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Cathal Crovdearg was younger brother of Rory, and son of Turlogh Mór O'Conor, the powerful prince whose successful wars against Ulster and Munster had prepared the way for the supremacy of his son. Turlogh built the first three stone castles of Irish Ireland and the first stone bridges over the Shannon and the Suck. He will ever be remembered as the founder of the cathedral of Tuam with its splendid chancel-arch and the unique cross, thirty feet high, which stands beside it. At Clonmacnois, where he is buried, the great belfry was built under his auspices. But more interesting still is the cross of Cong—a magnificent specimen of Irish filigree metal work, inlaid with precious stones. In its centre a polished crystal contained a relic of the wood of the true Cross sent to the King from Rome in 1125, and round it runs the inscription, "A prayer for Turlogh O'Conor, King of Ireland, for whom this shrine was made." He was justly proud of the exquisite workmanship and purpose of this cross, ordering it to be carried in procession throughout Ireland and honoured with the greatest devotion. His reign and that of his sons formed the climax of Connacht's pre-eminence He erected a mint at Clonmacnois for the coinage of silver money, and the arts of peace as well as of war flourished under his rule. The artists who designed and the men who ordered such delicate works of art as the cross of Cong, the Ardagh chalice, or the shrine of St Manchan, all produced by this school, must have been possessed of taste and culture. There had been, from early times in Ireland, families or castes of metal-workers, devoted to their craft, and these may still have existed; but it may have been a daughter of Rory O'Conor who designed the lovely adornments of the chalice of Ardagh, "the silver chalice with a burnishing of gold upon it," which we still admire to-day. She died in 1247 at Clonmacnois. In 1129 a great misfortune occurred. A Dane entered the church of Clonmacnois and stole from the high altar the precious vessels with which it was adorned. These included three gifts bestowed upon the church by King Turlogh: a silver cup with a gold cross over it, a drinking-horn with gold, and a silver chalice, besides a model of Solomon's Temple among other valuables. The thief was taken and executed a year later, and the treasures were restored. [1]

[1] Annals of the Four Masters, 1129.

The story of Cathal of the Red Hand is a romantic one. Tradition says that he was the illegitimate son of Turlogh, whose wife pursued him with such hatred that his mother was obliged to flee with him into Leinster. She also, with a magical charm, turned his hand wine-red. When he grew up he took service with a farmer, always keeping his right hand covered. He was one day reaping rye in a field when a herald passed by, proclaiming that the King of Connacht was dead, and that the people would elect no other successor save Cathal, if he could be found. He would be known, it was said, by his right hand, which was red like wine. For some minutes Cathal Crovdearg stood on the ridge in silent thought. Then, pulling off his glove, he exhibited his hand to the herald, who, recognizing him by his likeness to his father, fell at his feet. Flinging away his sickle on the ridge, the youth exclaimed, "Farewell, sickle; now for the sword." "Cathal's farewell to the rye" is a proverb meaning a farewell never to return.[2]

[2] Annals of the Four Masters, 1224, and note. The story is not alluded to by the O'Conor Don in his history of his family, or by Dr O'Conor. But it follows an old tradition.

According to more historical sources Cathal was the son of Turlogh's second wife, Dervorgil, daughter of O'Lochlan of Ulster, later monarch of Ireland, and thus stepbrother to Rory, Turlogh's successor. Cathal's life was spent in struggles with the members of his own family to maintain himself on the throne. Rory, on his retirement to the monastery of Cong in 1183, had resigned the sovereignty to his son Conor Moinmoy, thus carrying out the English principle of primogeniture. But on his "return from his pilgrimage" in 1185 his son refused to resign the throne, and a general war broke out between the different members of the family, no less than five of whom aspired to the kingship. These were, besides Rory himself, his two sons Conor Moinmoy and Conor O'Dermot; Cathal Carragh, son of Conor Moinmoy; and Cathal Crovdearg, Rory's brother. The inherent weakness of the Irish rule of succession, by which a group of relatives could all claim the kingship, could not be better illustrated. The murder of Conor Moinmoy by his own people in 1189 and the death of Rory in 1198 removed two of the competitors and left the two Cathals face to face to fight out their contest for the throne. A fierce and prolonged struggle ensued, in which the local chiefs, especially Crovdearg's mortal foes the O'Flahertys of West Connacht, took part. It seemed as though the contest would terminate in favour of Cathal Carragh, who was supported by two of the O'Briens and the fierce and ruthless Norman baron William de Burgh, whose combined armies pillaged the province, stripping the priests in the churches, carrying off the women, and plundering the country without pity.[3] Crovdearg, on his side, appealed for help to the O'Neills of Ulster and to John de Courcy. The O'Neills refused to be drawn into the warfare, and Hugh de Lacy the Younger took their place, only to share in a severe defeat at Kilmacduagh, and to escape ignominiously with his allies across Lough Ree back into his own district of Meath. This was in 1202. Finding Cathal and de Courcy both in his power, de Lacy, who was aiming at the downfall of de Courcy, took advantage of his opportunity, arrested both the fugitives, and sent John de Courcy to Dublin, where he was forced to give pledges for obedience to the Government, of which he had hitherto been practically independent.

[3] Annals of Loch Cé, 1200, 1202.

On his release Cathal Crovdearg seems to have thrown himself into the hands of his old enemies, William de Burgh and the O'Briens, who marched with him into Connacht, devastating as they went. Cathal Carragh himself was accidentally killed while watching a fight between his own army and that of his former supporter, de Burgh. But a fearful vengeance fell on de Burgh and his people for their destruction of the province. A rumour was circulated that he had been killed, and one night every man in the province who had any of de Burgh's soldiery quartered in his household rose and murdered his guests, nine hundred in all, so that he returned with a remnant only into Munster. To chastise de Burgh, Meiler FitzHenry, who had become Justiciar of Ireland in 1200, came into Munster with Walter de Lacy; they marched to Limerick and banished de Burgh, handing over the custody of Limerick to William de Braose. William de Burgh was called over to England to answer for complaints made against him by FitzHenry, but he eventually returned to Munster with his castles of Askeaton and Kilfeakle restored to him, though the King retained Connacht in his own hands. William's stormy career came to an end in 1205 or 1206. He had established himself in Munster and is said to have married a daughter of Donal O'Brien to strengthen his connexion there; and he had vigorously exerted himself to make good a vague grant in Connacht made to him by Prince John, first by his war-alliance with Cathal Carragh and, when he died and the cause of Cathal Crovdearg was taken up by the English Government, by going over to the winning side. His actual possessions seem to have been limited to the castle of Meelick, which he had built in Co. Galway, using for the core of his structure the largest church in the place. He made an attempt also to fortify the monastery of Boyle (Ath-da-Larag) and to use it for a barracks, but was interrupted in the course of this work. In later days it frequently became a centre of war and one of the stormiest districts in the whole province. No sense of having desecrated sacred sites seems to have troubled de Burgh in carrying out these schemes. William was the founder of the family of the de Burghs or Burkes, future Earls of Ulster, and of the Burkes of Munster and Connacht, the latter province being regranted to his son Richard in 1222-23.

