more than a minor local cattle raid into the king’s lands outside
Waterford, such as
had taken place hundreds of times before. But it was to snowball into a general
Irish attack directed at Strongbow and Leinster. Raymond quickly routed the army of Desmond that had come to assist
the O’Phelans, doubtless claiming to be their overlords, and drove 4000 cattle
into Waterford. A Norse fleet from Cork, doubtless assisting McCarthy, was also defeated. (This, of course,
paved the way for the later grant of most of the MacCarthy land to Robert fitz
Stephen and Miles de Cogan in 1177.) Minor cattle raids were no longer a summer
diversion, but could have catastrophic consequences for whole dynasties.
The defeat of
McCarthy then roused his old rival Donal O’Brien to action. Late in 1173, with
assistance from Rory O’Connor's son, he attacked Ossory, and the Norman
garrison in the fort at Kilkenny withdrew to Waterford. At this juncture,
over an unrelated issue, Raymond le Gros quarrelled
with Strongbow and returned to England.
Hervey de Monte Marisco was placed in charge of Strongbow's Leinster army. Though
Strongbow, as custos could claim that
he was acting in the royal interest it is clear that all these attacks were
made on Leinster by the people who usually attacked Leinster. Strongbow was not a
great warrior, and neither was Marisco. Of the brood of Nesta, Robert fitz
Stephen had been called to England
by Henry, while Maurice. fitz Gerald was not active. On the other side, Rory
O’Connor had been inactive since the scattering of his hosting before
Dublin.
[1174] Strongbow's counter-raid against O’Brien the
following year proved a disaster and his army, commanded by Hervey de Monte
Marisco, was forced back to Waterford to take shelter. Most of this army were Norse, not Normans, whose
losses were therefore slight. Most of them were drawn from Dublin. Art
O’Mellaghlin in 1173 murdered his brother Donal Bregach who had submitted to Dermot MacMurrough in 1169, so
O’Connor moved in to re-establish his own claims and exclude de Lacy. O’Brien
does not appear to have followed up his victory over the Normans that may in
any case have been accomplished largely with O’Connor's assistance, so
Strongbow was able to come from Waterford to repel O’Connor in Meath. Raymond le Gros had been persuaded to return, and though O’Connor had raided almost as far as Dublin he withdrew when the main Norman force came
towards him. It would seem that O’Connor had no further objectives than to
pinch out the little castles at Kilkenny, Trim, and Duleek. The Norman forces
pursued, and as was usual at the time devastated the country they passed
through. Art O’Mellaghlin was left undisturbed.
It is clear from
the pattern of attacks that before 1175 no attempts were made by the original Norman knights to establish
themselves anywhere except in Leinster and in those adjacent territories claimed by Dermot MacMurrough.
King Henry himself granted Meath to de Lacy, but on more or less the same
grounds as earlier Gaelic chiefs had done. The O’Mellaghlin chief of Meath had
in fact submitted to MacMurrough. Henry obviously wished, in making this grant,
to prevent Strongbow making it as over-chief of Leinster to followers of his
own. In any case, by sub-infeudation, a minor local chief was deprived of
whatever local rights to rule that still remained with him. His lands and
authority, which would not have exceeded those of a later magistrate, were
simply transferred to another. His rights to the lands he occupied were
probably very dubious as was usually the case of Gaelic titles to land.
Rory O’Connor saw
advantages in 1174 of submitting to Henry, but the settlement he made was
nullified by his own sons both of whom
attacked their father with the assistance of Norman knights they summoned, one
in 1177 and the other in 1186. He was influenced not only by the power of the
Normans in Leinster and Meath, but also by
the fact that Donal O’Brien had links with the Normans of Leinster even if he
were temporarily fighting against them. He was liable therefore to be attacked
at any time from Thomond, Leinster, and Meath. If McCarthy attacked Waterford then
O’Brien would change sides again and ally himself with Leinster.
[1175] Civil war
broke out among the MacCarthys and Dermot McCarthy was deposed and was replaced
by his son Cormac. Donal O’Brien seized his opportunity. He blinded some
relatives who might challenge him at home and raided as far as Killarney.
O’Connor promptly sought Norman help and attacked O’Brien. Raymond le Gros and
Meiler fitz Henry led 700 Norman troops and Limerick was captured and garrisoned.
O’Connor
concluded a treaty with Henry at Windsor. It was agreed that O’Connor should hold his own chiefdom of Connaught under Henry as his
liege and to pay a tribute for it. The other Gaelic chiefs were also to pay
tribute, not directly but through
O’Connor. (This meant that they had to pay a tribute to O’Connor as well.) Leinster, Meath as held by
Murrough O’Mellaghlin (i.e. before the various partitions, the whole of Clann Cholmain lands as held earlier in
the century) and the Norse territories of Dublin and
Waterford were to
pay their tribute directly to the crown. This was the same as when Henry left Ireland
but with the exception that O’Connor was allowed and encouraged to enforce the
tribute in the non-reserved parts of Ireland.
The principal losers in this diplomatic move were O’Brien and MacCarthy who
lost the opportunity given by their early submission to Henry of paying a
single tribute directly to Henry instead of a double tribute through O’Connor.
The latter doubtless saw no difficulty in enforcing the tribute even in the
North with the assistance of the Normans.
[1176] Donal
O’Brien again rebelled and blockaded Limerick, and Raymond relieved it. O’Brien gave hostages. Then at the
request of Dermot MacCarthy he went into Desmond and restored him. Art
O’Mellaghlin was left as chief of the Clann
Cholmain hereditary lands in Westmeath until 1184 after which the O’Mellaghlins were
nonentities. Though the family survived until the end of the Middle Ages it was
not counted among the great Irish lords.. By 1176, beginnings were made on
castles at Slane, Kells, Galtrim and Derrypatrick in east Meath, in the lands of
the Cianachta conquered and occupied
so long ago by the Sil nAedo Slaine.
These were essential to block any further incursions by the O’Rourkes, now
under a different branch of the family. They would also serve to screen
Dublin against an
attack either from the west or the north. Hugh de Lacy had apparently made
these grants of land at the time he was making grants in Dublin, and to the
same people. Those who got grants preferred to establish their manors in
county
Dublin first
(Otway-Ruthven).
About this time ( the date is disputed but it
was either April or more probably June 1176)
Strongbow died leaving an infant daughter and all his lands reverted to
the king. Strongbow, besides being the overlord of Leinster, was also charged with
the duty of protecting the king's interests in other parts of Ireland,
receiving the tribute from the Gaelic chiefs through O’Connor and defending the
cities Henry had retained for himself. Maurice fitz Gerald died in September
1176 having received the part of Offelan around Naas by subinfeudation from
Strongbow. Raymond le Gros was in
charge of the military forces and in effect was Strongbow's deputy. He was busy
defending the king's interest in Limerick against O’Brien, and assisting MacCarthy in Desmond. He continued
to act after the death of Strongbow. So, until the death of Strongbow, the only
strong objection to the settlement with Henry came from the O’Briens, always
anxious to score over the MacCarthys. Donal Mor
(the Great) O’Brien was one of the greatest chiefs of the O’Briens, and had the
Normans not upset matters might have achieved much more for his clan. As
Strongbow left only an infant daughter as heiress, under feudal law, his lands
reverted to the care of the crown. It was left to Raymond le Gros to deal with the
outbreak of revolts that followed Strongbow's death.
