A Logical Outline of Irish History

In Which The Dominant Conditions And

Influences Are Distinguished By Colors.

Physical or material. (Red)

Ethnological. (Blue)

Social and political. (Green)

Intellectual, moral and religious. (Tan)

Foreign. (Black)

(Blue)

In the history of the two islands which form the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland there is a contrast of

fortune which nothing will account for save unexplainable

qualities of race. The Celtic warmth prevailing on one side of

St. George's Channel has worked ill in politics as against the

Teutonic coolness on the other; and it is probable that no

change of circumstances or conditions would have altered

greatly the relations of the two peoples. In their situation

as close neighbors, it was inevitable that one should dominate

the other. It seems to have been no less inevitable that the

mastery should settle where it did; and simply by the force of

more masterful qualities in the English race.

(Red)

If those who dwelt nearer to the mainland of Europe held

advantages over those of the farther island, they took nothing

from them in the earlier generations, but were overleaped and

passed by when the first movements of Christianity and

Christian culture into the West began; and it was Ireland, not

England, for three centuries, which nourished the purest faith

and the highest civilization of the age. If other advantages

belonged to the island which was richer in iron and coal, the

English were not helped by them to an ascendancy which they

had won before the mining of their riches began.

(Green)

In the early years of the eleventh century, when most of the

island had submitted to the rule of Brian Born, and when he

had shaken the grasp of the intruding Danes on the seaports of

the eastern and southern coasts, the state and prospects of

Ireland would have seemed to be well-nigh as good as those of

England at the same time. But that appearance vanished soon,

and it never returned. Among the English, the tendency toward

national union grew stronger with every generation; among the

Irish it got no growth. The political genius of the race,

remarkable to the present day in municipal politics, but

rarely successful in the greater political arenas, has always

been tribal or provincial in its range, and wanting in a

national comprehensiveness.

(Tan)

The Norman conquest of England was helpful to the

consolidation of an English kingdom. The Anglo-Norman conquest

of Ireland occurring a century later, promoted, on the

contrary, the divisions and disorders of the island. It

brought a new faction into Irish quarrels, instead of a new

sovereign to extinguish them. It was complete enough to forbid

the growth of order from any native root of influence or

authority, but not complete enough to carry order with itself.

In the full sense of the term it was never a conquest. It was

rather a persistent invasion, continued and repeated through

more than five centuries. In every generation it inflamed anew

the fierce animosity which an incomplete conquest will not

suffer to die out, until the very descendants of the older

intruders were infected with the native hatred of their

later-coming kindred. After four hundred years of inconclusive

conflict, the English were hardly nearer to mastery, the Irish

hardly nearer to submission, than at first.

Then arose between them a new difference to embitter their

antagonism. The Reformation of religion was accepted by one

race as naturally as it was rejected by the other. But

Protestantism under English patronage assumed a more hateful

aspect in Irish eyes, and Irishmen as Papists became doubly

odious to the English mind. So political hostilities and

religious enmities fomented one another, from that time, while

the primitive antagonism of race gave energy to both.

Under Cromwell and under William of Orange the subjugation was

completed at last in the spirit of a Protestant crusade, and

used as crusading victories have been wont to be used. The

triumphant Church, planting its strong settlements in the

land, assumed to itself all civil and political rights. Every

office and every honorable profession were closed against the

adherents of the defeated faith; its ministrations were

forbidden; its priests were expelled.

(Green)

But this was not all. As British commerce grew and British

industries were built up, they contributed yet another to the

malign confederacy of passions which oppressed the Irish

people. The merchant, the manufacturer, the landowner and the

farmer, on the English side, were banded by common jealousies

to suppress competition in Ireland. They hindered the

improvement of its resources and paralyzed its energies by

atrocious legislation. They reduced its population to

dependence on the most restricted production, leaving little

except husbandry for a vocation, and that under grinding

terms. They created by such measures a nation of peasants, as

poor and as helpless as serfs, living wretchedly on precarious

holdings of soil, at the mercy of landlords who regarded them

with dislike and contempt.

It was under such crushing conditions as these that Ireland

remained until near the end of the eighteenth century, always

hating the oppressors, often resisting the oppression, but

weakly or rashly, without judgment or enduring resolution.

Then began a great change in the tenor of her history. Two

influences of the age came into play, one acting on the

conscience of the English people, the other on the mind and

temper of the Irish. One has worked to the yielding of

justice, the other to the firmer pressing of demands for it.

At this day it may be said that oppression in Ireland, whether

religious or political, is wholly and forever extinct; that

whatever remains in dispute between Celt and Saxon is from

questions such as rise in every nation, and that the

bitterness which stays in Anglo-Irish politics is the

lingering rancor of a hateful past, not quickly to be

extinguished.

----------A Logical Outline of Irish History: End--------

IRELAND:

The name.

"Ireland was known by many names from very early ages. Thus,

in the Celtic it was called Inis-Fall, the isle of destiny;

Inis-Ealga, the noble island; Fiodh-Inis, the woody island;

and Eire, Fodhla, and Banba. By the Greeks it was called

Ierne, probably from the vernacular name of Eire, by

inflection Erin; whence, also, no doubt, its Latin name of

Juverna; Plutarch calls it Ogygia, or the ancient land; the

early Roman writers generally called it Hibernia, probably

from its Iberian inhabitants, and the later Romans and

mediæval writers Scotia, and sometimes Hibernia; and finally

its name of Ireland was formed by the Anglo-Normans from its

native name of Eire."

_M. Haverty,

History of Ireland,

page 76, note._

See, also,

SCOTLAND: THE NAME;

and IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

{1755}

IRELAND:

The primitive inhabitants.

"The first people … of whose existence in Ireland we can be

said to know anything are commonly asserted to have been of

Turanian origin, and are known as 'Formorians.' As far as we

can gather, they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race,

although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish

legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant. They

were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and

fishermen, ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the

use of fire; using the stone hammers or hatchets of which vast

numbers remain in Ireland to this day, and specimens of which

may be seen in every museum. How long they held possession no

one can tell, although Irish philologists believe several

local Irish names to date from this almost inconceivably

remote epoch. Perhaps if we think of the Lapps of the present

day, and picture them wandering about the country, … it will

give us a fairly good notion of what these very earliest

inhabitants of Ireland were probably like.

See FOMORIANS.

Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the Firbolgs, who

overran the country, and appear to have been of a somewhat

higher ethnological grade, although, like the Formorians,

short, dark, and swarthy. Doubtless the latter were not

entirely exterminated to make way for the Firbolgs, any more

than the Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans, Milesians, and

other successive races; such wholesale exterminations being,

in fact, very rare, especially in a country which like Ireland

seems specially laid out by kindly nature for the protection

of a weaker race struggling in the grip of a stronger one.

After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to be obliged to

say how long after, fresh and more important tribes of

invaders began to appear. The first of these were the

Tuatha-da-Danaans, who arrived under the leadership of their

king Nuad, and took possession of the east of the country.

These Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large,

blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and possibly

ancestors of those Norsemen or 'Danes' who in years to come

were destined to work such woe and havoc upon the island. …

What their end was no man can tell you, save that they, too,

were, in their turn, conquered by the Milesians or 'Scoti,'

who next overran the country, giving to it their own name' of

Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of the

twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them,

who thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the

forests, whence they emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant

effect upon their conquerors, as another defeated race did

upon their conquerors in later days."

_E. Lawless,

The Story of Ireland,

chapter 1._

ALSO IN:

_T. Moore,

History of Ireland,

volume 1, chapter 5._

IRELAND:

Tribes of early Celtic inhabitants.

"On the northern coast dwelt the Veniconii, in the modern

county of Donegal, and the Robogdii, in Londonderry and

Antrim. Adjoining to the Veniconii, westward, were the Erdini

or Erpeditani, and next to them the Magnatæ, all in Donegal.

Farther south were the Auteri, in Sligo; the Gangani, in Mayo;

and the Velibori, or Ellebri, in the district between Galway

and the Shannon. The south-west part of the island, with a

great portion of the interior, was inhabited by the Iverni,

who gave name not only to the great river but to the whole

island, and who may, perhaps, be considered as the aboriginal

inhabitants. … In the modern counties of Waterford and

Tipperary, Ptolemy places a tribe called the Usdiæ or Vodiæ,

according to the variations of the manuscripts. In the modern

county of Wexford dwelt the Brigantes; and northward from them

were the Coriondi, in Wicklow; the Menapii, in Dublin; the

Cauci, on the banks of the Boyne; the Blanii, or Eblani, on

the bay of Dundalk; the Voluntii, in Down; and the Darini,

bordering on the Robogdii, in Antrim. Three, at least, of the

tribes who held the eastern coast of Ireland, the Brigantes,

the Menapii, and the Voluntii, were, no doubt, colonies from

the opposite shores of Britain."

_T. Wright,

Celt, Roman and Saxon,

chapter 2._

IRELAND:

5th-8th Centuries.

The coming of St. Patrick and the Christianizing of the Island.

Its Schools and its Missionaries.

"Lying on the extreme verge of Europe, the last land then

known to the adventurous Scandinavian, and beyond which fable

had scarcely projected its dreams, it was in the fifth century

since the Redemption that Christianity reached them.

Patricius, a Celt of Gaul it is said, carried into Erin as a

slave by one of the Pagan kings, some of whom made military

expeditions to North and South Britain, and even to the Alps

and the Loire, became the Apostle of Ireland. Patrick escaped

from slavery, was educated at Rome, but in mature manhood

insisted on returning to the place of his bondage, to preach

Christianity to a people who seem to have exercised over the

imagination of the Apostle the same spell of sympathy which in

later times subdued strangers of many nations. He was received

with extraordinary favour, and before his death nearly the

whole island had embraced Christianity. The coming of Patrick

took place in the year of our Lord 432, and he laboured for

sixty years after; planting churches and schools, rooting out

the practices and monuments of Paganism, and disciplining the

people in religion and humanity. It was a noble service, and

it impressed itself for ever on the memory of the race whom he

served. … In the succeeding century the Church which he

planted became possessed by a passion which it has never

entirely lost, the passion for missionary enterprise. Its

fathers projected the conversion of the fierce natives of the

Continent to the new creed of humility and self-denial, and by

the same humane agents which Patrick had employed in

Ireland—persuasion and prayer; a task as generous as any of

which history has preserved the record. In this epoch Ireland

may, without exaggeration, be said to have been a Christian

Greece, the nurse of science and civilisation. The Pagan

annals of the country are overlaid by fable and extravagance,

but the foundation of Oxford or the mission of St. Augustine

does not lie more visibly within the boundaries of legitimate

history than the Irish schools, which attracted students from

Britain and Gaul, and sent out missionaries through the

countries now known as Western Europe.

