ASSASSINATION OF HUGH DE LACY—JOHN "LACKLAND" IN IRELAND—VARIOUS
EXPEDITIONS OF JOHN DE COURCY—DEATH OF CONOR MOINMOY, AND RISE OF
CATHAL, "THE RED-HANDED" O'CONOR—CLOSE OF THE CAREER OF DE COURCY AND
DE BURGH.
Hugh de Lacy, restored to the supreme authority on the recall of
Fitz-Aldelm in 1179, began to conceive hopes, as Strongbow had done, of
carving out for himself a new kingdom. After the assassination of
O'Ruarc already related, he assumed without further parley the titles
of Lord of Meath and Breffni. To these titles, he added that of Oriel
or Louth, but his real strength lay in Meath, where his power was
enhanced by a politic second marriage with Rose, daughter of O'Conor.
Among the Irish he now began to be known as King of the foreigners, and
some such assumption of royal authority caused his recall for a few
months in the year 1180, and his substitution by de Courcy and Philip
de Broasa, in 1184. But his great qualities caused his restoration a
third time to the rank of Justiciary for Henry, or Deputy for John,
whose title of "Lord of Ireland" was bestowed by his father, at a
Parliament held at Oxford, in 1177.
This founder of the Irish de Lacys is described by _Giraldus_, who knew
him personally, as a man of Gallic sobriety, ambitious, avaricious, and
lustful, of small stature, and deformed shape, with repulsive features,
and dark, deep-set eyes. By the Irish of the midland districts he was
bitterly detested as a sacrilegious spoiler of their churches and
monasteries, and the most powerful among their invaders. The murder of
O'Ruarc, whose title of Breffni he had usurped, was attributed to a
deep-laid design; he certainly shared the odium with the advantage that
ensued from it. Nor was his own end unlike that of his rival. Among
other sites for castles, he had chosen the foundations of the ancient
and much venerated monastery of Durrow, planted by Columbcille, seven
centuries before, in the midst of the fertile region watered by the
Brosna. This act of profanity was fated to be his last, for, while
personally superintending the work, O'Meyey, a young man of good birth,
and foster-brother to a neighbouring chief of Teffia, known as
_Sionnach_, or "the Fox," struck off his head with a single blow of his
axe and escaped into the neighbouring forest of Kilclare during the
confusion which ensued. De Lacy left issue—two sons, Hugh and Walter,
by his first wife, and a third, William _Gorm_, by his second—of whom,
and of their posterity, we shall have many occasions to make mention.
In one of the intervals of de Lacy's disfavour, Prince John, surnamed
_Sans-terre_, or "lack-land," was sent over by his father to strengthen
the English interest in Ireland. He arrived in Waterford, accompanied
by a fleet of sixty ships, on the last of March, 1185, and remained in
the country till the following November. If anything could excuse the
levity, folly and misconduct of the Prince on this expedition, it would
be his youth;—he was then only eighteen. But Henry had taken every
precaution to ensure success to his favourite son. He was preceded into
Ireland by Archbishop Cuming, the English successor of St. Laurence;
the learned Glanville was his legal adviser; John de Courcy was his
lieutenant, and the eloquent, but passionate and partial _Giraldus
Cambrensis_, his chaplain and tutor. He had, however, other companions
more congenial to his age and temper, young noblemen as froward and as
extravagant as himself; yet, as he surpassed them all in birth and
rank, so he did in wickedness and cruelty of disposition. For age he
had no reverence, for virtue no esteem, neither truth towards man, nor
decency towards woman. On his arrival at Waterford, the new Archbishop
of Dublin, John de Courcy, and the principal Norman nobles, hastened to
receive him. With them came also certain Leinster chiefs, desiring to
live at peace with the new Galls. When, according to the custom of the
country, the chiefs advanced to give John the kiss of peace, their
venerable age was made a mockery by the young Prince, who met their
proffered salutations by plucking at their beards. This appears to have
been as deadly an insult to the Irish as it is to the Asiatics, and the
deeply offended guests instantly quitted Waterford. Other follies and
excesses rapidly transpired, and the native nobles began to discover
that a royal army encumbered, rather than led by such a Prince, was not