[Top]
Political
Changes after the Death of Strongbow 1176
The allegiance of
the Gaelic chiefs was sworn to Henry, but not to Strongbow, except of course
within Leinster, but there was every chance that they would try to gain something
in the interval before a new royal representative could be appointed and take
up his post. Raymond decided that with
the forces at his disposal he could not hold Limerick if O’Connor were to
rebel. He agreed with Donal O’Brien that he should hold it for the king and
withdrew his forces but the latter burned it immediately it was evacuated.
O’Connor did nothing. Hervey de Monte Marisco had been spreading rumours about
Raymond at court and Henry sent four commissioners to Ireland
to investigate and to bring Raymond back to England.
The commissioners decided to leave Raymond in Ireland
until a new royal representative could arrive.
This proved to be
William fitz Aldhelm again still as procurator. It seems certain that his
instructions from Henry were to protect the royal interests and to ensure that the brood of Nesta, who were never
trusted by Henry, did not unreasonably enrich themselves. The account of fitz
Aldhelm we have is from the hand of one
of the brood, Giraldus, so naturally it is very unfavourable. John de Courci
who had not been to Ireland before, Robert fitz Stephen, and Miles de Cogan accompanied him.
His first problem was caused by the death of Maurice fitz Gerald (1176) On the
death of Maurice his sons were allowed to keep the lands in Offelan around Naas
but not their stronghold at Wicklow nor the middle cantred of Offaly. Why
exactly fitz Aldhelm did this is not
obvious, but presumably there was some defect in the title to Offaly. (Or
Maurice may not have occupied it, concentrating
first on the safer region of Offelan nearer Dublin.) Their
claim to Wicklow was later vindicated.
Either Maurice fitz Gerald or his sons commenced the building of a castle at
Maynooth, later to be a great Geraldine fortress and the first in Ireland
to be reduced by cannon fire. fitz Aldhelm also refused to recognise Raymond le Gros’ claims to lands in
Dublin and Wexford.
This may have been precautionary until Raymond cleared himself before the king.
At this point
Malachy MacLoughlin and Murrough O’Carroll raided Meath but the reason is not
obvious. MacLoughlin was still engaged in a struggle with Aed O’Neill . (A
different tradition says that it was Aed O’Neill who led 3,000 Irishmen to
assist O’Connor. In 1177 MacLoughlin slew Aed.) This raid was an irrelevance.
Of much more
importance was that yet another Gaelic chief sought the assistance of the
Normans, and one Norman knight disregarded the authority of fitz Aldhelm and
the king and gave it. Though written sources of history are much more
abundant for this period we are still
left with quite a lot of guesswork. This raid was to have consequences for Ireland
which were to last to this day. Yet it seems to have commenced in a minor
dispute in a chiefly family. In Ulster (Ulaid, roughly the present counties of
Antrim and Down), the MacDonlevy branch of the Dal Fiatach provided most of the over-chiefs. They were based in
the east of county Down and south Antrim, i.e. the diocese of Down. In the west of
County
Down, the
diocese of Dromore, were the lands of the Ui
Eachach Choba (Iveagh) under the MacCartans and Magennises. In Antrim,
diocese of Connor, the Dal nAraide survived but were under pressure
from the Ui Tuirtre branch of the Oirgialla who were being displaced from
their lands west of the Bann by the Ui
Neill. Under similar pressure the Fir
Li also seem to have crossed into Antrim.
[1177]
There is little doubt that the party of knights and perhaps mostly of Gaelic
soldiers which de Courci led from Dublin to Downpatrick in January 1177 was led by a member of the Dal Fiatach family. The Norman knight
was John de Courci who was apparently a member of the de Courci family that had
lands in Oxfordshire and Somersetshire. He seemingly came to Ireland
about the time fitz Aldhelm came for the second time after the death of
Strongbow. This was an unauthorised private adventure. Events in Ulster
continued unconnected with events in the rest of Ireland
for many years to come. The mid-winter march in four days implies a heavy
frost. What exactly happened then is not clear. Rory MacDonlevy fled and de
Courci was given considerable lands, the small baronies of Upper and Lower Lecale, i.e. around
Downpatrick the principal stronghold of the MacDonlevys. Rory MacDonlevy remained chief of much of his
territory until 1201 allied to the Anglo-Normans. But initially he tried to
repulse de Courci, was defeated, and tried again with the assistance of Malachy
MacLoughlin. de Courci over the next five years held on to his lands around
Downpatrick against attacks by either Rory MacDonlevy or Cumee O’Flynn of the Ui Tuirtre. de Courci never sought
recognition from the crown, and ruled like an Irish chief. Gradually he
succeeded in establishing himself strongly.
. In 1181 the O’Neills and the O’Cahans returned
to their ancient pursuit of attacking the Ulaid
which seems to have led to a rapprochement between de Courci and MacDonlevy.
For most of the rest of his life de Courci was supported by the Gaels in his
struggles with de Lacy and the king, or
the O’Neills. In 1180 he was sufficiently powerful to marry Affrica the
daughter of the Norse chief of Man who was also connected by blood with the
MacLoughlins and the Scottish Lords of the Isles. He built two great castles,
one at Carrickfergus and one at Dundrum which remained in English hands even
during the greatest extension of Gaelic power at the end of the Middle Ages.
Carrickfergus was the only trading town north of Dundalk until the founding of
Newry in the reign of Elizabeth I. He organised his lands on Norman lines, built many motte-and
bailey castles in the more fertile areas, improved agriculture, founded or
re-founded monasteries, and transferred the cathedral of the diocese to Down.
The two Cistercian monasteries in county Down, Inch Abbey (1187) and Grey Abbey
(1193), founded by de Courci, are probably the earliest Gothic buildings in
Ireland .The remains of St Patrick, St Brigit, and St Columcille were allegedly
discovered in one grave beside the monastery of Down, so de Courci profited by
this discovery to transfer the cathedral nearer to his own residence. Instead
of the Augustinian canons installed by St Malachy he imported English
Benedictines from Chester. The name Downpatrick dates from the time of John de Courci who
also changed the dedication of the church to St Patrick.) The career of de
Courci shows that no new policy of land-grabbing was started. Like the first
Normans to arrive,
de Courci backed one side in a Gaelic dispute in the hope of gaining lands for
himself. This was the strategy of all soldiers of no great importance belonging
to chiefly or noble families who had no lands of their own, or too little
lands. de Courci had a small estate in England.