We must now return to the later history of Cathal Crovdearg and his immediate successors. It was probably at the synod held at Athlone in 1202 under the presidency of the Cardinal John, and soon after the death of his rival, Cathal Carragh, that the claims of Cathal to Connacht were formally ratified. Either then or earlier he had received the regular inauguration of his people, which was still carried out with all the old solemn ceremonial up to the reign of his grandson, Felim, whose chief chronicler, O'Mulconry, has left an interesting account of the ritual at which, in 1315, he acted as the principal official. Twelve bishops and twelve of the greater chieftains must always be present at the ceremony, with representatives of the minor septs. It took place at the huge cairn called Carnfree (Carn Fraoich) on the plains of Rathcrogan, in Co. Roscommon.[4] Only a prince chosen by the suffrages of his people was eligible for this popular election. The Irish steadfastly held to the old habit of selection between candidates who, being born within the limits prescribed by Irish law, were all equally eligible for election to the sovereignty. They knew nothing up to Rory's time of the English system of primogeniture.

[4] Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (1852-53), ii, 341-347; Hardiman's edition of O'Flaherty's Iar Connacht (1846), pp. 139-140.

In the long disputes with the turbulent Hugh de Lacy the Younger, Cathal ranged himself on the side of the English King against their common enemy, as he held de Lacy to be. But Prince John's grant to Hugh de Lacy of six cantreds of Connacht on the borders nearest Meath was destined to prove a thorn in the side of Cathal. With his elder brother Walter, Hugh had inherited the rich grant of Meath made to their father, but, not satisfied with this, he aspired also to the rule of Eastern Ulster as well as to the lands in Connacht. In Ulster he spared no effort to dispossess John de Courcy by war and treachery.[5] That brave knight had fallen out of favour, it is said because he took no care to conceal his horror of King John's dastardly murder of his young nephew, Arthur, in Brittany. The King, therefore, was ready to further de Lacy's schemes to bring him to ruin. The brothers de Lacy pursued him into Ulster and two years later, in 1203, they defeated him at the battle of Down, taking him prisoner either in that or the following year. It is said that Hugh's soldiers were so afraid of the great warrior that they dared not attack him in his armour; therefore they fell on him on the Good Friday following the battle, when, unarmed and barefooted, he was making his devotions at the church of St Patrick in Down. With the help of some of his own men, who had been bribed by de Lacy, he was captured after a fight in which he defended himself with a cross-pole until it broke in his hand having killed thirteen of those who attacked him. But when the traitors appeared before de Lacy to claim their reward he had them hanged and their goods plundered. Hugh, however, had achieved his will. On May 2, 1205, he went over to England and in the same month he received a grant of all the lands held by de Courcy in Ulster, with the title of Earl of Ulster, the first Anglo-Norman dignity of which there is a record extant. The later career of de Courcy is something of a mystery.

[5] Hoveden, Annals ed. William Stubbs (1871), iv, 176.

The common story of his imprisonment in the Tower of London, and of his release in order to fight the French champion, may or may not be true. The Annals of Loch Ce (1204) speak of his having been released after being 'crossed' for the Crusades, but it is unlikely that he ever went to Palestine. The Chronicle of Man says that he sought help from his wife's relations in the Isle of Man, and that he returned with a large army and a hundred ships, which sailed up Strangford Lough, but they were surprised by Walter de Lacy and put entirely to rout. John de Courcy must have lived for some years longer, for there are licences extant permitting him to come to his friends in England in 1207. When King John came to Ireland in 1210 to drive out de Lacy, whose tyrannies had made his rule insufferable, de Courcy appears to have accompanied him and to have had the satisfaction of seeing his old enemy fleeing before him to Carrickfergus.[6] Thence de Lacy went to France, where he and his brother took refuge in a monastery at St Taurins in Normandy, working as lay brethren until their identity was eventually discovered by the Abbot. They were partially restored to favour through his intercession,[7] only to work still more havoc in Ireland in later life. On Hugh de Lacy's death in 1243 the lands of Ulster definitely reverted to the Crown, and were only regranted in 1264, twenty-one years later, to Walter de Burgh, having in the meantime been given as part of his appanage to Prince Edward, afterward Edward I, on his marriage with Eleanor of Castile.

[6] Sweetman, i, Nos. 358 (1207), 409 (1210); and cf. Nos. 482 (1213), 833 (1218).

[7] Grace, Annales Hiberniae, 1210.

It is evident that Cathal Crovdearg had sufficient grounds for believing that the turbulent de Lacy had by the year 1223 become as much the King's enemy as his own. Cathal's letters are of extreme interest as indicating the terms on which he stood as the ally of Henry III in Ireland. He complains that "Hugh de Lacy, enemy of the King, of the King's father, and of Cathal, whom King John by Cathal's advice expelled from Ireland, has without consulting the King, come to that country to disturb it. Against Hugh's coming, Cathal remains, as the Archbishop of Dublin [i.e., Henri, the then Justiciar] knows, firm in his fidelity to the King. But the closer Cathal adheres to the King's service the more he is harassed by those who pretend fealty to the King, but, as the Justiciar knows, shamefully fail against the enemy, so that, between Hugh de Lacy on the one hand and those who feign to be faithful on the other, Cathal is placed in extreme difficulty. Wherefore, unless it is better that the peace of Ireland should be subverted by this disturber and by default of some of the King's subjects, Cathal prays the King to send a force thither to restrain Hugh's insolence." [8] It seems likely from the tone of this letter that it was written just after the retirement of the allied troops from Ulster, and that Cathal had cause to suspect the sincerity of some of the combatants His second letter was probably written in 1224. It is addressed to his "very dear Lord, Henry King of England, Lord of Ireland, etc., to whom Cathal O'Conor, King of Connacht, sends greeting." O'Conor believes that Henry has heard, through the faithful counsellors of himself and his father, King John, that he had never failed in his fidelity; nor will he ever swerve therefrom. He possesses a charter of the land of Connacht from King John to himself and to his heirs and to his son and heir, Aedh; and for the latter he now solicits a similar charter from Henry. This would render his son and people more zealous for the King's interest, and he urges his request, that the lands of Ubriun, Conmacni, and Calad, in Connacht, held by his enemy, William de Lacy, brother of King Henry's enemy, should be given to his own son, who is ready to do homage for them; O'Conor prays an answer by the bearers of the present letter, in whom confidence may be placed.[9]

[8] Sweetman, 1, Nos. 1174, 1184; original in W. W. Shirley, Royal Letters (1862), 1. 183.

