M'-;;
THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
AN ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY SEPTS AND LATER
SETTLERS OF THE KING'S COUNTY AND OF
LIFE IN THE ENGLISH PALE
BY
F. R. MONTGOMERY HITCHCOCK, M.A.
AUTHOR OF "CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA," "MYSTERY OF THE
CROSS," "SUGGESTIONS FOR BIBLE STUDY," "CELTIC
TYPES OF LIFE AND ART," ETC
DUBLIN: SEALY, BRYERS AND WALKER
MIDDLE ABBEY STREET 1908
H^
PRINTED BY
SEALY, ERYERS AND WALKER,
MIDDLE ABBEY STREET,
DUBLIN.
UXORI BENIGNAE ET BEATAE.
— : o : —
Rapta sinu subito niteas per saecula caeli,
Pars animi major, rerum carissima, conjux.
Mox Deus orbatos iterum conjunget amantes ;
Et laeti mecum pueri duo limina mortis,
Delicias nostras visum, transibimus una.
Tempora te solam nostrae coluere juventae ;
Fulgebit facies ridens mihi sancta relicto
Vivus amor donee laxabit vincula leti.
Interea votum accipias a me mea sponsa libellum.
Gratia mollis enim vultus inspirat amantem,
Mensque benigna trahit, labentem et dextera tollit.
Aegros egregio solata venusta lepore es :
Natis mater eras, mulier gratissima sponso.
Coelicolum jam adscripta choris fungere labore.
In gremio Christi, semper dilecta, quiescens.
Christus enim servat, servum revocatque Redemptor.
Usque novissima vox mea pectora personat ilia.
PREFACE.
The favourable reception of '' Celtic Types of Life and Art " has emboldened the writer to attempt another book on Irish life. This second venture deals principally with the history of the original Irish septs and the later English settlers of the King's County, giving contemporaneous glimpses of the unhappy progress of life in the district known as " The Pale." It will be seen that the story of the settlers makes even greater demands upon the sympathy of the historian than that of the Irish septs of O'CarroU and O'Connor ; and that, while almost every English official propounded his scheme for the settlement of the country, the poet Spenser, for a time private secretary of the Deputy, Lord Grey, fell most com- pletely under the spell of the land, not only writing his " View of the Present State of Ireland," but also wedding an Irish maid and composing the immortal *' Faerie Queen " on Irish soil.
Subjects of controversy in religion and politics have again been avoided because of the conviction that there is a common platform on which all Irishmen, however opposed in these matters, may meet to con- sider the improvement of their country, the promotion of its industry, and the preservation of the annals of its past.
vi. PREFACE
Sources and authorities of importance are given in every instance. In the second chapter a suggestion of the late Mr. T. L. Cooke has been worked out.
The writer expresses his obligations to the pub- lishers, who have spared no expense to make the book a success ; to the Rev. J. E. H. Murphy, Professor of Irish in Trinity College, the Rev. M. E. O'Malley, and Mr. E. Fournier D'Albe, B.Sc, his brother-in-law, who have given valuable assistance in the spelling of Irish names ; and to his friend, Mr. Thomas Ulick Sadleir, B.L., who has contributed the important Appendix on the King's County families in the eighteenth century.
CONTENTS
PAGE
UxORi Benignae et Beatae .... iii.
Preface v.
Contents . vii.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. The Early Peoples of Erin . . . . i
CHAPTER H.
The Race of the Horseman and an Ancient
Relic 17
CHAPTER HI.
The King's County and the Slieve Bloom . . 34
CHAPTER IV.
The O'Connors and the Pale . . . .53
CHAPTER V.
The Rise of the O'Connors and Richard IPs.
Expedition 73
CHAPTER VI.
Ireland under the Lancastrian Kings . .90
CHAPTER VII. Acts of Significance 105
CHAPTER VIII. The Geraldines and Butlers . . . .120
Vlll, CONTENTS.
Pags.
CHAPTER IX. Silken Thomas and the O'Connors . . .128
CHAPTER X. The Plantation of Offaly and Leix . . . 142
CHAPTER XL
Thn Rise of the O'Carrolls and O'Mulloys . 163
CHAPTER Xn.
The Fall of the O'Carrolls . . . .177
CHAPTER XHI. The Defence of the Pale 190
CHAPTER XIV. Misrule and Oppression 209
CHAPTER XV. Legal and other Reforms 226
CHAPTER XVI. Clonmacnoise and Delvin 239
CHAPTER XVII.
More Recent Events in the County. . . 250
CHAPTER XVIII. Irish Customs and Curiosities .... 268
Appendix 293
Index 306
THE
MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
The Early Peoples of Erin.
Keating, in the preface of his History of Ireland, complains of the manner in which the ancient Irish have been misrepresented by foreign historians. Strabo, for instance, declared that the Irish were cannibals. Solinus asserted that there were no bees in Ireland — a falsehood rebutted by another foreigner, Camden, who stated that the multitude of bees is so great that they are to be found not only in hives, but also in the hollow places of the trees and ground. Pomponius Mela represented the Irish as " ignorant of every virtue." " That ignorant and malicious writer," Giraldus Cambrensis, stated that the kingdom paid tribute to King x-^rthur in A.D. 519, and added insult to injury by describing the Irish as an inhos- pitable race (gens inhospita), whereas Stanihurst testifies to their hospitality in the sentence : " The Irish are truly the most hospitable men, and you cannot please them better than by visiting them frequently and without invitation." Stanihurst him- self receives the vials of Keating's wrath for his state- ment that " the meanest scullion that lives in the English province would not give his daughter in marriage to the most noble'prince of the Irish " : and
2 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
(or his uaconiplimenttry remarks to the Irish language, which he" regretted was' not expelled with the Irish natives from Fingall, Stanihurst was altogether ignorant of the mellifluous language, and, therefore, was unqualified, in Keating's opinion, to express his views on the subject. Stanihurst went still further, and although, as Keating remarks, he had no notion of music, harmony, or distinction of sound, had the audacity to pronounce the Irish "an unmusical nation." Keating wonders that this second Midas, on whose head Apollo, the God of song, would un- doubtedly have fixed the ears of an ass, had not consulted Giraldus Cambrensis, that ''inexhaustible fund of falsehood," as he elsewhere describes him, who states in his History : " I find the diligence of that nation praiseworthy in the use of musical instruments, with which they are better provided than any other nation." This testimony to the musical talent of the Ireland of the twelfth century is corroborated by the resemblance that has been discovered between the Irish melodies and the Norse, which must have been familiar to Ireland for some centuries at the time of Giraldus, and by the fame of the ancient Irish harpers. The present writer has heard people say that the Irish peasantry of the present age have no ear for music, and that part singing, which comes naturally to their Welsh brethren, is only learnt with great difficulty by the Celt on this side of the Channel. Be that as it may, there are few nations as susceptible to the charm of sweet sounds, or as subject to the sway of melody; while the Welsh Giraldus praised the Irish melodies of his age for their sweetness, swift- ness, and " Concordia discors." Then Spenser provokes
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ERIN 3
Keating's wrath by his audacious attempt to trace the pedigrees of the Irish gentry, and to assert that the MacMahons, who were Hneally descended from Colla da Chrioch, son of Eochaidh Doimlen, son of Cairbre Lifeachair, Monarch of Ireland, were of EngHsh extraction, and descended from the house of Fitz Urse. Many, too, are the deficiencies of Meredith Hanmer, Doctor of Divinity, and the defects of his Chronicle, which commences with laudable precision ''three hundred yeeres after the flood." For had he not the hardihood to challenge S. Patrick's right to be called the Apostle of Ireland, and to mention his predecessors Colman, Declan, Ailbe, Ibar, and Ciaran, and to ascribe the discovery of S. Patrick's Purgatory to another Patrick, an abbot who lived in A.D. 850. But, worst of all, he ventured to deny the Irish origin of our island Hercules, Fionn MacCumhail, and to give him a Danish (Keating wrongly says " British "> pedigree.
In a word, all these writers and others, Barclay and Moryson among them, were, according to Keating, utterly devoid of the qualifications required by an historian, and whether " from malice or ignorance " were unfit to essay the task. They seemed to follow the example of the beetle which selects the nastiest thing, rather than that of the bee which chooses the sweetest places to alight upon. They wilfully pass over all that was commendable and noble in Irish life and customs, and " dwell upon the manners of the lower and baser sort of people." Those of us who have read the histories of which Keating complains can not but feel that he had just cause of complaint ; and that the worst types of Celtic life were described,
4 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
while the best were overlooked, simpl}- because the writers were " beetles " not " bees."
But here it to be observed that if the history of Ireland has been drowned by the cold water of its foes, it has been no less buried under the dry dust of its friends, for there can be nothing less stimulating to the eager student than the Irish annals, say those of the Four Masters. Here a veritable mine of informa- tion lies buried beneath a pile of ancient dust, which, like the gravel dust of Europe, contain many treasures for those who can afford the time and means to dig and delve through la}'ers of waste and worthless heaps before they strike the vein of ore.
On the other hand, no one could describe Keating as dull. There are many entertaining pages in his work, and even if one takes exception to the length and doubtfulness of the pedigrees and legends he re- cords, one cannot but admire his ingenuity. Is it not refreshing to a tired imagination to be informed that hundreds of years before the Deluge, Ireland was visited by three daughters of Cain, with Seth, the son of Adam or MacAdam, the ancestor, doubtless, of the MacAdams, \\'ho gave their name to Cadamstown ? For, as the ancient poet sang :
The three fair daughters of the cursed Cain, With Seth, the son of Adam, first beheld The Isle of Banba.
These distinguished dames, one of whom, Banba, gave her name to the island, were followed in remote ages by three strangers, Caffo, Laighne, and Luasat, precisely " twelve months before the Flood." But these unhappy " men of strength and fit for war," who were driven here by a storm, were unfortunately
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ERIN 5
drowned in the Deluge at a place called Tuath Inbhir. But, according to "some records of the kingdom," which Keating mentions "out of respect," the first really historic personage who visited the island was Ceasar, the daughter of Bith, a niece of Noah, but whom the patriarch refused to receive into the Ark. She and some of her companions, whose names have been preserved in the Psalter of Cashel, with due con- sideration for future historians, landed in Connacht. There Bith, Ceasar's husband, died on Sliabh Beatha, now Slieve Beagh, on the borders of Tyrone, where his cairn is shown at Carnm6r, near Clones, and Ceasar herself died of grief at Carn Ceasra in Connacht "six days before the rising of the Flood." Camden had, therefore, some ground for his assertion that " the island was not without reason called the ancient Ogygia by Plutarch, for they begin their histories from the most remote memory of antiquity, so that the antiquities of other nations are modern compared with theirs."
Noah's descendants in the order Japhet, Ham, and Shem seem to have been represented by the ancient inhabitants of Eire. Parthaldn, a Scythian, with his comrades were of the posterity of Japhet, according to Dr. Meredith Hanmer and Keating. Parthalon, how- ever, who happened to be a parricide, " a boy who killed his father," was followed by the furies from Greece, and he, with all his followers, died of a plague, within the space of a week, at Benn-Eadair, or the Hill of Howth, having possessed the plain of Sean-mhagh- Ealta Edair (Shan-va-alta-edar), or the old plain of the flocks of Edar, which was also called Maghnealta, or Moynalty, the plain of flocks, which lay between
6 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Howth and the Dublin Mountains, or may be the old name of Clontarf, as Professor Murphy suggests, the flocks being the sea-birds. On the Dublin hills near Tallaght there may be to-day sepulchral remains of Partholanus and his band ; for Tallaght was known to the Four Masters as Taimhleacht-mhuintire-Phartha- 16in, or the plague-grave of Parthalon's people. In the time of Partholanus, according to Hanmer, " many of the cursed seed of Cham (Ham) arrived on this island with their captain Oceanus, the sonne of Cham, called of some Mena, of Moses Mitzraim." These were of great stature and strength, and after a time engaged in battle with the sons of Japhet, who anni- hilated them, but, neglecting the burial of the dead, died themselves of the plague which left its name to Tallaght. This was the end of Partholanus, and the country was desolate once more, '* ex- cepting a few silly soules scattered in remote places."
Then Nemedius, of Japhet's line, came with his three sons, and partitioned Ireland between them, and in his time, descendants of Shem appeared in the shape of "vagabond Africans." These were quite celebrated people in their way. They rejoiced in the name of Fomhoraigh, which Keating explains as sea- robbers, but which is anglicised into Fomorians. Piracy was their occupation, as it was of the Vikings of a later and more prosaic age. These sea-robbers seemed to have been great builders. Keating tells us that they built two royal seats, one called Cinneich at loubhniallain, and the other, Rath Ciombhaoith in Seimhne, for the Nemedians, who rewarded their architects by slaying them, and with Irish irony
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ERIN 7
giving them a burial in Urra firma at Doire Lighe, or the stone by the oak tree.
It would be of great advantage to us if we could locate these places. There are, however, many localities of the name Cinneich, the head or the hill of the horse, which may appear in Kinnetty as well as in Kineagh, in the south as well as in the north of Ireland. loubhniallain may stand for Uibh-Niallain (uibh, abl. case of Ua, grandson, generally written O), and would correspond, therefore, with Hy Niallain, an ancient tribe, who occupied the baronies of O'Neil- land in Armagh. The other place, Raith Ciombhaoith, may well be called after Cimbaoth, one of the famous trio of kings, who agreed to reign for seven years in alternate succession, and who had the good or bad fortune to marry Macha of the golden hair, daughter of Aedh-ruadh, the first of the three Kings, and foundress of Ard-macha or Armagh, and to escape, as far as we can tell, from the servitude to which that determined dame consigned the sons of Dithorba, the third monarch, of whom Tigernach writes. But this may be too venturesome an anticipation. It is, how- ever, quite possible that Ptolemy, the geographer of the second century, refers to the place. For he mentions Isamnion Akron, or the Point of Seimhne (now Island Magee ?), in which district the Rath of Cimbaoth was built. Nor is it improbable that one of these " royal seats " was further south. For we are informed by Keating that the first battle which Nemedius fought with the Fomorians after their coming was at Sliabh Bladhma, or the Slieve Bloom Mountains, in which district was the ancient Kinnetty, mentioned in the Felire of Aengus, which resembles
S THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Kinneich, as well as O'NeiU's town and O'Neill's well. Accordingly, it is highly probable that Nemedius, if he ever existed, established himself in two royal seats, from one of which he could control the north, and from the other, the south, ^^■est, and east of the country. The necessity of this is apparent when we notice how ubiquitous the Fomorians were, the first battle they fought being in the midlands at Sliabh Bladhma, the next in Connacht, the third in Dalriada in x-\ntrim, and the fourth in Leinster. But at last these terrible sea-rovers, who had originally established themselves in an island off the Donegal coast, known as Tory Isle, not, however, from its political aspect, but from its torach, or tower-like, appearance, overwhelmed Nemedius and his people, and gave their name to the Giant's Causeway, which is called in Irish Clochan-na- bhFomharach (Clohan a vowragh) or the stepping- stones of the Fomorians.
After the Fomorians came other invaders, the Firbolgs and Tuatha-de-Danann. One division of the former people landed at Inver Domnainn, the river mouth of the Domnann or Firdomnainn, men of the deep pits, now called Muldowney, which means the whirlpool of the Domnann. and is probably the treacherous channel formed by the sea at ]\Ialahide. It is also interesting to note that one of these Firbolg princesses, Eadar, the wife of Gann, one of their five commanders, gave her name to the promontory now called Howth Head (Howth = Head in Danish, cf German Haiipt), but which was then styled Benn Eadair, the point of Edar. Ptolemy, the geographer of the second century, mentions a place, Edrou Heremos, or desert of Eder, opposite Eblana, ancient Dublin,
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ERIN 9
which preserves the name of this lady. It is also said to be taken from a Tuatha-De-Danann chief, Eadar, son of Edgaeth. The Firbolgs, accord- ing to Keating, were the exiled Nemedians, who had sailed to Greece to escape the tyranny of the Fomorians, and there grew and multiplied until the Grecians rose to oppress them. They then set sail, and safely landed on the Irish shore.
The Firbolgs were divided into three tribes. Their first king was Slainge, and their last was Eochaidh, and for fifty-six years they reigned. Eochaidh, the sixth and last of these, was a good and wise monarch, who sought to restrain the violence of his subjects by making good laws. In his days " peace and plenty cheered the labouring swain." For we read that, '' in his time the weather was temperate and healthy, the produce of the earth was not damaged by any immoderate rains, and plenty and prosperity prevailed throughout the whole island." How pleasant must have been the climate of Eire in those days, and how sadly it has altered for the worse ! This king is said to have wedded Taillte, daughter of Magm6r, the king of Spain, in whose honour the assembly of Tailltean was insti- tuted by Lewy of the long hand, one of the Tuatha-de- Danann kings. Taillte is said to be buried at Tailte (gen. Tailltenn), now Teltown, in Meath. As for Eochaidh himself, he perished in battle v/ith the three sons of Neimhidh, son of Badhraoi, at Magh Tuiridh, the plain of the tower, to be identified doubtless with Moytura, not far from the interesting village of Cong, which, with the ruins of its noble abbey, stands on the cumhga or isthmus connecting Loughs Corrib and Mask in Galway. Badhraoi is a strange name, and
10 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
may be connected with the old Irish Badh-ruadh, or God of Wind, who corresponded with the Gallic deity Vintios, and if so would be an instance of the manner in which pagan pantheons were filled with deified mortals. A short while previous to his death Eochaidh had been routed by the Tuatha-de-Danann under their king, Nuadha of the silver hand (Airgiod lamh). These people are said to have possessed wonderful skill in magical arts, by which they im- pressed the natives whom they subjugated, and by whom they were practically deified after they in their turn were vanquished by the fierce Milesians. A poem in the Book of Invasions describes by " what charms, what conjuration, what mighty magic " they won the land. One of their powers was to " raise a slaughter'd army from the earth, and make them breathe and fight again." Our chief interest in these cryptic people is centred in the four curious articles which they are said to have brought with them from Denmark, namely the Lia Fail, or stone of destiny, because a very ancient prophecy foretold that, at what- ever place the stone should be preserved a person of the Scythian or Scottic race would have the sovereignty ; the sword of Lug (Luighaidh) the Long-handed, the spear of the same warrior, and the cauldron or girdle (coi|\e) of their deity Daghda. These settlers occupied the land for "a hundred and ninety-seven years," as an ancient poem, preserved in the Psalter of Cashel, states with remarkable precision. Their divinities were many and various, male and female. Keating mentions Badhbha, Macha, and Moriogan, and states that the three Danann princes, Macuill, Maceacht, and Mac Greine, who divided the
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF. ERIN u
land between them, were so called from the objects of their worship, Macuill adoring a log of hazel wood (cuill), Maceacht a ploughshare (ceacht), and MacGreine the sun (grian). It is more than likely, however, that these patronymics were given for other reasons. In a manuscript of the Seabright Collection, used by General Vallancey, if we can depend upon him, a list of the inferior Tuatha-de-Danann deities is given. One of these is Eochaid il-dathach. i.e., Dagh-da. Il-dat- hach signifies '' many-coloured." Daghda was one of the Danann kings. The point to which attention is here directed is the name Eochaid, which means horseman, and to which we shall return. Suffice it to sa}^ here that Eochaidh, or horseman, was the name borne by the last of the Firbolg kings, by princes of the Tuatha-de- Danann, and also by the kings of the Milesians.
The Milesians came to Ireland, according to the " faithful Cormac MacCuillenan in his Psalter of Cashel" (so Keating), about 1,300 years before the birth of Christ; but, according to that "idle writer" and " inexhaustible fund of falsehood," Giraldus Cambrensis, during the reign of Gorgundus, who lived not much more than 350 years before Christ. This is a difference of nearly 1,000 years, a com- paratively short term considering the obscure ages of which we are treating.