{1756}

Among the forests of Germany, on the desert shores of the

Hebrides, in the camp of Alfred, at the court of Charlemagne,

in the capital of the Christian world, where Michelet

describes their eloquence as charming the counsellors of the

Emperor, there might be found the fervid preachers and subtle

doctors of the Western Isle. It was then that the island won

the title still fondly cherished, 'insula sanctorum'. The

venerable Bede describes nobles and students at this epoch as

quitting the island of Britain to seek education in Ireland,

and he tells us that the hospitable Celts found them teachers,

books, food and shelter at the cost of the nation. The school

at Armagh, where St. Patrick had established the primacy of

the Church, is reputed to have attracted 7,000 students, and

there were schools at Lismore, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, and Mayo,

which rivalled it in importance. Monasteries multiplied in a

still greater number, and with results as beneficial. …

Writers who are little disposed to make any other concession

to Ireland admit that this was a period of extraordinary

intellectual activity, and of memorable services to

civilization. The arts, as far as they were the handmaidens of

religion, attained a surprising development. The illuminated

copies of the Scripture, the croziers and chalices which have

come down to us from those days, the Celtic crosses and Celtic

harps, the bells and tabernacles, are witnesses of a distinct

and remarkable national culture. The people were still partly

shepherds and husbandmen, partly soldiers, ruled by the Chief,

the Brehon, and the Priest. … After this generous work had

obtained a remarkable success, it was disturbed by contests

with the Sea Kings. … The Cathedral and city of St. Patrick,

the schools of Bangor, the cloisters of Clonmacnoise, and many

more seats of piety and learning, fell into their hands. The

sacred vessels of the altar were turned into drinking cups,

and the missals, blazing with precious stones, were torn from

their costly bindings to furnish ornaments for their sword

hilts, and gifts to the Scalds who sang their achievements.

These pagans burned monasteries, sacked churches, and murdered

women and priests, for plunder or sport. … Before the

dangers and troubles of a long internecine war, the School of

the West gradually dwindled away, and it had fallen into

complete decay before Brian Borhoime, at the beginning of the

11th century, finally subdued the invaders."

_Sir C. G. Duffy,

A Bird's Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,

pages 7-12 (or chapter 4, in "Young Ireland")._

"Ireland, that virgin island on which proconsul never set

foot, which never knew either the orgies or the exactions of

Rome, was also the only place in the world of which the Gospel

took possession without bloodshed. … From the moment that

this Green Erin, situated at the extremity of the known world,

had seen the sun of faith rise upon her, she had vowed herself

to it with an ardent and tender devotion which became her very

life. The course of ages has not interrupted this; the most

bloody and implacable of persecutions has not shaken it; the

defection of all northern Europe has not led her astray; and

she maintains still, amid the splendours and miseries of

modern civilisation and Anglo-Saxon supremacy, an

inextinguishable centre of faith, where survives, along with

the completest orthodoxy, that admirable purity of manners

which no conqueror and no adversary has ever been able to

dispute, to equal, or to diminish. … The Irish communities,

joined by the monks from Gaul and Rome, whom the example of

Patrick had drawn upon his steps, entered into rivalry with

the great monastic schools of Gaul. They explained Ovid there;

they copied Virgil; they devoted themselves especially to

Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, from no

discussion. … A characteristic still more distinctive of the

Irish monks, as of all their nation, was the imperious

necessity of spreading themselves without, of seeking or

carrying knowledge and faith afar, and of penetrating into the

most distant regions to watch or combat paganism. This monastic

nation, therefore, became the missionary nation 'par

excellence'."

_Count de Montalembert,

The Monks of the West,

book 7 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:

_T. Moore,

History of Ireland,

chapter 10-14 (volume 1),

and chapter 18 (volume 2)._

_D. DeVinné,

The Irish Primitive Church._

See, also, CHRISTIANITY; 5TH-9TH CENTURIES.

IRELAND: 9th-10th Centuries.

The Danish conquests and settlements.

"The people popularly known in our history as Danes comprised

swarms from various countries in the north of Europe, from

Norway, Sweden, Zealand, Jutland, and, in general, from all

the shores and islands of the Baltic. … In the Irish annals

they are variously called Galls, or foreigners; Geinti, or

Gentiles; and Lochlanni, or inhabitants of Lochlann, or

Lake-land, that is, Norway; and they are distinguished as the

Finn Galls, or White Foreigners, who are supposed to have been

the inhabitants of Norway; and the Dubh Galls, or Black

Foreigners, who were probably the people of Jutland, and of

the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. A large tract of

country north of Dublin still retains the name of the former.

… The Danes never obtained the dominion of Ireland as they

did that of England."

_M. Haverty,

History of Ireland,

chapters 13-14._

"Ireland was as yet [in the 9th century] a more tempting prey

for the pirates than even Gaul. It was at the monasteries that

these earlier raids were mainly aimed; and nowhere were the

monastic houses so many and so rich. It was in these retreats

indeed, sheltered as men deemed by their holiness from the

greed of the spoiler, that the whole wealth of the country was

stored; and the gold work and jewelry of their shrines, their

precious chalices, the silver-bound horn which king or noble

dedicated at their altars, the curiously-wrought covering of

their mass-books, the hoard of their treasure-chests, fired

the imagination of the northern marauders as the treasures of

the Incas fired that of the soldiers of Spain. News spread

fast up dale and fiord how wealth such as men never dreamed of

was heaped up in houses guarded only by priests and shavelings

who dared not draw sword. The Wikings had long been drawing

closer to this tempting prey. From the coast of Norway a sail

of twenty-four hours with a fair wind brings the sailor in

sight of the Shetlands; Shetlands and Orkneys furnished a base

for the advance of the pirates along the western shores of

Britain, where they found a land like their own in the dales

and lochs of Ross and Argyll, and where the names of Caithness

and Sutherland tell of their conquest and settlement on the

mainland; while the physical appearance of the people still

records their colonization of the Hebrides. Names such as that

of the Orm's Head mark their entrance at last into the Irish

Channel."

_J. R. Green,

The Conquest of England,

chapter 2._

{1757}

"The 9th century was the period of Danish plunder, and of

settlement along the coasts and in convenient places for

purposes of plunder. Towards the latter end of this century

the Irish in Ireland, like the English in England, succeeded

in driving out the enemy, and there was peace for forty years.

Then came the Danes again, but bent more definitely than

before on permanent settlement; and their most notable work

was the establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, with

its centre at one of their old haunts, Ath Cliath on the

Liffey, where the city of Dublin was built by them. The

establishment of this kingdom dates from the year 919, and its

extent may be traced to-day as conterminous with the diocese

of Dublin, extending from Holmpatrick and Skerries on the

north, to Arklow and Wicklow on the south, and inland no

farther than seven or eight miles to Leixlip. Until quite

recently this was also the district over which extended the

jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of Dublin as Admiral of the

Port of Dublin. On College Green used to be held the assembly

of the freemen of the kingdom of Dublin, while the chiefs took

their seats on the steep hill that once stood where St.

Andrew's Church now stands, opposite to 'the old house on

College Green,' which is so dear to the national aspirations

of the modern Irishmen. There the Danes held their

parliaments, agreeing on laws, consenting to judgments and

contracts, feasting and making merry, just as the old Irish

held their parliaments at Tara, Carman, Armagh, and elsewhere.

Nor was Dublin the only Danish city. Limerick, Cork,

Waterford, Wexford, all became the centres of petty Danish

kingdoms, active in commerce, skilful for those times, in

domestic architecture, and with political and legislative

ideas identical in their essence with those of the people

among whom they settled. In the course of the 10th century the

Danes nominally became, for the most part, converts to

Christianity. But it appears that they derived their

Christianity mainly from English sources; and when they began

to organize their Church, they did so after the Roman manner,

and in connection with the see of Canterbury. It was not,

however, till after the wars of Brian Born that Danish

Christianity became either very real or at all organized."

_S. Bryant,

Celtic Ireland,

chapter 5._

ALSO IN:

_C. Haliday,

The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin._

_C. F. Keary,

The Vikings in Western Christendom,

chapter 6_.

See, also,

NORMANS: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES,

IRELAND: A. D. 1014.

The Battle of Clontarf and the great defeat of the Danes.

By a revolution which occurred in the year 1000, Malachy II.

of the dynasty which had reigned long at Tara, was deposed

from the chief sovereignty, and Brian Boromh or Boru, of the

royal family of Munster, who had fought his way up to

masterful power, became the Ardrigh or over-king of Ireland.

In 1014 Brian was called upon to face a great combination

which the Danes of Dublin had effected with their fellow

Northmen, including those of Denmark, Norway, Scotland and all

the isles. It was the Danish intention now to accomplish

completely the conquest of Ireland and bring their long

struggle with its Celtic inhabitants to an effectual close,

King Brian and his countrymen made equal exertions on their

side to meet the attack, and the great battle of Clontarf,

fought on Good Friday of the year 1014, gave them a decisive

victory. "Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches

along the crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbor, from

the ancient salmon weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the

promontory of Howth. Both horns of the crescent were held by

the enemy, and communicated with his ships: the inland point

terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the seaward marked by

the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between sloped

gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad

duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present

less positive vantage ground to combatants on either side. The

invading force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's

army, which had first encamped at Kilmainham, must have

crossed the Liffey higher up, and marched round by the present

Drumcondra in order to reach the appointed field. The day

seems to have been decided on by formal challenge. … The

forces on both sides could not have fallen short of 20,000

men. … The utmost fury was displayed on all sides. …

Hardly a nobly born man escaped, or sought to escape. The ten

hundred in armor, and 3,000 others of the enemy, with about an

equal number of the men of Ireland, lay dead upon the field.

One division of the enemy were, towards sunset, retreating to

their ships, when Brodar the Viking, perceiving the tent of

Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on

his knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a

single blow, and then continued his flight. … The deceased

hero took his place at once in history, national and foreign.

… The fame of the event went out through all nations. The

chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of

Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles, all

record the event. … 'Brian's battle,' as it is called in the

Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general

northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland.

Not that the country was entirely free from their attacks till

the end of the 11th century; but, from the day of Clontarf

forward, the long cherished Northern idea of a conquest of

Ireland seems to have been gloomily abandoned by that

indomitable people."

_T. D'Arcy McGee,

Popular History of Ireland,

book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:

_T. Moore,

History of Ireland,

chapter 21 (volume 2)._

See, also,

NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.

IRELAND: 12th Century.

The great tribes and kingdoms and the ruling families.