Cathal Crovdearg, after the death of his competitors, seems to have been in the favoured position of an elected King of Connacht who was also approved and supported by the English Government. On several occasions he addressed himself directly to the throne instead of to the deputy. In a mandate from Henry III appointing Archbishop Henri de Londres Justiciar in 1221, in the place of Geoffrey de Marisco, who was accused of using the revenues of the country for his own advantage, "Kathel of Connacht" is addressed first of the Irish kings; following him come "King of Kenelon [Aedh O'Neill, King of the Cinel Owen], Dunekan and Muriadac O'Bren [O'Brien], Dermot Macarthi [MacCarthy], Loueth MacDonahod [MacDonoghue], and the Norman barons." [10] Protections for Cathal "and for his chattels, lands, and possessions," were issued in 1219 and 1224, and a letter written by the Justiciar to the King speaks of Cathal and his son as "the King's faithful subjects, who have loyally assisted the Archbishop and obeyed the King's mandates." [11] There is no doubt, from the frequent friendly correspondence between Cathal and his immediate successors and the English kings, that they endeavoured faithfully to carry out the terms of compact made between Henry II and Cathal's brother Rory. Cathal made a personal submission to John at Ardbracken in Meath on that king's second visit to Ireland in 1210, and accompanied him on his tour as far as Carrickfergus, though he refused, on the advice of his wife, to entrust his son Aedh into the King's hands.

[9] This letter is given in Appendix II, and in Gilbert, Facsimiles, ii, No. LXXI.

[10] Sweetman, i, No. 1001.

[11] Ibid., 1, Nos. 530, 928, 1164, 1183; W W. Shirley, op. cit., p. 178.

The exact position of the King of England toward Cathal is not very clear. In 1204 we find the then Justiciar, Meiler FitzHenry, reporting that Cathal had quit-claimed to the King two-thirds of his province, retaining the other third by right of inheritance at a yearly rent of a hundred marks; for the two-thirds he was to pay three hundred marks, the King of England, however, claiming as his own portion "the best towns and harbours; those fittest for the King's interest and for fortifying castles." Cathal was to give hostages for his faithful service, and for the forwarding of the King's interests to the best of his judgment; he was to strengthen castles, found towns, and assess rents in those parts. To these immense claims Cathal seems to have agreed, raising his tribute first to four hundred marks for the whole province, and in 1215, when the charter was actually received by him, to five thousand marks, to be paid in two portions annually. This great advance in the payments given must have been the result of the consultations between the two kings during John's second visit to Ireland.[12] Cathal never seems to have grudged tribute; and when in 1224 his son Aedh appealed to the English, who were holding a court at Athlone, for aid against Turlogh O'Conor, his cousin, who had been elected by the popular vote and installed as King at Carnfree instead of himself, they willingly assisted him; for "every one of them was a friend of his, for his father's sake and his own; for he and his father before him were very liberal of stipends." [13] These large claims made and admitted over Connacht, whether enforced or not, practically transformed the kings of that province into feudal barons. They now held their lands as grants of the English monarchs and not by the old prescription and right. The King's gift, in 1214, of "scarlet robes, to be given to the kings of Ireland and other faithful subjects of the King" emphasized this new position; the recipients were regarded as the King's lieges.

[12] Sweetman, i, Nos. 222, 279, 654, 656. An equal tribute was demanded of William de Braose for the custody of the city of Limerick.

[13] Annals of Loch Cé, 1225.

This bestowal of robes of office had special reference to Cathal, for it followed immediately on the protection accorded to him and his men in that year, which led up to the final confirmation of his grant. This change of position must be clearly realized, for all that followed depends upon it. By the English sovereign the Irish princes, up till now independent rulers, came to be regarded as feudatories, ruling still as kings within their own domains, but holding their lands at the will of the English monarch, paying tribute to him, and being removable at his pleasure if they proved recalcitrant or failed to pay their dues. This claim was one that could easily be used for purposes of aggression when the occasion arose. In the case of the O'Conors the memory that they had once been independent kings seems to have quickly faded from the minds of the English monarchs, for we find Edward I, in an order to Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, in 1305, speaking of King Felim of Connacht, son of Cathal Crovdearg, as "a certain Irishman named Felim O'Conor, who called himself King of Connacht." In the meantime things might have gone on quietly, Cathal and his successors paying tribute and receiving protection and support in return, but for the old vague grants made to the de Burghs before John became king. William de Burgh had never been able to enforce what he conceived to be his rights in spite of the support he had given to the two Cathals in turn, but the claim was to be revived by his son, Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, in the reign of Cathal's son Hugh (Aedh). During Cathal's lifetime the King's claims proved abortive; Cathal continued to be styled "King of Connacht" and to exercise full authority. His appeal to the English King in the last year of his life for protection on behalf of his son, whom, adopting the English custom, he indicated as his successor, shows that the relationship between the two powers was friendly, and that Cathal had no intention of rupturing the new connexion. But, feeling death approaching and weighed down by the cares of a stormy life, he decided in 1224 to retire to the abbey of Grey Friars at Knockmoy, which he had himself founded in 1189. He and his favourite poet, Morrogh O'Daly, called Muredach Albanach, or "Murray the Scot," from his connexion with Scotland, entered the monastery on the same day, and there has been preserved a curious poem supposed to have been composed by them while their hair was being tonsured. This poet was the turbulent bard who was driven out of Ulster for killing a steward of the O'Donnells who was attempting to extract a rent from him. He was forced to take refuge in Scotland, where he wrote some beautiful religious poems, which seem singularly out of keeping with his irascible temper. He must have travelled, for a poem written from shipboard in the Levant to Cathal exclaims that it would be "the joys of heaven to find himself off the Scottish coast or breathe the breath, of Ireland."

This O'Daly, called "bard of Erin and Alba," was the first of the race of the Scottish MacVurrichs, bards of the MacDonalds of Clanranald.[14] Cathal must have been a favourite with the poets, for many poems are addressed to him. The Irish Annals, also, break out into lamentations of unusual sincerity on the death of Cathal of the Red Hand. Among his other virtues, one that seems to have struck the writers of his day as particularly surprising was that he was content with one married wife and that after her death he remained single.[15] It may well have been an example of extraordinary virtue in his family. Turlogh had three wives and at least twenty legitimate and illegitimate children, and it is said that the Pope offered to allow King Rory O'Conor six wives if he would be satisfied with that number. Rory refused the offer, and the annalists ascribe to this the extinction of the monarchy of Ireland in his line, as a punishment for his sins.[16] No doubt Cathal's death in the Grey Habit, his institution of tithes, and the splendid abbeys built by him in his native province partly serve to account for the warmth of the monastic chroniclers' praises. Even so, the panegyric pronounced upon him by Torna O'Mulconry, his own and his son's official bard, is so startling, as a symbol of the standards of virtue in the thirteenth century, that we quote a few words from it: "Cathal Crovdearg, son of Turlogh Mór O'Conor, King of Connacht, died. He was a man calculated to strike fear and dread more than any other Irishman of his day; he was a man who burned the greatest number of homesteads, and took the greatest number of preys from both the English and Irish who opposed him; he was the most valorous and undaunted man in opposing his enemies that ever lived. It was he who blinded, killed, and subdued the greatest number of rebels and enemies...He was the most gentle and peaceable of all the kings that ever reigned in Ireland." [17]

[14] For his poems see Book of the Dean of Lismore; S. H. O'Grady, Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, pp. 333-338; Hull, Poem-book of the Gael, pp. 156, 157, 159.