The Milesians, or Goidels or Celts, came ostensibly to avenge the death of a distant relation, one Ith, commander of the Gadelians, " who was inhumanly slain in defiance of the established laws of nature and of nations " by the three reigning princes of the Tuatha-de-Danann. Ith is said to have discovered the island with an ancient telescope from the pharos of
12 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Brigantia, or more probably to have become acquainted with it in his piratical raids, or through the political relations between the ancient Spaniards and Irish, which had been cemented on more than one occasion by marriage. At all events, Ith, " the son of Breogan, son of Bratna," " son of Magog, son of Japhet, son of Noah, son of Lamech" (Psalter of Cashel), and uncle of ]\Iilesius, encountered the three sons of Cearmad, son of Daghdha, kings of the Tuatha-de-Danann, who were quarrelling over some family jewels at a place called Oileach Neid, on the borders of Ulster, and in a charitable, we had almost said Christian, but that would have been a slight anachronism, spirit preached to them an eloquent sermon of peace and goodwill, and induced them to shake hands and be friends. Well had it been for Ith if he had not undertaken the role of peacemaker, for the three brothers united their forces against him, and slew him, for all his courage and eloquence, as he was returning to his ship, with a conscience void of offence and a sm^all escort, in Magh Itha. Then Lughaidh, the son of Ith, carried back the dead body of Ith to Spain. The Book of Conquests states that Tor Breogain, the tower of Brigantia, was the place. After having exposed the slain hero's body on the sea shore, in the sym- pathetic presence of the family of Milesius and the sons of Breogan, the son related the story of his father's •'' taking-off." The Milesian warriors, stand- ing round the speaker in a grim circle, moved by the sight of their sweet comrade's wounds, "poor, poor dumb mouths," and by the son's " power of speech," felt " the dint of pity." Tears trickled down their iron cheeks ; and they expressed their feelings after the
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ERIN 13
manner of their forefather, and vowed to sacrifice the blood of the sons of Cearmad '' to the manes of their great-uncle/' just as the Gauls of Caesar's time '' sacrificed human beings as victims." Their Celtic blood was up, the mischief was afoot. One s}''mpathises, however, with the interesting Tuatha-de-Danann princes wrangling over heirlooms, and losing their kingdom and their beautiful and virtuous princesses, Fodhla and Banba, and Eire, who fell in battle v/ith the Goidil. The Milesians were a wandering race, who even- tually found a resting place in our little island. They are said to have been of Scythian blood and Japhet's noble line. They had, it is said, some intercourse with Moses, but no Irish chronicler gives them a Semitic origin, which fact tells somewhat against the British-Israel theory. From Magog, the son of Japhet, was descended the Scythian ruler, Feinius or Fursa, whose son, Niul, is said to have married Pharoah's daughter, the beautiful Scota. Their son, Gadelus, is the reputed ancestor of the Goidels or Gaels. According to the royal records of Tara, he was attacked and bitten, when a babe, by a serpent, but w^as healed by the wand of Moses, who is said to have foretold that the countries where Gadelus, or any of his race should live, would not be invested with any reptile or venomous beast. This is said to be the reason why the serpent was a favourite device of the Milesians, appearing on their banners and in their scroll work. The learning of Feinius, or Fursa and Niul, his son, was marvellous for their age. Niul, we are told in all seriousness, " erected schools and seminaries, and taught the sciences and the uni- versal languages to the youth of Egypt." Unfortunately
14 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
for his people, Niul sympathised so greatly with the down-trodden Hebrews, that he drew upon his own race the vengeance of another Pharoah. They, under the guidance of Sru, and not Gadelas, as Hector Boetius and " such pretenders to history " relate, sailed away in four ships to the Isle of Crete, to escape the might of Eg}'pt. From Crete they removed to Scythia, thence to Gothland, thence to Spain, back again to Egypt, back again to Gothland, back again to Spain, and, finally, these unsettled, but unconquerable colonists, after wanderings to which those of '' much-enduring " Ulysses and " pious " ^neas were child's play, came to Ireland, where they pitched their tents for aye. This is the record in the chronicles of Ireland, and, as Keating says — although all may not assent — unless we depend upon their authority, it is impossible to arrive at any certainty regarding the antiquities and the religious and political state of the kingdom. It has been the custom to regard the Celts as a branch of the great Aryan race, which had its original home in the northern hills of India. But some philologists, Prof. Anwyl among them, arguing from the resemblance of Celtic forms of speech to the Latin, hold that there must have been some common centre of Aryan- Celtic speech in Europe, from which the Indo-European languages could have radiated eastwards and westwards, towards India, Persia, Armenia, on the one side, and Greece, Gaul, and Britain, Italy and Ireland on the other. This centre is supposed to have been the Danube valley of the modern Carinthia. But while the Aryan race im- pressed its language, social customs, and military ideas upon the peoples it conquered, right, left, and centre,
THE EARLY PEOPLES OF ERIN 15
it was not always successful in making the conquered races accept their religious views — whatever they may have been — or in preventing their retention of myths, legends, and national folk-lore. This is, probably, the reason why so man}^ incongruous ideas are found in the Celtic religions.
The Milesians derive their name from Milesius, or Gallamh grandson of Breogan (Bryan ?), from whom the Brigantes of Spain, according to Keating, were descended. Milesius was like Moses in this, that he never set foot upon the promised land, dying before the expedition set forth to avenge the death of his uncle, Ith. However, his widow, Scota, an Egyptian princess, and his eight sons, Donn, Ir, Aireach Feabhruadh, Arranan, Colpa, Heber, Heremon, and Amergin took part in the invasion which the uncles of Milesius organised. That expedition was disastrous to many of these ; for Scota perished, with five of her sons, before the country was eventually divided between Heber and Heremon. The grave of the heroic Scota, who fell at Slieve Mis, in Kerry, is said to be seen between Slieve Mis and the sea, and is by the Finglas stream in Glenscoheen, or Scota's grave. Bladh, a son of Breogan, was slain on the hills which are now called the Slieve Bloom (Sliabh Bladhma), an interesting connection with the modern King's County. Other Milesian warriors, Fuad and Cuailgne, gave their names respectively to the mountains of Slieve Fuad, the highest of the Fews Range in Armagh and the Cooley Mountains (Sliabh Cuailgne) near Dundalk. The brave Tuatha-de- Danann princes, whose magic proved ineffectual against the Gael, were slain, and their forces scattered
1 6 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
at the decisive battle of Tailltenn. Then Heremon and Heber, sons of Milesius, the former in the north, and the latter in the south, reigned peacefully over their provinces, until the wife of Heber, coveting the three vales of Erin, sowed strife between the brothers, who, nnall}^ settled their dispute on the plains of Geisiol — the modern Geashill — in Leinster, where valiant Heber fell. Heremon then succeeded to the throne, and he was followed by his three sons, after whom the sons of Heber Fionn seized the throne, which became a bone of contention between the descendants of Heremon and those of Heber Fionn, and passed now into the hands of one party, and anon into the hands of the other.
Geisioll, or Geashill, in the King's County, is in the ancient territory of Offaly. We read in Keating (p. 154) that Eithrial, King of Ireland, grandson of Heremon, in 2766 A.M., cut down a great wood, called Magh Geisile, at lobh Failge, which is the same plain of Geashill in Offaly ; and another at Magh Rath at lobh Eachach. Is it possible to identify this latter place with the locality now known as Thomas- town, but formerly as Rath, some three miles from Kinnetty ? lobh Eachach may stand for the O'Eachach, the descendants of the Eochaidh, who gave his name to the latter place.
CHAPTER II.
The Race of the Horseman and an Ancient Relic.
The Introductory Chapter dealt lightly with the general history of the early peoples of Eire. In this we shall deal more particularly with the midlands of Ireland, the country around Kinnetty, and shall select the kings of the name Eochaidh, who were connected with the district. Prof Connellan gives an interesting note on the name Eochaidh in his translation of the Four Masters (p. 41): "Eochaidh, pronounced Eochy or Eohy, anglicised Achy, and latinized Eachadius, Accadius, and Achaius, a name of many kings and chiefs, is derived from Each or Eoch, a steed, and therefore signifies a horseman or knight." O'Flaherty in his Ogygia gives the name as Echod or Etac. Donovan in the Book of Rights interprets Eochaidh as eques or horseman. O'Reilly in his Irish Dictionary gives eocxM-D, Eochaidh, a man's name, with genitive GxiCAC. In Colgan's Life of S. Nennius the same genitive is given. This being aspirated would be pronounced Eathach, and is probably the latter portion of the name Kinnetty. We shall now see that quite a number of kings of the name Eochaid were connected in some way with the districts around Kinnetty.
The first of these was Eochaidh Eadgothach (2866 A.M.), or as O'Halloran explains it, Eochaidh " of many colours." If that be correct it would be this Eochaidh and not his predecessor Tighernmhas
B
1 8 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
who established the law of colours by which the colour of one's coat or dress was regulated, a slave being allowed but one colour, a soldier two, an officer three, a gentleman who could entertain, four, a nobleman five, the bards, historians and royal family six. Another derivation of the name would connect it with singeing. This would recall the fact that it was an Eochaidh who is alleged to have introduced the custom of driving horses and cattle between the fires of Beal or the sun, on the day of Beltaine (u be^l-cme), which, accord- ing to Cormac's Glossary, means the two fires which used to be made by the lawgivers or Druids with long incantations, when they drove the cattle between them to guard against the diseases of each year. This day is said to have been the first day of summer, the first of May. O'Donovan's Almanac (Celtic Society) for May, 1848, gives " May- Day, i, Monday, La Beall- taine, SS. Philip and James, S. Mochoemius, Abbot of Terryglass. There is a Bell hill in Clareen, near Kinnetty, where S. Kiaran is said to have rung his bell, but which is more likely to be connected with the ancient fires of Beal-taine kindled originally in honour of the Sun-god, but kept burning to the glory of the true God by S. Kiaran, who, according to Colgan, " arranged that the paschal fire kindled in his monastery should not be extinguished." Mr. Cooke, a writer of 1850, stated that " this fire still continues to be ignited with sparks from flint on every Easter Saturday." The next Eochaidh was Eochaidh Faobharghlas, because of his green flashing brand. He is said to have been an early ancestor of the O'Carrolls, princes of Ely, in the present King's County, being descended from Heber Fionn. He was a great destroyer of woods, having
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 19
cut down seven forests, one known as Magh Smear- thuin — with which compare the Irish word Smearoit, a burning coal — which Keating locates in I've Failge (Offaly) also in the King's County. The next Eochaidh, called Mumho, was grandson of the last named, and, according to Keating, began to reign A.M. 2954 (B.C. 1050). He is said to have wrested the throne from Fiachadh Labhruine, whom he defeated at Beal- gadain, a place which may be identified with the present Ballygaddy, often known as the " Three Sisters," where three roads meet between Birr and Leap Castle. He is also said to have fought a battle at Claire, Clara or Moyclare, near Ferbane in the same county. The Four Masters tell us that this Eochaidh was " of Munster." It is probably after him that Munster or Mumhan-ster is called. In those days the district of Ormonde which embraces the southern por- tion of King's County belonged to Munster, being as its name implies East Mumha or Munster. There are two places near Kinnetty which may be connected with this king, Munnu or Money near Frankford, in the district of Fearcall, and Lismoney, a hill near Knock-na-man, which is derived from Lios or lis, a fortified residence, and may mean the fort of Mumha or Mumho. This is as probable as the other ex- planation, the fort of the brake (Muine), which, suggested the name of Moneyguyneen — the rabbit's brake — now the residence of Mr. Assheton Biddulph, the Master of the King's County Hunt. It is said that a prince of the name Eochaidh lived at a place called Raheenevil (or the fort of the burning coal, e^tD^U) near Frankford, Birr. The next Eochaidh was celebrated as Ollamh Fodhla. or learned doctor.
20 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
The Four Masters and the Book of Clonmacnoise give Eochaidh as the name of this Ollamh Fodhla, the Irish Confucius. This Eochaidh wore a girdle and is said to have loosed it when about to speak at the assemblies. He made good laws, such as (i) Let no man slay his fellow ; (2) Let not man take of the belongings of another man's property ; (3) Let not the lips utter what the mind knoweth to be false ; (4) Man be merciful ; (5) Let man do ever as he would be done by. When his son Fionn was going to Munster our Irish lawgiver said to him : " When mirth and joy prevail, gravity and wisdom are out of time. In Muma all is sport and dance and song and music and the chase and drink. Whilst thou abidest be as Muma in all but the last." Even in these early days Munster was famous for the hard drinking and fearless riding of its sons. The son of this learned monarch was Eochaidh, king of Uladh (Ulidia = Ulster) and also Ard-ri or High King. He was specially skilful in the management and breeding of horses. The next Eochaidh was called Uairceas, from the small skiffs which he caused to be made, uairceas being the Irish for boat. This boat was doubtless similar to the corach or coracle used in the western portions of the country. This monarch was twentieth in descent from Eochaidh Faobharghlas, the ancestor of the O'CarroUs of Ely, and was slain by Eochaidh, called Fiadhmhuine the hunter, '' because he took great pleasure in the chasing of deer and other wild beasts, which he frequently hunted in the woody and wild parts of the country ; " Fiad means deer and viuine signifies brake. This hunter of the line of Heremon was slain by Luighaidh Lamhdhearg or Lewy of the
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 21
Red Hand, of the line of Heber Fionn and son of Eochaidh Uaircheas, the boat-builder. He was suc- ceeded by other Eochaidhs, the most important of whom was Eochaidh Foltleahan or the Broad Locks, who began his reign 254 B.C., and seems to have met his end in the district of Ely O'CarroU, of which princely line he was also ancestor. For he was slain by Fergus Fortamhaill (vigorous), a valiant and strong-bodied prince, who may have left his name to the Fortal cross roads between Kilcolman and Kin- netty. The next Eochaidh was Feidhlioch, who commenced to reign about B.C., 64, and who was the father of the celebrated Queen Maev (Meidhbh) or Mab of Connacht. The king and his counsellors determined that a royal seat should be made in Connacht, and Tinne, one of the princes of Connacht, having offered a site for the palace was rewarded with the hand of the princess. The ditch and rath were made, and a poet describes how the Rath Eochaidh became known as the Rath Cruachan, after Cruachan Crodhearg, the mother of the illustrious Mab. Rath Crochan is doubly interesting to us because of S. Patrick's visit to its fountain, where he had the interview with the daughters of the Ard-ri of Ireland, Ethne the Fair and Fedelm the Red. In the sepulchre of the kings close by this fortress Dathi, the brave Irish prince, who is said on good authority to have assisted the Romans in the Gallic campaign of 428 A.D., is buried according to the Irish poem of Torna-Eices
Under thee is the King of the men of Fail (Ireland), Dathi son of
Fiachra, the Good. Croghan, you have hidden him from the Galls, from the Goidels. Under thee is Dungalach the swift, who led the king (Dathi) beyond the seas.
22 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
This Eochaidh was a great prince, he restored the laws and encouraged the sciences.
The next Eochaidh (a.m. 3952. Keating ; Ogy^ia A.M. 3934, B.C. 70) was called Aireanih (grave) from having introduced the custom of burying the dead in graves, considering it neither decent nor secure to raise cairns of stones over their bodies. He was slain by Siodhmall (a fairy of the hill). The next Eochaidh was called Ainchean, a depraved person who caused the unhappy death of two fair princesses, the daughters of King Tuathal, and in consequence brought the terrible tax called Boroimhe Laighean, or tribute of Leinster upon his kingdom. The story is fully given in Keating's history. Suffice it to say : —
Two princesses, the daughters of Tuathal, The fair Dairine and the lovely Fithir Fell by the deed of Eochaidh Ainchean,
S. Moling in after years obtained a remission of the taxes from Fianachta, by a verbal quibble, requesting a respite until a certain Monday but employing an idiom which meant Doomsday.
We now come to three celebrated kings, Cathaoir Mor, Conaire and Oilioll Olum. From Cathaoir Mor, the father of twenty sons, are descended the O'Connors of Offaly, the O'Dempseys of Clanmalire, and O'Dunnes through his eldest son, Ros of the Rings (Failge), all of whom are leading King's County clans. Conary had three sons by Sarah, daughter of Conn of the Hundred Battles, called the three Cairbres, Cairbre Rioghfhada, Cairbre Baschaoin and Cairbre Muisg. From the eldest of these, Carbery Riada,
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 23
called Reuda by Bede (Ecc. Hist, i, i.), sprang the Dalriada colony of Scotland : —
The noble tribe of the Dalriads Descended from the illustrious Conaire.
There were two districts of his name, one in Argyle, the other in Antrim, to be distinguished from the Dalaradia or the Pictish colony in the same territory. From that ancient Jrish colony \\\ Airer-Gaedhil, Arrer gale or Argyle, the "land of the stranger" came the Stuart line of kings, from which our king is descended. Sadhbh, the other daughter of Conn, was wedded to Oilioll Olum, from whose second son, Cormac Cas the valiant Dalgcais (more generally known as the Dalcassian tribe), the O'Bryans, the MacMahons and MacNamaras claim descent; and from whose blind son Cian, the O'Carrolls of Ely sprang. Their brother Eochaidh with seven other brothers was slain in the battle of Magh Muchruime. Conn of the hundred battles had a famous brother Eochaidh Fionn who helped to reinstate Cuchorb, King of Leinster, in his kingdom, and routed the Munster- men in Leix and Ossory. The Mumonians or Munster- men seems to have held possession of Ossory and Leix at the time, but Eochaidh beat them at all points. One of the battles was fought at Athtrodain, now known as Athy, on the river Barrow. The Leinster- men followed up their advantage, and almost anni- hilated their foe. In gratitude for his services Cuchorb made Eochaidh lord of the seven Fothortuaths, while his general, Laoigseach (Leeshagh) was rewarded with the district of the Queen's County, known as Laeighis (Leesh) and anglicised into Leix, the ancient territory of the O'Moores. About a.d. 250 we find an Eochaidh
2 4 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Kinmarc King of Munster. tn^\t\c^\n in Irish means a little horse ; tn^^fvcAit means horseman, while kin may represent cean, head, or kinel, tribe. The chief horse- man or the tribe of the horseman would be a suitable name for an equestrian hero. Another Eochaidh worthy of note was king of Ireland from A.D. 358 to 365. He was known as Eochaidh Muigmedon or Moyvane, or the midland plain, and was the father of the celebrated Niall of the Nine Hostages, and ancestor of the Southern Hy Nialls, the princes of Meath and the O'Molloys of Fearcall, an ancient portion of King's County, coterminous with the parish of Eglish, and also of the Sliocht Geoilen, or tribe of CuUen, which gave its name to Drumcullen, one of the most ancient ecclesiastical localities in Ireland, just outside the village of Kinnetty. Eochaidh, son of Eana Cinsalach, king of Leinster, slew the great Niall, who raided Scotland, and is also said to have harried the Loire district of France, There was an Eochaidh in the sixth century styled Muinreamhair, or fat neck, also called Andoid, or the swift. The annals of Tigernach for the year 553 A.D. give the note : — " The death of Eochaidh, the son of king Conla, of Ulster, from whom the O'Eachi of Ulster sprang." Keating mentions an Eochaidh of Ulster, first king of the Dalnaruidhe. Under A.D. 550 Keating gives us Eochaidh, son of Daniel, as king of Ireland, whose cousin, Fiachadh, engaged in the bloody battle of Folia and Forthola against the inhabitants of the districts of Ely and Ossory, and obtained a complete victory, slaying num- bers of the enemy. Forthola may be identified with Fortal in the neighbourhood of Kinnetty and in the district of Ely O'Carroll. Another Eochaidh, son of
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 25
the Aongus, baptized by S. Patrick, reigned peaceably at Cashel. In O'Dugan's poem on ''the kings of the race of Eibhear," there is this mention of him : —
Noble Aongus his son Eochaidh rightly called, He thirty years succeeded ; Who patient being and prudently stoute, His life near Cashel ended.
In the translation of the Book of Rights (p. 226, Celtic Society's Edition), there is an account of S. Patrick raising a Danish chieftain of Dublin, one Eochaidh Balldhearg, or the Red. The record of this curious revival begins —
The day at which Athcliath arrived
Patrick of Macha of great revenues,
On the same day cruel death had taken off
The only son of valorous Ailpin,
They brought to the descendant of the deacon
The only son of the king of the Galls, the fierce Eochaidh,
To the Apostle it was a reproach —
*' If thou shouldst bring a soul unto him,
0 cleric pure and powerful,
1 will submit to thee at Coill Cheanainn
And the Galls of the green lands shall submit to thee.
They went round him thrice right-hand-wise
So that he rose up into life
The comely hero, the noble Eochaidh.
We have thus seen that Eochaidh was a favourite name of the pagan Irish princes, many of whom such as Eochaid Faobharghlas, the ancestor of the O'Carrolls ; Eochaidh Broadlocks, who was slain at Fortal ; Eochaid Munho, who may have given his name to Lismoney and defeated his predecessor at Ballygaddy near Kinnetty ; Eochaidh Muigmedon or Moyvane, who was the ancestor of the O'Molloys ; Eochaid Fat Neck, from whom the O'Eachi sprang, and Eochaidh, the son of Aongus, who resided at Cashel, had various connexions with the midland
26 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
districts of Ireland, especially the vicinity of Kinnetty. This would point us to a solution of the name Kinnetty.
Dr. O'Donovan, in a note to a passage on the Four Masters, says : — " Kinnitty (ce^n eicij) i.e., the head of Etech, so called according to a note in the Felire of Aengus at the 7th April, from Etech, an ancient Irish heroine, whose head was interred there." There appears to be some confusion here. Etech was asso- ciated with the neighbouring parish of Ettagh, and may have some connexion with Kinnetty. But the tradition may point to the burial of some ancient relic in the place. It has been said that Eathach is the geni- tive of Eochaidh, horseman, and taking into account the number of Eochaidhs connected with Kinnetty, we may infer that they have given the locality its name. This inference is strengthened by a find of a small equestrian statue which was unearthed from an ancient rath on the Castle Bernard estate known as " the Moate." This discovery was made in 1850, and is described by Mr. T. L. Cooke, of Birr. Some of the labourers informed him that they were engaged in some work on this rath when they came across several large stones weatherbeaten as if they had been exposed to the air before their interment. These were two or three feet below the surface, and when all the stones were laid bare, they presented the form of a cross, which was not unknown to the pagan world. Where the arms of the cross intersected the shaft this statue of a male horse, without legs, measuring seventeen inches from head to tail, was found. The bridle of the horse serves also as a bit, like those described by Gerald of Wales. The saddle has a high cantle and pommel,
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 27
the saddle cloths are well padded, and have invected edges. There is a stirrup for the right foot to give the rider support when striking, but none on the mount- ing side. The Irish used both saddle and bridle in ancient times, although this custom with other good customs dropped after the decline and fall of Ireland in mediaeval times. For we read in the Book of Rights (a.d. 800, p. 208) —
A hundred cows to the brave Ui-Censealaigh,
A hundred steeds by which power is added to the territory,
Ten ships, ten bridles, ten saddles.