Less important was
the Norman intervention in the dispute in Connaught led by Miles de Cogan later the same year. The O’Connor dynasty was
about to dissolve in internecine strife allowing the de Burghs to establish an
overlordship. But this did not happen immediately. As often we are left
guessing with regard to the reasons for the raid or why the Normans, or some of them, supported it. Rory O’Connor's
son, Murrough, quarrelled with his
father, so with his own supporters and some of the garrison of Dublin under de
Cogan raided his father's lands. Whatever the reason the expedition was a
failure; Murrough was captured by his father and blinded. The Normans in
Dublin had no
dispute with Rory O’Connor, or he with
them. Another of Rory's sons was to be more successful nine years later. It would seem that de Cogan
was just imitating de Courci and hoping to get more land in Connaught if the expedition
succeeded. The raids of de Courci and de Cogan showed that individual
Normans with a
handful of personal followers backed up by local Gaelic troops could not defeat
a major provincial chief.
Henry called a
Council at Oxford in May 1177 and the arrangements of the Treaty of Windsor 1175 were
reviewed and renewed. Aldhelm, fitz Stephen, and de Cogan were summoned to
attend. Fitz Stephen had supported Henry in his wars in 1173 and 1174 and was
now back in favour. O’Connor continued to pay the tribute. Henry felt that it
was necessary to make further arrangements regarding Leinster and Meath on the
principle that no Norman lord should become excessively dominant. Ireland
was to become a 'lordship' for his ten-year old son Prince John, who was, with
the approval of the papal legate, Cardinal Vivian, made Lord of Ireland. The
recently acquired Ireland could conveniently provide a feudal territory for Prince John
without having to take away from the feudal fiefs of his older brothers. Henry
had called him John Lackland because he had no land, and he was his father's
favourite. Ossory was joined to Waterford to be a royal domain, and to provide revenue for John and the
Government of Ireland, and was to be administered by Robert le Poer as royal
marshal. (From him came the Powers of Waterford.) The town and lands of
Wexford, and Strongbow's lands in Carlow and the adjacent regions were to be
administered by fitz Aldhelm until the king decided what to do with Strongbow's
heiress. The lands of Offelan and Offaly were attached to Meath that was
confirmed to Hugh de Lacy, who was now required to provide 100 knights. Nothing
was done about de Courci in the North presumably because Henry considered that
in the sphere of O’Connor.
There were, apparently, grants of Desmond and
Thomond doubtless to punish the contumacy of both O’Brien and McCarthy, who had
sworn allegiance to Henry. As often happens we know almost nothing of the
circumstances of the grant, and what we do know comes often from the very
biased Giraldus Cambrensis who was
opposed to everybody but the fitz Geralds.
The grant in Desmond was made to Robert fitz Stephen and Miles de Cogan
and the grant in Thomond to various courtiers and then to Philip de Braose who
did nothing about it. Nobody, it seems, was willing to do anything while Donal
O’Brien was still alive. Such grants were sometimes called speculative grants; i.e. that the
named persons could have them if they could conquer them with their own
resources. They were real grants, and served as a warning to the chief against
whom they were made. All parties knew that the probable effects would be
slight. In fact de Cogan and fitz Stephen just occupied the Norse town of Cork,
which the MacCarthys had conquered, which was itself reserved to the king, and
seven cantreds of its adjacent lands presumably originally the Norse lands.
Dermot McCarthy apparently compounded with the Normans who were assisted by
Donal O’Brien's son Murtagh. As Otway-Ruthven notes we have no information
about Cork telling why the king made this grant, though the story of the actual
occupation of the lands was told by fitz Stephen to his nephew Gerald Barry
(Giraldus).
Henry's main
concern was Meath. Henry had granted Hugh de Lacy Meath, but he had little
chance to occupy it, being summoned to assist Henry in France in
his wars there. However by 1186 six motte-and-bailey castles had been built in
County
Meath, all of
them in the eastern part in the lands formerly controlled by the Sil nAedo Slaine. He was sent back to Dublin as procurator
general, the actual seat of the Government in 1177, his grant of Meath was
renewed, and to it were added the Offelan, Offaly, Kildare, and Wicklow parts
of Leinster. Formerly he had held Meath by the service of fifty knights that
meant that he was obliged to provide lands for their support. He held his new
domains by the service of 100 knights. These knights were to be sent to the
king whenever Henry requested them. In
the meantime they were at the chief governor's disposal. He would need also
several hundred archers and foot-soldiers, but many of these could be procured
locally, either Gaelic, English, or Norse.
de Lacy had no orders to seize more lands than
were necessary for the purposes of providing for the knights and the castles,
nor did he do so. He took care not to offend the greater Gaelic lords, there
being plenty of other land he could seize. O’Mellaghlin lands presumably came
under the latter category. He married a daughter of Rory O’Connor. He built
other castles, and at the time of his death was building one at Durrow in
Offaly on O’Mellaghlin lands. In 1184 he built a castle at Ballymore in Westmeath
in O’Mellaghlin territory on the site of one of
their forts. It was to become the principal de Lacy, and later de Verdon
stronghold in Westmeath. About 1180 he occupied Castlepollard also in
Westmeath. In 1181 he granted the barony of Delvin to Gilbert de Angulo or
Gilbert Nugent his brother-in-law. This was clearly aimed at protecting Meath from O’Rourke attacks.
In 1180 on the
death of Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole (of the O’Tooles of Wicklow) the king
decided to have elected one of his own
trusted clerics, John Comyn, as
archbishop. Comyn had served as an itinerant justice and in 1179 was one of the justices who established the new
circuits in England. In 1181 Henry persuaded the canons of the diocese to elect him and
he went to Rome were he was ordained priest and consecrated bishop by the Pope in
March 1182. He did not come to Ireland
until 1184. Archbishop Comyn was sent to Dublin at the same
time as Philip of Worcester to prepare for the reception of Prince John as Lord
of Ireland. John was probably eighteen at the time, and his father knighted
him. His chief preoccupation was to introduce the modern practices with regard
to the liturgy, with regard to canon law, and with regard to the feudal tenure
of Church lands. He was an able and energetic bishop. Outside the city walls to
the south, he demolished a small parochial church, and commenced building a
collegiate church with endowments for thirteen canons who would be devoted to
study. A cathedral school was clearly intended. In 1184 he obtained from Prince
John the rights to hold courts anywhere in Ireland,
presumably intending to establish royal circuit courts. In 1185 he secured the
union of the impoverished diocese of Glendalough, now in the lands of the
O’Tooles, with the archdiocese of Dublin. In 1186 he held a provincial synod in his province and dealt with
the usual clerical abuses of the time. He was frequently involved in disputes
with royal officials usually over Church property.