[15] His wife was More, daughter of Donal O'Brien; she died in 1218

[16] Annals of Loch Cé, 1233.

[17] Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society (1852-53), ii, 337-339.

Cathal was succeeded, in turn, by his two sons Aedh (1224-28) and Felim (1228-65), but their reigns were a long contest for the throne with their cousins, the sons of Rory, of the elder line. Cathal had endeavoured to provide against this by getting Aedh recognized as his successor before his death, and it augured well for the introduction of the hereditary form of succession that it was remarked that "no crime was committed on account of his accession, save one act of plunder and one woman violated." [18] But though the English upheld the claims of Aedh, the eldest son, the people supported the sons of Rory and inaugurated one of them, Turlogh, on the cairn of Carnfree, with the help of Hugh O'Neill. Three armies entered the province, from the north, east, and south, for the O'Briens, aided by the English of Munster, flung themselves into the conflict. The country was devastated, and the inhabitants died of sickness, cold, and famine. These wars led the English troops into parts of Connacht into which they had never before penetrated; and Aedh's appeals for help "were cheerfully responded to, for these expeditions were profitable to the Foreigners, who obtained spoils without encountering danger or conflict." [19] The O'Flahertys were persistent and bitter enemies of Aedh, but with the help of his English allies he succeeded in subduing them, even driving them for a time out of parts of West Connacht. He patched up a transient peace with Donogh Cairbrech O'Brien, who a few months before had made a treaty "of drowning of candles" [20] with Aedh's enemies. In Mayo he compelled the O'Haras to submit. Aedh was now at peace, and the English Justiciar, escorted by him, had retired for the second time over the Shannon and into Athlone. But behind Aedh's back Richard de Burgh was intriguing to get Connacht into his hands. Already in 1219 he had made large offers to Henry III for the realization of what, on the ground of King John's loose promise to his father, he professed to claim as his right.[21]

[18] Annals of Loch Cé, 1224.

[19] Ibid., 1225.

[20] Annals of Loch Cé, 1225. That is, with excommunication of the party who broke the peace, the extinction of candles being a part of the ceremony of excommunication. The expression is frequently used.

[21] Sweetman, i, No. 900.

During Cathal's life the matter was waived, but on his death Richard again began to urge his demands with offers of increased tribute to the Crown. By a sudden and disgraceful change of government policy Aedh was summoned to Dublin to surrender the land of Connacht, "forfeited by his father and himself," for it was to be handed over to de Burgh at a fixed rent. Aedh did not come. He was dealing with Geoffrey de Marisco, one of the most crafty Justiciars who ever ruled in Ireland, a man whose crooked ways got him twice into disgrace and ended in his flight to France, where he died friendless and in poverty. De Marisco was bent on capturing Aedh by fair means or foul. He attempted to detain him, and would have succeeded but for the timely warning of Aedh's faithful friend, the noble and incorruptible Earl William Marshal the Younger, second Earl of Pembroke, whose family, in an epoch of subtle craft and scheming, stands out as a line of great soldier-statesmen, stern, dignified, and faithful. As his father had befriended William de Braose when he fell into disgrace, so the son befriended Aedh; his steady opposition to the scheme of confiscation led to the enmity of the King toward his house, and to persecution from the Justiciar.[22] But in the following year, 1228, de Marisco again invited Aedh to his house, where, by accident or design, he was killed by the stroke of an axe from the hand of a carpenter, jealous of the handsome face of Aedh. The carpenter's wife, according to the custom of the times, had bathed the guest "with sweet balls and other things" and washed his head. The carpenter was immediately hanged by the Justiciar; but Connacht again became the scene of sanguinary quarrels for the kingship.[23]

[22] Annals of Loch Cé, 1227.

[23] The O'Conor Don, in his O'Conors of Connaught, has followed earlier writers in confusing the friend of Aedh with Marisco, or Marsh, his worst enemy; but see Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, ii, 339. It was usual for guests to be bathed by women attendants.

It was in this year that Richard de Burgh, or, as he now came to be called, from the name of his father, MacWilliam Burke, replaced de Marisco as Justiciar, and was thus in a position from which he could carry out his projects. A fresh war broke out in Connacht led by the sons of Rory, whose followers, the MacDermotts of the Rock,[24] declared and pledged their word "that they would not own any king who would make them submit to the Foreigners," [25] and MacWilliam led an army into that province to expel Aedh, son of Rory, and place Felim, the late King's brother, on the throne. In this case the English seem to have ignored altogether their own principle of primogeniture. With a mixed army of English and Irish, who from this time onward are constantly found fighting on both sides, MacWilliam overran the province as far west as Mayo and Galway, and succeeded in placing Felim on the throne, banishing his cousin and rival to the O'Neill country. This happened in 1230. A steady policy on the part of Richard de Burgh might have settled the distracted province and consolidated the power of Felim, who appears to have been a man of greater force of character than his elder brother, the late King. But to settle the country was not MacWilliam's aim. The very next year we find him unseating Felim and imprisoning him at Meelick Castle and setting up his recently expelled rival in his place. But the flood of de Burgh's prosperity received a check. His near kinsman, Hubert de Burgh, who had been for fifteen years (1217-32) Justiciar of England, standing between the young King Henry III and the bad counsels of his French favourites, had fallen; and a band of hungry and mean-spirited Poitevins was filling England with anarchy and the Court with corruption. The change was reflected in Ireland in the disfavour into which Richard de Burgh suddenly fell. He was ordered to release Felim and deliver up the King's castles; and Felim, whose right to the sovereignty was strengthened by the defeat and death of his rival, Aedh, in 1233, began to carry out the order by himself, demolishing the castles that had been recently built, and setting up what promised to be a strong administration. But again de Burgh, who was partially restored to favour, gathered a great army, and assisted by Hugh de Lacy and Maurice FitzGerald (who is called "MacMaurice" or "MacMorrish" in the Annals, and who now became Justiciar), for the third time invaded Connacht and Thomond in his campaign of 1235. Felim made peace, and the five cantreds held by the English King were returned to him for a fixed tribute, which amounted to a practical partition of the province between him and de Burgh.