The rider is an interesting figure, thick-set, bull- necked, clean-shaven, with large and truculent features, clad in a large overcoat, of which there is no opening in front, and the folds of which are gathered in by a large girdle. A long, heavy sword, unlike the short Irish weapon, is visible underneath. A light-fitting cap covers his head. It was the custom of the Irish kings to wear a mantle over their sword when riding. In O'Connor's description of the meeting of Oilioll of Uladh and Oilioll the Ard-ri (B.C. 594) we are told that the Ard-ri dismounted, opened the clasp of his mantle, and laid it on the ground. He also loosed the belt of the sword and placed it on the mantle, saying — " These are of peace, let them be hung up in the tent of the king." The other king when he saw the Ard-ri stand- ing on the ground also came down from his horse, loosed the clasps of his mantle ; threw it from him, and the sheath of his sword he flung away.
A remarkable thing about this horseman is the small cavity beneath his hands, which was clearly intended for some object now missing, which might possibly have been a model of the Lia Fail, to judge from the
2 8 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
depth, clear cut and conical form of the cell. In Cormac's Glossary there are two lines ascribed to Guaire, king of Connaught, on the subject of Marcan, a horseman —
In precious stones are hidden great wonders as in The stone of Marcan, son of Hugh, son of IMarcene.
One of the Eochaidhs was also called Kenmarc, or Chief of the Horse. Another Eochaidh surnamed Gunnat, as an Irish manuscript cited by Dr. Petrie informs us, removed the Stone of the Hostages from Temur and carried it to Cruachan. He also describes the Lia Fail as an idol stone. Was this little horseman an idol or a statue? It is strange enough that this horseman has representations of the three magic things the Tuatha-de-Danann brought to Ireland, the sword of Lug, the girdle (coire = girdle as well as cauld- ron) of Daghda, ''which would not fly away from him like a hidden stag," and the receptacle for the Lia Fail, It is no less strange that the whole vicinity of the Slieve Bloom is associated with the horse. Mr. Seward, in his Topographia Hibernka, described a large pyramid on these mountains known as Copall-ban, or white horse. The present writer has not been able to verify this statement ; but he has been informed on good authority that there is the shape of a horse visible on the hills between Mountrath and Clonaslee, not, however, as prominent a land mark as the White Horse of Berkshire and its stumpy thorn bush around which the armies of Alfred and the Danes met with a shock. There is a well in Drumcullen known as the Horse Well (cobx^t^-eAC). The Irish set great store on their horses. In the Leabhar-na-h-Uidhri we find
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 29
one Midir of Brigleigh, which may be the same as Brig- Eile or Ely-0'Carroll challenging an Eochaidh to a game of chess, saying : " I shall have for thee fifty dark grey steeds if thou win the game." There were clans in the north and south called after Eochaidh, even the Hy-Eachach of the townland of Armagh in Down, the Hy-Eachaid of Kinelmeaky, Cork. There were also Kienachta in Londonderry, and Kienachta in Cork. The tribe of the Horseman would be a suit- able name for an Irish tuathor district. This in Irish would be Kin-Eathach (cme-eAtAc). The image of the horseman also suggests as a possible derivation c-Aon-e-At^c, image of horseman, pronounced Kin- etta. Either of these derivations would agree with the pronunciation of the natives, Kinnetty. Could this horseman have been an idol ? We find many idols and idolatrous customs connected with horses in the ancient world. Herodotus (iv. 7 1 ) relates a curious custom of the Scythians, who honoured a dead king's memory by impaling fifty of his servants on fifty slaughtered steeds on the mountain side. The Roman Castor and his brother were mounted on white steeds. The Northern Woden was represented as riding on a white horse. This is possibly the reason why the white horse was placed on the arms of Hanover. The horse was worshipped by the ancient Arabs. The god Irru of Ceylon, corresponding with the sun, is mounted on a white horse, which was also one of the sacred emblems of ancient Gaul, In the Museum at Mayence is a bas relief of Epona, the goddess of horses, on horseback ; and a bronze image of a horse was found at Neuvy-en-Sullias, and is now in the Orleans Museum. The Celts of Ireland
30 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
may have had a god Eochaidh corresponding with Epona of the Galli, who had many animal totems such as the boar (moch), the bear (artos), the bull (tarvos) and the ass (mullo). It is quite possible that idolatry or the worship of images — although none have actually been found — was practised by the early inhabitants of Ireland. Crom Cruadh was one of the most celebrated of these images. He was set up in the plain of Magh Slecht in Breffny, was worshipped by Tigernmhas, but was smitten by the crozier of S. Patrick, according to the Vzta Tertia. Keating informs us of the three De Danann princes, Macuill, Maceacht, and Mac Greine, who worshipped respectively a log of wood (cuill), a ploughshare (ceacht), and the sun (grian), and also relates that Cormac Mac Art refused to worship " a log of wood fashioned by the workman's hand." Some peculiar things have been found and in strange places, which may be representations of the Celtic Goddess Ana or Earth Mother, who, "with her progeny of spirits, springs, rivers, mountains, forests, trees, and corn, appears to have supplied most of the grouped and individualised gods of the Celtic pantheon." (Prof. Anwyl, Celtic Religion, p. 28), Cormac's Glossary describes her as the mother of the Hibernian gods, because "she fed the gods well." There are two hills in Kerry which may be called after Ana, Da-chich-Danainne ; also a hill called Chich- awn in the Slieve Bloom. Grotesque representations of the female have been found in the walls of the old church of Seirkieran, and also in the castle of Ball}'- finboy near Finnoe. The late Mr. Cooke stated that he had in his possession an image called by the peasantry " the witch," which originally stood in
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 31
Cloghan in the King's County, the old name of which was Cloghan-na-gcaora, the stone of the sheep, which represented an Hermaphrodite, one of the breasts being Hke the sun and the other a crescent Hke the moon. This image may have given its name to the neighbouring town of Ferbane, which may be composed of fear (man) and bean (woman). It is said that the Druids worshipped the Sun-god Apollo under the form of an Hermaphrodite. He was worshipped by the Celts under various forms, one of his names being Borvo, "the boiler," the god of hot springs, whence the name Bourbon. Another title was the Grannos, or Sun, as in Aquae Granni, the old name of Aix-la-Chapelle. Grian means sun in Irish. Now the customary offering to the sun was a horse among the ancient Persians. Xenophon gave a horse to the priest to be sacrificed to the sun, and Pausanias states that the Lacedsemonians sacrificed a horse on Mount Taygetus to the sun. It is said that the Irish, too, burnt a horse's head in the bonfires of the first of May, and that the peasantry about Croghan Hill in the King's County, distinctly visible from the Kinnetty mountains, were in the habit of sliding down the hill seated on a horse. We have also some indications that the sun was worshipped in the district around Kinnetty. Knock-na-man,the hill that was above the village, means the hill of the women. Mann also means God. Some kind of worship was doubtless offered within the remark- able circle on its summit. Clonbela, in the neighbouring parish of Drumcullen, means the meadow of Belus or the sun (clt1Aln-t)ex^l). We have Bell-hill in Seirkieran, where the fires of Beltaine, on the first of May, were kindled. We have, in Glendissaun, a glen betu-een
32 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Forelacka Hill and Glen Regan, which, probably means the Glen of the shrubs, but in which there may be a reminiscence of the fires of Samhain (Sowan) of the first of November. And Coola- crease, near Cadamstown, may mean the retired place of the sun (crios). While it has been plausibly suggested that Lacaroe, the red hill side near Cadamstown, was the ancient Tlachtga which the Abbe Macgeoghegan stated was in the neighbouring parish, Clonlisk, and which was the site of the in- auguration of the fires of Beal tinne. Lacaroe lies also on the ancient borders of Munster, which embraced Ormonde, and Meath which almost touches it. And we read (Keating, p. 233) that Tuathal erected the royal seat of Tlachtga " in the tract he divided from Munster and added to Meath." However, this is only conjecture ; for Tlachtga is believed by others to be the Hill of Ward near Athboy, but the fact remains that there is some connexion between the Celtic pantheon and these ancient hills. Lacaroe is in the parish of Letter luna, which may be con- nected with luan the moon, letter meaning hill-side. There are certain stone piles on the top of the dif- ferent hills, such as those on Ard-na-h-Eireann and Botheraphuca, the road of the Sprite. The latter of these is called in Irish " Fear-brogac " (Far breague), which means a coarse man and is known as the Hardy man. This may be identified with Mercury, who was worshipped in Gaul under the form of Jovantucaros or lover of youth. It is possible that this equestrian image may have been originally an idol, although such idols have rarely if ever been found, representing some local Celtic or pre-Celtic divinity (for we find
THE RACE OF THE HORSEMAN 33
that the Milesians often assimilated cults they cared not to or could not obliterate), attached to the gens of the Kin-Eatach or tribe of the Horseman, just as the Gallic Essus was the patronymic God of the Essui. The early Christian settlers may have buried this image and its temple, and ascribed the origin of the name to the interment of the head of Etech, a Chris- tian saint. Be this as it may, the visitor who makes his way through the Slieve Bloom must be awe-struck at times by the great sense of solitude and by the vastness and silence in which he moves, and which suggest the Presence of the Invisible at every step. For ought that can be proved to the contrary, this district is the cradle of the Irish people, the ancient home of the mysterious Tuatha-De-Danann, be they people or be they fairies. The latter indeed would have had many a suitable Sidhe or abode in the ancient mounds and knolls and magic circles of these rolling hills, in which the race of Eochaidh the Horseman once held dominion.
Note. — In the Fmr Masters Ivinnetty is spelt in different ways. e.g. 850, Cind Eitig (gen.) ; 884, Cinn Ettic (gen. case) ; 903 ; Cindeittig (gen.) ; 121 3, Cinneitig (gen.) ; 1397, Chinn Eitig (gen. not our Kinnetty). Cf. Ciiid Fine, or children of the family. The form given for year 884, Cinn Ettic, is most in harmony with the spelling and derivation suggested in these pages.
Also as regards the hardening of the aspirated consonants in Leinster place-names, cf. " Stoneybatter " and " Booterstown " (formerly •' Butterstown ") near Dublin. "Batter" or "butter" is the Irish bouAji, pronounced boher, as in Boheraphuca. A prosthetic n is some- times found, e.g., the old name of Lough Neagh is spelt in the Book of Leinster both Loch-nEthach and Loch-Echach, the lake of Eochaidh or Eochy. The former supports the suggested explanation of Kinnetty.
CHAPTER III.
The King's County and the Slieve Bloom.
The best way, perhaps, to realize what life in an Irish sept was like, would be to glance at the annals of some of the more prominent and pugnacious of the clans. Of these the O'Connors and the O'Carrolls may be selected as being the King's County clans. They are connected with some of the most stirring events in the history of the conquest of Ireland, and proved a con- stant source of annoyance to the English Government and of anxiety to the English settlers of the Pale.
The King's County occupies the midland districts of Ireland. Sir W. Petty, in his Survey Map (1657) marked the site of the old church of Birr as " umbilicus Hiberniae," the central point of Ireland. Archbishop Ussher mentions that in his life-time a peculiar mass of limestone in Birr was considered the centre of Ireland.^ This rock stood near the present railway station at Seffin or Seefin, the seat of Fin (suidhe Finn) outside the town. Athlone is now regarded as the centre of Ireland. Giraldus Cambrensis in his "Topography of Ireland" (iii. 41), which he read with so much pleasure to himself if not to others, before admiring crowds in classic Oxford, also described the town of Birr as the middle point of Ireland, being situated in the very heart and centre of the country, and makes some interesting remarks on the colossal stones which are found in the country, which he described as chorea
^ Elrington's Edition, v. 51 8.
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 35
gigantum, or the dancing places of the giants. It is matter of regret that this great stone of Seffin, which was supposed to mark the centre of Ireland, was removed from its ancient site by Mr. Thomas Steele, who had it conveyed to Clare in 1833.
The present King's County contained the larger portion of the ancient kingdom of Hy Failghe or Offaly, which also comprised certain districts in Kildare and the territory of the O'Dempseys and O'Dunnes in Queen's County. From olden times this district has been associated with the O'Connor sept In 1 1 70, soon after their landing in Ireland, the Normans penetrated into these parts. Hugh de Lacy, perhaps the greatest of the territorial barons, was slain in 11 86 at Durrow in the northern barony of Ballycowan. At the time he was engaged in superin- tending the laying of the foundations of a frontier castle, for which he had seized portion of the lands of the ancient abbey, founded by S. Columba in 546. These lands belonged to an Irish chieftain called Fox, who sent his foster brother O'Meyey to watch for an opening against the ruthless invader and desecrator of Celtic sanctities.
One morning the baron was engaged at the opera- tions, and to encourage the Irish men ''who had prayed to be set on work for hyre," as Campion tells us, seized a pickaxe to show them how to work in the trench, but as he bent forward with the stroke O'Meyey, whose tool he had taken, seized his opportunity and struck down the unsuspecting baron with a blow of his light axe, and made good his escape to the wood of Kill clare or Coill-an-chlair, the Wood of the Plain, which is near Tullamore, and is interesting to
36 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
philologists from the fact that /-// here,like Kyle in Kyle- more, means wood not church. It is also probable that Fearcall means the man of the wood rather than the man of the churches, although the ecclesiastical name Eglish (ecclesia = church) suggests the latter. It was a strange coincidence that a Lord Norbury was attacked and decapitated by a woodman in the same place centuries after.
The whole district of Offaly was charged in the early days of the Norman settlement with twelve knights' fees as being part of Kildare, but when the English power declined in the following century the Irish clans who possessed it not only asserted their independence of the Anglo-Irish Government but imposed a heavy tax upon the English settlers of Meath and Kildare. O'Connor of Offaly at one time received annual pay- ments of £60 from Meath and £20 from Kildare. The colonists were thus compelled to buy off the hostility of the Irish as their forebears in Britain had been reduced to purchase peace from the Danes. But it w^as not from cowardice but from want of means and men that the English in Ireland were reduced to such measures. The terrible invasion of Bruce in 1 3 14 and the wars of the Roses in which the Anglo- Irish took opposite sides, the Ormondes supporting the red rose of Lancaster and the Geraldines main- taining the white rose of York, had completely drained their resources and left them absolutely at the mercy of the " wild Irish our enemies " and the '' Irish rebels," as Richard II. described them in his famous letter. In 1480 the whole force at the disposal of " the Castle " consisted of eighty mounted archers and forty lancers or mounted '' spears," while the revenues reached the
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 37
large sum of £600. Owing to the weakness of the Government the English settlers were compelled to form a league for their own protection under the name of " The Brotherhood of Saint George." This brother- hood, consisting of thirteen gentlemen, maintained a body of some 200 mounted archers, who were under the command of a captain annually elected, and who patrolled the borders of the four counties of the English Pale. This fraternity of arms was formed in 1473. The Irish enemies and rebels were not, however, to be denied, and often broke bounds in order to harry their hereditary foes. Accordingly, Sir Edward Poynings, who was sent over to Ireland by Henry VII. in 1494 with the twofold object of crushing the followers of Warbeck and of thrusting back " the wild Irish," was compelled to adopt other means of defence. In the Parliament of Drogheda (1494) chiefly noted for its provision that no parliament should in future be summoned in Ireland without the king's licence for its being held and the consent of the king and Privy Council to any bills it sought to introduce, an Act was passed enacting that the English settlers in the marches should build and keep in repair '' a double ditch of six feet high above the ground." This ditch, according to the wording of the Act, ran : '' From the water of An liffy to the mountain in Kildare, from the water of An Liffy to Trim and so forth to Meath and Uriel," as Louth was then called. Special care was taken to save the wall from trespass of man or beast. For any animal found injuring it in any way was to be confiscated and sold to repair the ditch, which was for '' the great succour, comfort and defence of the county Dublin." This was at once a summary
38 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
and satisfactory plan for keeping one's fences in order, unless indeed the sheriffs sales of those days realized as little as those of ours when boycott reduces business to a farce.
These incidents have been mentioned in order that the reader may form an idea of the straits to which the English settlement was reduced by the Irish clans who were no longer scattered remnants compelled to live in bog, mountain and forest, but formidable battalions elated with victory, and invincible but for their own lack of combination and esprit de nation or patriotism in the higher sense. In the course of these pages other facts will be mentioned which throw light on the unenviable plight of the settlers of the Pale, who were being slowly but surely crushed out of existence between the upper millstone in the shape of the English Parliament and officialism, and the nether millstone in the form of the Irish septs. Here it is sufficient to remark that much misery would have been saved both to the English Pale and the Irish enemies had the former been either suitably supported by the home government, or permitted to conciliate the surrounding septs as they desired.
King's County, on the septs of which we are to fix our attention, is an interesting district. In many places it is rendered decidedly picturesque in spite of its general flatness by the vast extent of bog and moorland, whose rich and brilliant colouring and ever varying tints of green and brown and gold, especially in the setting sun, form a picture not easily transferred to canvas. The writer will never forget the wonderful landscape and atmospheric effects as he rode along the bog road from Tullamore to KInnetty one evening in
KINGS COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 39
October. The moon was young and high in the west while the western sky was crimson with the rays of the setting sun, which suffused the very atmosphere with a soft iridescent glow which was Turneresque in the extreme. Each small sand hillock, which the Irish call mullach, and of which there are a few, on both sides of the tochar or causeway, seemed a verit- able monaincha or islet in the bog, floating upon the white watery mist into which the bicycle kept plunging as into successive waves of the sea, but gradually these islets vanished into vapour and gloom as the sun sank beneath the horizon, leaving the darkness a thing to be realized and felt almost as a living presence, visible, palpable and most uncanny. As we leave the torach we notice that these mullachs are but detached portions of the great line of eskers or sand hills which is an outstanding feature of the midlands, and is known as the Esker Riada or " the Ridge." This Esker extends from Dublin to Gal way and recalls the time when Ireland was either submerged or was in the grip of the abiding glacier. It also reminds us of two worthies of the olden times, Mogh Nuadhat or Owen More, King of Munster, and Conn of the Hundred Battles, King of Ireland, the former of whom defeated the latter and divided the island with him, taking as his share the south, or Leath Mogha, and leaving the north, or Leath Chuinn, to Conn. The most prominent of these mullachs is the long green ridge, verdant with trees and shrubs, that rises like the back of a great whale above the parish of Killeigh, or the church in the field, with its ancient Celtic shrine, stone roofed and nobly arched, from the summit of which a pleasant vision of the country can be obtained, its ancient raths
40 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
and cemeteries of the dead. The scenery of the country is varied by the beautiful range of the Slieve Bloom hills, which forms a striking barrier for over twenty miles between the King's and the Queen's Counties. From Ard-na-h-Eireann, the Height of Erin, 1,733 feet, the greatest elevation of these hills, which in many places rise to the dignity of mountains, one may see eleven counties stretching away to the distant horizon, and catch fleeting glimpses of the sea beyond the hills of Clare. As one looks to the west, tier after tier of mountains rise to the view. A remarkable feature of the nearest range is the so-called Devil's Bit, the ancient Bearnan Eile or the little gap of Eile — Bearnan being Irish for a little gap — the O'Carrolls boundary line. Then as an extension of this range rise the Silvermines, with the melancholy traces of an abortive enterprise on their barren slopes. Beyond these are hills of Newport, denoted by the noble Keeper, or Slieve Kimalta, and between Castle- town Arra and Killaloe, which is surrounded by great dark round hills, the Arra hills rise to a respectable elevation, Towntinna among them gazing threateningly over the Leinster plains with the graves of the Leinstermen on its summit, commemorating the place where they took their last look at their native woods and died. Behind all these, with the broad Shannon and the waters of Lough Derg, tower the mountains of Clare, Killaloe and Scariff, where Bryan Boroimhe and the scattered remnants of his followers lived in the high hills like the wild goats and in the rocks like the conies until they found themselves strong enough to strike a decisive blow at Sulchoit for their homeland against the pagan invader. '' For it was
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 41
better and more righteous," they said, " to do battle for their inheritance than for land usurped by conquest and the sword" (Wars of the G. G., p. 69). And behind and above them all the mountains of Kerry, great rocky blocks, throw their gaunt shadows over the scene. These mountain ranges rise one behind the other like dark masses of deepening shade drawn above the sky-line, while the great billowy plain that rolls away beneath our feet presents a varied landscape of bog and wood, plantation and pasture, glen and vale, through which streams gleam like silver ribands, as they glide along their winding course to pay their tribute to the river. Here are quiet hamlets ; there solitary homesteads set in brake and scrub, where foxes make their coverts. Gently rising hillocks capped with green thickets, Golden Grove being especially conspfcuous for its striking cluster of fir, and Knockshegowna or the Fairies' Hill, a solitary eminence beyond Birr, with the silver Shannon, the noble boundary of the county, shimmering beyond all, form an enchanting view even when haze and mist blur the picture. Here the sportsman may beguile many a tedious hour, whipping the streams, or shooting the moors, or walking the hills, or riding to hounds. Here, too, the lover of nature may find many an object to interest his mind and many scenes to delight his soul and quicken his imagination. It is, indeed, strange that so few English artists visit the midlands of Eire, where the colouring is so rich and varied, the air so still and luminous, and the distance forms so effective a background. One might go far before one could find more charming scenery or breathe sweeter air than the Slieve Bloom has in store for the visitor
42 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
to its winding glens, purple hills and tumbling streams. On their wind-swept but easily reached and rounded summits that rise above the woods and parks of the Castletown (Castle Bernard) demesne, one understands why the Roman poets Lucretius and Virgil described living as feeding on the breezes, for to breathe the balmy air is literally to live and emphatically to enjoy life. Here, too, we stand on ground prolific with Irish memories, for Bladh, who gave his name to these hills and whose flagstone is preserved in Lickbla, in West- meath, was one of the uncles of Milesius ; and this range of hills is immortalized by Spenser as the mother of the " Gentle Suir," the " Stubborn Nore," and the " Goodly Barrow " —
These three fair sons which being thenceforth pour'd. In three great rivers ran and many countries scour'd.
