While Henry II and leading Normans were absent from Ireland, Irish kings quickly forgot the submissions they had made in 1171. Though the high-king himself took up arms, there was no concerted Gaelic resistance to the Norman newcomers. Dermot MacCarthy, King of Desmond, and Donal O’Brien, King of Thomond, were such inveterate enemies that they were both prepared, when it suited them, to fight alongside Norman adventurers. The inevitable consequence was that Norman barons were able to win new territories for themselves.
Hugh de Lacy made a successful advance into Meath, where he was challenged by Tiernan O’Rourke. A parley was arranged, Gerald of Wales informs us:
The one-eyed king [O’Rourke], nursing villainous treachery in his heart, pretended to go a little to the side to make water, and signalled to his men to come up at once with the utmost speed. Returning with axe raised, the traitor cut off the arm of the interpreter, Hugh de Lacy twice fell backwards, and the knight Griffin with his lance transfixed O’Rourke. His head was cut off and afterwards sent to the English king. All were routed and scattered across the plains, and the slaughter continued on a massive scale right up to the edge of the distant forests.
So died the King of Bréifne, described in the Annals of Tigernach as ‘deedful leopard of the Gael, Leth Cuinn’s man of battle and lasting defence, Erin’s raider and invader, surpasser of the Gael in might and abundance’.
Both Rory O’Connor and Henry II were anxious to restore some stability to the country. Their representatives met at Windsor in 1175, and Henry agreed to forbid further Norman conquests provided the high-king would keep Irish rulers at peace. This treaty was a complete failure. Henry was too busy dealing with his rebellious sons, while Rory faced rebellion from his own sons and grandchildren. Milo de Cogan made a successful raid into Connacht in 1177 at the invitation of one of Rory’s sons, Murchad—when Milo left, the high-king had Murchad blinded to punish him for his perfidy.
The Normans thrust into the south-west and conquered most of Desmond with the help of Donal O’Brien of Thomond. The year 1177 also witnessed the invasion of Ulster.
Early in February John de Courcy, a knight from Cumbria, took twenty-two mailed horsemen and around three hundred foot-soldiers out of Dublin northwards over the Moyry Pass and then eastwards to Downpatrick, the capital of the ancient kingdom of the Dál Fiatach. So unexpected was this Norman incursion that the local king, Rory MacDonleavy, fled with all his people. Invoking his authority as over-king of the Ulaid, MacDonleavy returned with a great host. Defensive earthworks, hastily thrown up by de Courcy’s men, were too incomplete, and so it was by the banks of the River Quoile, Gerald of Wales informs us, that the battle was fought:
To begin with they showered down a hail of arrows and spears at long range. Then they came to close quarters, lance encountered lance, sword met sword.... After an intense and for a long time indecisive struggle between these unevenly matched forces, John’s courage at last won him the victory, and a great number of the enemy were killed along the sea shore where they had taken refuge.... Blood pouring from their wounds remained on the surface of the slippery ground and easily came up to the knees and legs of their pursuers.
An even greater coalition, including the leading prelates of the province, joined Rory in a great assault on Downpatrick in June, but to no avail. The Annals of Inisfallen record:
The Archbishop of Armagh, the Bishop of Down, and all the clergy were taken prisoners; and the English got possession of the croziers of St Comgall and St Dachiarog, the Book of Armagh, besides a bell called Ceolan an Tighearna. They afterwards, however, set the bishops at liberty and restored the Book of Armagh and the bell, but they killed all the inferior clergy and kept the other noble relics.
Over the next few years John de Courcy fought many campaigns and seized control of the coastlands. The sea was his essential lifeline, made more secure when he married Affreca, daughter of Godred, King of Man, which gave him the use of a formidable fleet. For quarter of a century he ruled his Ulster lands with as much independence as a warlord. And like all the Norman adventurers, he kept his conquests secure by building castles.