[24] I.e., the Rock of Loch Ce, famous for the Annals of that name; it was one of the principal residences of the MacDermott, who was chieftain of Moylurg.

[25] The technical term for such submission in Irish is "went into his house."

In 1240 Felim followed the example of his predecessors and appealed directly to the English King against the depredations of the barons and of their Irish allies. He was invited to visit London and lay his case in person before Henry; he was received with great honour by the King and "came home safely, joyfully, contentedly." The reception given to Felim in London undoubtedly changed his position at home for the better and put him out of reach of the designs of his enemies, and in 1245 we find him accompanying the Justiciar with a great Irish army to aid the King in his wars against Llewelyn in Wales. So effectually did he represent his case that the King sent his command to FitzGerald that he should "pluck up by the root that fruitless sycamore, de Burgh...nor suffer it to bud forth any longer." But the Justiciar himself soon fell into disgrace. His reply to the King's request for troops for the Welsh expedition had not been so prompt as might have been wished. The Norman-Irish barons had put in a plea for exemption from the duty of attending the King beyond the realm, and the King had to promise that the present occasion should not be taken as a precedent. But when at last FitzGerald and Felim presented themselves side by side in battle array with a numerous army, Henry thought it prudent to "wink awhile in policie at the tarriance and slow coming of Maurice FitzGerald," though he manifested his displeasure soon afterward by dismissing him from his post as Lord Justice. The provisions required for this miserable expedition, in which the troops suffered much from inclement weather and lack of food, were largely supplied from Ireland.

For the next twenty years affairs in Connacht went on much in the same manner. The rivals to the throne never relaxed their efforts, nor did de Burgh, whose lands were restored in 1247,[26] cease to push forward on every opportunity. More than once a delusive peace was patched up,[27] and from time to time Felim brought his case directly to the notice of the English King by ambassadors, "always obtaining from him everything he asked."[28] His son and successor took a prominent part in the wars of the province and kept at bay the rival princes. He seems to have been much with the English troops, for he is always styled Aedh-na-nGall, or "Hugh of the Foreigners," from his friendly relations with them. But the province was torn with dissensions, and the constant passage of great armies from end to end, preying and burning, brought it into a condition of wretchedness such as it had never experienced before.

[26] Sweetman, i, No. 2908.

[27] Annals of Loch Cé, 1255, 1256, 1257, etc.

[28] Ibid., 1255.

It was while things were in this condition that a determined effort was put forth to bring matters to a climax. An old Irish proverb says, "From the North comes help," and on more than one critical occasion it has been to Ulster that the warring factions have looked for a deliverer. The resolution of the Ulster kings to hold themselves aloof from the provincial wars of their neighbours had rarely been broken since the North had ceased to give its princes to the throne of Tara.

But at this moment a prince of more than usual force named Bryan O'Neill ruled in Tyrowen and Tyrconnel, whose septs he appears to have united under his sway. Probably he would still have held himself apart behind the protecting mountains that formed the frontiers of his territory but that the Justiciar, MacMaurice FitzGerald, harried him into action. Again and again the latter invaded Cinel Conaill on various excuses, and O'Neill felt that the castle of Caol-uisce, or "Narrow-Water," which had been built in 1212 by John de Gray, the then Justiciar of Ireland, in the gangway between Tyrconnel and Fermanagh to guard the main western pass of entry into his province, was a perpetual threat to his independence.[29] Since then it had been strengthened or re-erected by MacMaurice (1252), and he had forced Felim to build another castle not far off, at Sligo, out of stone and lime taken from a hospice that had been presented not long before by him to Bishop Claras MacMailin in honour of the Holy Trinity.[30] Thus threatened, Bryan O'Neill put forth all his strength to resist the invaders of his territory. On more than one occasion the English armies were forced to turn back, having obtained no pledges or hostages from O'Neill. In 1253 he made war on them on his own account; he demolished castles, burned 'street-towns'[31] and desolated the levels of Co. Down. In 1257 the castle of Caol-uisce was razed to the ground and its garrison slain, and the English of Sligo routed. The exploits of Bryan made all eyes turn to him as a possible saviour of the country, and a great meeting summoned to Caol-uisce in 1258 included not only Bryan O'Neill and Hugh, or Aedh, Felim's son, but also a representative of the O'Briens of the South. The Ulster and Connacht-men elected O'Neill sovereign of the Gael of Erin, and placed their hostages in his hands, Hugh at the same time receiving hostages from the O'Reilleys and other subject clans.

[29] The editors of the Annals of Loch Cé strangely confuse this place with Narrow-water, near Newry, Co. Down. See under 1252, note 4.

[30] Ibid., 1242, 1245, 1250.

[31] I.e., villages of one long street, of the kind still common in Ireland. At this period they are frequently mentioned in the Annals.

In 1260 the combination was complete, and Hugh hosted with the men of Connacht into the North, joining Bryan and his people in Tyrowen, and together they marched to Downpatrick. But their hopes were shattered by a terrible defeat. Bryan himself fell, and with him a long list of chieftains, both of Ulster and Connacht, fifteen being of the people of the O'Kanes (Muinter Cathain). The battle of Down put a definite end to the possibility of a combination strong enough to check the advance of the foreigner, and, until the confederation under another O'Neill, the great Tyrone, more than three centuries later, no similar united effort was organized by the Irish. Each provincial prince fought his own wars and made his own alliances, but there was no attempt to place themselves under a central ruler as King of Ireland. The special position of "Bryan of the battle of Down" was recognized by the English. His seal was afterward found near Beverley, in Yorkshire, with the inscription round a mounted warrior brandishing a long sword, Sigillum Brien, Regis de Kinel Eoghan. According to a poem written by his bard MacNamee, his head was carried to London and buried "under a white flagstone" in some church there, while his body was laid in Armagh.