Slieve Bloom or Sliabh Bladhma, the hill of Bladh reaches by no means the highest point in Eire, being at its greatest elevation but 1,740 feet above the sea level. O'Dugan, the poet, who sang —
Sliabh Bladhma the Fair is over the head Of Ossory, above the heights of Eire,
was, therefore, a little out of his reckoning. But standing on the summit of Ard-na-h-Eireann with one foot in the King's and the other in the Queen's County, one looks down upon a hundred realms of ancient Eire, the rich pasture lands of Ely O'Carroll, Leix, Offaly, Fearcall, Ossory and other principalities. To the plains of Ossory at our feet there is an approach through a narrow gorge between two steep hills, known as the Gap of Glendine (glen of the race) or Gleann-doimhin,deep glen, which might easily be held
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 43
by a handful of determined men against a host. As we gaze down upon these storied plains we cannot but recall the attack that was made by its chieftain Donough Mac Giolla Patrick or Gillpatrick upon the splendid regi- ment of the Dal-gCais tribe as they were returning to their headquarters at Kincora, Killaloe, from the battlefield of Clontarf, where they had displayed a courage and devotion equal to that of the Spartan band of Leonidas at the pass of Thermophylae when the Persian hosts were pouring into Greece, whose epitaph ran with Spartan brevity —
Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, That here obedient to their laws we lie.
The story is told by the Irish chroniclers and his- torians and is undoubtedly true. The King of Ossory had a grudge against Brian Boroimhe, who for all his splendid qualities, was regarded as a usurper by many of the Irish chieftains, and formed the design of attacking the bodyguard of that monarch as they were returning from the sands of Clontarf through his country, without their veteran king, and hampered by sick and wounded — a pitiful but plucky remnant. Accordingly he sent a messenger to Donough, their captain, as they lay encamped for the night at Athy, demanding hostages for the good conduct of his troops while passing through his lands or else threatening to oppose the march. Amazed at this treachery, Donough replied with true Dalcassian spirit that he was prepared to meet Mac Giolla Patrick — a man for whom he had a profound contempt — any day in a pitched battle. And as the messenger kindly but injudiciously advised him to submit Donough ordered him out of his pre- sence, saying that he would meet his master and his
44 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
master's men if he had but one man to stand by him. The Dal-gCais at once set themselves in battle array. The regiment was divided into three companies. To one Donough consigned the care of the sick and wounded, and with the other two he was marching forth, when the wounded soldiers started up and be- sought their general not to leave them, but to allow them to take their usual place in the ranks. As many of them were unable to stand, stakes were cut from the trees and driven into the ground, and the wounded soldiers were tied fast to these stakes, and each stationed between two unwounded men for mutual protection and encouragement, while their wounds were temporarily stopped with moss. O'Halloran writes : '' Between seven and eight hundred wounded men, pale, emaciated, and supported in this manner, appeared mixed with the foremost of the troops ; never was such another sight exhibited." The men of Ossory, more noble or more prudent than their prince, refused to fall upon men who were determined to conquer or die, as Moore, the Irish poet, wrote —
Forget not our wounded companions who stood
In the day of distress by our side ; While the moss of the valley grew red with their blood
They stirred not but conquered and died.
It is unpleasant to add that Gillpatrick, though unable to meet the warrior tribe ^in a fair fight, succeeded in cutting off a number of stragglers in spite of Donough's unremitting and ubiquitous vigi- lance. Another Gillpatrick showed more patriotic zeal and courage — even he who sent the bold message by a monk to King Henry VIII. — '* Stand, my Lord King. My Lord Gillpatrick sent me to you and ordered me to say that if you will not punish Red
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 45
Peter he will make war against you." " Red Peter " was the Earl of Ormonde, the Deputy, who was molesting this Gillpatrick. Through these mountains, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, marched in 1600 after passing through Fearcall, which submitted to him. The Four Masters state that he also despatched three plundering parties into the lands of Ely O'Carroll, which are commanded by the Slieve Bloom. The O'Neill repeated his ravages the following year, when he and his allies, as the same authorities relate, " were expeditiously conveyed across the Shannon at Shannon Harbour ; from thence they proceeded to Delvin Mac Coghlan to Fearcall, to the borders of Slieve Bloom and into Ikerrin." This time the O'Neill and his army were making their way to Kinsale to help the Spaniards under Don Juan del Aquila against the English forces, commanded by Mountjoy and Carew. That expedition ended in disaster. For the Irish under O'Donnell and Tyrone were routed, and the Spaniards, who had marched out to meet the English troops thinking them to be their allies, were compelled to surrender, and O'Neill marched northwards to surrender to Mountjoy in the beautiful church of Mellifont Abbey in 1603 — two days after the death of the Queen. The O'Neill's Well on the road to Mount- rath has possibly older associations, as it did not lie on the line of O'Neill's march, and both it and O'Neill's town may be a souvenir of the Southern O'Neills who had settled centuries before in these parts. On these hills there are several cairns, one of which stands on Ard-na-h-Eireann, another on a hill near Clonaslee, and the third is the Hardy Man of Bohera- phuca. And there is said to be another pyramid called
46 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
the Capall ban, or white horse, said to be associated with the celebrations of La Belltaine, the first of May, when fires were Hghted in every territory of the king- dom in honour of the pagan god. It is possible that these pillar stones and piles had the same origin as the Maypole. But be that as it may these piles and circles are memorials of the religious ideas of a mind that was haunted by stone. There are also some specimens of the Irish mote, which is not a deep trench but a high rath, one at Castle Bernard and another at Drumcullen and others elsewhere, which were probably the sites of the dwelling-places of the Irish chiefs and nobles or members of the " flaith " class, while a chain of forts are found on the Ossory side of the Slieve Bloom, and another chain com- mands the many tochars or causeways through the bog. On the picturesque road to Mountrath hills roll away to the right and left, leaving between them beautiful glens and river valleys planted thick with fir crowned by grassy slopes and here and there by dark hills of peat. On the right of the road from Kinnetty Knocknaman rises with its fir trees standing like a frill on its nearer slope, gapped here and there by the storm of four years ago, and with its ancient ring on its rounded brow. The bare hill of Forelacka then looms past, followed by the long, gently rising mountain of Glendissaun, with its great druim or ridge of un- reclaimable bogland. As we glance back we catch exquisite glimpses of the Shannon and the hills beyond, and the plain shimmering in the light of sun and sunlit clouds. On the right are the Boro' hill, Glinsk, and Letter, all grass-covered slopes reclaimed within the past fifty years, and on which an occasional deer
KING'S COUNTY AND S LI EVE BLOOM 47
may be sighted. The road gradually winds up over the hills, which seem so close in places that a stone could almost be thrown from one summit to another. Deep below lies a valley, through which a winding stream purls its gentle way over a sandy bed. Here the heron may be seen poised not ungracefully on one leg fishing, and at the sound of approaching man the imperturbable bird calmly spreads its broad wings, and in a few seconds has soared out of range. As the writer passed through these wind-swept solitudes, the afternoon sun lit up the hills in front, while the hills behind looked veritable masses of shadow, save where the sun, dazzling one's view, lit up the lone summit of Forelacka with a circle of bewildering brightness. The man who thinks he knows Irish scenery has something still in store for him if he has not yet seen the Irish sun gleaming on these great mountains of green and brown, amid the tears of Eire weeping, as one who would never weary of lamenting the departed glories of her ancient woods and hills, and sorrowing, as one who would not be comforted, because the present age with its sordid prose has brushed aside as a myth the weird and interesting people who worshipped Belus and Ana, the host of heaven and the powers of nature, in the mists and sunshine of their sympathetic glens and hills. Standing on the summit of Knocknaman we are within a magic circle of mountains, which recall the Welsh hills of Penmahnmawr, whose varying shades of brown and green and black on their scarred summits, steep sides or gentle slopes form a bewilder- ing and dreamy vision as they rise above us or recede from us into the distance.
48 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
In the vastness and solitude of these hills " airy nothings," mist-like forms " white presences " might easily assume a " local habitation " ; and in the midst of these deep-bosomed hills the soul of man can commune with its Maker in a prayerful silence broken ever and anon by the sighs of the wind or the soft cadences of the distant streams, or the call of the passing bird. And nothing reminds of man save the ring forts which are everywhere in points of vantage on the hills or in the vales. One of the largest of these is on the top of the Comber mountain ; it is surrounded by a double ditch and fosse, and is some 162 yards in diameter. The average diameter of the forts which the writer has paced himself is about 53 yards. Some interesting stones of conglomerate formation are to be found in these mountains behind Cadamstown. Beyond the marshy slopes of Seskin we cross the Kilnaparson river, the boundary between the counties, and there on the side of the hill, all one great moor save the haggard of the herd and the field where we stand, are five conglomerate stones, which are simply masses of small pebble cemented and solidified doubtless by the action of a glacier — laid flat over deep holes where interments were evidently made centuries back, for the locality is known as the Giant's Grave. One of the stones resembles a coffin in shape. Another large stone is to be seen in a hollow in Ballykelly, Lacaroe, some 200 yards from the road, and has the quaint marks of the hoof of a great beast, and a huge hand, thumb and fingers, which may be a trace of an ancient moraine, and which created the impression among the people that it was cast there by a giant's hand, which grasped it
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 49
so tightly as to leave its impression on its side. Similar stones known as the Bracket Stone are found on Borlacan, or the top (Baur) of the hill side (laca.) Standing on Borlacan we have an excellent view of the surrounding country, the steeples of the Churches of Tullamore, and the smoke of the steamers on the Shannon being distinctly visible. Thence we see an ancient fort on Magherabane or the white plain, facing another fort on Letter or the side of the hill. The finest of these forts, however, are in the vicinity of Leap Castle, one of the O'Carroll Castles, of which more will be said anon. There is a ruined castle at Cadamstown which belonged to the Malone family. Two of the most striking glens on the road to Mountrath and well known to sportsmen are the Black Stairs, where Glenregan joins Gorteen, and where the mountain stream tumbles down zig-zag as down a stairs from the dark and gloomy recesses of the hills ; and the Black Curragh, where Gorteen joins Letter. There is much slate and coal in the heart of these ancient hills, as there is excellent limestone on the road between Cadamstown and Clonaslee, which is bordered by a glen almost as beautiful as the Dargle ; but there is no capital, no railway, and no enterprise, and therefore it were idle to speculate on possibilities which may never be realized ; and yet a true patriot cannot but dream of Ireland becoming another Wales, and giving out of her deep-bosomed hills the mineral wealth which untold aeons have generated and innumerable centuries have stored within ; and attract- ing to her romantic mountains and fairy glens lovers of nature and disciples of sport from every clime. There are other eminences that rise here and there
D
50 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
above the wide sweep of level moor bogland and pastures. The Hill of Cloghan, a little distance from Shannon Harbour, relieves the monotony of the flat plain between the Brosna river and the Slieve Bloom, while Croghan Hill, with its quaint top knot, a few miles to the north of Philipstown, forms a conspicuous landmark for miles. Near it is the famous Tochar Cruachan of Bri Eile, which is now known as Tyrrell's Pass, and was the scene of many a victory and defeat of the O'Connor of Offaly.
The county abounds in ruins of ancient churches and monasteries. Those at Clonmacnoise, Durrow, Killeigh, and Seirkieran, are the most remarkable. But there are also ecclesiastical ruins of high antiquity at Killyon (Killiadhuin) a religious establishment on the road half-way between Kinnetty and Birr, founded by S. Kieran for his mother Liadana ; Drumcullen, Kilcolman and Lynally. The latter place is near Tullamore, and preserves the word /ann, church or sacred land, which occurs so frequently in Welsh names. It means the Church of Elo, so called from Colman, a nephew of S. Columba, who settled here in the wood of Ela (Fidh-Elo) saying : '' My resurrection shall be there, and I shall be called from that place," i.e. Colman-Elo. With regard to Dervorgilla's Church at Clonmacnoise, with its classic pillars and its deli- cately carved arches, completed in 1180, the late Miss Margaret Stokes writes that " no work of purely Celtic art, whether in the illumination of her sacred writings, or in gold, or in bronze, or in stone, was wrought by Irish hands after that century." There is a noble grace about this church which was built by an Irish queen whose story so closely resembles that of
KING'S COUNTY AND SLIEVE BLOOM 51
Arthur's Guinevere, both in its pathos and its peni- tence, and in the ruin it brought upon her native land. The chancel of Rahan Church near Clara, the most enterprising locality in the South of Ireland, is of rugged masonry, and it possesses in its rose window an architectural feature, of which Dr. Petrie said, *' it is not only the most curious of its kind in the British Isles, but also the most ancient." These churches — all that is left of them — are a testimony to the fact that Celtic art and architecture were developing gradually and gracefully on their own lines when they were suddenly and cruelly arrested in their course.
The county is skirted on three sides for many miles by the Shannon, Barrow and Boyne ; but its own rivers, the Brosna, Silver River, and Camcor are small. The lakes are not extensive but picturesque. Of these Lough Pallas and Lough Anna are the largest. Lough Coura, which was once a considerable lake, has been drained within the last twenty years by Mr. Thomas Drought, of Whigsboro'. That lake is chiefly remark- able for its islets and island forts, on one of which are the ruins of an ancient castle and circular tower of great extent and strength called Le Porte Castle, near which an Irish canoe, old weapons, and several curious bronzes have been found. In the vicinity is Dowris, celebrated for the find of bronzes made there in 1825. And not far off is the plain of Moylena, where the sanguinary battle, Cath Muighelena, was fought in 192 A.D. between Conn of the Hundred Battles and Owen More of Munster, and another in 907 between Cormac, King and Archbishop of Cashel, and Flann Sionna, the Ard-ri, when the latter was defeated.
The county contains twelve baronies. Of these
52 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Ballyboy, Ballybrit, Clonlisk, Eglish and Garrycastle form the Birr Parliamentary division ; while the remaining seven, Geashill, Kilcoursey, Lower and Upper Philipstown, Warrenstown and Coolestown constitute the Tullamore division. Of these baronies the O'Connors of Offaly possessed Warrenstown and Coolestown with portion of Geashill and Philipstown. They were also lords of the baronies of East and West Offally in Kildare, and of Portnehinch and Tinnehinch in Queen's County. The district of Ely O'Carroll comprised Clonlisk and Ballybrit, with the baronies of Ikerrin and Elyogarty of County Tipperary. The O'Mulloys, princes of Fearcall, were rulers of Ballyboy, Eglish and part of Ballycommon, the other portion being held by the O'Dempseys, lords of Clan- malire. The MacCoglans, the chiefs of Delvin, divided with the O'Maddens of Siol Ammchada (Silancia) Garrycastle, the largest of the baronies and the most interesting, inasmuch as it can boast of the historic fair of Banagher and the famous abbey and churches of Clonmacnoise.
The hills and plains and vales of the county are thinly populated. The soil is light and the pasture moderate. There is little more than fragrant breezes on bog and mountain for the people to enjoy. While, generally speaking, they lack the arts as well as the means of living. The industrious may exist upon their small farms happily if frugally, while the idler must pass forth to pastures new. The population, w^hich was 144,225 in 1831, has since fallen to 60,187, but mules and asses, for which the county has always been famous, are on the increase, according to the returns of the Agricultural Department.
CHAPTER IV.
The O'Connors and the Pale.
According to the early historians of Ireland a great battle was fought on the Slieve Bloom hills between the Fomorians and Nemedians a thousand years before Christ, and at Geashill, Heremon and Heber Fionn, sons of Melesius, fought for the supremacy, and Heber fell, to leave his son, Conmaol, an avenger of his father's cause. For the scene of Heber's defeat witnessed the discomfiture of Heremon's army and the death of Palpa, his son.
The conflict between the brothers arose, as the ancient poets inform us, through a quarrel between their wives. For " they reigned in peace until the ambition of a woman's heart, the wife of Heber, urged them on to war." She desired to possess three vales which were said to be the most fruitful in the land, but one of these Heremon possessed and would not surrender. Whereupon Heber's wife, as the poet describes her, " raged passionately, and swore she would never sleep on Irish ground till she was mistress of the three vales." Then followed the battle of Geisioll, or Geashill, where Heber fell a sacrifice to the ambition of his wife, and Heremon reigned as king. As the poet says : —
Three of the fruitful valleys of the isle,
Druim Finginn, Druim Clasach and Druim Beathach,
Occasioned the fierce battle of Geisiol,
Where vailant Heber fell.
54 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
To descend from these lofty clouds of fancy to the lowly plains of fact, it is fairly certain that there was a personage called Cathaoir More (Cahirmore) monarch of Ireland, about A.D. 120. He was descended from the posterity of Heremon, and had thirty sons, accord- ing to the Irish poet, who were *' most renowned in arms, most comely personages, and heroes all." But ten alone survived him. The eldest of these was Ros-Failge or Ros-of-the-Rings. From this Ros are descended the O'Connors of Offaly. History tells us little of Ros, save that his father addressed him as " my fierce Ros, my vehement Ros." These qualities of fierceness and vehemence have been duly transmitted and remarkably displayed by members of his sept. " They have exerted themselves as a posterity worthy of such ancestors," wrote Keating. " For they have shown themselves a valiant and generous tribe, free and hospitable, and true patriots when the cause of their country required their arms. They were so free of their blood in its defence that the family in process of time, were reduced to a small number, for the bravery of this illustrious house exposed them to the greatest dangers and difficulties and they would never fly or retreat, though oppressed by superior strength, but rather chose to sell their lives dearly upon the spot." That ancient document, the " Will of Cahirmore," translated in the Book of Rights, ' contains the information that Cahirmore bequeathed to his son, Ros-of-the-Rings, Leinster, ten swords, ten shields, ornamented with gold and silver and ten golden goblets.
The family of this Ros Faly were called Hy Faily or descendants of -Faly to distinguish them from
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 55
other families of O'Connor or O'Conchobar, and gave the name of Offaly to the districts occupied by their clan which contain extensive remains of previous civilizations in the shape of cairns, cromlechs, sepulchral mounds and fortified raths. In the four- teenth century we find the O'Connors ruling from the green hill of Cruachan, near Croghan and at Dangan, their chief fortress, now Philipstown, which they retained until the time of Mary and Philip. After the conversion of the Irish territory into shire land by Queen Mary — a deed performed with great cruelty — the O'Diomosaigh or O'Dempsey, Lord of Clan- malire, became the representative of the sept, holding strong castles at Geashill, Ballybrittas and Portnehinch until the Revolution of 1685. But almost from the time of the English Invasion in 1169, the Norman Welsh Fitzgeralds of Kildare, afterwards Dukes of Leinster, encroached upon the lands of the tribe and obtained the districts of the sept, that lay within the English Pale. These lands, known as " English Offaly " gave the title of Baron to the Fitzgeralds ; while the Irish chieftains, the O'Connors Faily, were kings of the '' Irish Offaly " in King's and Queen's County. The O'Connor is celebrated by the bard O'Heerin in the verses : —
Let us westward proceed to Offaley,^ To which brave heroes make submission, Of their laws I make mention, Of their convention I make remembrance.
The Lord of Offaley, a land of mirth, Not unknown to the poets, Is O'Conor, the mainstay of the fair plain, Who rules at the green mound of Cruachan.
There is the record of a battle fought about 121 2 at
56 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Killeigh, the church in the field, near Tullamore, between the EngHsh of Munster and Murtagh O'Connor.
Quantities of bones are still turned up when new foundations are laid in that neighbourhood. We read in Henry Marleburrough's Chronicle that " the Lord Theobald Verdon lost his men and horses going towards Ophali " in 1285; that in the year 1290 ''was the chase and discomfiture of Ophaly and divers Englishmen were slaine; " that " Mac Coghlan slew O'Molaghlin," and that " William Bourgh was discomfited at Delvin (in the King's County) by Mac Coghlan." The same authority also states that in the year 1294, ''the Castle of Kildare was taken, and by the English and Irish the whole countrie was wasted"; that Calvagh (Calvach O'Connor) "burnt all the rolles andtallyesof that countrie," and Richard Bourgh, Earl of Ulster, " was delivered out of the Castle of Leye (Leix) for his sons," i.e., as hostages. And in 1305 he writes : "Jordan Comin slew Conther (Connor) de Ophaly " ; and " Calvagh his brother was slaine in the court of Piers de Bermingham at Carricke and Balimor was burnt." Hanmeralso gives us an occasional glimpse of this fighting clan. Writing of Richard Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, afterwards betrayed and murdered by his own countrymen, he describes him " in the year 12 13, and the moneth of April, in a battell nigh Kildare, upon the great heath called the Curragh, fighting against the O'Connors." This is taken from Friar Clynn's Annals. Hanmer also relates, on the same authority, that Maurice FitzMaurice was not long after 1272 "betrayed by his own followers in Ophali, taken and imprisoned in the
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 57
court of Piers de Bermingham, at Carricke, and Balimor was burnt."