likely to prove itself invincible. In an idle parade from the Suir to
the Liffey, from the Liffey to the Boyne, and in issuing orders for the
erection of castles, (some of which are still correctly and others
erroneously called King John's Castles,) the campaign months of the
year were wasted by the King of England's son. One of these castles, to
which most importance was attached, Ardfinan on the Suir, was no sooner
built than taken by Donald More O'Brien, on midsummer day, when four
knights and its other defenders were slain. Another was rising at
Lismore, on the Blackwater, under the guardianship of Robert Barry, one
of the brood of Nesta, when it was attacked and Barry slain. Other
knights and castellans were equally unfortunate; Raymond Fitz-Hugh fell
at Leighlin, another Raymond in Idrone, and Roger le Poer in Ossory. In
Desmond, Cormac McCarthy besieged Theobald, ancestor of the Butlers in
Cork, but this brave Prince—the worthy compeer of O'Brien—was cut off
"in a parlee by them of Cork." The Clan-Colman, or O'Melaghlins, had
risen in West-Meath to reclaim their own, when Henry, not an hour too
soon, recalled his reckless son, and entrusted, for the last time, the
command to Hugh de Lacy, whose fate has been already related.
In the fluctuations of the power of the invaders after the death of de
Lacy, and during the next reign in England, one steadfast name appears
foremost among the adventurers—that of the gallant giant, de Courcy,
the conqueror of the Ards of Down. Not only in prowess, but also in
piety, he was the model of all the knighthood of his time. We are told
that he always carried about his person a copy of the prophecies
attributed to Columbcille, and when, in the year 1186, the relics of
the three great saints, whose dust sanctifies Downpatrick, were
supposed to be discovered by the Bishop of Down in a dream, he caused
them to be translated to the altar-side with all suitable reverence.
Yet all his devotions and pilgrimages did not prevent him from pushing
on the work of conquest whenever occasion offered. His plantation in
Down had time to take root from the unexpected death of Donald, Prince
of Aileach, in an encounter with the garrison of one of the new
castles, near Newry. (A.D. 1188.) The same year he took up the
enterprise against Connaught, in which Milo de Cogan had so signally
failed, and from which even de Lacy had, for reasons of his own,
refrained. The feuds of the O'Conor family were again the pretext and
the ground of hope with the invaders, but Donald More O'Brien,
victorious on the Suir and the Shannon, carried his strong succours to
Conor _Moinmoy_ on the banks of the Suca, near the present Ballinasloe,
and both powers combined marched against de Courcy. Unprepared for this
junction, the Norman retreated towards Sligo, and had reached
Ballysadare, when Flaherty, Lord of Tyrconnell (Donegal), came against
them from the opposite point, and thus placed between two fires, they
were forced to fly through the rugged passes of the Curlieu mountains,
skirmishing as they went. The only incidents which signalized this
campaign on their side was the burning of Ballysadare and the plunder
of Armagh; to the Irish it was creditable for the combinations it
occasioned. It is cheering in the annals of those desultory wars to
find a national advantage gained by the joint action of a Munster, a
Connaught, and an Ulster force.
The promise of national unity held out by the alliance of O'Brien and
O'Conor, in the years 1188-'89, had been followed up by the adhesion of
the lords of Breffni, Ulidia, or Down, the chiefs of the Clan-Colman,
and McCarthy, Prince of Desmond. But the assassination of Conor
Moinmoy, by the partizans of his cousins, extinguished the hopes of the
country, and the peace of his own province. The old family feuds broke
out with new fury. In vain the aged Roderick emerged from his convent,
and sought with feeble hand to curb the fiery passions of his tribe; in
vain the Archbishops of Armagh and of Tuam interposed their spiritual
authority, A series of fratricidal contests, for which history has no
memory and no heart, were fought out between the warring branches of
the family during the last ten years of the century, until by virtue of
the strong-arm, Cathal _Crovdearg_, son of Turlogh More, and younger
brother of Roderick, assumed the sovereignty of Connaught about the
year 1200.