"Ireland was now [immediately before Strongbow's conquest]

divided into four confederations of tribes. The O'Neils held

Ulidia, which is now called Ulster; the O'Connors Conacia, or

Connaught; the O'Briens and the M'Carthys Mononia, or Munster;

and the Macmurroughs Lagenia, or Leinster—all under the

paramount but often-disputed rule of a branch of the Ulster

O'Neils. The royal demesne of Meath, the appanage of the

Ulster family, which included Westmeath, Longford, and a part

of King's County, was sometimes counted a fifth kingdom. In

the wild north, O'Neil, O'Donnel, O'Kane, O'Hara, O'Sheel,

O'Carrol, were mighty names.

{1758}

On the northern-most peninsula, where the Atlantic runs into

Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly, O'Dogherty reigned supreme. In

Connaught, O'Rourke, O'Reilly, O'Kelly, O'Flaherty, O'Malley,

O'Dowd, were lords. In Meath and Leinster, MacGeogeghan,

O'Farrell, O'Connor, O'Moore, O'Brennan, Macmurrough, ruled.

In Munster, by the western shore, MacCarthy More held sway.

MacCarthy Reagh swayed the south, by the pleasant waters of

Cork Bay. O'Sullivan Beare was lord of the fair promontory

between Bantry Bay and Kenmare River. O'Mahony reigned by

roaring Water Bay. O'Donoghue was chieftain by the haunted

Killarney Lakes. MacMahon ruled north of the Shannon. O'Loglin

looked on Galway Bay. All Ireland, with the exception of a few

seaport towns where the Danes had settled, was in the hands of

Irish chiefs of old descent and famous lineage. They

quarrelled amongst themselves as readily and as fiercely as if

they had been the heads of so many Greek states. The Danes had

been their Persians; their Romans were now to come."

_J. H. McCarthy,

Outline of Irish History,

chapter 3._

IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175.

The Anglo-Norman conquest.

"The conquest of Ireland is among the most important episodes

in the reign of Henry II. … There were reasons, besides the

mere lust of conquest, why an English king should desire to

reduce Ireland. It had given harbours and recruits to the

Northmen on their expeditions; Irish soldiers had fought at

Brunanbeorh [or Brunnanburgh] against Athelstane; English

exiles, like the sons of Harold, repeatedly fled to the

island, and awaited the opportunity of reprisals upon their

own government. Irish pirates infested the English coasts, and

carried off prisoners, whom they sold as slaves. Accordingly,

William the Conqueror had meditated subjugating Ireland, if he

lived two years longer; William Rufus once declared, as he

stood on the coast of Wales, that he would bridge St. George's

Channel with a fleet of ships. But it was reserved for John of

Salisbury to obtain from his intimate friend, the English

pope, Adrian IV., a grant of Ireland to the English crown [by

the Bull 'Laudabilitur'] as a hereditary fief (A. D. 1154).

… Nevertheless, the difficulty of invading Ireland seemed

greater than any profit likely to result from it. The king's

council opposed the enterprise; and for some years the project

was suffered to sleep. But the wretched disorders of Irish

politics invited the invader." Diarmaid MacMurchad, king of

Leinster, having been driven from his dominions, "repaired to

the court of Henry II. in Aquitaine. The offer to hold

Leinster, if Henry would reinstate him, as an English fief,

procured Diarmaid free quarters in Bristol, to which he

speedily returned, and letters patent authorizing any English

subject to assist him. Diarmaid published these, and promised

large rewards in land to those who would help him to win back

his kingdom. The most powerful ally whom Diarmaid's offers

attracted was Richard de Clare, surnamed Strongbow, earl of

Pembroke, and distant cousin to the king. … Three other

adventurers were enlisted. Two of them, Robert Fitz-Stephen

and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, were sons, by different fathers, of

Nest, a Welsh princess; the third was Maurice de Prendergast."

In May, 1169, Fitz-Stephen, with a small following, crossed

the channel and captured Wexford. Some other successes soon

enabled Diarmaid to make peace with his enemies and recover

his kingdom, even before Strongbow's expedition had left

Wales. "Diarmaid was reinstated, and English subjects had no

authority to carry on war on their own account in Ireland.

Strongbow accordingly went to Normandy, and asked permission

to push the advantages gained. Obtaining only an ambiguous

answer from the king, he determined to consider it in his

favour, and went back into Wales to prepare an expedition. In

May, A. D. 1170, he sent over Raymond le Gros, Fitz-Stephen's

half nephew, as his precursor." Raymond defeated the Irish

with great slaughter, in a battle near Waterford, and savagely

murdered seventy prisoners. "In August, A. D. 1170, as

Strongbow was preparing to embark, he received an explicit

order from the king not to proceed. Quietly disregarding it,

he crossed with a little army of 1,200 men, out of whom 200

were knights. The storm of Waterford was his first exploit;

and it illustrates the Irish architecture of the times, that

the city walls were trenched by cutting away the wooden props

of a house that was built into them. The frightful carnage of

the storm was succeeded by the earl's marriage with Eva

[daughter of King Diarmaid], who brought a kingdom as her

dower. Then the united forces marched upon Dublin." The Danish

city was treacherously stormed in the midst of a negotiation,

and "the inhabitants experienced the worst miseries of the

conquered. Hasculf [the Danish or Norse governor], and Asgall,

king of the Northmen, escaped on board some small vessels to

their countrymen in the Orkneys." The next year Hasculf

reappeared with 60 ships from the Orkneys and Norway and laid

siege to Dublin. He was defeated, taken prisoner and killed;

but another fleet soon arrived and Dublin was again under

siege. Reduced to a desperate strait, the small garrison

sallied and routed the besiegers; but meantime Strongbow had

lost ground elsewhere and Dublin and Waterford were the only

possessions he retained. The anger of King Henry at his

disobedience caused many of his followers to desert him, and

he soon found it necessary to make peace with his offended

sovereign. Crossing over to England, he succeeded in winning

the royal pardon, and Henry returned to Ireland with him, to

assist in the completing of the conquest. They were

accompanied by a fleet of 400 ships and some 4,000 men. The

appearance of the king was followed by a general submission of

the Irish princes, and he made a royal progress to Cashel,

where, in 1172, a synod was held to effect the Church reforms

which were, ostensibly, the chief object of the conquest. "The

court held at Lismore to establish order among the English

settlers is better evidence than any synod of the real objects

of the conquest. The country was partially distributed among

Norman nobles; but as the English conquest of Ireland, more

rapid than the Norman of England, had been effected by fewer

men, and was more insecure, the changes in the property and

laws of the nation were proportionately smaller. Meath, as the

appanage of royalty, of course accrued to the English crown,

and Henry assigned the whole of it to Hugh de Lacy, whom he

made justiciary of the realm and governor of Dublin. The

object of this enormous grant, no doubt, was to balance

Strongbow's power.

{1759}

The families of Desmond, Ormond, and Vernon received other

estates. But the number of those invested was small. … The

slightness of the change, no doubt, mainly contributed to the

readiness with which the supremacy of the English crown was

accepted. In April, A. D. 1172, Henry was able to return to

England, leaving only Ulster behind him nominally unsubdued. A

series of petty wars between Irish chiefs and Norman nobles

soon broke out. The precarious nature of the English dominion

became manifest; and Henry was forced to publish the papal

grant of Ireland, which he had hitherto suppressed. At last,

in A. D. 1175, Roderic O'Connor [king of Connaught, and

previously recognized over-king of Ireland] made a treaty with

the English crown, and agreed to render homage and submission,

and a tribute of every tenth hide, in return for royal rights

in his own kingdom of Connaught. At the same time, the limits

of the English pale, as it was afterwards called, were

defined. This district, which was immediately subject to the

king of England and his barons, comprised Dublin with its

appurtenances, Meath, Leinster, and the country from Waterford

to Dungarvon. … From the English point of view, the kings of

England were henceforth lords-paramount of Ireland, with the

fee of the soil vested in them, and all Irish princes in

future were no more than tenants-in-chief. From the Irish

point of view, the English kings were nothing more than

military suzerains in the districts outside the pale."

_C. H. Pearson,

History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,

volume 1, chapter 30._

ALSO IN:

_Mrs. J. R. Green,

Henry the Second,

chapter 8._

_A. G. Richey,

Short History of the Irish People,

chapters 6-7._

_W. A. O'Conor,

History of the Irish People,

book 2, chapters 1-2._

_T. Moore,

History of Ireland,

chapters 26-29._

_F. P. Barnard, editor,

Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland:

From Contemporary Writers._

IRELAND: 13th-14th Centuries.

Under the Anglo-Norman conquerors.

"The feudal system as established in Ireland differed in

important respects from that existing in England. It is usual

for Irish writers to attribute much of the sufferings of

Ireland to the misgovernment of England and the introduction

of feudalism, whereas most of these evils may be referred

rather to English non-government and to the peculiar anomalies

of the Irish feudal system. The feudal system as introduced

into Ireland, like most other institutions imported from

England, was altered in such a manner as to retain all its

evils, and lose all its advantages. The Crown in Ireland

possessed no power of controlling its vassals. … In Ireland

there were no manor or valuable estates that the Crown could

appropriate—the entire country had to be conquered; and as

the Crown did not assist in the conquest, it received no part

of the spoils. Thus we find the Crown had absolutely no

demesnes of its own, and, being deprived of any military force

of its own, it had to rely upon such of the great feudal

vassals as might remain loyal for the purpose of crushing

those who might be in rebellion. The inevitable result of this

policy was to kindle a civil war and excite personal feuds in

the attempt to maintain order. … We have thus a feudal

system, in which the Crown is powerless to fulfil its duties,

yet active in preventing the greater nobles from exercising

that influence which might have secured a reasonable degree of

order. The whole energy of the nobles was turned away from

government to war; and lest they should become local

potentates, they were allowed to degenerate into local

tyrants. But what, meanwhile, had become of the Irish nation?