The wars continued in the North with de Courci
gradually getting the upper hand. In 1181 and 1182 Donal MacLoughlin attacked Ulaid territories and in the latter year
was signally defeated by de Courci. The castle of
Carrickfergus
was built in 1178. Because of accusations against him, de Lacy was briefly
suspended from his duties, and replaced by John de Lacy and Richard of the
Peak. In 1182 trouble broke out in Cork. One of the
MacCarthys murdered Miles de Cogan and Ralph fitz Stephen son of Robert. This
was followed by an attack by the MacCarthys on Cork but Raymond le
Gros beat off the attack. Robert fitz Stephen probably died the following year,
and Raymond le Gros in shortly
afterwards. In 1183 Rory O’Connor retired to the monastery of Cong leaving the
chieftainship to his son Conor. This set the scene for the long struggle
between Cathal Crovderg O’Connor and
the other O’Connors that lasted until 1250. In 1184 Philip of Worcester was
appointed procurator of Ireland. de Lacy was left undisturbed in his other appointments. His
removal from the office of procurator seems to have been to facilitate the
assumption by Prince John of his duties as Lord of Ireland. Leinster and Meath were
effectively under the king’s control. In the three other provinces, nominally
under the O’Connors, the ruling families were engaged in interminable
internecine struggles. Mesne chiefs, in areas close to Leinster or Meath like the
O’Carrolls of Oriel, or the O’Farrells of Conmaicne usually submitted to the
crown and kept most of their land and freedom.
It is clear that so
far Henry had no intention of dispossessing the Gaelic chiefs; he was prepared
to accept their submission and some tribute. Doubtless at some future time he would have entered into a more formal feudal relationship with them, or
expected his son to do so. Nobody expected that the boy John would become king
of England. He was intended to be king of Ireland
and to have the same feudal relationship to the king of England
that the king of Scotland had. He had accepted Strongbow's position in Leinster (and later de Courci's in Ulster),
took over the overlordship of Meath to prevent anyone else taking it, reserved
the Norse cities to the crown for the same reason, and finally made some grants
in Munster more as a warning to the chiefs who showed disloyalty than anything
else. He had come to an agreement with Rory O’Connor that the other chiefs
should pay their tribute through him.
From the twelfth century onwards some attempts were being made to provide a
common law over entire counties and kingdoms. The introduction of itinerant
justices and circuits of justices helped this development. For Henry the
purpose of any conquest was to get more soldiers or a contribution of cash in
lieu. This was best done by assigning lands to particular knights, allowing
them to acquire the territory, i.e. to take the lands of the ruling families in
exactly the same way as Gaelic chiefs traditionally did, and to develop the
trade and agriculture.
[Top]
John, Lord of Ireland
The resignation of Rory
O’Connor in 1183 brought the Treaty of Windsor to an end. The new chief of Connaught would have to
re-negotiate the treaty. There were no perpetual treaties between states, only
feudal relationships between families that had to be confirmed at each generation.
What Henry had to do at this stage was to make the royal government independent
of the great Norman lords, and to subject Norman lord and Gaelic chief equally
to its authority. It was no longer possible just to regard Strongbow and de
Lacy as marcher lords. This was clearly the necessary second stage of the
acquisition of Ireland.
Lewis Warren has
pointed out that the transfer of the lordship to Henry’s son was meant to
establish Ireland as a feudal kingdom separate from England.
(In the event Ireland was not formally made a kingdom until the reign of Henry VIII. But
when John unexpectedly became king of England in 1199, the kingdom of England
and the lordship of Ireland were merged in the person of the king and his
successors) A full conquest of Ireland
was not envisaged, but the king of Ireland would be like the king of Scotland,
presiding equally over Gaelic chiefs and Norman lords. What Prince John had
therefore to do was to provide the Government of Ireland with an independent
power base (Warren in Lydon p. 27).
[1185] Looked at in the wider perspective of
John's career his first visit was not
the disaster it was portrayed at the time. It is true that he failed to deal
properly with the Anglo-Norman nobles, especially de Lacy. He arrived in
Waterford in April
1185
Prince John,
aged about seventeen arrived with 300 knights and perhaps 3000
men-at-arms. With him went one of Henry II’s chaplains, and archdeacon of the
diocese of St David’s in Wales,
Gerald de Barri who signed himself as Giraldus
Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales). Unfortunately he had surrounded himself with
young courtiers, and the Irish chiefs
who came to make their submission were not impressed, at least according to the
resentful Giraldus who felt that his family, the brood of Nesta, were not
sufficiently rewarded. Along with him
came Theobald Walter the king's butler, Bertram de Verdun (or Verdon) his
steward or seneschal, and William de Burgh who were to found great houses in Ireland
who were given great grants of land. Philip of Worcester, was given five cantreds in the marchlands of
north Munster (south Tipperary), Theobald Walter, the Butler of Ireland, five
and a half cantreds in North Tipperary (around Nenagh, while William de Burgh
was given fiefs along the Shannon. These were lands that the O’Briens had
seized from the Eoganacht of Cashel
(Map Otway-Ruthven 68). Gerald de Barri
was twice offered an Irish bishopric but declined them. He stayed until
December.
There occurred
several outbreaks of war and lawlessness that played into the hands of John and
his advisers. These outbreaks had no connection with the presence of Prince
John. Just before the arrival of John, the procurator Philip of Worcester led
an expedition northwards as far as Armagh. Ulster was involved in a major three-way conflicts, between the O’Neills,
the MacLoughlins, and de Courci. The various Norman knights involved themselves
in the affairs in Connaught, where Rory retirement to a monastery had resulted in the usual
disputes, and Rory became involved in a war against his son Conor, into which
dispute Cathal Crovderg O’Connor had
to intervene as well.. Inevitably , Donal O’Brien got involved., and there was
always the simmering problem of war with the MacCarthys. The prince and his
advisors had to something about them, in order to maintain the king’s peace. It
was proposed to occupy the marchlands between each of the provinces and to
settle them with Norman knights. Most
of these lands were wastes and forests (Warren op.cit)
The first border to be parcelled out and occupied
was that between Munster and Leinster. The second stage was to take over some of the lands of the Oirgialla in south Ulster
between Meath and the territory of de Courci. The third stage was to
occupy the marchlands along the Shannon between Meath and Connaught. The fourth stage was to occupy the marchlands between Meath and Connaught and the chiefs of the
North (Warren) The crown would therefore settle its own men in a great horseshoe
around Meath and Leinster. It would start at the coast north of Drogheda, sweep inland as far
as the middle course of the Shannon, and then bend back to reach the sea at Waterford. An
extension to this was the occupation of
the old Ui Fidgente lands in Limerick between the O’Briens
and MacCarthys. Only minor chiefs would have been dispossessed of their mensal
lands, and the greater chiefs were doing that already wherever they could. This
plan would have left the major chiefs in possession of the central core of
their lands, and would have cleared the freebooters from their borders, and would have prevented the
major chiefs from attacking each other.. The Gaelic chiefs seem not to have
opposed this scheme, but rather to have favoured it. The O’Briens for example
considered that they were being protected from the MacCarthys. On the death of
Donal O’Brien his sons co-operated with
the Normans and William de Burgh married one of Donal's daughters.