In the twelve years which intervened between the death of _Moinmoy_ and
the establishment of the power of Cathal _Crovdearg_ O'Conor, the
Normans had repeated opportunities for intervention in the affairs of
Connaught. William de Burgh, a powerful Baron of the family of
Fitz-Aldelm, the former Lord Justice, sided with the opponents of
Cathal, while de Courcy, and subsequently the younger de Lacy, fought
on his side. Once at least these restless Barons changed allies, and
fought as desperately against their former candidate for the succession
as they had before fought for him. In one of these engagements, the
date assigned to which is the year 1190, Sir Armoric St. Laurence,
founder of the Howth family, at the head of a numerous division, is
said to have been cut off with all his troop. But the fortune of war
frequently shifted during the contest. In the year 1199, Cathal
_Crovdearg_, with his allies de Lacy and de Courcy, was utterly
defeated at Kilmacduagh, in the present county of Galway, and were it
not that the rival O'Conor was sorely defeated, and trodden to death in
the route which ensued, three years later, Connaught might never have
known the vigorous administration of her "red-handed" hero.
The early career of this able and now triumphant Prince, as preserved
to us by history and tradition, is full of romantic incidents. He is
said to have been born out of wedlock, and that his mother, while
pregnant of him, was subject to all the cruel persecutions and magical
torments the jealous wife of his father could invent. No sooner was he
born than he became an object of hatred to the Queen, so that mother
and child, after being concealed for three years in the sanctuaries of
Connaught, had to fly for their lives into Leinster. In this exile,
though early informed of his origin, he was brought up among the
labourers in the field, and was actually engaged, sickle in hand,
cutting the harvest, when a travelling _Bollscaire_, or newsman from
the west, related the events which enabled him to return to his native
province. "Farewell sickle," he exclaimed, casting it from him—"now for
the sword." Hence "Cathal's farewell to the rye" was long a proverbial
expression for any sudden change of purpose or of condition. Fortune
seems to have favoured him in most of his undertakings. In a storm upon
Lough Ree, when a whole fleet foundered and its warrior crew perished,
he was one of seven who were saved. Though in some of his early battles
unsuccessful, he always recovered his ground, kept up his alliances,
and returned to the contest. After the death of the celebrated Donald
More O'Brien (A.D. 1194), he may certainly be considered the first
soldier and first diplomatist among the Irish. Nor was his lot cast on
more favoured days, nor was he pitted against less able men than those
with whom the brave King of Munster—the stoutest defender of his
fatherland—had so honourably striven. Fortunate it was for the renown
of the Gael, that as one star of the race set over Thomond, another of
equal brilliancy rose to guide them in the west.
With the end of the century, the career of Cathal's allies, de Courcy
and de Burgh, may be almost said to have ended. The obituary of the
latter bears the date of 1204. He had obtained large grants from King
John of lands in Connaught—if he could conquer them—which his vigorous
descendants, the Burkes of Clanrickarde, did their best to accomplish.
De Courcy, warring with the sons of de Lacy, and seeking refuge among
the clansmen of Tyrone, disappears from the stage of Irish affairs. He
is said to have passed on to England, and ended his days in prison, a
victim to the caprice or jealousy of King John. Many tales are told of
his matchless intrepidity. His indirect descendants, the Barons of
Kinsale, claim the right to wear their hats before the King in
consequence of one of these legends, which represents him as the
champion Knight of England, taken from, a dungeon to uphold her honour
against a French challenger. Other tales as ill authenticated are
founded on his career, which, however, in its literal truth, is
unexcelled for hardihood and adventure, except, perhaps, by the
cotemporaneous story of the lion-hearted Richard, whom he closely
resembled. The title of Earl of Ulster, created for de Courcy in 1181,
was transferred in 1205, by royal patent, to Walter de Lacy, whose only
daughter Maud brought it in the year 1264 to Walter de Burgh, lord of
Connaught, from whose fourth female descendant it passed in 1354, by
her marriage with Lionel, Duke of Clarence, into the royal family of
England.