MacWilliam Burke followed up the victory by fresh hostings into Connacht, and MacMaurice into Munster. They seem to have made an annual peace with their foes, Hugh O'Conor on one occasion even "sleeping cheerfully and contentedly in the same bed with MacWilliam Burke," but these were only momentary halts in the path of attempted conquest. MacWilliam's attention was distracted from Connacht for a time by his wars with the FitzGeralds of Munster, and meanwhile the strength of Felim and his son increased; in a conference at Athlone in 1264 they came so strongly attended that they secured their own terms, the English feeling it prudent to conclude a treaty with them. Felim died in the following year, having held his own with remarkable courage against the invaders. His tomb, bearing a dignified recumbent figure in white stone representing the King, still remains in the abbey of the Friars Preachers in Roscommon. About 1261, soon after the battle of Down, Felim had written to Henry III "returning infinite thanks to his Majesty for the various honours conferred on him, but chiefly for the King's orders to the Justiciar to cause restitution to be made to him for the losses which Gaultier [Walter] de Burgh had caused" of a portion of the lands in the cantreds of the King and elsewhere in the province, amounting in all to nine thousand marks. The Justiciar having died before the King's letter reached him, Felim states that Walter still continues to burn churches and slay nuns and ecclesiastics. The letter concludes: "For no promise made to him by the Irish had Felim receded, nor would he recede, from the King's service. He places himself, his people, and all he has under the protection of the King, and of the Lord Edward; and confides to the Lord Edward from then until the arrival of the latter in Ireland all his property and all his rights, if any he has, in Connacht." [32] There is something pathetic in the phrase "if any [property and rights] he has in Connacht," but between the various claimants among whom from time to time Felim heard of his lands being distributed, he may well have wondered where his own rights came in. The allusion to Lord Edward, the King's eldest son, afterward Edward I, refers to the proposal long entertained by Henry to make Prince Edward resident Lord of Ireland, and to transfer to him the practical government of the country. This proposal may have arisen out of the suggestion made on the King's accession by the then Justiciar, Geoffrey de Marisco, that the late Queen Isabella, widow of John, or her second son Richard should reside in Ireland, an admirable piece of advice which would have tended to check the insolent truculence of the barons and to give a much-needed central authority which the distant English kings could not wield.

[32] The original of this letter is in the Public Record Office, London; and see Gilbert, Facsimiles, ii, No. LXXIII.

Henry's later project to send over his eldest son, would have given the future king an intimate acquaintance with the affairs of Ireland, and it would undoubtedly have tended to consolidate that loyal sentiment of which the native kings were giving ample proof as opportunity arose. Unfortunately the plan broke down. In July 1255 the immediate departure of the Prince is spoken of; in August he is commanded to cross over from Gascony and proceed to Ireland for the winter as speedily as he can. But it does not appear that the Prince ever actually went over, and on his departure for the Holy Land vicegerents were appointed to act for him in relation to Ireland. Thus a plan fraught with favourable possibilities was allowed to drop, and the very rare visits of the English kings ill compensated for the actual residence of a prince of the royal blood in this part of the King's dominions.[33]

[33] It is seldom realized how rare and brief these visits were: Henry II, 1171; John, 1210; Richard II, 1394 and 1399; James II, 1689; William III, 1690; George IV, 1821; Victoria, 1849, 1853, 1861, 1900; Edward VII, 1903, 1904, 1907. These dates do not include visits before coronation.

Hugh, or Aedh, O'Conor succeeded his father, and during the years 1270-72 he made a most determined and successful stand against the English, defeating them in the field, demolishing their castles, and driving his victorious arms as far east as Meath. In 1271 his bitterest foe, Walter de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, suddenly died in Galway; and in 1274 the nine years of Hugh's vigorous reign were closed by his death, after he had cleared his province from the invaders. But his loss meant the revival of the old dissensions for the kingship, and in the same year three of his grandsons were successively kings of Connacht, each being slain by his rival cousins within a few weeks of his succession. Between 1274, when Hugh died, and 1315, when Edward Bruce landed in Ireland, there were thirteen kings of Connacht, of whom nine were slain, usually by their own brothers or cousins, and two were deposed. When Edward Bruce landed the throne was occupied by a foster-son of the powerful chief of the MacDermotts, who gathered round him a strong following, and called upon William Liath de Burgh to support him. The MacDermotts were violently opposed to any English connexion, and the young prince called on his adherents to swear "that for the future we will not stain our swords with the blood of Irishmen, or flourish them with parricidal hands, but will draw them against the Saxon assassins, the enemies of our country and of the human race." Matters were in this condition when the news of the landing of Brace on the coasts of Ulster in 1315 gave events a new direction.

We must now turn our attention to contemporary affairs in the South of Ireland. The country of Thomond during the latter years of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries was disturbed to an unusual extent by the wars between the O'Briens and de Clares, commonly known as the Wars of Thomond. It would seem that from the time of Donal, the prince who submitted to Henry II, the family had abandoned to a certain extent their claims to the sovereignty, though they continued to be inaugurated at Magh Adhair for some time longer. Donogh Cairbrech, Donal's son and successor (1194-1242) was the first O'Brien to adopt the name as that of his family "after having dropped the royal style and title that were ever customary to his ancestors." [34] Similar changes were going on all over Ireland, for many of the family names date from this period. In 1210, when King John landed, Donogh swore fealty, and the castle of Carrigogonnell was delivered over to him. He abandoned the ancient palace of Killaloe, the seat of the sovereignty since the time of Kennedy, father of Brian Boromhe, and built a new castle at Clonroad (Cluain-ramh-fhoda), near Ennis, which henceforth became the chief dwelling of the family. But it was one thing to swear allegiance to a distant sovereign and quite another to have the territories that had belonged to the sept of the Dalcais for many centuries trampled down and annexed by the subjects of that prince. The yearly encroachments of the "foreign adventurers, who, through excess of rapacity that grew and settled in them, were committing oppression and injustice, violence and constant pillage, on the old natives and stripping them of their estates and blood everywhere they could," aroused the Irish to the necessity of combining to elect a supreme king of Ireland, who should hold them together in a united effort to drive back the foreigner.

[34] The Triumphs of Turlogh (1194-1355), from which the following details are largely taken, is a lengthy tract written by John MacRory MacGrath, historian of the Dalcais, about 1459. Though it is compiled in the inflated style of the bardic chroniclers, it gives details not to be found elsewhere. But the dates need correction. The story of the meeting of Teige and Bryan at Caol-uisce, for example, is antedated by six years.

To the conference of Caol-uisce Conor O'Brien, the reigning prince, had sent his son Teige to represent him. But it would seem that both Teige and Bryan O'Neill expected to be the chosen candidate for the sovereignty, and when Teige sent a present of a hundred steeds to O'Neill, as from the lord to his vassal, O'Neill returned them with the addition of two hundred more, each decked out with a golden bridle. Furious at the return of his gift, Teige ordered an armed trooper to mount on every steed, and in this warlike guise the whole body swung back and drew up before O'Neill "in order to secure his submission by fair means or by force." But O'Neill, "seeing O'Brien's pride and haughty mind," drew away in anger, and the conference broke up, both the chief representatives returning home in wrath. Thus a much-needed combination between the North and the South ended in the old way, tribal pride weighing more with the leaders than even the desire to rid the country of the enemy. O'Neill, forsaken by his chief supporter, marched to the battle of Down and fell there with the men of Ulster and Connacht around him, while Teige returned to his own province to fight single-handed against an enemy "whom he hated and abhorred more than any animal or creature under heaven; nor would he suffer one of the English progeny to inhabit so much as a nutshell of a pauper's hut throughout the country under his sway." So says the panegyrist of his house, Rory McGrath, writing a couple of hundred years after him. He inflicted a severe defeat on the English at Limerick, but he died before he was of age. Conor O'Brien, after his son's death, "was filled with despondency and a loathing and contempt for the world." He retired into private life, and his subjects revolted from his rule and refused to pay their royal dues. But in 1267, summoning his resolution, he gathered together his forces for a raid northward against Conor O'Lochlan, leaving the country behind him "in red flashes of blazing fire and wreathed in crimson-tinted smoke," only to fall in a wood in Clare named Siudan, from which he is called Conor na Siudaine.