As the feudal system ignored their existence, we have

permitted them to fall out of our view; but they still

existed, and still were politically independent. The invaders

had occupied the flat country, suitable for the operation of

their forces, and the original inhabitants had retired into

either the mountainous districts, impassable to cavalry, or

into districts protected by the bogs, and difficult of access;

nay, even in some parts of the island, where the Normans were

not in force, they had re-occupied large portions of the open

country. They did not retire as disorganised fugitives, but

the tribes retreated, keeping their social organisation

unbroken; and, although removed from their original

habitations, still preserved their social identity. The

remarkable point in the conquest was, that the Celtic

population was not driven back upon anyone portion of the

kingdom, but remained as it was, interpolated among the new

arrivals. … The Celtic population possessed no definite

legal position, filled no place in the feudal hierarchy, and

was in the eyes of the English Government hostile and alien;

the only exception to this was the case of the O'Briens, who,

though not actually feudal vassals, had their estates secured

by a charter, and five Irish families, through some unknown

reason, were considered as the king's men and entitled to his

protection; these were known as the five bloods, who enjoyed

the law of England to the extent of the privilege to sue in

the king's courts, viz., O'Neill, O'Molaghlin, O'Connor,

O'Brien, and M'Murrough. … The Irish in Ireland were treated

by the king's courts in Ireland as an alien and hostile

nation; an Irishman out of the king's peace could not bring an

action against an Englishman. … But, though legally ignored,

the Irish tribes could not be politically disregarded. The

English Government used their assistance to repress the

rebellions of insurgent vassals. … They were called on to

furnish assistance to the English armies, and on many

occasions we find their chiefs summoned by writ of Parliament,

as if feudal vassals; but the mode in which they were treated

depended upon the immediate objects and want of the English

Government, and the general course of conduct pursued towards

them was such as has been previously stated. … We thus find

the English and Irish races hopelessly at variance, and it

would seem that one or other must have been crushed out in the

contest; but such was not the result; they both survived, and,

contrary to reasonable expectations, the Irish exhibited the

greater vitality. The expulsion of the English colony was an

effort beyond the power of the disunited Irish tribes; for in

the darkest hours of the English settlement the power of

England was ready, by some sudden effort, to reassert the

English supremacy. But why did the Anglo-Normans wholly fail

to subdue the Irish? …

1. The large extent comprised in the grants made to the first

colonists led to a dispersion of the Norman nobles over the

more fertile portions of the country. The English colony never

formed one compact body capable of combined action. …

{1760}

2. The military equipment of the Normans, and their mode of

carrying on war, rendered their forces wholly inefficient,

when, leaving the flat country, they attempted to penetrate

the fastnesses of the native tribes. …

3. From the absence of any central government, civil wars

continually arose between the several Norman lords; thus the

military power of the colonists was frittered away in

dissensions. …

4. The English Government continually called upon the Irish

barons for aids and military service, to be employed in wars

elsewhere than in Ireland. …

5. Many of the estates of the Norman nobles descended to

heiresses who married Englishmen already possessing estates in

England: hence arose absenteeism.

6. Even the lords who resided constantly upon their Irish

estates gradually lost their Norman habits, and tended to

assimilate themselves to the manners, and to adopt the

language, of the Irish."

_A. G. Richey,

Short History of the Irish People,

chapter 8._

ALSO IN:

_P. W. Joyce,

Short History of Ireland,

part 3._

See, also,

PALATINE, THE IRISH COUNTIES;

and GERALDINES.

IRELAND:

The Celticizing of the Anglo-Norman conquerors.

"Prior to experience, it would have been equally reasonable to

expect that the modern Englishman would adopt the habits of

the Hindoo or the Mohican, as that the fiery knights of

Normandy would have stooped to imitate a race whom they

despised as slaves; that they would have flung away their very

knightly names to assume a barbarous equivalent [the De Burghs

became Bourkes or Burkes, the M'Sweenies had been Veres in

England, and the Munster Geraldines merged their family name

in that of Desmond.—Foot-note]; and would so utterly have

cast aside the commanding features of their Northern

extraction, that their children's children could be

distinguished neither in soul nor body, neither in look, in

dress, in language, nor in disposition, from the Celts whom

they had subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary fact.

The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their

defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in

yielding, yielded only to fling over their new masters the

subtle spell of the Celtic disposition. In vain the government

attempted to stem the evil. Statute was passed after statute

forbidding the 'Englishry' of Ireland to use the Irish

language, or intermarry with Irish families, or copy Irish

habits. Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines,

forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for

such offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on

irresistibly. Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the

system, but only for themselves or their children to be swept

into the stream; and from the century which succeeded the

Conquest till the reign of the eighth Henry, the strange

phenomenon repeated itself, generation after generation,

baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralysing every effort

at a remedy."

_J. A. Froude,

History of England,

chapter 8 (volume 2)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1314-1318.

Edward Bruce's invasion.

The crushing defeat of the English by the Scotch at

Bannockburn (1314) rekindled a spirit of rebellion in Ireland,

and the discontented chiefs made haste to solicit aid from

Scotland, offering the sovereignty of their island to Edward

Bruce, brother of king Robert, if he would come to their help

and conquer it. "By consent of king Robert, who was pleased to

make a diversion against England upon a vulnerable point, and

not, perhaps, sorry to be rid of a restless spirit, which

became impatient in the lack of employment, Edward invaded

Ireland at the head of a force of 6,000 Scots. He fought many

battles, and gained them all. He became master of the province

of Ulster, and was solemnly crowned king of Ireland; but found

himself amid his successes obliged to intreat the assistance

of king Robert with fresh supplies; for the impetuous Edward,

who never spared his own person, was equally reckless of

exposing his followers; and his successes were misfortunes, in

so far as they wasted the brave men with whose lives they were

purchased. Robert Bruce led supplies to his brother's

assistance, with an army which enabled him to overrun Ireland,

but without gaining any permanent advantage. He threatened

Dublin, and penetrated as far as Limerick in the west, but was

compelled, by scarcity of provisions, to retire again into

Ulster, in the spring of 1317. He shortly after returned to

Scotland, leaving a part of his troops with Edward, though

probably convinced that his brother was engaged in a desperate

and fruitless enterprise. … After his brother's departure,

Edward's career of ambition was closed at the battle of

Dundalk, where, October 5th, 1318, fortune at length failed a

warrior who had tried her patience by so many hazards. On that

fatal day he encountered, against the advice of his officers,

an Anglo-Irish army ten times more numerous than his own. A

strong champion among the English, named John Maupas, singling

out the person of Edward, slew him, and received death at his

hands. … A general officer of the Scots, called John

Thomson, led back the remnant of the Scottish force to their

own country. And thus ended the Scottish invasion of Ireland,

with the loss of many brave soldiers."

_Sir W. Scott,

History of Scotland,

chapter 11 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:

_T. Moore,

History of Ireland,

volume 3, chapter 36._

IRELAND: A. D. 1327-1367.

Oppressions of the reign of Edward III.

"Of all the legislative measures of this period the most

notable was the Statute of Kilkenny, passed at a Parliament

held in that town, in the last year of the decade, in the Lent

session of 1367. This 'famous, or infamous,' enactment

gathered up into one, and recapitulated with additional

aggravations and insults, all the former oppressive,

exasperating, and iniquitous ordinances by which English

legislation for Ireland had hitherto been disgraced. … Among

the earliest measures passed in the reign of Edward III. was a

statute directed against absenteeism, obliging all Englishmen

who were Irish proprietors either to reside on their estates

or to provide soldiers to defend them. But this enactment was

unproductive of good results. The O'Neills drove the colonists

out of the 'liberty of Ulster,' and the English De Burghs, so

far from helping to uphold English ascendency, appropriated to

themselves the entire lordship of Connaught, made common cause

with the native tribes, and adopting their dress, language,

and customs, became 'Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,' threw off

their allegiance to King Edward, and bade defiance to the

King's authority. Thus it came to pass that before many years

of this reign had elapsed more than a third part of the

territories of the Pale was again in the hands of its original

possessors. … Edward III. inherited the barbarous and

iniquitous traditions of English rule in Ireland, but he

improved upon them.

{1761}

He ordered all his officers in that country who had Irish

estates to be removed and give place to Englishmen with no

Irish ties. He next declared void every grant of land in

Ireland since the time of Edward II., and made new grants of

the lands thus recovered to the Crown. The tendency of this

monstrous measure was to create two more antagonistic parties

in Ireland, destined by their bitter dissensions to bring

about the result that ere long 'all the King's land in Ireland

was on the point of passing away from the Crown of England,'—

viz., the 'English by blood,' as the established settlers were

called, and the 'English by birth,' or new grantees. Some of

the chief of the former, in despair of a career, or even of a

quiet life, at home, were about to bid good-bye to Ireland and

seek their fortunes elsewhere, when they were arrested by a

proclamation making it penal for any English subject capable

of bearing arms to leave the country. … The 'English by

blood' became more and more intimately connected and

identified with the native Irish, and the 'English by birth'

became more and more powerless to maintain the English

ascendency; till at last, in 1361, the King determined on

sending over a viceroy of the blood royal, and appointed to

the post his son Lionel, created shortly afterwards Duke of

Clarence, whom he had married to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter

and representative of the last Earl of Ulster. But though

Prince Lionel, on his arrival, took the precaution of

forbidding any man born in Ireland to approach his camp, his

position soon became so critical that the King issued writs

commanding all the absentee Irish lords to hasten to Ireland

to the assistance of the Prince, 'for that his very dear son

and his companions in Ireland were in imminent peril.' The

next step was the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny. It

re-enacted the prohibition of marriage and foster-nursing,

rendered obligatory the adoption of the English language and

customs, forbade the national games of 'hurlings and

quoitings,' and the use of the ancient Gaelic code called the

Senchus Mor; a code by which the native brehons, or judges, of

the Irish septs had decided causes among them since the time

of the conversion of the race to Christianity in the fifth

century."

_W. Warburton,

Edward III., 4th decade,

chapter 3._

ALSO IN:

_W. Longman,

Life and Times of Edward III.,

volume 2, chapter 1._

_T. Leland,

History of Ireland,

book 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1494.

Poynings' Laws.

During the Wars of the Roses, "if Ireland had any preference

for either of the great contending parties in England, it was

… for the House of York; and from this cause chiefly sprang

the change of Henry VII.'s mode of governing the dependency

which on ascending the throne he had found all but severed

from his dominions. At first he had thought it best to employ

the native nobility for this purpose, and had chosen for

Deputy the Earl of Kildare—setting him, as the story ran, to

rule all Ireland, because all Ireland could not rule him.

When, however, he had time to reflect on the dangers springing

from the Irish support of Simnel and Warbeck, from which he

and his dynasty had escaped so narrowly, he perceived the

necessity of bringing the country under a more regular

government. Accordingly he sent over in 1494 (at the time when

Warbeck was preparing for his descent on England) Sir Edward

Poynings as Lord Deputy, a statesman and commander well

experienced in the most important affairs of the time."

_C. E. Moberly,

The Early Tudors,

chapter 6._

After some military operations, which he found to be beset

with treacheries and difficulties, the new Lord Deputy held a

Parliament at Drogheda—"perhaps the most memorable that was

ever held in Ireland, as certainly no other Parliament in that

country made laws which endured so long as two which were then

enacted, and were known for centuries afterwards as the

'Poynings Acts.' By the first of these it was ordained that no

Parliament should be held in Ireland in future until the

king's Council in England had approved not only of its being

summoned, but also of the Acts which the Lieutenant and

Council of Ireland proposed to pass in it. By the second the

laws enacted before that time in England were extended to

Ireland also. Thus the Irish legislature was made entirely

dependent upon England. The Irish Parliament had no power to

originate anything, but was only free to accept or (if they

were very bold) to reject measures drawn up by the Irish

Council and approved already by the king and his Council in

England before they were submitted to discussion. Little as

this looks like parliamentary government, such was the state

of subjection in which the Irish Parliament remained by virtue

of this law for nearly three centuries later. Almost the whole

time, that is to say, that Ireland had a separate Parliament

at all it remained in this manner restricted in its action by

the legislation of Sir Edward Poynings. … It should be

remembered, however, that Henry VII. merely sought to do in

Ireland what there is every reason to suppose he practically

did in England. Legislation was not at this time considered to

be the chief business of a Parliament."