Episode 31
JOHN, LORD OF IRELAND
Even though they were already going out of fashion in England, motte castles were erected in every part of Ireland occupied by the first Norman invaders. A motte was a fortification erected on top of an artificial mound; the steeply sided, roughly circular mound was partly constructed with soil from its surrounding ditch but raised higher by soil brought in from further afield, carefully sloped inwards to provide stability. A few had an additional base court, or ‘bailey’, such as Dromore in Co. Down, particularly if they were intended to house permanent garrisons. The knight in command of a motte lived in a fortified hall built on the mound’s flat top; the hall was generally made of timber, but later might be replaced by a stone tower, as at Clough in Co. Down. In Co. Wexford especially, heavily fortified moated houses were favoured.
Once a territory had been pacified, it was secured by stone castles. The site had to be chosen carefully, with solid rock as a stable base for preference. The largest of all was Trim Castle, built by Hugh de Lacy, extending over three acres, though it may not have been complete before this Lord of Meath was murdered in 1186 by an Irishman known as ‘the Fox’. At its centre was a massive ‘donjon’, square in shape, to which was added a square tower at each of the four corners. The main defences were curtain walls which formed a D-shape along the banks of the River Boyne, from which water was diverted to make a water-filled ditch around the walls. The largest keep in Ireland was erected at Carrickfergus on a tongue of rock jutting into Belfast Lough. Behind a curtain wall, masons built this massive rectangular tower with walls nine feet thick from local basalt, red sandstone from Whiteabbey, and cream Cultra limestone shipped across the lough, to rise ninety feet above the rock. Some of the most formidable castles were built for the crown, most notably by King John.
When he was parcelling out responsibilities to his untrustworthy sons in 1177, Henry II decided to make his youngest, John, Lord of Ireland. Since John was then only ten, the lordship had to be administered by a royal governor—as it was ever after. In 1185 John was sent to visit his lordship, and with him travelled his tutor, Gerald of Wales:
As soon as the king’s son arrived in Ireland, there came to meet him at Waterford the Irish of those parts, men of some note, who had hitherto been loyal to the English and peacefully disposed. They greeted him as their lord and received him with the kiss of peace. But our newly arrived Normans treated them with contempt and derision, and showing them scant respect, pulled some of them about by their beards, which were large and flowing according to the native custom. For their part they removed themselves and all their belongings to a safe distance, and made for the court of the king of Limerick.... So with one accord they plotted to resist.
Henry II died in 1189; his son Henry was already dead; Geoffrey had been fatally wounded during a tournament in Paris; and Richard the Lionheart succeeded his father. After a colourful career on crusade and in foreign captivity Richard died in 1199, and John was now not only Lord of Ireland but King of England. John proved to be a vengeful and capricious monarch who trusted no one. When John de Courcy spoke out of turn about the succession, John authorised the son of Hugh de Lacy, also called Hugh, to drive him out of his conquests in Antrim and Down. King John ignominiously lost possession of Normandy, and this made him all the more determined to tighten his control in Ireland. Norman barons in Ireland had become rich and powerful at the expense of the Gaelic Irish. They included William the Marshal, who had married Strongbow’s daughter and inherited Leinster to add to his estates in Wales and Normandy; Theobald Walter, ancestor of the Butlers, who conquered much of the counties of Kilkenny and Tipperary; and William de Braose, Lord of Limerick. King John was deeply jealous of their power.
William de Braose became John’s sworn enemy. Not only had he fallen behind in payments to the crown, but, worse still, his wife Ma
tilda de Saint-Valéry had denied the king her son as hostage, saying to the royal messenger: ‘I will not deliver up my son to your lord, King John, for he basely murdered his nephew Arthur, when he should have kept him in honourable custody.’ As John prepared a great expedition to break the power of his overmighty subject, de Braose took refuge in Ulster with his kinsman Hugh de Lacy. On 20 June 1210 the king was in Waterford with 7,000 knights, archers and foot-soldiers. It was the mightiest army yet seen in Ireland. Who on the island could resist his power now?