This policy of
collaborating with the greater Gaelic
chiefs at the expense of the lesser had the effect of reducing the untrammelled
power of the Gaelic chiefs but it could have compensations for them too.
O’Brien got both protection and support. Cathal Crovderg O’Connor got the recognition of his authority in Connaught and the right to hold
some lands under feudal law that meant that they would pass to his son on his
death.
The carry the plan
into execution, grants of land in the appropriate areas were made to several
powerful men newly arrived from England,
but not to the ‘brood of Nesta’ to the great disgust of Giraldus. Their turn
was to come later, for from the descendants of Maurice fitz Gerald, the
Geraldine earls of Kildare and of Desmond who were among the most powerful
nobles in Ireland in the Middle Ages. The Gerald from who the Geraldines got their
name was Gerald fitz Maurice fitz Gerald the husband of Nesta.
It would seem that
the grant was given, possibly verbally, of certain lands in north Leinster
fairly recently conquered by the O’Carrolls of Oriel, but little seems to have
been done about them until after the death of Murrough O’Carroll in 1189. Even
then de Verdon went with King Richard to the Holy Land and died in Joppa in
1192. Bertram de Verdon was given the lands in the territory of the Oirgialla that the O’Carrolls had
conquered earlier in the century. The lands in present day
County
Louth, and parts of
Monaghan and perhaps south Armagh. They the small tuatha of
the Cuailgne ( now Cooley) the Conaille (around Ardee), the Fir Rois around Carrickmacross, the Fernmag (Farney), the Mugdorna (Cremorne), and the Ui Meith (Omeath),and
were nominally under the overlordship of O’Carroll and seemingly in part under
O’Hanlon of Oirthir (Orior). It is impossible at this date to say
how many of the original chiefs of the tuatha
were still in place, or in how many cases the O’Carrolls had seized the mensal
lands of the tuath. The fragment of
the Cianachta of Meath, anciently
displaced by the Ui Neill, occupied
the southern tip of Louth, and were
known as the Fir Arda Cianachta (Ferrard)
whose lands were liberally disbursed by O’Carroll to the Cistercians to found
Mellifont (Map Otway-Ruthven 71). The land around Ardee, the tuath of Conaille in Louth and Farney (Fernmag)
in Monaghan, as well as parts of Cremorne and Dartry, was granted to Gilbert
Pipard. The Pipard and de Verdon families were the great local landowners in
the Middle Ages, and the de Verdons were still holding land in Louth at the
middle of the twentieth century. The principal de Verdon castle was at Dundalk, and the Pipard castle
at Ardee. Around 1193 Peter Pipard built a motte-and bailey castle near
Carrickmacross (county Monaghan) in the former tuath of
the Fir Rois. This was the limit of
their settlement in Oriel. A later attempt to maintain a castle at Clones failed.
These lands in Louth adjoined those of de Courci in Down and Antrim, which
meant that the whole eastern seacoast was in the hands of the Anglo-Normans.
Trade therefore flowed almost exclusively through their towns.
Both the
O’Carrolls and the O’Briens acquiesced in the grants which were never their
original lands and which they could not securely hold. It may well be that the
seizure of Louth was to prevent the O’Rourkes conquering it and getting access
to the sea, giving them an alternative and easier access to the coast. This was
an objective the O’Carrolls could agree with. de Verdon was an English judge in
the sense of the time when judges were barons and barons judges. He was
seneschal of Ireland from 1184 to 1186, charged with the administration of John’s lands.
The power of the O’Rourkes was however at an end. After the death of Tiernan
O’Rourke in 1176 there were separate chiefly families in Breifne, the O’Rourkes
in West Breifne (county Leitrim) and the O’Reillys in East
Breifne (county
Cavan). The
ruling family in Oriel after 1196 was the MacMahons, whose connection with the
O’Carrolls is not clear. Their area was county
Monaghan.
From this
time onwards, the great Irish chiefs were mostly chiefs over counties, and
corresponded to English earls. The Irish counties, as Ireland
was shired by the crown, reflects the extent of their domains. Their grade was
that of the ruiri. By 1210, John
began the shiring of what were to become 12 Irish counties. The process was
complete by the time of Edward I (1272). +These were Dublin including
Wicklow, Kildare, Meath, Louth, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford,
Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. These
were the only counties in Ireland
during the Middle Ages. In the rest Brehon law and custom remained in force, He
ordered that English law, should apply in these areas. An administrative
officer for each county, the sheriff, would also have to be appointed in each,
and would hold his shire court, which could however no longer, after the reign
of Henry II, impose the death penalty. This court would replace that of the ruiri and was not very different from it
except for the fact that English Common Law applied (compare Ellis p. 45 on the
brehon courts). The justices on eyre
would hold their assizes in the chief town in each county. The sheriff was an
appointed royal official. He was assisted by clerks and serjeants. As
Otway-Ruthven points out, the system was not uniform, for what were to become
the ‘liberties’ of Leinster, Meath, and Ulster were more or less palatine
counties, but the system there was analogous (p. 174ff, 186ff).
Tipperary and Limerick were not given full
county status until the middle of the thirteenth century
The grants of land
did not mean that all or most of it was occupied by the grantee. Money rather
than opposition either from those dispossessed or their overlords would have
been a restricting factor. Money could always be borrowed, so the period
necessary to get an exportable agricultural surplus was probably crucial in
many places. (On evidence of the movement of working farmers from England
in the course of the thirteenth century, see Otway-Ruthven 114ff. The number of
working-class persons to immigrate would not have been significant in most
places before 1215. By the year 1300, in certain areas in eastern Ireland,
at least half of the population was immigrants. She also notes that with the
growing population and expanding economy this did not necessarily mean a
displacement of the native workers.)
Various events
concurred to make this an easy period for the infant Government of Ireland. The
unlikely John de Courci patched up any misunderstandings with the crown and was
made justiciar, and held the position for six or seven years that gave
stability to the Government. With his appointment, the use of the term
justiciar definitely begins. The civil war continued in Connaught. In Ulster,
in 1186, Donal MacLoughlin was deposed by Rory O’Laverty, of an up-coming sept
who were making the fight among the Ui
Neill into a three corner one. In 1187 Hugh de Lacy was killed while his
children were minors, so his lands passed into the custody of the crown. Rory
O’Laverty was killed. In the Holy Land, after the battle of the Horns of Hattin, Saladin re-captured
Jerusalem. In 1188,
Cork was given a charter as a town in royal hands. Donal MacLoughlin was
killed and was succeeded by Murtagh MacLoughlin, who was effective overchief of
the Cenel Eogain until 1196 when Aed Meth O’Neill succeeded him. Miles de
Cogan had been killed in 1182, and Raymond le
Gros, the greatest warrior among the Normans, some years
later. Henry II during a civil war with his son Richard in France
promised the hand and lands of Strongbow’s daughter to William Marshal who had
just returned from the Holy Land. In 1189 Murrough O’Carroll died, and Conor O’Connor were killed
and was succeeded by Cathal Crovderg.