_J. Gairdner,

Henry the Seventh,

chapter. 8._

ALSO IN:

_R. Bagwell,

Ireland Under the Tudors,

chapter 8._

_W. A. O'Conor,

History of the Irish People,

book 2, chapter 4, section 7._

_H. Hallam,

Constitutional History of England,

chapter 18 (volume 3)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1515.

The English Pale and the Clans and Chiefs beyond it.

"The events on which we are about to enter require for their

understanding a sketch of the position of the various chiefs,

as they were at this time scattered over the island. The

English pale, originally comprising 'the four shires,' as they

were called, of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel or Louth,

had been shorn down to half its old dimensions. The line

extended from Dundalk to Ardee; from Ardee by Castletown to

Kells; thence through Athboy and Trim to the Castle of

Maynooth; from Maynooth it crossed to Claine upon the Liffey,

and then followed up the line of the river to Ballimore

Eustace, from which place it skirted back at the rear of the

Wicklow and Dublin mountains to the forts at Dalkey, seven

miles south of Dublin. This narrow strip alone, some fifty

miles long and twenty broad, was in any sense English. Beyond

the borders the common law of England was of no authority; the

king's writ was but a strip of parchment; and the country was

parcelled among a multitude of independent chiefs, who

acknowledged no sovereignty but that of strength, who levied

tribute on the inhabitants of the pale as a reward for a

nominal protection of their rights, and as a compensation for

abstaining from the plunder of their farms. …

{1762}

These chiefs, with their dependent clans, were distributed

over the four provinces in the following order. The

Geraldines, the most powerful of the remaining Normans, were

divided into two branches. The Geraldines of the south, under

the Earls of Desmond, held Limerick, Cork, and Kerry; the

Geraldines of Leinster lay along the frontiers of the English

pale; and the heads of the house, the Earls of Kildare, were

the feudal superiors of the greater portion of the English

counties. To the Butlers, Earls of Ormond and Ossory, belonged

Kilkenny, Carlow, and Tipperary. The De Burghs, or Bourkes, as

they called themselves, were scattered over Galway, Roscommon,

and the south of Sligo, occupying the broad plains which lie

between the Shannon and the mountains of Connemara and Mayo.

This was the relative position into which these clans had

settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with

little variation. The north, which had fallen to the Lacies

and the De Courcies, had been wholly recovered by the Irish.

The Lacies had become extinct. The De Courcies, once Earls of

Ulster, had migrated to the south, and were reduced to the

petty fief of Kinsale, which they held under the Desmonds. The

Celtic chieftains had returned from the mountains to which

they had been driven, bringing back with them, more intensely

than ever, the Irish habits and traditions. … The O'Neils

and O'Donnells had spread down over Ulster to the frontiers of

the pale. The O'Connors and O'Carrolls had recrossed the

Shannon and pushed forwards into Kildare; the O'Connor Don was

established in a castle near Portarlington, said to be one of

the strongest in Ireland; and the O'Carrolls had seized Leap,

an ancient Danish fortress, surrounded by bog and forest, a

few miles from Parsonstown. O'Brien of Inchiquin, Prince—as

he styled himself—of Thomond, no longer contented with his

principality of Clare, had thrown a bridge across the Shannon

five miles above Limerick, and was thus enabled to enter

Munster at his pleasure and spread his authority towards the

south; while the M'Carties and O'Sullivans, in Cork and Kerry,

were only not dangerous to the Earls of Desmond, because the

Desmonds were more Irish than themselves, and were accepted as

their natural chiefs. In Tipperary and Kilkenny only the

Celtic reaction was held in check. The Earls of Ormond,

although they were obliged themselves to live as Irish

chieftains, and to govern by the Irish law, yet … remained

true to their allegiance, and maintained the English authority

as far as their power extended. … Wexford, Wicklow, and the

mountains of Dublin, were occupied by the Highland tribes of

O'Bryne and O'Toole, who, in their wild glens and dangerous

gorges, defied attempts to conquer them, and who were able, at

all times, issuing down out of the passes of the hills, to cut

off communication with the pale. Thus the Butlers had no means

of reaching Dublin except through the county of Kildare, the

home of their hereditary rivals and foes. This is a general

account of the situation of the various parties in Ireland at

the beginning of the 16th century. I have spoken only of the

leading families. … 'There be sixty counties, called

regions, in Ireland,' says the report of 1515, 'inhabited with

the king's Irish enemies.'"

_J. A. Froude,

History of England,

chapter 8 (volume 2)._

See, also,

PALE, THE ENGLISH.

IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.

The reconquest under Henry VIII. and

the fall of the Geraldines.

The political pacification and the religious alienation.

"To Henry VIII. the policy which had been pursued by his

father was utterly hateful. His purpose was to rule in Ireland

as thoroughly and effectively as he ruled in England. … The

Geraldines, who had been suffered under the preceding reign to

govern Ireland in the name of the Crown, were quick to

discover that the Crown would no longer stoop to be their

tool. They resolved to frighten England again into a

conviction of its helplessness; and the rising of Lord Thomas

Fitzgerald followed the usual fashion of Irish revolts. A

murder of the Archbishop of Dublin, a capture of the city, a

repulse before its castle, a harrying of the Pale, ended in a

sudden disappearance of the rebels among the bogs and forests

of the border on the advance of the English forces. …

Unluckily for the Geraldines, Henry had resolved to take

Ireland seriously in hand, and he had Cromwell [Sir Thomas] to

execute his will. Skeffington, the new Lord Deputy, brought

with him a train of artillery, which worked a startling change

in the political aspect of the island. The castles which had

hitherto sheltered rebellion were battered into ruins. … Not

only was the power of the great Norman house which had towered

over Ireland utterly broken, but only a single boy was left to

preserve its name. With the fall of the Geraldines Ireland

felt itself in a master's grasp. … In seven years, partly

through the vigour of Skeffington's successor, Lord Leonard

Grey, and still more through the resolute will of Henry and

Cromwell, the power of the Crown, which had been limited to

the walls of Dublin, was acknowledged over the length and

breadth of Ireland. … Chieftain after chieftain was won over

to the acceptance of the indenture which guaranteed him in the

possession of his lands, and left his authority over his

tribesmen untouched, on conditions of a pledge of loyalty, of

abstinence from illegal wars and exactions on his

fellow-subjects, and of rendering a fixed tribute and service

in war-time to the Crown. … [This] firm and conciliatory

policy must in the end have won, but for the fatal blunder

which plunged Ireland into religions strife at the moment when

her civil strife seemed about to come to an end. … In

Ireland the spirit of the Reformation never existed among the

people at all. They accepted the legislative measures passed

in the English Parliament without any dream of theological

consequences, or of any change in the doctrine or ceremonies

of the Church. … The mission of Archbishop Browne 'for the

plucking-down of idols and extinguishing of idolatry' was the

first step in the long effort of the English Government to

force a new faith on a people who to a man clung passionately

to their old religion. Browne's attempts at 'tuning the

pulpits' were met by a sullen and significant opposition. …

Protestantism had failed to wrest a single Irishman from his

older convictions, but it succeeded in uniting all Ireland

against the Crown. … The population within the Pale and

without it became one, 'not as the Irish nation,' it has been

acutely said, 'but as Catholics.' A new sense of national

identity was found in the identity of religion."

_J. R. Green,

Short History of the English People,

chapter 7, section 8._

ALSO IN:

_R. Bagwell,

Ireland Under the Tudors,

volume 1, chapters 9-15._

_M. Haverty,

History of Ireland,

chapter 30._

{1763}

IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.

The wars of Shane O'Neil and Hugh O'Neil, Earls of Tyrone.

The League of the Geraldines and the Ulster Confederacy.

"The Reformation begun under Henry VIII. was carried out with

pitiless determination under Edward VI., and was met by the

Catholics with unflinching opposition. Under Mary there was a

period of respite, but the strife was renewed with greater

fierceness in the succeeding reign. As authentic Irish history

begins with St. Patrick, so with Elizabeth modern Irish

history may be said to begin. … At her accession, Elizabeth

was too much occupied with foreign complications to pay much

heed to Ireland. Trouble first began in a conflict between the

feudal laws and the old Irish law of Tanistry. Con O'Neil,

Earl of Tyrone, had taken his title from Henry VIII., subject

to the English law of succession; but when Con died, the clan

O'Neil, disregarding the English principle of hereditary

succession, chose Shane O'Neil, an illegitimate son of Con,

and the hero of his Sept, to be The O'Neil. Shane O'Neil at

once put himself forward as the champion of Irish liberty, the

supporter of the Irish right to rule themselves in their own

way and pay no heed to England. Under the pretence of

governing the country, Elizabeth overran it with a soldiery

who, as even Mr. Froude acknowledges, lived almost universally

on plunder, and were little better than bandits. The time was

an appropriate one for a champion of Irish rights. Shane

O'Neil boldly stood out as sovereign of Ulster, and pitted

himself against Elizabeth. … Shane fought bravely against

his fate, but he was defeated [A. D. 1567], put to flight, and

murdered by his enemies, the Scots of Antrim, in whose

strongholds he madly sought refuge. His head was struck off,

and sent to adorn the walls of Dublin Castle. His lands were

declared forfeit, and his vassals, vassals of the Crown.

English soldiers of fortune were given grants from Shane's

escheated territory, but when they attempted to settle they

were killed by the O'Neils. Others came in their place, under

Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and did their best to simplify

the process of colonization by exterminating the O'Neils, men,

women, and children, wherever they could be got at. After two

years of struggle Essex was compelled to abandon his

settlement. But other colonizers were not disheartened. Some

West of England gentlemen, under Peter Carew, seized on Cork,

Limerick and Kerry, and sought to hold them by extirpating the

obnoxious natives. Against these English inroads the great

Geraldine League was formed. In the reign of Mary, that boy of

twelve whom Henry VIII. had not been able to include in the

general doom of his house had been allowed to return to

Ireland, and to resume his ancestral honours, Once more the

Geraldines were a great and powerful family in Ireland."