Generally speaking, we do not hear much of the O'Connors of Offaly before the fourteenth century. Their great namesakes, the O'Connors of Connaught, were so great that their prestige eclipsed the smaller sept of Offaly. But we find them appearing on the scene when troubles began to gather round the Anglo- Norman settlers. The close of the thirteenth century marked the zenith of the Norman power in Ireland,, From that time it began to wane. Many causes con- tributed to this decline. The dissensions among the Normans themselves, which had led to the shameful betrayal and murder of Richard Marshall, Earl of Pembroke in 1234; the weak and worthless character of Henry III. of England, of which the Celtic chief- tains and Norman nobles alike took advantage, Hugh de Lacy going so far as to invite the King of Norway in 1224 to come to his assistance, as we learn from a letter of Queen Joanna of Scotland ; and the want of some central authority in the land capable of managing its affairs and controlling its turbulent spirits. In consequence of this state of anarchy and disorder the Norman settlers did that which seemed good in their own eyes. Many of them made friends with the natives, adopted Irish customs and Irish dress ; employed the Irish as domestic servants and soldiers ; and sided with the native chieftains in their quarrel with the Norman Government. They became, as the saying is, " more Irish than the Irish themselves." They grew their hair long, cultivated moustachios, rode bareback, spoke the Irish language and lived according to the Brehon law.
58 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
All this was most offensive to their English brethren, and feelings of bitterness estranged the Anglo-Irish from the English-born. The latter were nick-named " English hobbies " and the others " Irish dogs." As these conflicts and differences were a constant source of weakness to the English community several laws were passed making the use of the English language, English law, saddle and bow, compulsory in the English districts. The saddle was made compulsory in order to prevent the English knights and cavalry forgetting the orthodox use of the lance. For their adoption of the Irish custom of riding made them unfit to appear in a tournament where their play would be as ridiculous as that of Shakespeare's ''puny tilter that spurs his horse but on one side " and "breaks his staff like a noble goose." For the Irish either grasped their lances in the middle or hurled them like javelins, which was regarded as an un- knightly proceeding by those who were accustomed to ride full tilt with lances at rest straight at their foes. In 1295 a statute w^as passed condemning the use of the native garb, the moustache, and the " culan " by the English residents, and by the Statute of Kilkenny (1367) Irish games were forbidden. The wording of the Act was to the effect that " the commons of the said land of Ireland, who are in the different marches at war, do not henceforth use the plays which men call hurlings, with great sticks upon the ground, from which evils and maims have arisen, to the weakening of the defence of the said land and other plays which men call quoiting ; but that they do apply and accustom themselves to use and draw bows and throw lances and other gentlemanlike games'' The real
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 59
reason, however, was not consideration for the limbs of the athletes, but anxiety to prevent the deteriora- tion of the settler. These prohibitive enactments reveal the weakness of the Norman garrison in Ireland. They had failed to maintain their authority over their own people, who in isolated places had been compelled by motives of policy to throw in their lot with the majority, and had donned the " saffron," married Irish girls, given out their children to nurse and educate with the families of their retainers, dis- missed the expensive English guards and filled their castles with cheap Irish kerne and gallowglasses or quartered them for pay, food and fodder (coyne and livery) according to the Irish custom upon their tenants, who were humbled by their insolence and ruined by their demands.
Another weak spot in the armour of the Pale was the- practice of absenteeism, which has been for many centuries one of the drawbacks to our national pros- perity. Many of the Norman heiresses in Ireland had married English nobles, who preferred a life of peace at home to a life of broils and battles on the borders of the Pale, and accordingly left the estates their wives brought them to take care of themselves, and abandoned the tenants of these lands to the tender mercies of the surrounding septs who harried their homesteads and lifted their cattle with impunity. A statute was accordingly passed (1295) in the reign of that great law-maker, Edward I., and in the first English Parliament to which the three estates — clergy, barons, and commons — were only summoned to con- strain the lord marchers who had left their tenants on the frontiers exposed to the raids of the Irish septs
6o THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
to return to protect them, and to compel the absentee landlords in England to assign a portion of their Irish revenues to the upkeep of a permanent armed force for the protection of the colonists.
In certain places the barons undoubtedly held their own, and protected by their castles and supported by their retainers kept the neighbouring tribes in fear and trembling ; but their numbers and resources were being constantly drained by the demands of the English kings who never forgot the English settle- ment in Ireland when meditating a campaign in France, or Wales, or Scotland. For instance, a writ was issued in 1254 with regard to the army of Christians and Saracens who were hastening to the invasion " of the king's dominions in Gascoine, and who would thereby obtain an entry into England and Ireland; for this reason he is desired to come with all his friends to the king in Gascoigne, so that they be at Waterford against Easter, ready to embark with horses, arms and soldiers." And in 1295, when Edward I. was simultaneously menaced by the King of France, by Balliol's revolt in the north, and the Welsh rebellion in the west, he demanded a number of horsemen and 10,000 foot to be fully accoutred and sent for service to England. So when Edward Bruce landed at Carrickfergus in 1315 with 6,000 men and the bravest knights of Scotland, including Randolph of Moray, Menteith. and Lord Allan Steward, he had little difficulty in defeating the remaining colonists of Ulster, under the Red Earl (De Burgho) on the banks of the Bann, the forces of the Deputy De Boutiller at Ardscull, in Kildare, and the army of De Mortimer at Kells. It is to be noted that Edward Bruce came
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 6i
on the invitation of certain native princes, the O'Neills among them, who had befriended his brother, King Robert, during his exile in the isles off the north of Ireland and Scotland, and that these princes sent a letter to Pope John XXII., in which they set forth the Irish grievances at large, traced them all to Pope Adrian's gift of Ireland to Henry II., and besought the Pope to approve of their choice of Edward Bruce as their champion. But the Pope preferred the friendship of England to the devotion of Ireland and replied with a sentence of excommunication against all who should help the Bruce. And had the Bruce restrained his soldiers from their merciless devastation of the country and their wholesale destruction of towns, castles, and even churches, from Carrickfergus to Castle Connell he would have retained the allegiance of his Irish friends and have won the crown of Ireland. The accounts of his raid are sad reading. Spenser in his Viezu of the State of Ireland, informs us that Bruce destroyed Belfast, Greencastle, Kells, Belturbet, Castle- town, Newtown, and many other towns, and that ** he rooted out the noble families of the Audlies, Talbots, Tuchets, Chamberlaines, Maundevils, and the Savages out of Ardes." Friar Clyn and Campion give equally pathetic descriptions of the havoc wrought in Ireland, and the mischief done to the English Pale by " Edward Bruise " who spoiled Cashel and ''where- soever he lighted upon the Butler's lands, those hee burned and destroyed unmercifully.^' The latter historian describes the soldiers of Bruce as '' surfeited with flesh and aquavitoe all the Lent long." They " prolled and pilled insatiably without neede and without regard of poore people, whose only provision
62 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
they devoured." " While," he says, " the people of Ulster, now living in slavery under Le Bruise, starved for hunger, when they had first experienced many lamentable shifts, as in snatching the dead bodyes out of their graves, in whose skulls they boyled the same flesh and fed thereof." And to add to the un- happiness of the people Sir Roger Mortimer, the Lord Justice, went away " indebted to the citizens of Divelin for his viands a thousand poundes, whereof he payde not one smulkin," But the end came to the hopes and life of the Bruce in 1318, when he was defeated and slain with all his officers at Faughard, near Dundalk, by Sir John Bermingham. Campion gives the names of Bermingham's officers : " Tute, Verdon, Tripton, Sutton, Cusacke, and Maupas," and notes some interesting incidents in the battle. The Primate of Armagh accompanied the soldiers in person and blessed their enterprise, '' assoyling them all ere ever they began to encounter." Verily the English had learned a lesson from the conduct of the Scots the night before their great victory of Bannockburn, which the Scots themselves on this occasion seem to have forgotten. And Maupas, who had pressed into the throng to meet Bruce was " found in the search, dead, covering the dead body of Bruise." Bermingham thus dissolved the Scottish kingdom in Ireland, and sending the head of Bruce to the king received the earldom of Louth and the Barony of Ardee and Athenry as his reward for this important service to the State. In connection with this same invasion it is to be noted that Edward Bruce's success was largely due to the fact that the Anglo-Normans and the native Celts had just before met each other in two
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 63
terrible battles at Athenry and Dysart O'Dea, and like the Kilkenny Cats left nothing of each other behind but the proverbial " tails," which were altogether powerless to withstand the onset of Scotland's chivalry. Richard de Bermingham had almost annihilated the O'Connors of Connaught at the Battle of Athenry (13 1 5) of which Campion gives an interesting account. He tells us the already familiar story of the Hussy of Galtrim, whose family for centuries had disputed with the O'Carrolls the lordship of Birr. According to Campion, Sir Richard Bermingham had a young squire called John Hussy who was sent by his master to scan the dead, of whom eleven thousand lay around the walls of the city, in order to see if O' Kelly, his mortal enemy, was among the slain. While Hussy and his attendant were engaged in turning over the bodies he was observed by O'Kelly, who, " well acquainted with the valiantness and truth of Hussee, sore longed to traine him from his Captaine." Accor- dingly, the O'Kelly suddenly confronted Hussy, and said, " Hussee thou seest I am at all points armed and have my esquire, a manly man, beside me ; thou art thin and thy page, a youngling, so that if I loved thee not for thine owne sake, I might betray thee for my master's. But come and serve me at my request and I promise thee by S. Patricke's Staffe to make thee a lord in Connaught, of more ground than thy master hath in Ireland." This munificent offer had no effect upon Hussy, and then his own man, " a stout lubber," rebuked him for not listening to O'Kelly, and sided against him. " Then," writes the historian, "had Hussy three enemies; and first he turned to his own knave, and him he slew. Next he raught to
64 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
O'Kellye's squire a great rappe under the pit of his eare, which overthrew him. Thirdly, he bestirred himself so nimbly that ere any helpe could be hoped for, he had also slain O' Kelly, and perceiving breath in the Squire, he drawed him up againe and forced him upon a truncheon to beare his lord's head into the high towne, which he presented to Bermingham, and the circumstances declared, he dubbed Hussee knight and then advanced to many preferments, whose family became afterwards Barons of Galtrime."
This was an incident in one of the two suicidal battles that laid Ireland at the feet of the new invader. The other fights that weakened the Irish and Anglo- Normans took place in the South of Leinster, where the O'Carroll of Ely defeated the Norman settlers, and in the North of Munster, where the O'Briens gave an overwhelming defeat to Richard de Clare at Dysart O'Dea.
But that Scottish raid spelt ruin to the English tenants on the baronial estates, as well as to the Irish tribesmen. And if the Irish Annals of Clonmacnoise break forth into song over the death of Edward Bruce who was slain, " to the great joy and comfort of the whole kingdom in general, for there was not a better deed that redounded more to the good of the kingdom since the creation of the world, and since the banish- ment of the Fine Fomores out of this land, done in Ireland than the killing of Edward Bruce," what must have been the feelings of the English yeoman over whose ploughed fields, haggards, and farms, that desolating stream of lava had poured for three and a- half years, leaving him a ruined man by the roadside, to return a pauper to the shores of England, or to
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 65
sink to the condition of the tribal Irish, and to live as the kerne, plundering others as others had plundered him. The latter was, indeed, the fate of many a gallant yeoman and of many a noble knight After the Scottish invasion the English settlers abandoned and betrayed by their own countrymen on the other side of the water sank into a disorganised, hopeless community ; while the spirits of the Irish who had perhaps suffered considerably less from the invasion and the famine that ensued rose in a corresponding degree. The dispossessed tribes recovered the lands devastated by Bruce and deserted by the settlers. The septs of Desmond rose to a man. No check was offered to their advance by English Government, deputy, or settler. Out of the mountain fastnesses of the Slieve Bloom the O'Connors and O'Moores swooped like birds of prey upon the plains of Leix and Offaly. Friar Clyn gives an interesting account of one of these raiders, Leysert O' Moore. He writes : —
*' In the year I342 died Leysert O'Moore, a man influential, rich and wealthy, and respected in his tribe. By force he ejected almost all the English from his lands and inheritance, for in one night he burned eight English castles and destroyed the noble castle of Dunamase, the property of Lord Roger de Mortimer, and obtained for himself the lordship over his country."
Had the English settlers but waited and presented a firm front they would easily have held their own. But while some were desirous of maintaining law and order, others proved week-kneed and lukewarm. In 1323 the lords of the Parliament assembled in Dublin
E
66 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
undertook to arrest or cause to be arrested all felons and robbers of their family or surname. In 1327 the Viceroy was directed to take possession of the castles of the absentees and maintain them out of the revenues of the estates, while the Irish enemies and English rebels were ravaging the royal lands. In 1329 his own English tenantry in the County of Louth murdered John de Bermingham, the conqueror of Edward Bruce, with two hundred men of his family and household. And when summoned to answer for the crime before the king's court they treated the writ with contempt and remained unpunished. The events of that year (1329) are summed up in Cox's Hibernia Anglicana who ascribes the disasters of the English colony to their own dissensions. " When the Earl of Louth," he writes, '* and many other of the Berminghams, Talbot of Malahide and an hundred and sixty Englishmen were murdered by their own countrymen, — the Savages, Gernons, etc., at Balibragan (Bal- briggan) in Urgile (Uriel = Louth) ; and when the Barrys and Roches in Munster did as much for James Fitz-Robert Keatinge, the Lord Philip Hodnet and Hugh Condon, with an hundred and forty of their followers, what wonder is it if Macoghegan defeated the Lord Thomas Butler and others near Molingar to their loss of an hundred and forty of their men? Or if Sir Simon Genevil lost seventy-six of his soldiers in Carbery, in the County of Kil- dare ; or if Brian O'Bryan ravaged over all the country and burnt the towns of Athassel and Tip- perary ? "
The comment the historian makes upon this state of affairs is both acute and prophetic. " And yet,"
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 67
he says, " this common calamity could not unite the English, although their own experience taught them (and frequent instances have convinced the succeeding ages since) that the English never suffered any great loss or calamity in Ireland, but by civil dissensions and disagreement among themselves."
While the Irish septs of Connaught were seizing the royal castles of Athlone, Roscommon and Randoun, the O'Byrnes, O'Tooles, and MacMurroughs were raiding the lands of the settlers and driving off the cattle in Wicklow and Kildare ; the O'Connors and O'Moores were harrying Offaly and Leix; the MacGeoghegan's and O'Melaghlins were devastating Meath, and the great sept of the O'Neills, the Clan Aedha Buidhe (Clan-na-boy) or tribe of Hugh the Red were sweeping over the eastern counties of Ulster which had been just reduced to a desert by Edward Bruce, and were establishing a principality of their own in the north, an event occurred which seemed to be the death-blow of the English settle- ment. This was the assassination of William de Burgh, the " Brown Earl," the successor of the Red Earl, in 1333, by Richard de Manneville at Carrick- fergus. By English law the vast estates of the dead earl in Ulster and Connaught, which were the back- bone of the English settlement, passed to his infant daughter, who was brought by her mother to England, where she afterwards became the wife of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. But William and Edmund Burke, junior members of the great house of De Burgh, sons of Sir William, the Viceroy in 1308, felt the absurdity of doing homage for their possessions to a young girl,
68 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
at a time when every feudal baron held his lands and governed his vassals as much by force of arms as by right in law ; and well aware of the inability of the heiress of the Brown Earl to support or defend them, as she on her part was duly bound to do, took the bold step of repudiating her authority. This step, however, was a breach of the feudal system, and the English sovereign was bound to take cognizance of it. Accordingly, the two Burkes found themselves compelled to renounce their allegiance to the English Crown. And feeling themselves more powerful when united with the Irish septs, stripped themselves of their Norman coats of mail and arrayed themselves in the saffron robes of the Irish chieftain on the banks of the Shannon, in full view of the garrison of Athlone. They, thereupon, assumed the names of McWilliam Uachtar (the '' Nether ") and McWilliam lochtar (the " Further) ; and, dividing the country between them, one took Galway, and became the ancestor of the Clanrickarde house, and the other took Mayo, and from him the Mayo family is descended. They also adopted the Irish language, laws and customs. Their example was followed hy many other nobles. Bermingham, of Athenry, styled himself McYorris ; Nangle became McCostelo ; Fitzurse, McMahon ; D'Exester, Mcjordan ; the Baron of Dunboyne, McPheris ; and the White Knight, McGibbon.
But Edward III. cared for none of these things. He was engaged at the time in putting forward an absurd claim to the throne of France, and his only desire was to obtain the wherewithal to make good that claim. With this object in view he began a
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 69
systematic oppression of the much tried English colony, which appears through all the chequered annals of the history of English rule in the character of the much-enduring Ulysses. In 1341 the king issued a writ to the justiciary of Ireland to resume all royal grants of lands until he was " made certain of the merits of the grantees, the causes and conditions of the grants." The purpose of the writ to force the grantees to compound by payment of fines was clear to all concerned. And this flagrant act of dishonesty roused the whole colony who were already provoked by the king's gratuitous exclusion of Irish-born sub- jects from '* the sweets of office," so that, as Campion observes, ''the realm was ever upon point to give over and rebel." Other acts of injustice committed by his own English-born officials. Sir Anthony Lucy and Sir Ralph Ufford who had seized Desmond's estates, and was justly unpopular for his general character and conduct, brought matters to a head. The great Earls of Desmond and Kildare refused to attend the Parlia- ment in Dublin (1341) and convened a meeting in Kildare, from which a memorial was despatched to the king, setting forth the grievances of the English settlement in Ireland, the state of destitution to which they had been reduced by the raids of the Irish enemy on the one side and on the other by the '' em- bezzlement and extortions practised by English-born officials, who defrauded the constables of the royal oastles ; entrusted their custody to incompetent warders, or to those who employed deputies, merely to extort fees ; charged the Crown for goods and valuables taken for its use, but for which they never paid ; entered into their accounts salaries to governors
70 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
of castles which were either demolished, in the hands of their enemy, or had never existed, and exacted money from the king's subjects on various pretences."^
The Earl of Desmond, who had been allowed to escape from his imprisonment in Dublin, where he had been arrested by order of the rapacious Ufford, whose lady is described as " a miserable sott who led him -to extortion and bribery ;" also put down on the paper the pertinent question — '' How an officer of the king that entred very poore might in one yeare grow to more excessive wealth than men of great patrimony in many yeares ? "
Edward was forced to give way to such a memorial especially when supported by an appeal to Magna Charta and a resolute nobility who had been pro- voked beyond endurance by Ufford's insolence and tyranny. For in 1 346 we find him conferring knight- hood on the Earl ofKildare, another victim of Ufford's jealousy and greed, for his services at the siege of Calais, and making the Earl of Desmond, some of whose estates Ufford had seized. Lord Justice. It is surprising that Edward, with all his cruelty, was able to obtain a splendid Irish contingent for his foreign wars which eventually brought greater loss than lustre to England. It seemed, moreover, a sort of poetic justice to find the victims of Ufford's impositions thus honoured shortly after the death of their tormentor had been publicly solemnized with bonfires and other expressions of rejoicing in the land.
But Edward's hold on Ireland was growing weaker
^Ridley, Short History , p. 225.
THE O'CONNORS AND THE PALE 71
yearly. The Irish had grown excessively turbulent since the invasion of Bruce had shown them the weakness of the Anglo-Norman power. During 1330 there had been a great rising in Leinster, and " so outragious were the Leinster Irish that in one church they burned eighty innocent soules, asking no more but the life of their priest then at Masse, whom they, notwithstanding, sticked with their javelins, spurned the Blessed Sacrament, and wasted all with fire." ^ His justiciary was compelled to bribe some of the Irish septs, the O'Tooles and others to defend the frontiers of the Pale, and to offer reward for the cap- ture and assassination of the more refractory chieftains. The Irish insurgents, however, had not matters all their own way in every part of the country, for we read of men like Sir Robert Savage in Ulster fortifying his manor house, and his son. Sir Henry, who led his men against the Irish and defeated them. This Sir Henry seems to have had a touch of humour, for, having prepared a supper of wine, aqua vitae, and venison, beef and fowl for his men on their return, he was advised by his officers to poison the food, lest the enemy should defeat them and secure the supper. " Tush," he answered, "ye are too full of envy. If it please God to set other good fellows in our stead, what hurt shall it be for us to leave them some meate for their suppers ; let them hardly win it and wear it." The gallant knight returned with his men to enjoy his own supper.
Nor is it to be inferred from the charges that were made against the English Lords Justices that they
^Campion, History of Ireland, p. 129.
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were all bad and dishonest. For Sir Thomas Rokeby, who held office in 1353 was the impersonation of rugged honesty and sterling worth. When rebuked for allowing himself to be served with wooden cups, he answered : " These homely cuppes and dishes pay truly for what they containe. I had rather drinke out of wood and pay gold and silver than drinke out of gold and make wooden payment." This was of course an allusion to the almost proverbial dishonesty of the Lord Deputies.
CHAPTER V.
The Rise of The O'Connors and Richard II.'s Expedition.