The succession was disputed by Cathal Carragh
O’Connor, with the inevitable civil war that lasted until 1202. Henry II died, and Richard I confirmed the
grant of Strongbow’s land to William Marshal. Further, between the death of
Donal O’Brien in 1194 and the emergence of Cathal Crovderg as provincial chief of Connaught with Norman help, there was no Irish chief with any military
stature around whom the Gaelic chiefs could unite if any such idea crossed
their minds.
Meanwhile John de
Courci had succeeded in establishing himself strongly in Ulster
and controlled the coast as far north as the tip of Antrim, but as usual, there
are few records of his activities. As we find time and again, when we try to
trace sequences of events, we find great gaps in the evidence. This is so with
regard to the grant of North Tipperary to Theobald Walter as virtually no evidence is found between 1185
and 1206 when he died. (On the problem of identifying the actual lands involved
in these grants, see C.A. Empey, ‘The Settlement of the
Kingdom of
Limerick’ in
Lydon.) The same is true with regard to the early settlement of the lands
granted to William de Burgh prior to later settlements by King John in 1199 and
1201. De Burgh apparently worked closely with Donal O’Brien.
It is obvious that the traditional view of a
Norman conquest of Ireland is false. From the very beginning, the Norman lords and the Irish
chiefs co-operated and inter-married. The Irish chiefs valued the services of
the knights.
John’s plan failed to control the great
'Liberties' of Leinster and Meath because of later grants of his brother Richard I to
William Marshall and Hugh de Lacy the Younger. These were left with ‘liberty’
or ‘palatine’ jurisdictions that meant jurisdiction over almost everything
except making war. These palatine jurisdictions were to prove a greater
obstacle to making the government of the justiciars from Dublin effective
than any rebellions by the Gaelic chiefs.
[Top]
Events
during the Reign of Richard 1189-99
Richard was not interested in Ireland
that in any case was the lordship of his younger brother John. In the theology
of the time, he probably had no rights over Ireland,
if the theory that the Pope had direct jurisdiction over all islands is
accepted. This theory obviously underlay the papal grant of Ireland
to Henry II. Like all such theories, it was accepted if it favoured you.
Richard made John Count of Mortain and this was his official title for the next
nine years. In 1190 he went off on the Third Crusade. John did not confirm De
Courci in the justiciarship, seemingly because he supported the king against
John, but Peter Pipard and William le Petit were made joint justiciars. (John
was acting illegally in England, but he was still Lord of Ireland.) Their authority ceased on
John’s forfeiture in 1194 on the return of Richard from the Third Crusade
(Moody, Martin, and Byrne 481.) Around 1193 Peter Pipard built a
motte-and-bailey castle at Carrickmacross. Another motte-and-bailey castle was
built at Clones, showing that some attempts were being made to settle the lands
granted in Monaghan. Walter de Lacy and
John de Courci were then jointly appointed by the now restored John in 1194 but
were replaced by Hamo de Valonges 1195-8, the following year. William Marshal,
one of the late king’s staunchest supporters was given Strongbow’s daughter in
marriage and obtained her lands and became the first Earl of Pembroke and
Striguil of the Marshal line. He supported Richard when John rebelled against
him. Marshal held his Irish lands from John, not from Richard. Walter de Lacy
had however to do homage to Richard for his father’s Irish lands, presumably
because the original grant was antecedent to John’s lordship. Walter de Lacy
the elder son received his father's Norman and English
lands in 1189 and his lands in Meath in 1194. Donal Mor (the Great) O’Brien died in 1194, with the consequence that the
MacCarthys became the more powerful and they briefly recaptured
Cork. Limerick was re-occupied by the
crown and Ui Fidgente lands in Limerick were apportioned to
various knights apparently with the consent of the O’Briens. This would provide
a barrier against the MacCarthys. By a marriage agreement Hugh de Lacy received
half of the de Verdon lands in Oriel in 1195. In 1196, Aed Meth (the Fat) became the most powerful chief in Ulster,
and was to prove an immovable obstacle to de Courci and later de Lacy. In 1197,
the civil war in Thomond that followed the death of Donal O’Brien, one of the
two contesting brothers enlisted the help of William de Burgh. This spelt the
end of O’Brien influence in the Ui Fidgente lands. It would appear that
Meiler fitz Henry was appointed justiciar in 1198. By this time he was settled
on the elder Hugh de Lacy’s lands in Meath, and had married de Lacy’s niece. In
1199, Hugh de Lacy, the younger son, and John de Courci were assisting Cathal Crovderg against Cathal Carrach and they were heavily defeated.
de Lacy then captured Cathal Carrach
and held him prisoner. Shortly afterwards the de Lacys quarrelled with de
Courci. In 1199 Richard le Tuite built a castle at Granard at the extreme
western part of the O’Mellaghlin lands on a grant of land he had received
either from the elder Hugh de Lacy or his son Walter.
These details may seem tedious, and they are
difficult to work out and to remember. But they are necessary to recount if one
is to decide if there was massive and illegal plunderings on the side of the
Normans, or whether
each side was observing the legal conventions of their time. The latter would
seem to be the case, though evidence is not always available. For example, were
lands forfeit because of a rebellion against a previously acknowledged
overlord? Or were lands settled by mutual agreement over the need to control
bandits? There seems little doubt that the Irish chiefs constantly played into
the hands of the crown by constantly reneging on oaths of allegiance as was the
traditional custom. The difference now was, that the Normans could
mostly make the inevitable forfeits effective. The Normans were not
doing anything that had not become customary among the Irish.
[Top]
John
King of England and Lord of Ireland
John had been
recognised by Richard as his heir, and he immediately, on Richard’s death in
April 1199, seized the crown. John was the king who did most to establish the
power of the crown in Ireland until his efforts were surpassed by Henry VIII over three hundred
years later. In fact in that intervening period only one king, Richard II and
one claimant, Richard, duke of York, ever came to Ireland.
By and large there was no reason why they should. Henry II and John came only
to prevent some of their powerful subjects establishing themselves too strongly
in Ireland. Ireland had very little wealth or possibilities for creating wealth from
agricultural surpluses, mining, or trade. Fishing was a possibility, but the
English offshore fisheries were themselves undeveloped. As always, France
provided better opportunities for gain, whether royal gain, or gain for the
participants who joined the royal army. Much of Wales was
equally unattractive and had the Welsh chiefs been content to live in peace
they would probably have been left in peace. Similarly, though to a lesser
extent there was little point in conquering Scotland,
as the Romans had already realised. By the early sixteenth century the English
crown had lost all its territory on the Continent except Calais. Also ships
and seamanship had so improved that it had become feasible for a French or
Spanish fleet to sail directly out into the Atlantic to Ireland. The English crown could not then afford to neglect it possessions
in Ireland.