Defeated in their first rising, "the Geraldines and their

companion chiefs got encouragement in Rome and pledges from

Spain, and they rose again under the Earl of Desmond and Sir

James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald. At first they had some

successes, They had many wrongs to avenge. … Sir Francis

Cosby, the Queen's representative in Leix and Offaly, had

conceived and executed the idea of preventing any further

possible rising of the chiefs in those districts by summoning

them and their kinsmen to a great banquet in the fort of

Mullaghmast, and there massacring them all. Out of 400 guests,

only one man, a Lalor, escaped from that feast of blood. …

With such memories in their minds, the tribes rose in all

directions to the Desmond call. … Elizabeth sent over more

troops to Ireland under the new Lord Deputy, Sir William

Pelham, who had with him as ally Ormonde, the head of the

house of Butler, hereditary foes of the Geraldines, and easily

induced to act against them. Pelham and Ormonde cut their way

over Munster, reducing the province by unexampled ferocity.

Ormonde boasted that he had put to death nearly 6,000

disaffected persons. Just at this moment some of the chiefs of

the Pale rose, and rose too late. They gained one victory over

Lord Grey de Wilton in the pass of Glenmalure [August, 1580].

… Grey immediately abandoned the Pale to the insurgents, and

turned to Smerwick [A. D. 1580], where some 800 Spanish and

Italian soldiers had just landed, too late to be of any

service to the rebellion, and had occupied the dismantled

fort. It was at once blockaded by sea and by land. In Grey's

army Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser both held commands.

Smerwick surrendered at discretion, and the prisoners were

killed by Raleigh and his men in cold blood. Flushed by this

success, Grey returned to the Pale and carried all before him.

The Geraldines were disheartened, and were defeated wherever

they made a stand. … Munster was so vigorously laid waste

that Mr. Froude declares that 'the lowing of a cow or the

sound of a ploughboy's whistle was not to be heard from

Valentia to the Rock of Cashel.' Holinshed declares the

traveller would not meet any man, woman, or child, saving in

towns or cities, and would not see any beast; and Spenser

gives a melancholy picture of the misery of the inhabitants,

'as that any stony heart would rue the same.' … The next

step was to confiscate the estates of the rebellious

chieftains. … The estates of Desmond and some 140 of his

followers came to the Crown. The land was then distributed at

the cheapest rate in large tracts to English nobles and

gentlemen adventurers, who were pledged to colonize it with

English labourers and tradesmen. But of these labourers and

tradesmen not many came over, and those who did soon returned,

tired of struggling for their foothold with the dispossessed

Irish." During all this Geraldine or Desmond rebellion Ulster

had remained quiet; but in 1594 it began to show signs of

disturbance. "Hugh O'Neil, the grandson of that Con O'Neil

whom Henry VIII. had made Earl of Tyrone, had been brought up

at the English court, and confirmed in the lordship of Tyrone

by the English Government. In the brilliant court of Elizabeth

the young Irish chief was distinguished for his gifts of mind

and body. When he came of age he was allowed to return to

Ireland to his earldom. Once within his own country, he

assumed his ancestral title of The O'Neil, and revived all the

customs of independent Irish chieftains. For long enough he

took no part in any plots or movements against the Crown; but

many things, the ties of friendship and of love, combined to

drive him into rebellion.

{1764}

… Tyrone in the end consented to give the powerful support

of his name and his arms to a skilfully planned confederation

of the tribes. On all sides the Irish chiefs entered into the

insurrection. O'Neil was certainly the most formidable Irish

leader the English had yet encountered. … Victory followed

victory [that of the Yellow Ford, 1598, being the most

important]. In a little while all Ireland, with the exception

of Dublin and a few garrison towns, was in the hands of the

rebels. Essex, and the largest army ever sent to Ireland,

crossed the Channel to cope with him; but Essex made no

serious move, and after an interview with Tyrone, in which he

promised more than he could perform, he returned to England to

his death. His place was taken by Lord Mountjoy, who, for all

his love of angling and of Elizabethan 'play-books,' was a

stronger man. Tyrone met him, was defeated [at Kinsale, 1601].

From that hour the rebellion was over. … At last Tyrone was

compelled to come to terms. He surrendered his estates,

renounced all claim to the title of The O'Neil, abjured

alliance with all foreign powers, and promised to introduce

English laws and customs into Tyrone. In return he received a

free pardon and a re-grant of his title and lands by letters

patent. Rory O'Donnell, Red Hugh's brother, also submitted,

and was allowed to retain the title of Earl of Tyrconnel.

Elizabeth was already dead, and the son of Mary Stuart [James

I.] was King of England when these terms were made; but they

were not destined to do much good."

_J. H. McCarthy,

Outline of Irish History,

chapter 4._

ALSO IN:

_T. D. McGee,

Popular History of Ireland,

book 8, chapters 3-11 (volumes 1-2)._

_M. Haverty,

History of Ireland,

chapters 32-35._

_R. Bagwell,

Ireland under the Tudors,

volume 2._

_T. Leland,

History of Ireland,

book 4, chapters 1-5 (volume 2)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611.

The flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster.

"With the submission of the Earl of Tyrone terminated the

struggle between the Tudor princes and the native Celtic

tribes. No chieftain henceforward claimed to rule his district

in independence of the Crown of England. The Celtic land

tenure, the Brehon laws, the language, customs, and traditions

of the defeated race were doomed to gradual yet certain

extinction. … Before Elizabeth was laid in the grave, the

object for which during so many years she had striven was thus

at length accomplished; … but between the wars of the Tudors

and the civil government of the Stuarts, still remain (the

intermediate link, as it were, between the two) the fall of

the able man who had created and so long conducted an almost

national resistance, and the colonisation by English settlers

of his demesnes and the adjoining parts of Ulster."

_A. G. Richey,

Short History of the Irish People,

chapter 20._

"Lord Bacon, with whom ideas grew plentifully, had a

suggestion at the service of the new king as profitable as the

'princelie policie' which he taught his predecessor. He was of

opinion that a great settlement of English husbandmen in

Ireland, able to guard as well as to till the land, would help

to secure the interest of the Crown. Till this was done

Ireland was not effectually reduced, as Sir Edward Coke

afterwards declared, 'for there was ever a back-door in the

north.' The only question was where to plant them. O'Neill and

Tyrconnell had proved dangerous adversaries; they possessed a

fertile territory, and as their 'loose order of inheritance'

had been duly changed into 'an orderly succession,' they were

quite ripe for confiscation. But they had been ostentatiously

received into favour at the close of the late war, and some

decent pretence for destroying them so soon was indispensable.

It was found in a letter conveniently dropped in the precincts

of Dublin Castle, disclosing a new conspiracy. Of a conspiracy

there was not then, and has not been since discovered, any

evidence worth recording. The letter was probably forged,

according to the practise of the times; but where so noble a

booty was to be distributed by the Crown, one can conceive how

ill-timed and disloyal any doubt of their treason would have

appeared at the Court of James, or of the Lord Deputy. They

were proclaimed traitors, and fled to the Continent to solicit

aid from the Catholic Powers. Without delay James and his

counsellors set to work. The King applied to the City of

London to take up the lands of the wild Irish. They were well

watered, he assured them, plentifully supplied with fuel, with

good store of all the necessaries for man's sustenance; and

moreover yielded timber, hides, tallow, canvas, and cordage

for the purposes of commerce. The Companies of Skinners,

Fishmongers, Haberdashers, Vintners and the like thereupon

became Absentee Proprietors, and have guzzled Irish rents in

city feasts and holiday excursions to Ireland from that day to

this. Six counties in Ulster were confiscated, and not merely

the chiefs, but the entire population dispossessed. The

fruitful plains of Armagh, the deep pastoral glens that lie

between the sheltering hills of Donegal, the undulating meadow

lands stretching by the noble lakes and rivers of Fermanagh,

passed from the race which had possessed them since before the

redemption of mankind. … The alluvial lands were given to

English courtiers whom the Scotch king found it necessary to

placate, and to Scotch partisans whom he dared not reward in

England. The peasants driven out of the tribal lands to burrow

in the hills or bogs were not treated according to any law

known among civilised men. Under Celtic tenure the treason of

the chief, if he committed treason, affected them no more than

the offences of a tenant for life affect a remainder man in

our modern practice. Under the feudal system they were

innocent feudatories who would pass with the forfeited land to

the Crown, with all their personal rights undisturbed. The

method of settlement is stated with commendable simplicity by

the latest historian. The 'plantators' got all the land worth

their having; what was not worth their having—the barren

mountains and trackless morass, which after two centuries

still in many cases yield no human food—were left to those

who in the language of an Act of Parliament of the period were

'natives of the realm of Irish blood, being descended from

those who did inherit and possess the land.' Lest the

frugality of the Celts should enable them to peacefully regain

some of their possessions, it was strictly conditioned that no

plantator or servitor should alienate his portion, or any part

thereof, to the mere Irish. The confiscated territory amounted

to two millions of acres. 'Of these a million and a half' says

Mr. Froude, 'bog, forest, and mountain were restored to the

Irish. The half million acres of fertile land were settled

with families of Scottish and English Protestants.' It was in

this manner that the famous Plantation of Ulster was founded."

_Sir C. G. Duffy,

Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,

pages 74-78

(or book 1, chapter 4, of "Young Ireland")._

{1765}

"The City of London had taken in hand the settlement of Derry,

which was now to be rebuilt under the name of Londonderry, and

to give its name to the county in which it stood, and which

had hitherto been known as the county of Coleraine."

_S. R. Gardiner,

History of England, 1603-1642,

chapter 10 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:

_T. D'Arcy McGee,

Popular History of Ireland,

book 9, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

_J. Harrison,

The Scot in Ulster,

chapter 3._

_C. P. Meehan,

Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone,

and Rory O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel._

IRELAND: A. D. 1625.

The Graces of Charles I.

On the accession of Charles I., "one more effort was made by

the Irish gentry to persuade, or rather to bribe, the

Government to allow them to remain undisturbed in the

possession of their property. They offered to raise by

voluntary assessment the large sum of £120,000 in three annual

instalments of £40,000, on condition of obtaining certain

Graces from the King. These Graces, the Irish analogue of the

Petition of Rights, were of the most moderate and equitable

description. The most important were that undisturbed

possession of sixty years should secure a landed proprietor

from all older claims on the part of the Crown, that the

inhabitants of Connaught should be secured from litigation by

the enrolment of their patents, and that Popish recusants

should be permitted, without taking the Oath of Supremacy, to

sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches, and to

practise in the courts of law. The terms were accepted. The

promise of the King was given. The Graces were transmitted by

way of instruction to the Lord Deputy and Council, and the

Government also engaged, as a further security to all

proprietors, that their estates should be formally confirmed

to them and to their heirs by the next Parliament which should

be held in Ireland. The sequel forms one of the most shameful

passages in the history of English government of Ireland. In

distinct violation of the King's solemn promise, after the

subsidies that were made on the faith of that promise had been

duly obtained, without provocation or pretext or excuse,

Wentworth, who now presided with stern despotism over the

government of Ireland, announced the withdrawal of the two

principal articles of the Graces, the limitation of Crown

claims by a possession of sixty years and the legalisation of

the Connaught titles."