In the foregoing chapter an account was given of the condition of the English Colony called the Pale, which may help the readers of this little work to form a general idea of the state of Ireland in the fourteenth century, when the O'Connors Faly rose into pro- minence. Of the great possessions in the hands of the English settlers and territorial barons at the beginning of that century but little remained at the end. Some of the causes, internal and external, that brought about this condition of things have already been set forth. But one has not yet received the attention it deserves. The tribes are beginning to act more unitedly, and to trust one another, and though still far from that Home Reunion, which is as vital to the existence of states as of churches, were taught by the ''degenerate" English, who had cast in their lot among them, that they should, at least for the time being, bury the hatchet between themselves until they had swept the Colony into the sea.
A tremendous effort, or rather series of efforts, was accordingly made at various points of the Colony's possessions, and the English subjects and officials, unable to resist the overwhelming tide, were driven back upon their lines. Ulster was regained ; Connaught was in revolt; parts of Leinster and
74 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Meath alone remained faithful to England, and were compelled to purchase peace at a great price. It was at this time that Richard II. made his great expedi- tion to Ireland, which commenced auspiciously for the Colony, but ended most disastrously (1394).
We shall now see what the Irish septs have been doing in the meanwhile. That they lacked neither wit nor courage, the following record shows. T/ie Four Masters relate that one Donogh O'Gillpatrick was killed by the English in 1249. "This Donogh," they write, " was one of the three Irishmen who com- mitted the greatest number of depredations on the English; and these three were Conor O'Melaghlin, Conor MacCoghlan of the Castles, and the before- mentioned Donogh, who was in the habit of re- connoitring the market towns (of the English) by visiting them in the different characters of a beggar, a carpenter, a turner, an artist, or a pedlar, as recorded in the following verse : —
He is now a carpenter, or a turner,
Now a man of books or learned poet,
In good wines and hides, a dealer sometimes ;
Everything by turns as suits his purpose.
These O'Melaghlins and MacCoghlans had wrested half the County of Meath from the settlers at the end of the century, but were just as often engaged in fighting each other as in raiding the English lands. For the same authority tells us that in 1290, forty-one years after the death of this celebrated Irish comedian, Donogh O'Gillpatrick, whose histrionic performances proved a little more expensive to the English than those of his countryman, the late John Lawrence Toole, prince of good fellows, 'f Carbry O'Melaghlin,
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD II. 75
King of Meath, the most valiant young warrior in Ireland in his time, was slain by MacCoglan."
The year 1305 was, according to all accounts, a disastrous one for the clan of the O'Connors. We have already mentioned the fact that their neighbours, the O'Dempseys, afterwards became their representa- tives. The sept of the O'Dempseys, or O'Diomsaigh, dominated the district known as Clanmalire, which embraced portions of the baronies of Geashill, Philips- town, and Ballycowan in the King's County, and portions of the neighbouring counties of Kildare and Queen's County. Of this tribe the poet O'Heerin wrote —
Clanmaliere is above all tribes,
Noble is the source of their pedigree,
The smooth plains of the land they have defended,
The country is the inheritance of the O'Dempsey.
The present town of Tullamore is in the district of this ancient tribe, which fought with conspicuous success against the forces of Strongbow in 1173. Morice Regan, the faithful scribe and follower of Dermot McMurrough, relates in his Norman-French poem, in which he gave an interesting, if somewhat embellished, narrative of the English invasion, that the O'Dempseys made an attack upon the English, in which Robert de Quincy, the Standard Bearer of Leinster, and son-in-law of Strongbow, was slain. The principal fortress of this tribe was at Geashill, near where Lord Digby's handsome residence now stands. And as far back as 1305 we hear of the sept of O'Dempsey defeating the sept of the O'Connors, with great slaughter, near this castle. But the O'Connors returned to the charge the following year
76 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
and destroyed the Castle of Geashill, and swept on to Lea, in which parish Portarlington is now, and where the remains of a massive round tower and other fortifications on the banks of the Barrow, and several Irish raths in the vicinfty, testify to the military prestige of the place, and, perhaps, to the operations of the O'Connor sept in 1305.
The ancient castle of Carbury in County Kildare is also connected with the fortunes and misfortunes of this fighting clan. Those bleak skeletons of wall and battlement, through which the winds murmur in weird cadences, standing in lonely grandeur on an isolated hill, form a conspicuous landmark, which reminds us of the new age of the prowess and perfidy of the Norman knights. To this massive keep Sir Pierce Bermingham invited the O'Connor Faly, with a number of his chiefs, to a banquet one ill-starred day in the year of grace 1305. Thirty chieftains attended the feast, and at night, when men had well drunken and suspicions were allayed, armed men arose and fell upon the Celts, and the night winds moaned in sympathy with their shrieks as they were done to death. Among those who fell that night were the O'Connor, his brother Maelmordha, and his heir, the Calvach O'Connor.
Sixteen years have passed, and the O'Connors have somewhat recovered their strength ; but they have not forgotten the Berminghams, their Norman neighbours, and burning to wipe out that deed of shame and barbarity, muster their forces and hurry to attack the Berminghams who were in great force at Monas- teroris in 1321. This place, on the borders of the King's County, formerly Castropetre, was afterwards
THE OXONNORS AND RICHARD 11. 77
known as Monasteroris, from the monastery founded here for Conventual Franciscans in 1325 by Sir John de Berminghan, Earl of Louth, who rejoiced in the Irish name of Mac Feoris. But Monasteroris was a place of bad omen for the O'Connors on this occasion, as they were defeated by Andrew Bermingham and the English of Meath. A generation passes away and in 1 348, as these unhappy memories were fading from theminds of the O'Connors, a representativeof their foe- man's house was expelled from Connaught by Edmond Burke, and forced to throw himself upon the mercy of the O'Connor Faly. He found what seems never to have been refused to friend or foe — refuge and hospi- tality. The politics of the Berminghams and of many of the Norman barons had, however, changed in the meantime. Several causes led to this. In 1329, Jean de Bermingham, who had defeated Edward Bruce, was murdered with all his kindred, some two hundred souls, by the English settlers in Louth. Then in 1 331, Sir William Bermingham and his son, summoned to a parliament at Kilkenny, did not consider it safe to appear ; but shortly afterwards was arrested by Sir Anthony Lacy, Lord Justice, while sick in bed at Clonmel, and accused of aiding the Irish rebels. The father was hanged in Dublin on the nth of July, to the grief of many who esteemed him a noble and valiant knight ; but his son Walter was released the following year by John Darcy, a Lord Justice. The Earl of Desmond was also arrested at Limerick, and sent over to the king ; Walter Burgh and two of his brothers were seized in Connaught and Henry Mandevil was sent as a prisoner to Dublin, so that many of the most loyal subjects of the Crown were turned into deadly
78 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
foes by repeated acts of oppression and injustice on the part of the deputies and lords justices.
It would seem that the fighting clan had now begun to give trouble to the English settlers in Meath by harrying and plundering their lands and cattle. One day, in the year 1385, Murrogh O'Connor, the Lord of Offaly, had led his kerne and gallowglasses across the borders of his territory and after spoiling the English, were returning with much booty. But the men of Meath w^ere not long in assembling, and under the leadership of Nugent and others followed hard after their wild and stalwart foemen, who were able, as Froissart says, to overtake and pull a horseman off his horse, but who were now retiring leisurely with their plunder. In the level but boggy country around the hill of Croghan they were overtaken and compelled to give battle to their pursuers. Though superior in strength and agility, the badly armed kerne were no match at close quarters for the mailed and helmeted Normans, and many of them fell. Still retreating, and fighting as they retreated, they hoped to put the bog between them and their foes. But there was naught but disaster for the fighting clan that day. Behind them were the English cavalry, around them an impassable bog, and before them a narrow causeway or tochar, across which the road to safety lay. And in their efforts to cross, numbers of them were slain by the enemy or smothered in the bog. This was the battle of Tochar Cruachan Bri Eile, in which many of the English nobility, Nugent, Chambers and others, and their com- mon soldiers entered *' the vasty hall of Death " in company with the slain warriors of the Kinel Fiacha and O'Connor Sept.
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD 11. 79
The year 1 394 is the beginning of a new era in the story of Ireland under English rule. For in that year Richard II. landed at Water ford, with 30,000 foot and 4,000 horse, and, proceeding by slow marches along the coast, eventually reached Dublin Castle, where he summoned the Irish chieftains to meet him. The chiefs, awed by the overwhelming display of force, and induced by the hope of favourable terms, attended to the number of seventy-five. Among these were the O'Neills of the North, the McMurroughs, and the O'Connors. It is clear that Richard had seen the necessity of reforming the English mode of governing Ireland, and especially of removing the grievances and injustices under which the Anglo-Irish groaned. Their lot had not been improved by the Statute of Kilkenny, although some of its sections were *' more honoured in the breach than in the observance." Constant licences and exemptions were granted by the Crown to the Irish to the detriment of the settler. It may be observed in this connexion that the English Government has always been represented as treating the Celtic population with the direst cruelty. It is true that if the letter of the law were strictly observed the native Irish would be severely handicapped. But there were many modes of evasion of which the Irish were not slow to avail themselves. For example, the Irish where out of the King's peace were excluded from the protection of the King's Court. But an ex- ception was made in the case of the " Five Bloods," the royal races of O'Neill of Ulster, O'Melaghlin of Meath, O'Connor of Connaught, O'Brien of Munster, and McMurrough of Leinster, who were styled " men of the King." This exception practically covered the
8o THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
whole island, as under it almost any Irishmen could claim the protection of the court. For instance, in 1355 one Simon Neal brought an action of trespass against William Nevvlagh for breaking his close at Clondalkin. The defence was that Neal was not one of the ''' Five Bloods." But the plaintiff argued that he was of the blood of the O'Neills of Ulster. One might well ask who could prove, or who could disprove, or who could decide that point. We also find cases where English- men charged with murder put forward in defence the plea that the murdered man was "a mere Irishman," i.e., not one of the " Five Bloods," and where such a plea was not allowed. And we may be sure that the English officials of these days would not be capable of resisting a douceur from an Irish " enemy," for pro- fessional swindlers are loyal to no person or party, and Mr. Gilbert, in his History of the Viceroys of Ireland, gives us this description of those officials : " Many of the judges and chief legal officers of the Colony were illiterate and ignorant of law, obtained their appointments by purchase, and leased them to deputies, who promoted and encouraged litigation, with the object of accumulating fees. Ecclesiastics, lords, and gentlemen were not unfrequently cast into gaol by officers of the Crown on unfounded charges, without indictment or process, and detained in durance till compelled by rigorous treatment to pur- chase their liberation.'^ It was not, therefore, more difficult for the Irish to evade the law then than now. In fact, they enjoyed a happy immunity and indepen- dence of a sort. For, though legally without the pale of the law, they were not disregarded politically ; and, according to the humour or purpose of the King and
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD II. 8t
his Council, were bribed and petted, or whipped and scolded, much in the same way as naughty children are treated by nervous parents.
Richard II., however, came over with the very best intentions of training and restraining his turbulent sons. His policy was to conciliate the Anglo-Irish, and to compel the Irish enemies to acknowledge his authority. But the ready submission of the hostile chiefs both flattered and deceived him. He enter- tained them with a refined magnificence, for Richard II, loved art as much as grandeur, and left nothing un- done to attract and impress. The Irish chiefs had, indeed, been accustomed to the royal receptions of the English monarchs, which Henry II. had inaugu- rated on a grand scale, as Hanmer describes in his chronicle : — '' Christmas drew on, which the King kept in Dublin, where he feasted all the provincial princes, and gave them rich and beautiful gifts. They repaired thither out of all parts of the land, — and wonderful it was to the simple people to behold the majesty of so puissant a prince ; the pastime, the sport, and the mirth and the continual music ; the masking, mumming and strange shows ; the gold, the silver and the plate ; the precious ornaments ; the dainty dishes furnished with all sorts of fish and flesh, the wines, the spices, the delicate and sumptuous banquets ; the orderly ser- vice, the comely march and seemly array of all the officers ; the gentlemen, the esquires, the knights, and Ibrds in their rich attire ; the running at tilt in complete harness, with barbed horses, where the staves shivered and flew in splinters ; the plain, honest people admired and no marvel." The same round of entertainments again took place, which were again attended by the
F
82 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Irish princes and chieftains, and again they tendered their homage, which the king graciously accepted. But Sir John Davis shrewdly remarked that " the Irish lords knowing this to be a sure policy to dissolve the forces which they were not able to resist," followed the same " trick and imposture " which their ancestors had put upon Henry II. and John. He thus describes this well-acted homage : — " The men of Leinster, namely, Mac IMurrough, O'Byrne, O'Moore, O'Murrough, O'Nolan and the chief the Kinshelages, in an humble and solemn manner, did their homages and made their oaths of fidelity to the Earl Marshall, laying aside their girdles, their skeins, and their caps, and falling down at his feet upon their knees, which, when they performed, the Earl gave each of them oscuhion pads (the kiss of peace)."
They then bound themselves and their swordsmen to be loyal dependents, and the Wicklow chiefs, in return for pensions — Arthur MacMurrough, chief of the Kavanaghs, receiving eighty marks per annum — agree to evacuate their lands, upon which the King intended to plant a new colony. When all the in- dentures had been signed, and all the submissions had been tendered, the king departed, '• with much honour, but small profit," to his own country, appoint- ing Roger Mortimer, the heir apparent of England, as his lieutenant. The old chroniclers relate some inter- esting incidents connected with the expedition of Richard. When in Dublin he offered to confer knight- hood on the four principal chieftains, O'Neill, O'Connor, O'Brien, and MacMurrough ; but these princes declined the dignity, stating that every Irish prince was knighted at seven years of age, after having broken a
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD 11. 83
number of slender lances against a fixed shield. But when the honour was explained to the noblemen they accepted it, and it was conferred upon them in the Cathedral, doubtless of S. Patrick. The king then put them in the charge of one Henry Castide, who, as Froissart relates, had no little trouble in schooling the four noblemen, and teaching them to live and dress, eat and drink and behave like Englishmen. They laid aside their great mantles, and donned silken robes ; they used stirrups and saddles on horseback, and at table they adopted English manners, but reluctantly. Castide's experiences were varied by an adventure in which he was taken prisoner by an Irish gentleman '' Brian Costeret, a very handsome man," who leaped on the back of his runaway horse and took him as prisoner to his house " which was strong and in a town (civitas or lis) surrounded with wood, palisade and stagnant water."
But " Caesar's thrasonical brag — I came, saw, and overcame," did not apply to this magnificently con- ceived expedition. The Irish chieftains by well affected humility, by bending and bowing had weakened the storm and broken the army that had been gathered to break them. But no sooner had the king and his army withdrawn from the shores of the green isle and his Deputy had proceeded to carry out the plantation of Wicklow, than Art MacMurrough, who had been • suspected and imprisoned and then released, and em- bittered, attacked the forces of the Pale. Carlow was captured and the royal troops were defeated atKells,and Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March, and heir-apparent of the English throne fell in the engagement (1395).
84 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
Emboldened by this success, in which the O'Connors of Offaly, the O'Moores and O'Dempseys had taken part, the O'Connor Faly returned to his own country and made preparations to avenge the defeat he had suffered at the pass of the bog. Receiving information that a strong force of the EngHsh were marching to plunder his country and the seat of his ancestors, he took a wide detour, and by forced marches was able to attack them in the rear, and clinging closely to their flanks eventually made their forces converge towards the very causeway that had been so fatal to his own clan some years before. In the battle that ensued, the invaders were defeated with the loss of many men and horses, and the Tochar Cruachan (Croghan) again devoured more people than the sword destroyed.
Three years afterwards (1398), the Calvach, or eldest son of the O'Connor, succeeded in inflicting a smart defeat on the Earl of Kildare, the hereditary foe of his people, but with the fall of whose house in the days of Silken Thomas (1535) the O'Connors were involved. The Earl, the ancestor of the famous Lord Deputy of Henry VIII., of whom we shall hear more anon, was taken prisoner, and handed up to Murrough O'Connor. In 1406 Murrough O'Connor, " Lord of Off"aly," who seems to have been a skilful general, defeated the English at Geashill, both parties having marched " to the upper part of Geashill." ** It was on this expedition," wrote the Four Masters, "that the chief holy relic of Connaught, called Buacach Phatraig, the mitre of S. Patrick, which was kept at Elphin, was taken from the English." In the same year Meiler Bermingham slew Cathal O'Connor. In 141 1 the same historians inform us that "the
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD II. 85
Sheriff of Meath was taken prisoner by O'Conor Faily, and he exacted a great sum for his Hberation." We read frequently in the annals of our country of doings in which sheriffs figure, sometimes gloriously, some- times ingloriously. It seems to be part of the un- written code of honour, part of the noblesse oblige of the Celt, to resist a sheriff. It is not suggested for one moment that the Irishman is not as anxious as the native of any other country to meet his creditors and to pay his debts, but the prospect of a brush with the law, to which they know they must yield in the end, has an exhilarating influence upon their nerves, which only an Irishman can understand. Much of the banter and bluster that accompany sheriff's sales is not to be taken ate grand serieux. Presence of mind and ready wit, or the saving grace of humour, is often more effectual than artillery on such occasions. It does not appear, however, that this particular sheriff had instituted any legal pro- ceedings against, or had any process to serve upon, the said " O'Conor Faily," as Meath was his jurisdiction. But, like many another good fellow, Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest among them, O'Connor could not resist the temptation of bagging a sheriff — a temptation which had the additional relish in his case from the fact that the said sheriff was an English official, and one who could, in all fairness, be made to disgorge some of the exorbitant fees and fines he had squeezed out of the downtrodden English of the Pale. The capture of the sheriff seems to have given a sort of fillip to the rising spirits of the O'Connor. For three years afterwards (14 14), with the help of
86 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
MacGeosfhes^an, he succeeded in inflictin"" a severe defeat on the English, as one may infer from the fact that one great baron, he of Skrein, was killed, and another, the Baron of Slane, was taken prisoner. This conflict took place at Killucan, near Mullingar.
But in 142 1 the end came to Murrough O'Connor, who had taken the sheriff, and who, as the Four Masters- h.3.ve it, "had defeated the English and Irish who opposed them in many battles." The great chief died " after having gained the victory over the world and the devil," and was gathered to his fathers, and they buried him in the Monastery of Killachaid, or Killoughy, the church of the field, which had been founded, by a predecessor of the O'Connor sept, for friars. Its full name v/as Kill-achaidh-dromfada, or church of the field of the long ridge. This is in the barony of Ballyboy, while another church, Killeigh, with the same derivation, is in the barony of Geashill, founded by S. Sincheall (548), who is said to have lived to the age of 130, and is invoked in the Litany of St. Aengus, along with '• 1,500 monks, twelve pilgrims, and twelve bishops, and S. Sinchellus the younger, a presbyter, who rest in Killachaidh-dromfoda in the region of Offaly." There are the ruins of a fine Franciscan abbey at Killeigh, where it is probable that Murtagh O'Connor, after his victory over MacGilpatrickand the English of Leix, retired when he found himself attacked by an incurable disease, and " died in a month after he became a friar, and after a well-spent life," as the Four Masters say, having ap- pointed Dermot O'Connor as his successor. And as we stand among the ruins of that pile we cannot but
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD IT. 87
feel that we are in the presence of valiant dead, who might have been great.
Here of old fought Erin's warriors,
Here they laid their sacred dead, Waiting till the trump shall wake them,
From the ridge that crowns their bed.
The spot is peaceful, though not neglected, and offered a quiet resting-place to one who was weary of '' broils and battles."
It may surprise many to learn that the badly-armed Irish kerne were able to make such headway against the mail-clad forces with which they contended. But the heavily-armed English cavalry and war-horses which fell like a thunderbolt upon the splendid chivalry of France at Crecy and Poitiers were useless in the bogs and woods and mountain fastnesses of Ireland, just as the heavy Norman brigades of William II. failed to operate with success in the mountain fastnesses and ravines of Wales. In such a country heavy armour was an impediment, and English horses, which were heavier and slower than the Irish, an encumbrance. Here no level plains gave the much-desired opportunity for the cavalry charge ; and the dense woods and scrub made the close formation of infantry impossible, and obstructed the aim and volley- firing of the archers, and thus put out of action the most effective arm of the service in those days. The lightly-clad and more lightly- armed Irish soldier, fighting in his own native bog, or heath, or wood, and knowing every pass and turn of the country, accustomed to act and scout independently, and possessing the sagacity and courage of a Red Indian, and generally mounted on a swift horse, was often more than a match for his heavily-armed
88 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
opponent who had been trained to fight in serried masses, and had no previous experience in guerilla war- fare, which requires speed and cunning more than strength and courage. But the English were slow to profit by the lessons their frequent defeats might have taught them. The knights trusted in their armour and their lances, and would not alter their style of fighting for an enemy they could have mown down if they had met them in the plains of France or England, but who, unfortunately for them, happened to be located in the midst of a rough and rugged country, reeking with inaccessible swamps and bristling with impenetrable woods.