Episode 32
‘DREADING THE FURY OF THE KING’
Apart from some terse entries in the annals and parchment rolls recording royal expenditure, there is no detailed account of King John’s momentous expedition to Ireland in the year 1210. We do know that nine days after disembarking at Waterford on 20 June he was in Dublin, his force increased by feudal levies from Munster and Leinster. Unavailingly did barons from the north plead for mercy towards their lord, Hugh de Lacy. John advanced and was joined in Meath by Cathal Crobhderg O’Connor, who had succeeded his brother Rory as King of Connacht. The Annals of Inisfallen record:
When Hugh de Lacy had discovered that the king was going to the north, he burned his own castles and he himself fled to Carrickfergus, leaving the chiefs of his people burning, levelling and destroying the castles of the country and dreading the fury of the king....When the king saw this disrespect offered him, he marched from Drogheda to Carlingford.
To avoid a likely ambush in the Moyry Pass, the king transported his army over Carlingford Lough with a bridge made with boats and hundreds of pontoons brought from Dorset, Somerset and York. Then, while his men marched by the coast by Kilkeel and Annalong, the king himself sailed to Ardglass in Lecale and rested there in Jordan de Saukeville’s castle. Dundrum Castle looked impregnable with its great round keep recently constructed by de Lacy. John, however, had brought with him an intimidating array of siege-engines; there must have been a fight here, for workmen were paid on 14 July to make repairs to the castle:
To Nicholas Carpenter, ten shillings; Ralph de Presbury, fifteen shillings; Master Osbert Quarrier and Alberic Ditcher, seven shillings and sixpence; Master Pinell and Ernulf, miners, one mark.
Two days later John was in Downpatrick, where he paid £40 to his soldiers and lost five shillings in a board game with Warin fitz Gerald. Soon afterwards siege was laid to Carrickfergus by land and by sea, and in a short time the castle surrendered. King John stayed at Carrickfergus for ten days making many payments, including £532 to Henry de Ver as wages for bailiffs, knights and sailors; 1,004 marks to English noblemen; and £2 12s 6d for repairs to the castle. He ordered the Bishop of Norwich to have galleys built at Antrim to patrol Lough Neagh; received homage from the King of Tír Eóghain; paid sixty shillings to mariners from Bayonne; lost another ten shillings to Warin fitz Gerald at Downpatrick early in August; and then left for England.
And what happened to William de Braose and Hugh de Lacy? They both escaped to France, but Matilda de Braose and her son William were captured at sea and brought to King John. Matilda and her infant son were cast into prison and there, by the king’s orders, starved to death. Hugh de Lacy survived to be given back his earldom of Ulster in the reign of Henry III.
On his departure, King John had the satisfaction of knowing that not a baron, king or chieftain would defy his authority. The king had seven cantreds or baronies in his possession in Connacht, and the ruler of the remainder of that province, Cathal Crobhderg, paid fealty as his liege subject. The castles of Carrickfergus, Dundrum, Athlone, Trim and several other great Irish fortresses were under direct royal control. In 1204 John had ordered the building of Dublin Castle:
We command you to construct a strong castle there with good ditches and strong walls in a suitable place for the governance and, if need be, the defence of the town; for this at present you are to take 300 marks which Geoffrey fitz Robert owes us.
Dublin Castle swiftly became the administrative heart of the lordship. Here taxes, rents from royal demesne lands, fines and other profits of justice were accounted for at the exchequer—which an illustration of the time shows was, indeed, a chequer-board—staffed by a treasurer, the chancellor and barons of the exchequer. Here too was the letter-writing office directed by the chancellor where official rolls and correspondence were stored. The chancellor also had charge of the great seal and had to travel about with the royal governor to ensure that documents were authenticated. The royal governor acted as the viceroy, chaired meetings of the council, and called up leading barons to provide military support when required. The common law of England became the law of the lordship of Ireland, and it was administered by the royal governor, travelling justices and by sheriffs. The process of creating counties had begun; the county was the equivalent of a shire in England, and here the sheriff had responsibility, with the power to call out a posse of local men if needed.
The number of counties increased steadily in the thirteenth century, a time when the frontiers of the English lordship of Ireland were being extended deep into Gaelic territory.
Episode 33
THE ENGLISH COLONY
When Strongbow died in 1176, the only heir to his possessions in Leinster was his daughter Isabella. On coming of age in 1189, she wed William the Marshal, one of the most powerful barons in the land and owner of vast estates in Normandy, England, Wales and—now, thanks to his marriage—Ireland. When King John died in 1216, Marshal (who had adopted his title as his surname) was chosen to be regent until Henry III came of age. All this time he worked hard and often ruthlessly to promote the economic development of his Leinster lands.
