Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3) - Bagwell, Richard

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to Edward Bruce’s fortunes. The invader, after his brother’s departure, remained for more than a year at Carrickfergus, in hopes of being able to take the offensive again, and still retaining the title of King, which he had assumed after his first successes. He had been so often victorious in battle that he despised the colonists, and, against the advice of his Irish allies, resolved to fight once more without waiting for reinforcements from Scotland. John de Bermingham, at the head of an army which greatly outnumbered the Scots, forced an engagement between Faughard and Dundalk, and Bruce and most of his officers were killed. The remnant of his army, with Walter and Hugo de Lacy, managed to escape to Scotland. The sovereignty of the English Crown in Ireland was never again seriously disputed; but the feudal organisation was shattered by Bruce’s invasion, which did nothing to compose the differences already existing among the colonists. John de Bermingham received a grant of Louth with the title of earl, but his great services were soon forgotten, and eleven years after the battle of Dundalk he was murdered by the English of his own earldom.

Horrible cruelties of the Bruces

      English and Irish are agreed as to the cruelty and ferocity of the Bruces. Clyn the Franciscan records, in terse and vigorous Latin, that ‘Robert Bruce, who bore himself as King of the Scots, crossed Ireland from Ulster, where he landed, almost to Limerick, burning, killing, plundering, and spoiling towns, castles, and even churches, both going and returning.’ Clyn was an English partisan, but the same cannot be said of the Lough Cé annalists, who record that ‘Edward Bruce, the destroyer of all Erin in general, both foreigners and Gaels, was slain by the foreigners of Erin, through the power of battle and bravery at Dundalk; and MacRory, King of the Hebrides, and MacDonnell, King of Argyll, together with the men of Scotland, were slain there along with him; and no better deed for the men of all Erin was performed since the beginning of the world, since the Formorian race was expelled from Erin, than this deed; for theft, and famine, and destruction of men occurred throughout Erin during his time for the space of three years and a half; and people used to eat one another, without doubt, throughout Erin.’

The Irish fail to give the Bruces effectual support

      There can, however, be no doubt that Edward Bruce came to Ireland on the invitation of the Irish. Donnell O’Neill, claiming to be the true heir to the chief kingship, and the other chiefs, in the famous remonstrance which they addressed to John XXII., informed that Pope that they felt helpless for want of a leader, but were determined no longer to submit like women to Anglo-Norman oppression, and that they had therefore invited over ‘the brother of the most illustrious Lord Robert, by the grace of God King of the Scots, and a descendant of the most noble of their own ancestors,’ and that they had by letters patent constituted him king and lord. The blood of Roderic O’Connor and of Eva evidently went for something, but the chiefs also believed that Edward Bruce was ‘a person of piety and prudence, of a chaste and modest disposition, of great sobriety, and altogether orderly and unassuming in his demeanour.’ Scottish historians are not entirely of the same opinion. It is indeed probable that Bruce had no other idea than to carve out a kingdom with his sword, like a genuine Norman as he was. He had the memory of Earl Richard, of Fitz-Stephen, and of De Courcy to guide him; and if a more modern instance was required, there could be none better than that of his brother Robert.

      CHAPTER V.

      FROM THE INVASION OF THE BRUCES TO THE YEAR 1346

The Irish never united. The O’Connors are almost destroyed by the De Burgos

      The Irish invited Bruce, but they made no regular or general effort in his favour. Their total incapacity for anything like national organisation had forbidden the idea of a native sovereign, and perhaps the majority of them thought one Norman baron no better than another. The year 1316, in which Bruce landed, witnessed the almost total destruction of the O’Connors, the tribe which had last held the chief kingship. Their relationship with the De Burgos, Berminghams, and other Anglo-Normans may be traced in great detail in the annalists. Felim O’Connor, whom the Connaught historiographers call undisputed heir presumptive to the sovereignty of Erin, formed one of those great confederacies which occur so frequently in Irish history, and which so seldom had any results. The O’Kellys, MacDermods, O’Maddens, O’Dowds, O’Haras, O’Kearneys, O’Farrells, MacMahons, and many others were represented; and the Anglo-Normans, who also mustered in great force, were commanded by the Red Earl’s brother, Sir William de Burgo, and by Richard Bermingham, fourth baron of Athenry, at the gate of which town the decisive struggle took place. The Irish were defeated with the loss of something like 10,000 men. Felim O’Connor fell, and his tribe never recovered its position in Connaught. In late times we have O’Connor Don and O’Connor Roe in Roscommon, O’Connor Sligo, O’Connor Kerry near the mouth of the Shannon, and O’Connor Faly in what is now the King’s County, but the De Burgos became supreme in Connaught.