On Conor's death the whole province was rent between opposing claimants for the title of King of Thomond. His son Brian Roe O'Brien was unanimously elected at Magh Adhair, but the MacNamaras and O'Deas disputed his claim, and he was forced to fly across the Shannon, while the opposing party put up Turlogh, his nephew, son of Teige, in his stead. It was at this moment of family feud that Brian Roe took the resolution to follow Dermot MacMorrogh's example and to appeal to the English for help. He sent his son Donogh to Thomas, son of the Earl of Clare, in Cork offering to him and his heirs in return for his aid, all the land between Limerick and Athsollas. The offer must have been as agreeable as it was unexpected. Shortly before, de Clare had received permission from Henry III to make what acquisitions he could among the Irish, but he could scarcely have reckoned on the good fortune which, without effort on his own part, threw so fine a demesne into his grasp by gift. He readily consented, and in 1277 the de Clares and O'Briens, joined by the Geraldines and Butlers, with large bodies both of Irish and English, met at Limerick and marched from thence to Clonroad, hoping to find Turlogh there. But he was gone south to receive the fealty of the MacMahons, and was collecting an army which was to include the O'Kellys, O'Maddens, and O'Madigans from Connacht, and the MacNamaras, O'Deas, O'Quins, and MacMahons, supported by the de Burghs, who were never loath to have a fight with their hereditary foes the Geraldines. Thus the whole South was quickly astir with English and Irish fighting equally on both sides, as they were to fight for many centuries afterward. De Clare had found time, during the short pause, to erect at Bunratty a castle of lime and stone and to banish the old inhabitants and settle his expectant soldiers, both English and Irish, on his new lands; but the return of the Cullenans (Clann Culien), the former inhabitants, made their lives a burden. The great armies met at Moygressan, where Turlogh inflicted on Brian party a complete defeat, the remnant flying in rout to Bunratty. Many of the leaders were killed, among them the brother of de Clare's wife, Patrick FitzMaurice. In her anger at his loss she persuaded her husband to a frightful revenge upon their hapless ally. Brian was seized and "bound to stern steeds" to be torn to pieces, according to one account: but the Triumphs of Turlogh say that he was hanged.[35] In any case it was an act of inexcusable treachery, for the two allies had sworn a solemn oath together, and had formed 'gossipred' or sponsorship for their children, exchanging mutual vows "by the relics, bells, and croziers of Munster." According to the old Irish custom, they had even mingled their blood in the same vessel in token of unity.[36] The anger of the Dalcais was so great that de Clare had to build a double ditch round his castle for defence; subsequently the de Clares and Geraldines were driven into the Slievebloom Mountains, where they were forced by famine to capitulate and acknowledge the O'Briens as sovereigns of Thomond.

[35] So also the Dublin copy of the Annals of Innisfallen. The same account is given of the death of Tiernan O'Rorke in the Book of Fenagh, where he is said to have been drawn by wild horses, but there is no support for this. It was, however, a common form of punishment for great crimes at this period.

[36] Annals of Loch Cé, 1277.

This wasting and cruel war lasted for over fifty years with varying fortunes. De Clare dreaded the success of Turlogh, who was a strong prince and uniformly successful in the field, and he took the course of deliberately stirring up hostilities between the rival houses. The uproar was, even for Ireland, so unusual that it penetrated to Westminster, and the King sent for the Lord Justice to answer in person for the tumult that was going on in the land. Turlogh proved a formidable foe. In 1285 he defeated de Clare and laid waste English Thomond to the walls of Bunratty. In 1287 he repeated his success, and Thomas de Clare, FitzMaurice, and others were slain. He built in Ennis the first castle erected by a native prince of Thomond all of stone. In 1304 he received hostages from all the chiefs of North Munster, demolished the English castles as far as Youghal, and forced Richard de Clare to acknowledge him. His reign was one of uninterrupted prosperity. But the wars continued after his death in 1306, and were still in progress when Edward Bruce landed in 1315. The race of Brian Roe O'Brien was nearly extirpated at the battle of Corcomroe, leaving the line of Turlogh in the ascendant; and the de Clares were expelled from Thomond, leaving no trace of their occupation behind. After the fatal battle of Dysart O'Dea in 1318, in which de Clare was slain, his wife and followers abandoned the country and went back to England, never to return. The O'Briens had prevailed.

By the end of the thirteenth century the larger part of Ireland, except O'Neill's and O'Donnell's vast territories in Western Ulster, Oriell (Co. Louth), and the O'Rorkes' country of Breifne (Cos. Leitrim and Cavan), were claimed by various Norman barons in right of grants from English sovereigns, often overlapping each other, equally a matter of contention between opposing feudatories as between them and the Irish kings whom they were endeavouring to displace. The great Liberties of Meath, Carlow, Kilkenny, and Wexford were practically independent principalities, in which quiet was enforced by the garrisons occupying the motes or castles scattered thickly about the country. The family of the Butlers, later to become Earls, and finally Dukes, of Ormonde, who came over for the first time with King John in 1210, settled down on estates in Upper Tipperary; and the larger part of the estates of Strongbow had passed into the hands of the family of Mareschal, or Marshal, who became, by the marriage of William Marshal with the daughter and heiress of Strongbow, Earls of Pembroke and Striguil, and possessors of her great position and estates. Of all the Norman lords who founded families in Ireland, Earl Marshal bears the most unblemished character. He worthily carried on the tradition left by Strongbow in Leinster by endeavouring to build up a peaceable and settled principality in which the Irish inhabitants and English settlers could live in amity side by side. His was a romantic career. He had grown up during the wars of Stephen, when England was reduced to a condition of anarchy and misrule perhaps never equalled in her history.