Three large rivers—the Barrow, the Nore and the Suir—ran through the heartland of Marshal’s estates. As they were navigable far upstream and accessible to foreign trade, Marshal cleared the Irish from their fertile valleys (including the MacGillapatricks, the rulers of Ossory), introduced tenants from England and Wales, and ordered the building of towns along their banks. He made Kilkenny the capital of his lordship of Leinster, and large towns grew up around his castles of Carlow and Ferns. His prize project was New Ross, a deep-water port he developed just below where the Barrow joins the Nore. New Ross soon became a great trading centre, outstripping Wexford and Waterford and rivalling Dublin. Between 1275 and 1279 £2,079 was raised in wool custom dues from New Ross, £658 more than from Waterford, its nearest competitor in Ireland’s wool trade. During the same years New Ross exported no fewer than 1,871,207 fleeces and 623,402 hides. When after William Marshal died New Ross was threatened by a baronial quarrel, the citizens decided to work with one accord to protect the town, an event celebrated in the Norman-French poem, The Walling of New Ross:
I have a desire to versify in French
If you will be pleased to listen,
For words that are not heard
Are not worth a clove of garlic ...
I shall tell you the name of the town:
‘Ros’ you are to call it,
It is the new bridge of Ros.
What they feared was that they had no town walls ...
They made a resolution thus; that a wall of stone and mortar
They would build round the town.
The hundreds of labourers they hired made little progress, so the citizens agreed to do the work themselves, beginning on Mondays with the vintners, mercers, merchants and drapers:
A thousand and more I tell you truly,
Go to work there every Monday
With fine banners and insignia
And flutes and tabors.
And as soon as it strikes three
The citizens return home
And their banners go ahead of them.
The young folk singing loudly,
Carolling up and down the town,
Joyfully go to labour.
And the priests, when they have sung mass,
Go to work at the fosse,
And apply themselves energetically;
More so t
han other people ...
The seamen, when they are at home,
In fine manner go to the fosse;
Their banner goes before them, a ship painted in the middle ...
On Tuesday then following
Go tailors and robe trimmers ...
On Wednesday then following
Goes another group of people; leather workers, tanners, butchers ...
Their banners are painted as befits their trade.
The bakers and small traders worked on Thursdays, the porters on Fridays, and finally 350 carpenters on Saturdays—all worked with a will until the wall was finished; and indeed, the ramparts of New Ross are still impressive today.
Other successful Norman ports included Drogheda, founded by Hugh de Lacy in the 1180s; Dundalk, laid out by the de Verdons; and Carrickfergus, begun by John de Courcy and then developed as a royal town thereafter. The Vikings had built Ireland’s first towns, but it was left to the Normans to develop inland towns. Those who accompanied the first Norman invaders were for the most part English, Welsh and Flemish, hoping to advance their fortunes in Ireland. Settling in hostile territory, they tended to cluster round mottes, stone castles and defended manor houses to form the nucleus of the majority of the island’s inland towns, with the exception of Ulster. Kings and barons alike were eager to promote urban growth, since it brought increased revenues and customs. Charters were issued giving towns certain privileges, including the right to hold annual fairs and weekly markets. The areas most heavily colonised included the countryside north of Dublin, much of Meath, Wexford county and the valleys of the rivers flowing into Waterford harbour. Concentrations of placids ending with ton or town indicate where settlement of these newcomers was most successful. Examples include: Trimleston, Julianstown, Gormanstown and Bellewstown in Co. Meath; Damastown, Milltown, Booterstown and Williamstown in Co. Dublin; Piercetown, Horetown, Bastardstown and Heavenstown in Co. Wexford; and Thomastown, Rochestown and Nicholastown in Co. Kilkenny. Inhabitants included craftsmen and merchants, but the great majority of colonists had come over to farm the land.
A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes – Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Irish History: Fascinating Snippets of Irish History from the Ice Age to the Peace Process Page 10