It had never been
envisaged that John would become king of England.
He had been appointed Lord of Ireland by his father Henry II and though he did
not reside in Ireland after 1185 his policy of settling reliable barons at strategic
spots, and appointing justiciars to govern in his name, could very well have
had the result that he could successfully control his lordship.
Lewis Warren notes however that his brother
Richard may have prevented the accomplishment of this policy by granting the
lordship of Leinster to William Marshal and the lordship of Meath to Walter de Lacy. (Warren in Lydon
p.31) This caused a problem for John when he became king because the two
lordships with virtually palatine powers were too large to be controlled by a
justiciar with much fewer resources (Warren p. 33). A
third lord who supported John in England and Normandy, William de Braose had to
be rewarded and in 1201 John conferred on him the ‘honour of Limerick’ which
involved feudal overlordship of the English and Norman settlers in Munster. In
this way a third great feudal lordship under the crown was created in North Munster. A fourth one was
soon to be established in Ulster by
the grant of the de Courci lands to the younger Hugh de Lacy in Ulster.
Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath had for many years been friendly with de Courci,
but for some reason they quarrelled. For some years the quarrel dragged on
until John, for some obscure reason, granted de Courci’s lands in Ulster with
the title Earl of Ulster, to Hugh de Lacy, who as a younger son, had no lands
of his own (McNeill 6). The two de Lacys, after considerable efforts, for de
Courci was popular with the Gaelic chiefs, drove him from Ireland.
Though he never got his lands in Ireland
back, he was reconciled with the king, was given a pension, and accompanied
John to Ireland in 1210.(He died in England
about 1219). The lands, after Hugh de Lacy’s death, came into the hands of the
de Burghs who were the Earls of Ulster in the Middle Ages.
John summoned Meiler fitz Henry to France
where he was dealing with his claims to the royal possessions in France.
But some months later Meiler was re-appointed justiciar. John made some
additional grants of land. The most important were in the O’Brien lands south
of the Shannon in the old Ui Fidgente
territory in the present county Limerick. Like in Meath, this formerly unified territory, in extent
approximately the present county Limerick, had become fragmented, and neither the O’Briens nor the MacCarthys
who both coveted it, could permanently control it. It would seem that much of
this land had been originally granted to Philip de Braose who did nothing to
occupy it. Much was granted to William de Burgh. Other beneficiaries were Hamo
de Valognes and Theobald Walter. Henceforth the O’Briens were confined to
county
Clare. John
made further grants in Cork and Kerry in 1200 to Meiler fitz Henry. The Fitzgeralds, who were
to dominate the region in the Middle Ages got only small grants. (On these complex series of grants and
re-grants see C.A.Empey in Lydon p.1.) Warren considers
that these grants were made with the connivance of the O’Briens who had
difficulty in controlling them and who were likely to assist the MacCarthys.
The boundary in any case between Thomond and Desmond was not precise, and was
liable to change. An attack by the MacCarthys in 1199 aided by chiefs who had
earlier been expelled from Thomond was repulsed by the Normans (Warren 28). In 1201
John granted the ‘honour’ of Limerick to William de Braose. This meant that he was made the chief tenant
of the crown, and all the other grantees then held from him. Exceptions were
made of the town of Limerick and the lands held by William de Burgh.
It would seem that at one time, possibly around
1194, John had made a ‘speculative grant’ of Connaught to William de Burgh,
and it was in that province his interest chiefly lay. The civil war in Connaught between Cathal Crovderg and Cathal Carrach in which both sides sought allies among the Normans, and
the Normans sought to profit from the conflict, continued. de Courci and Hugh
de Lacy backed Cathal Crovderg while
William de Burgh supported Cathal Carrach.
However, at one point de Lacy captured Cathal Carrach and forced him to ransom himself. King John was inclined to
assist Crovderg and the latter
emerged victorious. The death of Cathal Carrach
in 1202 in a skirmish left Crovderg
the undisputed chief in Connaught. Crovderg submitted to
John and asked to hold part of Connaught as a feudal barony in 1205. As Warren notes, to
hold land as a feudal barony with primogeniture was more secure for the ruling
family than depending on election in the traditional manner. John agreed that
he should hold a third of Connaught per baroniam, and two
thirds as a client Gaelic chief. This latter provision would of course enable
John at a later date to infeud those parts to somebody else, in the meantime
drawing tribute, and having an excuse to interfere if the tribute was stopped.
William de Burgh withdrew to Limerick where he died in 1206 while his heir was still a minor. His lands
were then taken into royal custody. Hugh de Lacy at that time based on the de
Lacy lands in Meath quarrelled with John de Courci in 1203 and was given his
lands and an earldom in 1205. John ordered the building of a strong royal
castle in Dublin in 1204 within which the Government of Ireland has been centred
from that date to this.
The problem of the
relationship between the king’s representative, the justiciar, and the lords of
the libertys was not resolved, and matter was soon brought to a head by a
dispute between William Marshal and the king. William Marshal was one of the
greatest soldiers in England and France during the reigns of Henry II, Richard, and John. In 1189, aged
over forty, he married the heiress of Richard Strongbow de Clare and was confirmed in his wife’s lands and in the
title of Earl of Pembroke and Striguil though this latter was not confirmed
until the accession of John. John however always refused him permission to
visit his lands in Leinster. In 1204, the king of France, Philip II Augustus, conquered
Normandy.
Marshall did homage
to the king of France for his lands in Normandy and John took this as a personal slight. Marshal was always loyal
to the crown, but supporting Richard when he was imprisoned in Germany
did not endear him to John. John however gave him permission to go to his Irish
estates in 1206, and he spent the time developing them economically. He built a
new port at New Ross on the Barrow. Though obviously needed commercially John
could see it as by-passing the port of Waterford and not
paying the customs to the crown. Walter de Lacy was also at the same time
introducing the organisation of holdings of land into cantreds and manorial
system of cultivation into his lands in Meath (Warren). The great export of Ireland was
now grain. It is not obvious why the cultivation of grain for export had not
commenced sooner. It may be that the whole structure of Gaelic society had
become inextricably involved in cattle-rearing.
It would seem that John had instructed the
justiciar to whittle away as many privileges as he could (Otway-Ruthven p.78).
John then made various changes to give more power to the justiciar, and cut
down the privileges of the local lords. His first step was to appoint Philip of
Worcester to a commission to review the state of Ireland
along with Meiler fitz Henry. The charters of William Marshal and Walter de
Lacy were revised. They had to allow the royal justices into their territory to
hear pleas of the crown, appeals of felony, appeals of default of justice in
their courts, or complaints of injury by themselves or their courts (Warren 35). In a
palatine or liberty jurisdiction the local lord could exercise powers normally
reserved to the crown. The reserved pleas seem to have been four in number,
arson, rape, treasure trove and forestall (assault on the king’s highway.)