The Irish recover ground under Edward II. and his successors

      In other parts of Ireland the Celts were more successful. In 1317 or 1318 the O’Carrolls gained a victory over Sir Edmund Butler, but Clyn places his loss at about two hundred only. More important was the battle of Disert O’Dea, in which Richard de Clare was defeated and slain. This fight destroyed the pretensions of the De Clares, and the O’Briens remained supreme in Thomond as long as such supremacies lasted anywhere. In Leinster, too, the Irish became more and more troublesome, and Clyn unwillingly records successes of the O’Nolans and O’Tooles over the Poers and other settlers. The dissensions of the colonists were yet more fatal than the prowess of the natives. Eva’s descendants were for ever fighting among themselves, and it was the Red Earl’s jealousy of Sir Edmund Butler which prevented a united effort from being made against Bruce. ‘After having violently expelled us,’ wrote the Irish to John XXII., ‘from our spacious habitations and patrimonial inheritances, they have compelled us to repair, in the hope of saving our lives, to mountains and woods, to bogs and barren wastes, and to the caves of the rocks, where, like the beasts, we have long been fain to dwell.’ The close of Edward II.’s reign saw them everywhere ready to descend from their hills, and to emerge from their woods. For nearly two hundred years the history of Ireland is in the main a history of Celtic gains at the expense of Anglo-Normans and Englishmen; if, indeed, anarchy can rightly be accounted gain to any race or community of men.

The last Earl of Ulster is murdered, 1333. The De Burgos and other Anglo-Normans assume Irish names and habits

      In 1326 the Red Earl of Ulster retired into the monastery of Athassel, where he died soon afterwards. His great power descended to his grandson William, who was murdered at or near Carrickfergus in 1333 by the Mandevilles and other Ulster colonists. By his wife, Maud Plantagenet, great-grand-daughter of Henry III., he left one child, Elizabeth, who was only a few months old at the date of his murder. Twenty years afterwards she married Lionel Duke of Clarence, and became ancestress of the Tudors and Stuarts. The Earldom of Ulster thus ultimately merged in the Crown. But the Irish De Burgos refused to acknowledge a baby, who, as a royal ward, would be brought up independently of them; and they preferred to follow the sons of Sir William, the Red Earl’s brother. William the elder assumed the title of MacWilliam Uachtar, or the Upper, took all Galway for his portion, and became ancestor of the Clanricarde family. His brother, Sir Edmund, as MacWilliam Iochtar, or the Lower, took Mayo, and founded the family which bears that title. They threw off their allegiance to England, and became more Irish than the Irish. They reappear in the sixteenth century under the modern name of Burke. About the same time several other Anglo-Normans assumed Irish names. The Stauntons became MacAveelys; the Berminghams MacFeoris; the D’Exeters, MacJordans; the Barretts, MacAndrews, MacThomins, MacRoberts, and MacPaddins; the Nangles, MacCostelloes; the Mayo Prendergasts, MacMaurices. The De Burgos themselves had many subordinate branches, each with its peculiar Irish name, as MacDavid, MacPhilbin, MacShoneen, MacGibbon, MacWalter, and MacRaymond. Nor was the practice confined to Connaught. Some of the Leinster Fitzgeralds became MacThomases and MacBarons; and some of the same house in Munster were transfigured into MacGibbons, MacThomaisins, and MacEdmonds. Many other Anglo-Normans or English families were more or less completely transformed in the same way. It is only necessary to mention that the Wesleys or Wellesleys, who gave England its greatest captain, were sometimes called MacFabrenes; and that the Bissetts of Antrim, whose connections in Scotland gave the Tudors such trouble, may still be traced as Makeons. In the district near Dublin, which got the name

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