Hence the discomfiture and practical defeat of the magnificent army corps which Richard II. brought with him in 1 399 ' o avenge the death of the Earl of March. Having landed at Waterford and marched to Kilkenny, the foolish monarch led his forces into the almost un- approachable country of the MacMurroughs. There the archers were useless in the woods, the cavalry were impeded by the bogs, and the infantry were discouraged by having to cut thedr way through the dense thickets. In the meantime the MacMurrough, too wary to risk an engagement, was constantly retreating and drawing his foes deeper into the woods of Carlow. Then supplies began to fail. And when hunger, the greatest enemy the soldier has to face, began to enfeeble their spirits and bodies, roving kerne and gallowglasses appeared in unexpected quarters, and having wrought havoc among the stragglers, speedily decamped. And as the horsemen rode past, the kerne would dash out from their ambush, and cut the reins with their pikes, hamstring the horses, and stab the riders with their
THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD II. 89
sharp skeans. There was nothing for it but retreat. Pursued and harassed by the now triumphant enemy, the disheartened chivalry of England at last won the shore, and were gladdened by the sight of their trans- port ships in the offing. So this gallantly-equipped army, which might have made history on the fields of Europe, had all but gone down before the wild wood- men and hillsmen of Wexford, Carlow, and Kilkenny. Richard, however, had the sense to alter his tactics, and was engaged in despatching flying columns through the country, the only practical mode of cam- paign, when the fatal news arrived of the landing of Bolingbroke at Ravenspur. And he hastened back to England and to death, leaving the Irish septs to work out their own salvation.
CHAPTER VI.
Ireland under the Lancastrian Kings.
During the reign of Henry IV. his gallant son, Lord Thomas of Lancaster, was Lieutenant of Ireland, but only stayed here some seven months, during which time he was wounded in an encounter with the O'Byrnes of the Dublin hills, a mile from Dublin. In the reign of Henry V., whose whole attention was given to France, Lord Furnival, the Lieutenant, went round the Pale receiving submission from the Byrnes? Tooles and Kavanaghs in the South, and passing on to the Moores, O'Connors, and O'Farrels in the West, and concluding with the O'Reillys, MacMahons, O'Neills, and O'Hanlons in the North. A record of his services was sent as a memorial to Henry V., then in France, by the grateful lords and gentlemen of the Pale, which Sir John Davis says he saw recorded in the White Book of the Exchequer at Dublin. But he was able to effect little permanent work owing to the small pay and worse discipline of his troops.
From this date the O'Connors became formidable foes of the English and such of their own countrymen who ventured to oppose their designs. Their forays became bolder and more extensive. Up to the very walls of Dublin they came, and Cahir O'Connor succeeded in improving upon the exploit of Murrough O'Connor, who took captive the Sheriff of Meath, by carrying off no less a personage than the Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1439. The account in the Four Masters
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN KINGS 91
is that " the King of England's Viceroy arrived in Ireland, and was taken prisoner by Cahir, the son of O'Conor Faily, and after he had remained some time in confinement, he was ransomed by the English in Dublin, who delivered the son of Plunket in his stead to Cahir." Sir Christopher Plunket was a former Deputy (1432). But it is not certain who the notable prisoner of Cahir O'Connor was. He can not have been the Lord Wells who was appointed Lord Lieutenant in 1438, for he never came over. But it was probably Richard Talbot who v/as then in Ireland. The distinguished prisoner was detained in the castle at Killucan on the borders of the county.
The capture of the King's chief officer in Ireland shows to what a low ebb the fortunes of the English Colony which was now reduced to the county of Dublin with parts of Meath, Louth, and Kildare, had fallen. The towns of ths sea coast were completely isolated, and owing to the disturbed nature of the country it was impossible for the great lords to attend the Parliament while the remaining colonists were compelled to pay tribute and " black rent " to the surrounding Irish chieftains. The fact was that the English nobles who tried to govern England and Ireland in the reign of the pious but weak-minded Henry VI. were unable to cope with the difficulties of the French campaign and the Irish rebels owing to their own divisions which eventually culminated in the great schism between the houses of York and Lancaster. This civil war was hailed with delight by the native Irish as well as by the English colonists ; and the two houses had no keener adherents than their Irish allies. The Butlers of Ormonde fought for
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the Red ; the Geraldines of Desmond and Kildare contended for the White Rose. But the Irish chiefs who fought for Richard of York must not be forgotten. Their presence at Wakefield Green serves to illustrate the weakness of the Celtic system. At the time when the English colonists of the Pale were at their last gasp, and a sudden and well-combined movement of the Irish septs would have swept them into the sea, the opportunity of liberating their country was allowed to pass while the Irish chieftains carried on their petty feuds with one another, or allowed their sympathies to get the better of their reason.
The Irish statutes of the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. fully reveal the feebleness of the Execu- tive and the persecution to which the colonists of the Pale were subjected. For instance, in the 25th, Henry VI., Cap. 24 (1447) we read that as there was " no diversity in array between the English marchers and the Irish enemies," and that the latter under colour of being English marchers, or troops for the defence of the frontiers, entered into the Pale, robbing and murdering the common people by night, it was ordered that an Englishman shall have '' no beard above his mouth, that is to say, that he shall have no hairs upon his upper lip." For the moustache was a favourite appendage of the Irishman. Although some such regulation was necessary in order that the Irish highwayman masquerading as a loyal trooper might be more easily detected, it was hard on the English settlers to be ordered to remove these hirsute embel- lishments, if they chose to wear them, under pain of being seized, as Irish rebels and held to ransom as Irish enemies. Were the Privy Council of 1908 to
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN KINGS 93
issue such an order it might create as much stir in the coiintry as the Old Age Pensions Act.
From the same statute wc learn that the lieutenants and justices of the land received divers Irish as liege- men and retainers doubtless because they were more easily hired and kept than English soldiers, and that these people, instead of acting loyally, " do rob, burn, and destroy the King's liegemen." For this the poor colonists had little or no redress. They were afraid even of defending themselves and their property against the Irish — who are not to be blamed — " for fear, as the statute says, " to be impeached," that means, to be brought to trial before the judges. What greater proof of the unjust conduct of the English officials of those days could be desired ?
A statute of 1450 tells us how the marchers of the different countries maintained their horsemen and footmen, Irish as well as English. " They do coyne them upon the poor husbalids (husbandmen) and tenants of the land of Ireland and oppress and destroy them." The expression " coyne and livery " is frequently met in the Statute Book, and will be referred to in another place. Suffice it to say here that coyne and livery meant the food for themselves and their horses which the soldiers billeted upon the unfortunate farmer seized. It is certain that coyne has nothing to do with the English coin, but means man's meat, while livery means horse-meat and stabling, the accommodation that was delivered to a traveller. This, however, was a case of " stand and deliver." Spenser informs us that '' a servant's livery is so called from his being required to deliver it up when dismissed from his master's service." An expression
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in vogue in his day " the livery is served up all right," meaning that the carousal was kept up all night may throw light on some of the customs connected with the exaction of " coyne and livery." For the gallant officers in charge of the English frontiers, and entrusted with the defence of the English Pale, were not content with merely billeting their Irish kerne and gallowglasses as well as their own troops upon the English " husbands " and tenants. The same statute, 28 Henry VI., describes other doings which were even more intolerable. For '* the captains of the said marchours " brought all their people, their wives and their pages, and " the King's Irish enemies, both men and women, and English rebels, with their horse- men and footmen," down upon their poor '' husbands " in time of war and peace. And the *' husband" was compelled often to entertain one hundred of these gentry, horse and foot, at night suppers called "cuddies." Hard times were those for the English farmer in Ireland. Hard, indeed, was it at harvest time when the hay and the corn were being carted home to be ricked and stacked in the haggard to find a troop of the king's horse or of an Irish sept in possession of the farmyard. But harder still was it to have the doors of his house — the Englishman's castle — burst open in the witching hours of night by order of the king's officer in charge of the district, to see his victuals dragged forth from the larder and his wife and children insulted and molested by a number of strange men, rebels against the King and native tribesmen, whose conduct, even if it did not exceed wild hilarity, would be sufficient to cause any self- respecting man to feel indignation.
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN KINGS gS
Spenser, who must often have witnessed such scenes in which the soldiers dealt roughly with the poor men who were compelled to supply them with lodging and food, describes them with indignation, saying of the soldiers, ''for they will not onely not content them- selves with such victuals as their hostes, nor yet as the place perhaps affords, but they will have other meate provided for them, and aqua vitae sent for, yea and money besides laid at their trenchers, which if they want, then about the house they walk with the wretched poore man and his silly wife, who are glad to purchase their peace with anything."
But hardest of all was it to know that the men to whose keeping their lands and lives had been entrusted by the king and his deputy were in league with their enemies against them, and that " what tenant or husband will not be at their truce they do rob, spoil and kill."
The English Government in 1450, the year of Jack Cade's insurrection, actually went so far as to allow every loyal subject of the king to take or kill without impeachment any notorious thief caught in the act of '' robbing and spoiling or breaking houses by night or by day." And in 1466, inconsequence of the many highway robberies and murders that had been committed in the county of Meath upon ^' the faithful liege-people of the king" permission was granted to any person finding any thieves robbing or going or coming to rob or steal, to take and kill them and cut off their heads, which were to be brought to the " portreffe of the town of Trim," and to be put upon a spear upon the castle, and a reward was to be given to the slayer of the thief. By this statute the
96 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
English Government did not exhibit its cruelty but confessed its inability to protect the lives and property of the colonists, who were completely at the mercy of the roving bands of Irish kerne, and who had little chance of putting down the " Sheppards " and " Turpins" of those days unaided, much less of cop- ing with the native chieftains on their native heath. It was in the same grim humour that a Chief Secretary of Ireland stated in the House that the victims of the recent cattle-scattering raids ought to protect their own property. Five years before the statute con- cerning the highwaymen of Meath, the O'Connor had marched with a thousand horsemen *' all helmeted, fearless and undismayed," into the said county of Meath, burning and laying waste until at last " he received great presents from the English for granting them peace, as was always customary with those who held his place." A very small harvest of heads would the Portreffe of Trim have to show after such a thorough reaping by the Irish harvesters.
But such campaigns as these revealed at once the strength and the weakness of the Irish septs. The tribesmen of the various clans were devoted to their own tribe and chief. But they had not yet learned that the tribe was but a portion of a greater unit — the nation. Their patriotism was limited to the tribe and their loyalty to its chief. They carried on war more implacably with their own neighbours, their hereditary foes, than with the stranger, Dane, Norman, Saxon, or whatever he might be. There was no central authority which could coerce or combine the Irish chieftains, who ruled their own district by the sword. The country was divided among a number of petty
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN KINGS 97
kings and princes, whose dimensions rarely extended beyond the size of a modern barony, and who would have been invincible if united, but because they were simply a congeries of disorganized units were easily taken and dealt with in detail, but on the whole were difficult to conquer.
Nor were the English slow to take advantage of the quarrelsome and excitable nature of the Irish, of whom Sydney wrote — " They fight for their dinner, and many of them lose their heads before they be served with their supper." They often fostered dis- cords and sowed dissension among the Irish tribes. The State Papers of Henry VIII. make this clear. The Archbishop of Dublin was sent to Waterford in 1520 to make peace between the Earl of Desmond and Sir Piers Butler, but while publicly exhorted to do this was privately directed to enfeeble and diminish the strength of the Irish enemy '' as well as by getting captains from them as by putting division among them, so that they join not together." The story is also told of a Cromwellian officer who desired to reduce the Irish population in his district. Accordingly he gave a banquet and dispensed wine freely, and when the men had well drunk they found daggers placed near them with which they concluded their arguments. The story, no doubt, is apocryphal, but it may illustrate the point.
The English estimate of the Irish character and affection was not high. The Government in 1537 advised the keeping of a supply of ready money in Dub- lin as a remedy against rebellion, " because the nature of Irishmen is such that for money one shall have the war against the father and the father against the
G
98 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
child." 1 Some colour is given to this statement by the Irish annals, which read in some places like a series of Newgate Calendars rather than the history of a civilized nation, and in others like the high-flown and fulsome panegyrics of the orators of declining Greece. There is little doubt that the annalists gloried in the barbaric and bloody deeds of their heroes, rather than in their services to the social and religious well-being of their tribe. Professor A. C. Richey gives an analysis of the Annals of the Four Masters, who were principally concerned with the doings of the Ulster and Connaught clans, from the year 1500 to 1534, which illustrates this point. It runs : — " Battles, plundering, etc., exclusive of those in which the English Government was engaged, 116; Irish gentle- men of family killed in battle, 102 ; murdered, 168 — many of them with circumstances of great atrocity ; and during this period, on the other hand, there is no allusion to the enactment of any law, the founding of any town, monastery or church, and all this is recorded by the annalist without the slightest expression of regret or astonishment and as if such were the ordinary course of life in a Christian nation."
The Book 0/ Leinster, a collection of similar records of the deeds of the Leinstermen, makes one wonder how Dermot Mac Murrough, who was taught by its compiler in his youth, could have been other than he was — cruel, revengeful and evil. This " Book " eulogizes the violent deeds of the Leinster men against the Connaught men, and at the end of every violent tragedy, adds with exultation — '' 'Twas the Leinster- men killed them," while the Four Masters describe 1 A short History of the Irish People (Kane's Edition, p. 247.)
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN KINGS 99
Mortogh O'Loghlin of the Northern O'Neills, who was King of Ireland and the ally of Dermot Mac Murrough in the latter's war with O'Rourke and Torlogh O'Connor of Connaught, as '* the Monarch of all Ireland, the chief lamp of the valour, chivalry, hospitality, and prowess of the West of the world ; a man who had never been defeated in battle till that time, and who had gained many battles." And yet this " Chief Lamp of the West " had broken an oath of peace sworn upon the staff of S. Patrick, the Bachall ha, to certain chieftains, and when he had got them into his power blinded one, who is said to have been '' the pillar of the prowess and hospitality of the Irish." And they eulogise Torlogh O'Connor, who broke the most solemn oaths without the slightest compunction, and in whose hands no man's life or lands were safe, and who had put out the eyes of his own son, Hugh, in 11 36 as "the flood of the glory and splendour of Ireland, the Augustus of the West of Europe, a man full of charity and mercy, hospitality and chivalry."
There must have been, indeed, something rotten in the state of Ireland when such lives were regarded as standards of honour and rectitude, and such men were regarded as the " Chief Lamps of the West " and ''the floods of the glory and splendour of Ireland." It is little wonder that under such conditions of life the native tribes were not improving, and although they had obtained many advantages in their border warfare with the downtrodden English colony, who were reduced to the condition of the scapegoats of the Home Government and the tributaries of the enemy, were unable to come to any permanent or
loo THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
satisfactory settlement with the invaders. When the chiefs of neighbouring clans could not arrange a modus Vivendi with each other, they could hardly be expected to come to any amicable arrangement with the strangers, who only wished to live peaceably with all men and to be allowed to trade and prosper in the land.
Here we touch the solution of the problem, the lack of thrift and commercial spirit among the Irish. They scorned the one and they despised the other. It was foreign merchants, Norsemen, who came to the country after the removal of Turgesius, who founded Waterford, Limerick, and Dublin. And it was the Bristol merchants who made Dublin the leading city it was in the thirteenth and the fourteenth century.
A few words on the doings of our metropolis and the general state of Ireland in the period under consi- deration may not be an unsuitable conclusion to this chapter. The citizens of Dublin showed remarkable activity both by land and sea in the reign of Henry IV. In 1400 we read in Marleburrough's Chronicle that " the Constable of Dublin and divers others at Stranford (Strangford) in Ulster, fought at sea with the Scots, where many Englishmen were slaine and drowned." The year before, the trained bands of Dublin had invaded the O'Brien's country and '' slue three-and-twenty of the Irish, and tooke fourscore men, women and children." And in 1402, on the fifth of the Ides of June, after the dedication of the Church of the Fryers Preachers in Dublin, and per- haps to signalise that occasion by a worthy feat, John Drake, the Mayor of Dublin, issued forth with the citizens and townsmen near to Bre, now known as Bray and meaning hill, and punished some of the wild
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN ^ICINGS loi
Wicklow tribes who had on Black Moncla}^^: in tht year of grace 1209, massacred the Dubhn citizens, their wives and children, as they were picnicing in "the wood of the Cualanni, now known as CuUenswood, near Rathmines. John Drake and his valiant men *' slue of the Irish four hundred, ninety-three, being all men of warre."
In 1405 we read in Marleburrough's Chronicle of a naval exploit of the Dublin sailors. This year which witnessed the capture of Prince James of Scotland on the high seas as he was on his way to France to learn '* that tongue and eke courtesy," and who was brought to England to learn to love an English maiden, Lady Joan Beaufort, and to sing her praise in " The King's Ouair," also beheld the Dublin ships putting into St. Ninian^. where their crews " valiantly behaved themselves, and afterwards they entred Wales and there did much hurt to the Welch men and brought away the Shrine of St, Cubius, and placed it in the Church of the Holy Trinitie in Dublin."
In the same year 1405 there were serious risings in Leix, the country of the Moores and the O'Dempsey, w^ho had been encouraged by the temporary successes of Art MacMurrough. But James, Earl of Ormonde, called the Chaste, quelled these disturbances. First of all, " in the red moore of Athye (the sun almost lodged in the west and miraculously standing still in his epicycle the space of three hours till the feat was accomplished, and no pit in that bogge annoying either horse or man on his part) he vanquished O'More and his terrible army." And soon afterwards
' Probably Whitorn in Wigtownshire, where S. Ninian preached Ifoe Gospel to the Picts in the fifth century.
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he, dispersed the Vormidable forces of Art. But James of Ormonde seems to have been a mild governor as well as a heaven-blest warrior. The O'Dempsey took advantage of his gentle rule and intruded into the castle of Leix, the property of the Earl of Kildare, from which he was expelled by the Deputy, who also "tamed the O'Briens, Burkes, MacBanons, Ogaghn- raghte, MacMahons, all the captains of Thomond in three months." All this time the Lord Justice was materially assisted by the clergy of Dublin, who processed through the street twice every week with prayers for his success against "those disordered persons which now in every quarter, had degenerated to their old trade of life." Very solemn must those litanies have been. They remind us of the solemn Miserere of Bishop Mamertus of Vienne in Gaul (460) when the clergy walked in solemn procession through the streets chanting their litanies for deliver- ance from the plague. Verily the clergy of Dublin were as strong in prayer as they were stout in arms.
But our best governor died the same year, and was succeeded by Gerald, Earl of Kildare, 1405. Greatly encouraged, however, by their recent successes, the citizens of Dublin on Corpus Christi day, 1406, with the help of the country people, " manfully vanquished the Irish enemies and slue divers of them, and took two Ensignes, bringing with them to Dublin the heades of those whom they had slaine."
There seems to have been an unhappy mania for collecting dead men's skulls in those days. Instead of decently interring the remains of the ill-starred warriors they simply cut off their heads and carried them off triumphantly in almost the same way as a
IRELAND UNDER LANCASTRIAN KINGS 103
Red Indian would scalp a fallen enemy, dead or alive, or a wolfhunter of those days would gather the heads of the wolves of which he had rid the land, and for which he claimed reward.
In the same year we read that the Prior of Conall with but 20 Englishmen vanquished two hundred Irish that were well armed, "slaying some of them and chasing others," in the Curragh of Kildare,
But all this time the Irish were giving great trouble to the settlers. Most pathetic is the application for assistance that was sent from the inhabitants of Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale, who were harassed by the Irish outlaws, who had become stronger than the Norman nobles of Munster owing to the dissensions of the latter, and of whom Lord Roche, Lord Courcy and Lord Barry alone remained. Nor was the Pale free for a day from the incursions of the raiders, who harried their borders, especially during the sessions of Parliament, " when," we read, " the Irish burned all that stood in their way." A strange instance of poetic justice is mentioned in Marleburrough's Chronicle. In 1408 he tells us that Hugh MacGilmore was slain at Cragfergus (Carrickfergus) within the Church of the Friars Minors, " which Church he had before destroyed and broken down the glasse- windows to have the iron barres through which his enemies the savages entered upon him." P'or one would opine that although the poet says : —
Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage,
that they would form a stouter protection than brittle glass against an armed host — unless half-naked and
I04 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
fearful of cutting their hands and feet. But the result was evidently regarded not as due to an error of judg- ment but as the consequence of a sacrilege, very much as the stout De Courcy of Ulster was thought to have brought a curse upon himself for having altered the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity in Down into " an Abbey of Black Monks from Chester, and dedi- cated the same to the honour of S. Patrick."
The same eternal feuds continued in spite of all the English could do, for the Celtic blood is irrepres- sible, so that the colonists once more turned their faces towards home, but were checked in 1438 by the statutes against absentees.
In 1449, a firm hand was laid upon the neck of the unmanageable Celt, and by kindness and firmness his spirit was tamed. But the same ruler — Richard Duke of York, in his letter to his brother the Earl of Shrewsbury — complained of Magoghigan (MacGeog- hegan) and his turbulence. " With him," he wrote, "three or four Irish Captaines associate with a great fellowship of English rebells. . . They have burnt down a great towne of thine inheritance, Ramore, and other villages thereabouts, and murdered and brent both men, women, and children without mercy. The which enemies be yet assembled in woods and forts wayting to doe the hurt or grievance to the King's subject's that they can thinke or imagine."
This is a fair picture of the difficulties with which a Lord Lieutenant of those days had to cope ; and when badly paid and worse supported by the King and his Council we cannot be surprised if few reached the high standard of our best English Viceroy — Richard Duke of York.
CHAPTER VII.
Acts of Significance.