Treasure trove, the finding of buried gold or silver was reserved to the new
office of coroner in 1194. The king wanted his own justices on circuit or eyre
also to hear cases, and to allow appeals from the palatine court to the King’s
Bench. Only the richest and most powerful people would be affected. Some of
these changes seem to have been just following recent changes in the law in England.
John in 1208 appointed one of his ablest administrators John de Grey bishop of
Norfolk as
justiciar.
Though John’s quarrel with William Marshal was
settled after a fashion his quarrel with William de Braose caused a mighty
rift. Apparently the quarrel was over some financial matter, but was also
probably related to the support of de Braose’s wife for Richard. de Braose had
received the honour of Limerick at ferm, and also the
revenues of Limerick at ferm. A grant of land
in fee farm (in foedam firmum) meant
that a fixed sum of money, a rent as it were, had to be paid annually. It was
then discovered that de Braose was much in arrears. John tried to distrain from
de Braose’s English and Welsh estates, and when de Braose was unable to resist
him he fled to Ireland. The king might have let this pass, being satisfied with the
distraints so long as he stayed in Ireland
if he were not already engaged in remodelling the government of Ireland
and cutting back the privileges of the great barons. When William de Braose
went to Ireland he joined forces with William Marshal and the de Lacy brothers. He
had married his daughter Margaret to Walter de Lacy. When John de Grey ordered
that de Braose be surrendered to him William Marshal refused and conducted him
to Meath to be sheltered by the de Lacys.
In 1210 John decided to come to Ireland
himself to deal with de Braose and he arrived on 20 June. Marshal answered a
summons from John to join his expedition to Ireland.
So too did John de Courci. Walter de Lacy also rapidly submitted, not wishing
either to be drawn into the quarrel between de Braose and the king. John
however occupied his castles in Meath. Neither were Walter’s or Hugh’s feudal
tenants anxious to be drawn into the conflict. Nicholas de Verdon greeted John.
Crovderg came to meet him, as did Donough O’Brien. Aed O’Neill was almost alone
in his refusal to give hostages. Hugh de Lacy burned his own castles and
retreated to his stronghold at Carrickfergus and John followed him. When John
besieged the castle de Lacy escaped by sea. So too did the wife and son of de
Braose, but they were captured in Scotland
by Duncan of Carrick and returned to John. They died in captivity, it is said
from starvation. De Braose himself went in Wales,
but he went from there to his great castle at Bramber in Sussex,
which with Lewes and Arundel was one of the three great castles controlling the
approaches from the sea. He fled to France
and died there the following year. Walter de Lacy also went to France
but was summoned by John and got his lands restored. Hugh de Lacy was not
pardoned for several years. He spent the time fighting on the Continent
especially in Simon of Montford l’Amaury in Normandy’s crusade
against the Albigensian heretics around Toulouse. When he
died he left no heir, his sons having died before him.
John ordered the building of stone castles at Limerick, Carrickfergus,
Dundrum, and Carlingford. This completed John’s work. In 1212, de Grey decided
to place motte-and-bailey castles at Clones in south Monaghan and at Castle
Caldwell on Lough Erne that would have completed John scheme of controlling the
boundaries between the provinces. Both attempts were unsuccessful. Three
durable chiefdoms of second rank, those of the O’Rourkes, the O’Reillys and the
Maguires developed along the boggy boundaries of Ulster,
and served as an outer shield for the O’Neills. These latter, though dominant
in Ulster, were never again able to intervene effectively outside their
province. Nor were the O’Briens, MacCarthys, and O’Connors. Henceforth, the
dominant power in Ireland was always that of the king’s government in Dublin castle,
though the power of the crown over Norman lords and Gaelic chiefs waxed and
waned.
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Postscript
John died in 1216, and the crown passed to his
infant son, Henry III and William Marshall acted as regent. Meiler fitz Henry
remained a powerful lord in Ireland
until his death in 1220. The de Lacys were the great survivors, Hugh dying
about 1242 and Walter about 1241. The Marshals lasted until 1245 when the last
of William’s sons died without heirs. The last was Anselm Marshal, sixth Earl
of Pembroke and Striguil. The descendants of the Brood of Nesta, the
Fitzgeralds or Geraldines, were to become the most powerful family in the
Middle Ages. They were to be eclipsed in the post-Reformation period by the
descendants of Theobald Walter the Butler. Walter de
Lacy’s lands and titles in Meath eventually came by marriage into the hands of
the English royal family. William Marshal’s lands eventually came into the
hands of the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury. de Courci’s lands too eventually
came into the hands of the English royal family. The de Burghs emerged as the
most powerful family in Connaught, though the O’Connors also survived as more or less independent
chiefs until the composition of Connaught in the reign of Elizabeth I.
The O’Neills (Cenel Eogain) finally destroyed the MacLoughlins, and became the
most powerful rulers in the north of Ireland,
large parts of which they conquered. A ruling family, the O’Donnells emerged
from the Cenel Conaill and kept their
independence from the O’Neills and everyone else until 1603. Parts of the lands
of the Ulaid remained under the
Magennises and their sub-sept the MacCartans, in Iveagh (diocese of Dromore). The
O’Mellaghlin power in Meath had collapsed, and most of the chiefdom was
transferred successfully to the king and the de Lacys. The O’Mellaghlins were
reduced to the status of minor chiefs. The crown claimed all the main Norse
ports. In north Leinster the Ui Failge, now
represented by the O’Connors and the O’Dempseys retained their lands. The Loigse, now headed by the O’Mores also
retained their position. In the Gaelic revival in the late Middle Ages these
two clans were very successful, extending their domains to the extent of a
county each. These enthusiastically carried on the age-old practices of
cattle-raiding and black rent until a determined effort was made in the reign
of Mary Tudor to extirpate them. Theirs were to be the first lands in Ireland to
be ‘planted’ and the experience gained there was extended to the rest of Ireland
and the American colonies. Like the Maguires and O’Rourkes they became durable
minor chiefs. In south Leinster, the MacMurrough Cavanaghs were displaced from the more fertile parts but still
held, or conquered, considerable lands. In Ossory, the McGillaPatricks changed
their name to Fitzpatrick, and sided with the crown at the Reformation. In
Annaly (county Longford, Conmaicne), the
O’Farrells like the MacMahons were unconquered.
The Government in Dublin grew in
strength, wealth, and power, but like the Scottish kingdom could not often
control the remoter regions of the country. It developed like its counterpart
in England, though not until 1603 could the king’s writ be enforced
everywhere. Much has often been made of a Gaelic revival in the later Middle
Ages, which was caused chiefly be a decline of the power of the Government in
Dublin. This was
only a temporary set-back, and the Government established by Henry II and John
eventually triumphed. To do this massive resources had to be transferred from England
that only the threat of a Spanish invasion could justify.
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