_W. E. H. Lecky,

History of England, 18th Century,

chapter 6 (volume 2)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1633-1639.

Wentworth's system of "Thorough."

In the summer of 1633, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of

Strafford, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. "It was

during his tenure of office as viceroy that he attempted to

establish absolutism in Ireland, in order that, by the thereby

enhanced power of the monarchy, he might be enabled to turn

the scale in favour of a despotic government in England. And,

never at a loss in the choice of his expedients, he contended

for his scheme with an energy and a recklessness

characteristic of the man. In the prosecution of his ends, he

treated some of the most influential English noblemen resident

in Ireland with the utmost indignity, simply with the object

of intimidating them, at the outset, from any further

opposition. One of them, Lord Mountnorris, was even condemned

to death on a charge of sedition and mutiny, merely for having

made use of a disrespectful expression with reference to the

lord-lieutenant, the representative of the sovereign. …

Every longing of the Irish Protestant Church for independence

was suppressed by Wentworth. According to his views, supreme

authority in Church matters belonged absolutely and

unconditionally to the king. He, therefore, abolished, in

1634, the 'Irish Articles,' which granted some concessions to

Puritanism, and which had been introduced by Archbishop Usher

in the reign of James I., and, at the same time, he united the

Irish Established Church indissolubly with that of England.

But above all things he considered it to be his duty to

increase the army, which had hitherto been in a disorganised

condition, and to put it in a state of complete efficiency; in

order to do this, however, it was of the first importance to

augment the revenue of the Crown, and in pursuance of this

object he disdained no means. He extorted large sums of money

from the Catholics by reminding them that, in case their

contributions were too niggardly, there still existed laws

against the Papists which could easily be put into operation

again. The City of London Company, which some years before had

effected the colonization of Londonderry, was suddenly called

to account for not having fulfilled the stipulations contained

in its charter, and condemned to pay a fine of £70,000. In the

same spirit he conceived the idea of obtaining additions to

the royal exchequer by a fresh settlement of Connaught; and,

accordingly, he induced the Government, regardless of the

engagements made some years previously at the granting of the

'graces,' to re-assert the claims it had formerly advanced to

the possession of this province. And now, as in the worst days

of James I., there again prevailed the old system of

investigation into the validity of the titles by which the

landed gentry of Connaught held their estates. Such persons as

were practised in disinterring these unregistered titles were

looked upon with favour, and as a means of inciting to more

vigorous efforts, a premium of 20 per cent. on the receipts

realized during the first year by the confiscation of property

thus imperfectly registered was guaranteed to the presidents

of the commission. With a cynical frankness, Wentworth

declared that no money was ever so judiciously expended as

this, for now the people entered into the business with as

much ardour and assiduity as if it were their own private

concern. … The collective titles of the province of

Connaught were at the unlimited disposal of the

lord-lieutenant; and, although, notwithstanding this result,

he, at the last moment, recoiled from the final act, and

shrank from ejecting the present owners, and re-settling the

province, it was not from any conscientious scruples that he

refrained from taking this last decisive step: to the man

whose motto was 'Thorough,' such scruples were unknown. …

Practical considerations alone … induced Wentworth to pause

in the path upon which he had entered.

{1766}

Just at that time the Crown was engaged in a contest with

Puritanism in Scotland, while, in England, the attempts of

Charles to make his rule absolute had produced a state of

public feeling which was in the highest degree critical. …

In view of these considerations, therefore, Strafford

postponed the colonization of the western province to a more

favourable season. While we turn with just abhorrence from the

contemplation of the reckless and despotic acts of this

remarkable man, we must not, on the other hand, fail to

acknowledge that his administration has features which present

a brighter aspect. … In the exercise of a certain

toleration, dictated, it is true, only by policy, he declined

to meddle directly in the religious affairs of the Catholics.

His greatest merit, however, consists in having advanced the

material well-being of the country. He took a lively interest

in agriculture and cattle-rearing, and by causing the rude and

antiquated methods of husbandry which prevailed among the

Irish agriculturalists to be superseded by more modern

appliances, he contributed very materially to the advancement

of this branch of industry. He also largely encouraged

navigation, in consequence of which the number of Irish ships

increased from year to year; and although it can not be denied

that he endeavoured to suppress the trade in woollen cloth,

from an apprehension that it might come into dangerous

competition with English manufactures, he, nevertheless,

sought to compensate the Irish in other ways, and the

development of the Irish linen industry in the north was

essentially his work. … The Irish revenue annually

increased, and the customs returns alone were trebled during

the administration of Lord Strafford. He was, accordingly, in

a position to place at the disposal of his royal master a

standing army of 9,000 men. … It was, therefore, no idle

boast, but a statement in strict accordance with the truth,

which he made when writing to Archbishop Laud on 16th

December, 1634: 'I can now say that the king is here as truly

absolute as any sovereign in the world can be.'"

_R. Hassencamp,

History of Ireland,

chapter 3._

"Of all the suggesters of the infamous counsels of Charles,

Laud and Wentworth were the most sincere:—Laud, from the

intense faith with which he looked forward to the possible

supremacy of the ecclesiastical power, and to which he was

bent upon going, 'thorough', through every

obstacle;—Wentworth, from that strong sense, with which birth

and education had perverted his genius, of the superior

excellence of despotic rule. … The letters which passed

between them partook of a more intimate character, in respect

of the avowal of ulterior designs, than either of them,

probably, chose to avow elsewhere. … Laud had to regret his

position in England, contrasted with that of the Irish deputy.

'My lord,' he writes to Wentworth, speaking of the general

affairs of church and state, 'to speak freely, you may easily

promise more in either kind than I can perform: for, as for

the church, it is so bound up in the forms of the common law,

that it is not possible for me, or for any man, to do that

good which he would, or is bound to do. … And for the state,

indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough; but I see that both thick

and thin stays somebody, where I conceive it should not; and

it is impossible for me to go thorough alone.' … Every new

act of despotism which struck terror into Ireland shot comfort

to the heart of Laud. 'As for my marginal note,' exclaims the

archbishop, 'I see you deciphered it well, and I see you make

use of it too,—do so still; thorow and thorow. Oh that I were

where I might go so too I but I am shackled between delays and

uncertainties. You have a great deal of honour here for your

proceedings. Go on a God's name!' And on Wentworth went,

stopping at no gratuitous quarrel that had the slightest

chance of pleasing the archbishop, even to the demolishing the

family tomb of the earl of Cork,—since his grace, among his

select ecclesiastical researches, had discovered that the spot

occupied by my lord of Cork's family monuments, was precisely

that spot upon which the communion-table, to answer the

purposes of heaven, ought to stand!"

_R. Browning,

Thomas Wentworth (Eminent British Statesmen, volume 2,

published under the name of John Forster)._

ALSO IN:

_S. R. Gardiner,

The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,

chapter 5, section 4._

_S. R. Gardiner,

History of England,

chapter 76 (volume 8) and

chapter 90 (volume 9)._

_W. A. O'Conor,

History of the Irish People,

volume 2, book 3, chapter 1._

_T. Wright,

History of Ireland,

book 4, chapters 22-24._

_T. Leland,

History of Ireland,

book 5, chapter 1._

IRELAND: A. D. 1641.

The Catholic rising and alleged Massacres of Protestants.

"The government which Strafford had established in Ireland

fell with him, the office of viceroy was entrusted to some of

the judges, and shorn of the powers which gave it authority

over the whole country. The Irish army, which had been formed

with so much difficulty, and maintained in spite of so much

opposition, was disbanded without any attention being

vouchsafed to the King's wish that it should be allowed to

enter the Spanish service. … Under the influence of events

in England, government based on prerogative, and on its

connexion with the English hierarchy, as it had existed in

Ireland since Elizabeth's time, fell to the ground. This

revolution however might entail important results. The Irish

people was Catholic: while the Protestant settlers were split

into two hostile factions, and thereby the highest authority

in the land, which bore a really Protestant character, was

systematically weakened and almost destroyed, the thought of

ridding themselves of it altogether was sure to arise in the

nation. The steed, never completely broken in, felt itself

suddenly free from the tight rein which hitherto it had

unwillingly obeyed. … It was the common object of all

Catholics, alike of Anglo-Saxon and of Celtic origin, to

restore to the Catholic Church the possession of the goods and

houses that had been taken from her, and above all to put an

end to the colonies established since James I. in which

Puritan tendencies prevailed. The Catholics of the old

settlements were as eager for this as the natives. The idea

originated in a couple of chiefs of old Irish extraction,

Roger O'More and Lord Macguire, who had been involved in

Tyrone's ruin, but were connected by marriage with several

English families. The first man whom O'More won over was Lord

Mayo, the most powerful magnate of old English descent in

Connaught, of the house of De Burgh. … The best military

leader in the confederacy, Colonel Plunkett, was a Catholic of

old English origin. … Among the natives the most notable

personage was Phelim O'Neil, who, after having been long in

England, and learning Protestantism there, on his return to

Ireland went back to the old faith and the old customs: he was

reckoned the rightful heir of Tyrone, and possessed unbounded

popular influence.

{1767}

The plan for which the Catholics of both Irish and English

extraction now united was a very far-reaching one. It involved

making the Catholic religion altogether dominant in Ireland:

even of the old nobility none but the Catholics were to be

tolerated: all the lands that had been seized for the new

settlements were to be given back to the previous possessors

or their heirs. In each district a distinguished family was to

be answerable for order, and to maintain an armed force for

the purpose. They would not revolt from the King, but still

would leave him no real share in the government. Two lords

justices, both Catholic, one of Irish, the other of old

English family, were to be at the head of the government. …

The preparations were made in profound silence: a man could

travel across the country without perceiving any stir or

uneasiness. But on the appointed day, October 23, the day of

St. Ignatius, the insurrection everywhere broke out." Dublin

was saved, by a disclosure of the plot to the government, on

the evening of the 22d, by a Protestant Irishman who had

gained knowledge of it. "Several other places also held out,

as Londonderry and Carrickfergus, and afforded places to which

the Protestants might fly. But no one can paint the rage and

cruelty which was vented, far and wide over the land, upon the

unarmed and defenceless. Many thousands perished: their

corpses filled the land and served as food for the kites. …

Religious abhorrence entered into a dreadful league with the

fury of national hatred. The motives of the Sicilian Vespers

and of the night of St. Bartholomew were united. Sir Phelim,

who at once was proclaimed Lord and Master in Ulster, with the

title of the native princes, as Tyrone had been, and who in

his proclamations assumed the tone of a sovereign, was not at

all the man to check these cruelties. … With all this

letting loose of ancient barbarism there was still some

holding back. The Scottish settlements were spared, although

they were the most hated of all, for fear of incurring the

hostility of the Scottish as well as of the English nation.