We have followed the O'Connor clan from comparative obscurity to considerable importance. We shall see how they gradually fell from the pinnacle of their pride. Their fall is to be ascribed to their connexions, hostile and friendly, with the Geraldines, and to their own unhappy dissensions. Some time after the capture of the King's Deputy the Fitzgeralds of Kildare and Desmond began to cast longing glances upon the rich pastures of Offaly, and to make themselves strong, with a view not only to repel their " rash intruding " neighbour, but also to seize his lands. The Earl of Desmond followed hard on the heels of the O'Connor as he was returning from one of the forays in Leix (1440). Twelve years afterwards (1452) James, Earl of Ormond, Lord Justice of Ireland, was compelled to put down the Midland septs with a firm hand. He overran Leix, burnt Airem, the property of O'Demp- sey, and marched into Offaly, where the O'Connor submitted to him. Seven years pass and Con O'Connor was defeated by Thomas, Earl of Kildare, and taken prisoner. The next year (1460) the rest- less Con defeated the English, when Hussey or Hose Baron of Galtrim was killed. These Husseys claimed Birr under the grant of the town and the neighbouring lands of Ely O' Carroll made by King John to Theobald Fitzwalter, and by him transferred in part, i.e., Villam de Birre, to Hugh de Hose or Hussey, for military tenure. The Husseys of Galtrim were great
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warriors. Their war cry, Cor-deragh-aboe, or the cause of the great cast, was won by the courage of the Hussey, who slew O' Kelly and his squire at the battle of Athenry, already described.
And two years afterwards the O'Connor made his memorable incursion at the head of a thousand horse- men into Meath, when he laid the whole country waste and departed laden with spoils and gifts.
The English, accordingly, began in self-defence to plan a complete removal of this thorn in their side. John Fitzgerald, who was said to be '' the best and mosti renowned general of the English," mar- shalled his forces in Kildare and the Deputy, Thomas, Earl of Desmond, arranged to meet him at a certain place with the Dublin contingent. But Con was on the alert and completely frustrated his enemy's plans by attacking the men of Kildare before they were joined by the Deputy, and defeating them with much loss. The next day he followed up his advantage by giving battle to the army that was on the march from Dublin and fighting on his own terms succeeded in putting it to a complete rout and taking prisoner the Deputy, Thomas, Earl of Desmond. The latter was taken to Carbury Castle, but was soon afterwards rescued by his own party. However, in 1468, the brave Con ventured too far into the mouth of the Norman lion and was taken prisoner himself, and Teige O'Connor, " the conqueror of both English and Irish," died of the plague.
Furthermore, as we frequently find in Irish history, tribal feuds and family troubles were effectual where foreign combination was unavailing. In the first place, a quarrel between the MacGeoghegans of Moycashel,
ACTS OF SIGNIFICANCE 107
Westmeath, and the O'Connors of Offaly led to a series of disasters for the latter, and then MacGeoghegan, who had hitherto assisted the O'Connors against the English, and had themselves in 1329 defeated an English force under Lord Thomas le Botiller, now allied themselves to the English of the Pale ; and although the O'Connors were able to hold their own against the lords of Moycastle and Kilbeggan, they suffered a severe defeat in 1493, when Cahir O'Connor Paly and many of his kinsmen were taken prisoners by the MacGeoghegans.
About this same time it appears that the O'Connor had two of his own relations, Torlogh O'Connor and Cathal O'Connor hanged. It is from this point that we may date the downfall of the clan, which was so powerful when united, but when divided by internal disputes lay completely at the mercy of its foes. For Cahir himself was murdered in 1 5 1 1 by his own kins- men, doubtless in revenge for friends Cahir had caused to be murdered. From that murder, the feud which eventually split up the O'Connors in Queen Elizabeth's reign into the Queen's O'Connors and the Irish O'Connors, began in real earnest. This Cahir O'Con- nor, who is described as " a general entertainer of learned men and a distinguished military leader among the English and Irish," was attacked near the Monastery of Monasteroris, called after the Irish name MacFeoris, adopted, as we have already seen, by Sir John Bermingham, just as the names McWilliam lochtar and McWilliam Uachtar were taken by the Connaught Burkes, v/ho became more Irish than the Irish themselves, and affected Irish dress, customs and language. Within sight of the consecrated walls and
io8 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
hallowed ground of the abbey, which the hereditary foe of the O'Connors had built nearly two centuries before, the head of the clan was slain by his own relations, the sons of Teige. This was in the year 1511.
The seed of dissension thus sown bore a bitter fruit in the family of the reigning Prince of Offaly. Brian and Cahir were brothers. Of these Brian seems to have been the elder, but not necessarily the heir. They do not appear to have been very loyal or affec- tionate to one another. However, Brian, undisturbed by this family disagreement, which was nothing out of the beaten track of an O'Connor's life, arranged with the O'Moores and O'Carrolls to invade the Eng- lish Pale (1521).
The Lord Lieutenant, at the time, was Surrey, a most capable and enterprising officer, who had already written a very strong letter to Henry VHI. in which he insisted that Ireland should be conquered by arms, and that to attempt to kill rebellion by pacific measures was impracticable. The King had advised his officer to win the Irish chieftains " by circumspect and politic ways," to obey the English laws, and " following justice, to forbear to detain rebelliously such lands and dominions as to us in right apper- taineth." And his deputy is urged to appeal to the reason of these chieftains and their sense of fair play, and ''to show unto them that of necessity it is requisite that every reasonable creature be governed by a law." By this means the King thought an entry could be made into the inaccessible parts of the country, and that '' our lands detained by usurpation might be reduced to our possession." But he directs
ACTS OF SIGNIFICANCE 109
his Deputy to proceed ''politically, patiently, and secretly^ that the Irish lords conceive no jealousy or suspicion that they shall be constrained precisely to live under our laws or put from all the lands by them now detained."
But Surrey wrote on the i6th December, 1520, beseeching the King that " if the King's pleasure be not to go through with the conquest of this land, which would be a marvellous charge, no longer to suffer me to waste his Grace's treasure here." In this clause Surrey had struck home. For Henry VIII., though prodigal in his pleasures, was a miser in matters of State. He grudged the spending of the ;^ 1 7,000 a year that was required for the upkeep of a respectable army in Ireland for the defence of the four shores of the Pale. We shall see how his avarice led him afterwards (1532) to appoint the Earl of Kildare as Lord Deputy. And in an answer to another letter from Henry, in which the expenses of the standing army in Ireland were impressed upon the Deputy's mind, Surrey wrote back on the 30th June, 1521, saying — ''After my poor opinion, the land shall never be brought to good order and subjection but only by conquest, which is, at your Grace's pleasure, to be brought to pass in two ways. One way is, if your Grace will one year set on hand to win one country, and another year another country, and so continue, till at length all be won." In Surrey's opinion, a force of 6,000 men were required : whereas the king was only willing to give 800, and the country could not be subdued in less than ten years, for, as he said, " the countries here be as strong or stronger as Wales, and the inhabitants of the same can, and do live, more
no THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
hardly than any other people, after mine opinion, in Christendom or Turkey, and " may have three or four thousand Irish Skottes whensoever and as often as they will call for them." It is not, therefore, to be imagined that such a commander, alert and alive to all the difficulties of his task, could be found napping even by the astute O'Connor. Indeed, he managed to surprise O'Connor, and with the assistance of the Mayors of Drogheda and Dublin and the loyal nobles defeated the confederates, who retreated in different directions. O'Connor retired to his castle at Monas- terois, a place of great natural strength, and leaving a strong garrison to defend it, made a dash for West- meath, in order to draw off his enemy's forces from his own lands and tov/ns. But while he was engaged in devastating the farmsteads of the English settlers, the Deputy had followed up his advantage by besieg- ing the Irish garrison in Monasteroris with such vigour and skill that though it was " the strongest hold within the Irishry," they were fain to escape under cover of the night, and to leave the castle in the possession of the royal forces.
Surrey then employed his forces in ravaging the lands of the absent chieftain. He " destroyed much goodly corn and burnt many towns and houses." This had the desired effect of drawing the O'Connor away from the English settlements, and making him return to defend his own, but finding that Monasteroris was in the hands of the English, he withdrew to the recesses of his own bogs and woods, whence he made sudden and unexpected sallies upon the English, in one of which Edward Plunket, Lord Dunsany, fell.
After this initial exchange of courtesies, Surrey
ACTS OF SIGNIFICANCE iii
withdrew his forces to the capital to collect a larger army, while O'Connor and his allies were left at peace for a time to prepare for another campaign, one of the saddest, but yet one of the most interesting, in the annals of Irish history.
In the meantime we may take a glance at the affairs of the English Pale, where life was now more intolerable than ever. We have seen how the English colonists had been deprived of their moustachios by a statute of Henry VI., lest they should be mistaken for Celts. A similar order was made in Edward I Vs. reign, 1467, with regard to the upper lips of the Irish- men who had made their home in the counties of Dublin, Meath, Uriel (Louth) and Kildare, and had not been allocated to the various Irish towns in the country. The fact that there were a " multitude " of such people to be sworn as the King's liegemen within the borders of the Pale shows that the statute of Kil- kenny was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. A feeble attempt was now made to assimilate these Irish people to their English neigh- bours in appearance and in name. They were ordered to remove "the beard above their mouth," to go " like an Englishman in apparel," and to " take to him an English surname of a town — as 'Sutton, Ches- ter, Trym, Skryne, Cork, Kinsale, or colour, as white, black, brown ; or art or science, as smith or carpenter ; or office, as cook, butler ; and he and his issue shall use this name under pain of forfeiting of his goods yearly." From this assortment of worthy if not musical English names the Kinsellaghs, MacNamaras, O'Molloys, O'Shaughnessys and O'Morchoes had to take their choice under pain of losing their goods.
112 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
That was the humour of the statute. Upon this compulsory exchange of the Irishman's surname, and the threatened forfeiture of his property, a Celt of a later age might have moralised somewhat in the words of lago in Shakspeare's Othello —
Who steals my purse steals trash ! 'tis something, nothing^
But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor, indeed.
At a recent meeting in Dublin a certain worthy citizen with an English name objected to having it "turned upside down in Irish." But what must have been the feelings of a Diarmaid O'Halloran when addressed as Jeremiah Black, or a Timothy McCarthy when styled Tim Brown, or a Cathal O' Carroll when called Charles White, or a Torlogh O'Donoghoe to have to assume the brief appellation of Terence Gray !
It was bad enough to lose one's moustache, the growth of which had been so anxiously watched and tended ; it w^as worse to be compelled to lay aside the picturesque and highly coloured garment in which the Irish, who rejoiced in colours, arrayed their muscular forms, and don the sober livery of an Englishman ; but it " was the most unkindest cut of all " to be shorn of their musical and high sounding names which they had carried v\ath more or less distinction since the Milesian conquest, and which reminded them, not merely of their own family, but also of the sept with whose varying fortunes their deepest sympathies and highest sentiments were associated.
In the meantime, the Irish Parliament, which might have become a constitutional and representative
ACTS OF SIGNIFICANCE 113
assembly, had by reason of the lawlessness of the country, which made it dangerous for the country members of the Houses to attend at Dublin, Kilkenny, Drogheda or Trim (1416), at which places the parlia- ments were then summoned, and owing to the control exercised by the officials of the Crown, had been reduced to a condition of utter helplessness and use- lessness. Before the ruin of the English Pale it had met regularly and transacted its business in an inde- pendent spirit. But it was now but a pliable instrument in the hands of the king and his advisers, and seems to have been only summoned when subsidies were required by the English Government for its foreign wars. The lords of the Upper House, peers, prelates and priors, were conspicuous for their absence. Nobles, like Desmond and Ormonde claimed exemption ; while the bishops and abbots sent proctors to represent them. Hence the custom arose of summoning two proctors from each diocese, who sat with the knights, citizens and burgesses in the lower house, and claimed to be representatives of the clergy and entitled to vote. The knights of the shires, who had been summoned in Ireland since 1264 were not a strong body, as there were only four shires in the Pale, while the burgesses, who had been summoned since 1295, could only attend from a few towns. Many of these had not even gone through the formality of an election, having received the writ directly from the king. It would, indeed, be hard to find an assembly less deserving of the name of Parliament. It was simply a Dublin Council in the hands of the king's officer. But its history proves the truth of the saying, that " even a worm will turn." For this generally supine and invertebrate assembly
H
114 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
dared on one occasion at least to act with a spirit worthy of Stephen Langton, Simon de Montfort and other makers of England and founders of its freedom. It was when the Duke of York crossed the Irish Sea in 1459, having been deserted by his own forces, who were seized with a panic when Henry VI. marched against him at Ludlow, and threw himself upon the loyalty and devotion of the English Pale. He had been sent by Henry VI., who wanted to be rid of him, to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant in 1449, and had won golden opinions from Norman, Saxon and Celt by his noble character and high ideals. He had left Ireland in 1454 to assume the protectorate in England, but now returned to the land where " he had exceedingly tyed unto him the hearts of the noblemen and gentle- men," and was received in a different manner from that in which any other English protector was greeted. Although under the attainder of the English Govern- ment, in which the Lancastrian party had for the time gained the upper hand, the Irish house acknowledged Richard of York as its Viceroy, and supported by him asserted its independence and its right to be bound only by its own laws, and to coin money, and declared that no Irish subject was bound to answer any writs save those issued under the great seal of Ireland.
These were no mere words, as was proved by the terrible earnestness with which the Irish nobles, especially of the houses of Kildare and Desmond, some twenty years afterwards threw themselves into the cause of Lambert Simnel, who personated the Earl of Warwick, and was crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, with great pomp by the Bishop of
ACTS OF SIGNIFICANCE 115
Meath in May, i486, a coronation which was attended by the Earl of Kildare, the Lord Deputy with " the lords of the Council and other great men of quality." The crown won by the future scullion and falconer of Henry VII. consisted of a diadem taken from an image of the Virgin in the nunnery of St. Mary. And the sham monarch was carried, according to an old Irish usage, upon the shoulders of an Irish giant " called Great Darcy of Flatten " to Dublin Castle, and escorted by 2,000 German troops under Martin Schwartz, sent by the Duchess of Burgundy, who supported the claims of the pretender who was intro- duced to the Earl of Kildare by a priest. Sir Richard Symonds, as the son of the Duke of Clarence. In Smith's " History of Waterford," we read how John Butler, Mayor of Waterford, refused to receive the pretender, and how the Butlers collected their forces and prepared to resist the claims of Kildare's proteg6. But numbers of the Earl of Kildare's faction, including Thomas Fitzgerald, his own brother, followed Simnel to Lancashire, and shared in his defeat at Stoke and the leniency with which the king treated him. And when the fraud was discovered the Irish still believed in him. He was followed by Perkin Warbeck, who landed in Cork in 1490, and personated Richard Plantagenet and found many adherents in Ireland, who suffered for their hotheadedness in Cornwall and on the block.
Even though the utterances of this parliament of 1459 were dignified and noble, they brought sorrow- to Ireland, for they alienated the feelings of the Lancastrian party from Ireland and its parliament. And in 1492 Henry VII., who could not forget that
ii6 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
the house of York was the popular party with the English of the Pale, or forgive the Geraldines' adher- ence to the Duke of York's family, superseded the Earl of Kildare and appointed Walter Fitz-Simon, Archbishop of Dublin, as Deputy in his room, and Sir James Butler as High Treasurer in the stead of Fitz-Eustace, the earl's father-in-law. And shortly afterwards (1494) sent over Sir Edward Poynings, who drove back the native Irish and summoned the historic parliament of Drogheda which, after passing a number of useful laws for the benefit of the natives and the protection of the dwellers in the Pale from the extor- tions of the great lords, took away all initiative from the Irish Parliament and reduced it to the dependent condition it occupied for centuries, when it was alternately the mouthpiece of the Geraldines and the Butlers, but in which men had once acted with spirit. Among the new regulations was one declaring it to be unlawful to incite the natives to war, to engage in private hostilities, and to practise coyne and livery. Owners of march lands were required to reside on their lands and under heavy penalties were ordered to see that no Irish rebel or enemy crossed the border. Citizens were not to become the retainers of the lords, and judges were only to hold office during the king's pleasure. The Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) were also renewed, with the exception of those relating to the use of the Irish language and the non-use of saddles — a custom which had become too general to be put down by edict.
The Statutes of Kilkenny may sound very terrible in our ears ; but it was a voice in the wilderness during the century and more, that elapsed between the date
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of its enactment and this Act of Sir Edward Poynings (1494). Its object had been Hke the Mosaic legislation, to raise a barrier between the English of the Pale and the Irish inhabitants, and to check every kind of communication between the two races. Hardiman described it as " no more than a peevish and revenge- ful expression Duke Lionel felt from the opposition he had met with and the loss of the lands he had come over to claim." The purpose of the Act which condemned marriage alliances, gossiped and fosterage with the Irish, the use of the Irish language, and the Brehon law, styled by the Drogheda Parliament as *'the wicked and damnable law called Brehon Law," and the adoption of Irish customs and dress was to prevent the English becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves, and like the lotus eaters forgetting their own country. But the statute was in many respects a dead letter ; for it was not founded on public opinion, was not granted in response to the demands of any portion of the English community, was resented by the English as well as by the Irish, and could not be enforced without a police or military force. Such a statute was a sign of weakness and savoured rather of hysterics than politics.
Poynings' Act of 1494, which is rather extrava- gantly styled by Ritchie as ''the most disgraceful Act ever passed by an independent legislature," meant nothing more than the removal of the rag of power and the simulacrum of rule, which had been absurdly paraded by the Irish Parliament for some centuries, and the exorcism of the ghost of the spirit of freedom which had haunted for many years their Council Chamber, a strange visitant which on the occasion that
ii8 THE MIDLAND SEPTS AND THE PALE
it appeared, bewildered the members themselves and alarmed their opponents. Henry VII. was determined to remove whatever sting the Irish Parliament might still possess. And he may have had the idea of still further crippling the broken power of the English soldiers in the presence of the Celtic population, and of provoking the latter to repeat their incursions, so as to prevent the colonists from ever becoming a menace to the Welsh house of Tudor.
The clause of the Act which evoked so much criticism was to the effect that — " no parliament be holden hereafter in the said land (of Ireland) but at such season as the King's Lieutenant and Council there first do certify the king, under the great seals of that land, the causes and considerations, and acts affirmed by the king and his council, to be good afid expedient for that land, and his licence thereupon, as well in affirmation of the said causes and acts, as to summon the said parliament under his great seal of England had and obtained ; that done, a parliament to be had and holden after this form and effect before rehearsed : and if any parliament be holden in that land hereafter, contrary to the form and provision aforesaid, it be deemed void and of none effect in law."
Consequently no parliament could be summoned in Ireland without the permission of the king and his council, and no bills could be introduced into any parliament so summoned without the king's consent. The Irish Houses of Parliament were in this manner reduced to an office for the registration of English law in Ireland. The result was not altogether so bad as represented ; for by this means the Anglo-Norman factions, the Butlers and Geraldines, whose councils
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and opinions were voiced from time to time in Dublin, as now one and now the other gained the predomin- ance, were held in check. A sketch of these rival factions is required to explain the political situation which ended with so much disaster to the O'Connors, and will be given in the following chapter. It will be sujfficient to add here that this was not the first or the last attempt to muzzle the Irish Houses of Parliament. In 1376 Edward III., desiring to obtain a grant of subsidies for his wars, had summoned the bishops, peers, and representatives of Ireland to a parliament in London. They attended, but under protest. The protest of the Archbishop of Armagh may be read in Leland's History of Ireland (l. 363-397): "We do not grant," it ran, " to the representatives we have elected any power of assenting to burthens or taxes to be imposed on us or our clergy." In 1460 another declaration of independence was made ; Cromwell held the next union parliament at Westminster ; and in 1 801 the parliaments were united.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Geraldines and Butlers.
We have said that one good result of Poynings' Act was the restraint upon the perpetual feuds of these rival houses of Kildare and Ormonde. This was a boon to the law-abiding gentry and citizens of Dublin, Kilkenny, Waterford, and other towns, whose peace was disturbed by the tumults caused by these nobles and the brawls of their retainers and followers in the streets, and who, utterly indifferent for the most part to the casus belli, might well exclaim with Mercutio — *' A plague o' both your houses ! " For just as Verona was kept in perpetual ferment by the Montagues and Capulets, the towns and villages of the Pale were disturbed by these rival factions, whose battle cries Cromabo and ^«//^r^^^ resounded at every hour of the night, but were made penal offences by the new Act.
A brief review of these distinguished families may not be out of place. The Butlers of Ormonde, which eventually became all powerful in Ireland, and still retains much of its former prestige, are descended from Theobald Walter, a nephew of Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was made hereditary Chief Butler to King Henry II. Theobald obtained grants of land in Kilkenny and Tipperary. One of his descendants, Edmund le Botiller, was created Earl of Carrick in 131 5, and his son, James Butler, who married a kins- woman of Edward III., was created Earl of Ormonde
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(Oir [Mumhan or East Munster) in 1328, and was made Lord Lieutenant the following year. In 1391 the Earl of Ormonde purchased Kilkenny Castle from the descendants of Strongbow's granddaughter Isabel, and the influence of the family was gradually extended by successful marriages in England. In Ireland, this house by degrees became omnipotent in Kilkenny and North Tipperary, where the English colonists had established many castles, towns and monasteries. But in the city of Dublin the house of Kildare, living in greater proximity to the metropolis, was naturally the stronger.
The greatest representative of this family was the gallant marquis who held Ireland for King Charles II. against Cromwell, but whose army was defeated by Colonel Jones in the battle of Rathmines, then some