Immediately there was a rising in the five counties of the old

English Pale: the gentry of Louth, under the leadership of the

sheriff, took the side of the rebels. The younger men of Meath

assembled on the Boyne, and commenced hostilities against the

Protestants: so completely had their religious sympathies

prevailed over their patriotism."

_L. Von Ranke,

History of England, 17th Century,

book 8, chapter 7 (volume 2)._

"Some reference to the notorious story of the massacre of 1641

is required, not because the account of it is true and is a

part of history, nor because it is false and needs refutation,

but because it is a State fiction, a falsehood with a purpose,

and as such deserves mention as much as the levying of troops

or the passing of laws. The record of the period is not the

history of a massacre, but of the deliberate invention of a

massacre. … No word of massacre had been heard of in the

first State document that referred to the so-called rebellion.

The Catholic lords of the Pale would never have united their

names and fortunes with those of murderers. … The royalists

again and again urged in their treaties with their opponents

that an investigation of the cruelties committed on both sides

should be made, and the proposal was always absolutely

refused."

_W. A. O'Conor,

History of the Irish People,

book 3, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 2)._

"There were few places of strength in Ulster which had not

fallen by the end of the first week into the hands of the

insurgents. Sir Phelim O'Neill already found himself at the

head of some 30,000 men, as yet of course undisciplined, and

but few of them efficiently armed; and it is not to be

expected that such an irregular multitude, with wild passions

let loose, and so many wrongs and insults to be avenged, could

have been engaged in scenes of war, even so long, without

committing some deeds of blood which the laws of regular

warfare would not sanction. … Life was taken in some few

instances where the act deserved the name of murder; but the

cases of this nature, on the Irish side, at the commencement

of the rebellion, were isolated ones; and nothing can be more

unjust and false than to describe the outbreak of this war as

a 'massacre'."

_M. Haverty,

History of Ireland,

chapter 37._

"This [Sir Wm. Petty's] estimate of 37,000 Protestants

supposed to have been murdered makes no allowance for those

who escaped to England and Scotland, and never returned to

Ireland. It seems to me more likely that about 27,000

Protestants were murdered by the sword, gun, rope, drowning,

&c., in the first three or four years of the rebellion. The

evidence of the depositions, after deducting all doubtful

exaggerations, leaves little doubt that the number so

destroyed could hardly have been less than 25,000 at all

events. But the truth is that no accurate estimate is

possible. After the Portnaw massacre the Protestants,

especially the Scotch, took an awful vengeance on their

enemies. Henceforward one side vied in cruelty with the

other."

_M. Hickson,

Ireland in the 17th Century,

introduction, page 163._

ALSO IN:

_T. Carte,

Life of James, Duke of Ormond,

book 3 (chapters 1-2)._

_W. E. H. Lecky,

History of England, 18th Century,

chapter 6 (volume 2)._

_T. Leland,

History of Ireland,

book 5, chapters 3-4 (volume 3)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1643.

The king makes Peace with the rebels.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

IRELAND: A. D. 1645.

King Charles' treaty with the Catholics.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

IRELAND: A. D. 1646-1649.

The Rebels become Royalists.

"The truce [offered by King Charles to the rebels in 1643]

appears to have been well observed by each party, and resulted

in a treaty of peace which was signed in July, 1646, by which

the Roman Catholics obtained every demand which they put

forward. This peace was nevertheless at once broken, and

Ormond (who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant in January,

1643) was closely besieged in Dublin by a force, headed by

Cardinal Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio, who had assumed the

command of the Irish Catholics. Finding himself in so

dangerous a position, Ormond, by express direction from the

king, offered his submission to the English Parliament, to

whom he surrendered Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and such other

garrisons as remained in his hands. This transaction was

completed on the 25th of July, 1647, when Colonel Jones took

command of Dublin for the Parliament, and was made by them

Commander-in-Chief in Ireland; his total force however

amounted to but 5,000 men. The war now continued with varying

success, the commanders for the Parliament being, in addition

to Jones, Monk in Ulster and Lord Inchiquin in Munster;

{1768}

The latter in 1648 joined Ormond, who in September, upon the

invitation of the Catholics, returned to Ireland, the Papal

Nuncio having been driven from the country by his own party,

who were alienated from him by his folly and insolence. At the

end of 1648 there were therefore two parties in Ireland; the

Parliamentary, which had been the English, holding Dublin and

a few garrisons, and the Catholics, who, formerly rebels, were

now held as Royalists, and whose new leader Ormond, on the

death of Charles I., proclaimed the Prince of Wales, on the

16th of February, 1649, at Carrick, as King of England,

Scotland, France, and Ireland. The English Parliament now at

last resolved to put an end to disorder in Ireland, and with

this object, in March, 1649, appointed Cromwell to the supreme

command." Before Cromwell arrived in Ireland, however, the

Irish Royalists had reduced every garrisoned place except

Dublin and Londonderry, defeating Monk, who held Dundalk, but

being defeated (August 2) by Jones when they laid siege to the

capital. Though fought at the gates of Dublin, this was called

the battle of Rathmines, Ormond retreated with a loss of 4,000

killed and 2,500 prisoners.

_N. L. Walford,

Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,

chapter 7._

ALSO IN:

_T. Carte,

Life of James Duke of Ormond,

books 4-5 (volume 3)._

_D. Murphy,

Cromwell in Ireland,

chapters 1-3._

IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.

Cromwell's campaign.

The slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford.

'When Cromwell arrived in Ireland at the head of 12,000 men,

he found almost the whole country under the power of the

Royalists (August 15th). A Parliamentary garrison in Dublin

itself had only escaped a siege by surprising the enemy on the

banks of the Liffey (August 2nd). The general first marched

against Drogheda, then called Droghdagh or Tredah, and

summoned the garrison to surrender; Sir Arthur Ashton, the

governor, refused; he had 3,000 of the choicest troops of the

confederates and enough provisions to enable him to hold out

till winter should compel the enemy to raise the siege. But

within twenty-four hours the English batteries had made a

breach in the wall, Oliver, after twice seeing his soldiers

beaten off, led them on in person and carried the breach. A

terrible massacre followed. 'Being in the heat of action I

forbade them,' Cromwell wrote in his despatch to the

Parliament, 'to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I

think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.' Of

these, one-half probably fell in the streets; the other half

Cromwell describes as having been slain at early dawn in St.

Peter's Church. This he looks upon as a judgment for their

previous proceedings there. 'It is remarkable,' he writes,

'that these people at first set up the mass in some places of

the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so

insolent that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the

Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St.

Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very

place near 1,000 of them were put to the sword, fleeing

thither for safety. I believe all the friars were knocked on

the head promiscuously but two.' … Royalist accounts assert

that many hundreds of women and children were slain in St.

Peter's Church: It is, of course, possible that some of the

townspeople, fleeing thither for safety, lost their lives in

the general massacre of the garrison. There is, however, no

trustworthy witness for any lives being taken except those of

soldiers and friars. Cromwell did not sanction the killing of

any but those with arms in their hands, though he seems to

have approved of the fate of the friars. The fanatical zeal of

his letter, and the fact that he takes the full credit, or

discredit, for the slaughter of the garrison; makes it

improbable that he concealed anything; and this substantiated

by his subsequent declaration, in which he gives this

challenge:—'Give us an instance of one man, since my coming

into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished,

concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice

hath not been done, or endeavoured to be done.' With the

enemy's troops Cromwell carried out the determined mode of

warfare which he began at Drogheda. They were mostly scattered

over the country, occupied in garrison duty. Before whatever

town he came he demanded immediate surrender, or threatened to

refuse quarter. Town after town opened its gates to this grim

summons. Wexford, which refused to surrender, was stormed, and

the whole garrison, 2,000 in number, put to the sword (October

11th). … In other respects, while Cromwell's rigour and

determination saved bloodshed in the end by the rapidity and

completeness of his conquests, his conduct in Ireland

contrasted favourably on many points with that of the

Royalists there. His own soldiers, for ill-using the people

contrary to regulations, were sometimes cashiered the army,

sometimes hanged. When a treaty was made, he kept faithfully

to its terms. Garrisons that yielded on summons were allowed

either to march away with arms and baggage, or else to go

abroad and enter the service of any government at peace with

England. Before the war was over he had rid the country, on

these terms, of some 45,000 soldiers. Taking advantage of the

divisions of his enemies, he persuaded several garrisons of

English soldiers to desert the cause of Charles Stuart for the

Commonwealth. His conduct of the war was so successful that,

during the nine months of his stay in Ireland, the forces of

the Royalists were shattered, and the provinces of Leinster

and Munster recovered for the Parliament. Cromwell returned to

England in May, 1650, leaving his son-in-law Ireton to

complete the conquest of the country. The last garrisons in

Ulster and Munster surrendered during the course of the

ensuing summer and autumn. Ireton crossed the Shannon and

drove the Irish back into the bogs and mountain fastnesses of

Connaught, their last refuge, where fighting still continued

for two years after all the rest of the country had been

reduced (1651-2)."

_B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,

King and Commonwealth,

chapter 12._

"No admiration for Cromwell, for his genius, courage, and

earnestness—no sympathy with the cause that he upheld in

England—can blind us to the truth, that the lurid light of

this great crime [the massacre at Drogheda] burns still after

centuries across the history of England and of Ireland; that

it is one of those damning charges which the Puritan theology

has yet to answer at the bar of humanity."

_F. Harrison,

Oliver Cromwell,

chapter 8._

{1769}

"Oliver's proceedings here [at Drogheda] have been the theme

of much loud criticism, and sibylline execration; into which

it is not our plan to enter at present. … To those who think

that a land overrun with Sanguinary Quacks can be healed by

sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very

horrible. Terrible Surgery this: but is it Surgery and

Judgment, or atrocious Murder merely? That is a question which

should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in

God's Judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of

Surgery;—which, in fact, is this Editor's case too. … Here

is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and

false jargon scattering itself to the winds: what this man

speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this

man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first King's

face poor Ireland ever saw; the first Friend's face, little as

it recognises him,—poor Ireland! … To our Irish friends we

ought to say likewise that this Garrison of Tredah consisted,

in good part, of Englishmen. Perfectly certain this:—and

therefore let 'the bloody hoof of the Saxon,' &c., forbear to

continue itself on that matter."

_T. Carlyle,

Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,

part 5._

"Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he

held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience; …

liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal

belief, not of external worship; … but the rejection of the

offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with

the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by

force, with indiscriminate slaughter."