As a boy he had been handed over to Stephen as a hostage, (1152), and he only escaped a horrible death by being shot out of a huge catapult used for storming castles by his childish prattle about the weapon, which he thought was only a pretty toy, thus attracting the attention and liking of Stephen, His youth was spent in the wars of Poitou and in the Crusades, where his exploits brought him into prominence and aroused the jealousy of his rivals. His whole early life was beset by the endeavours of enemies to undermine his influence with Henry II, whose part he took against his rebellious sons, John and Richard, but his incorruptible loyalty and his nobility of character carried him to the highest offices of the realm. He took his family name from the high position held by himself and by his father before him as Lords Marshal of England. He came to Ireland for the first time in 1207, but he was constantly recalled to England either on official business or by the intrigues of his enemies in Ireland, who envied him his great estates. Meiler FitzHenry, the younger de Lacy, and afterward Geoffrey de Marisco were the determined adversaries of his house, and plunged him and his sons and successors, William Marshal the Younger and Richard Marshal, into perpetual wars; but the earls showed their steadfastness and independence of mind by sheltering de Braose of Limerick from the wrath of his sovereign and Kings Aedh and Felim of Connacht from the designs of their enemies. The elder Marshal, of whom it was said that "He who made him was a great architect," spent the latter years of his long life, passed under four English monarchs, in his favourite town of Kilkenny,[37] beautifying it by building the splendid castle and abbeys by which it is adorned and founding the Cathedral of St Canice, from which the city takes its name. It quickly became a town of repute, second only to Dublin in historical interest, and several of the earliest Irish Parliaments assembled there. He and his sons developed Ossory, encouraged trade, established markets, and watched with interested eyes the progress of the new towns and villages springing up around the Norman keeps and castles all over Southern Leinster. New Ross they specially fostered as a possible rival to Waterford.

[37] Kilkenny Castle was purchased by James, third Earl of Ormonde, in 1392 from Sir Hugh le Despencer, Earl of Gloucester, to whom it had passed on the failure of male heirs to William Marshal the Younger, and it has ever since been the chief seat of the Ormonde family. See deed of transfer in Gilbert, Facsimiles, iii, No. XX.

When William Marshal the elder died in 1219 [38] he left five sons and five daughters; the sons were successively Earls of Pembroke and Marshals of England, and the two eldest succeeded him in his Irish estates, but they all died without issue. Giraldus remarks on the paucity of male descendants among the Geraldines; and in the second generation the lack of legitimate sons to the Norman lords continued. Neither Richard de Burgh nor the de Lacys left adult male heirs, and the great inheritance of the Earls Marshal was parcelled out among the five daughters of the first of their line. By the marriages of these ladies into the families of the Bigods, Earls of Norfolk, the de Clares, Earls of Gloucester, the de Warennes, Earls of Surrey, and others of the highest families of England, King Dermot's daughter Eva (Aoife) became the ancestress of many English lines of distinction closely connected in some cases with the throne. Richard Marshal, the third earl, with the usual fearless rectitude of his house endeavoured to resist the evil influence which "the mean brood of Poitevin favourites" was exercising over the mind of young Henry III, and suffered outlawry for his fidelity; in Ireland he was beset by intrigues and finally fell a victim to a combination formed against him; abandoned by his own people, he fought single-handed against his enemies and was mortally wounded in the battle of the Curragh of Kildare in 1234. The annalist adds, "This deed was one of the greatest deeds committed in that time."

[38] The father and son were buried in the Temple Church, in London. The office of Earl Marshal passed to the Bigods, Earls of Norfolk, and through them to the Mowbrays and Howards, the present Earls Marshal.

There are various indications that at this time many of the Irish leaders desired to throw themselves on the side of law and order and to support any honourable officer who set himself to bring about peaceable relations between the contending parties in the country. An instance of this is found in the action of certain Irish chiefs in Ulster, who had been assisting Sir William FitzWarenne to restore peace between the English and Irish in that district and who wrote to the King that they had endeavoured with all their might to support the seneschal by pursuing and routing the King's Irish enemies, but had only been oppressed by some of the Council of Ireland as their reward. They pray that these evildoers may not escape punishment, otherwise they fear that this war will serve as an example for others to follow.[39] They are referring especially to the discord stirred up in the district by the evil deeds of Sir Henry de Mandeville, who had been appointed bailiff in Twescard, in the north of the present Co. Antrim, at a moment when, through the exertions of de Warenne, the whole land of Ulster had been brought into a condition of peace, and hostages had been rendered for the continuance of these good relations. But with the entry of this fire-eating knight all was changed. Though himself an Anglo-Norman, he set himself to stir up the Irish to commit crimes on all the surrounding Norman settlers and their dependents, in order to secure their properties for himself; he had defrauded the revenue and "by rapine and unjust extortion to his own use had brought the land into a state of ruin." The whole community "as well of English as of Irish" threatened to rise if the bailiwick were granted to Sir Henry, "saving their fealty to Lord Edward." No country could settle down with violent men like de Mandeville setting his neighbours by the ears, and instigating one party to murder the other, and there were unfortunately always some officials in the Government in Dublin to support these evildoers. A three-cornered contest between the de Burghs, FitzWarennes, and de Mandevilles, which was carried on from father to son, culminated in 1333 in the awful tragedy of the murder of the youthful Brown Earl of Ulster, William de Burgh, by Richard de Mandeville, when they were quietly riding home together from morning prayer in apparent friendship.

[39] Sweetman, ii, Nos. 929, 952, 953.

In Ulster, Munster, and Connacht alike jealousies and treacheries between the Anglo-Norman families were ever ready to break out, as one member more ambitious or warlike than the others got the upper hand; each was ready to combine with the Irish princes against his own compatriots or to use Irish quarrels to further his own ends. From time to time the distant kings intervened, pointing out how "Ireland is depauperated by discord and wars," and expressing their disturbance and anxiety of mind thereat; "desiring much that these controversies and wars should be appeased and that peace and tranquility should prevail." [40] But these desires had little effect on men intent upon their family disputes and ambitions in Ireland. In the year 1311 the compiler of the Annals of Clonmacnois, copying from an earlier writer "whom he would take to be an authentic author who would tell nothing but the truth," says that in his time "there reigned more dissensions, strifes, warres and debates, between the Englishmen themselves than between the Irishmen, as by perusing the warres betweene the Lacies of Meath, John Courcy, Earl of Ulster, William Marshal and the English of Meath and Mounster, mac Gerrald [FitzGerald], the Burkes, Butlers and Cogan may appear." In addition, the constant changes of policy in England produced a perpetual ferment. They were always destined to be a source of weakness and unrest in Ireland, and especially so during the frequent revolutions and changes of dynasty which disturbed England throughout the period of the Plantagenet and Yorkist wars. Though not directly concerned in the dynastic conflicts raging round the English throne, the Anglo-Irish barons were inevitably dragged into them, and rival parties were formed which took different sides in these distant struggles.

[40] Sweetman, ii, No. 1155.

From the time of John's visits in 1185 and 1210, first as prince and later as king, the barons in Ireland began to experience sudden changes of royal favour. From his day the old settlers began to fall into disfavour and were forced to make way for the "new English," as the later comers were loosely called. John had brought with him to Ireland a swarm of dissolute favourites, "talkers, boasters, enormous swearers," Angevin and Poitevin by birth, men who were "bold in the town but cowards in the field" and "who in Ireland would be far from the west and nigh to the east and the sea, as though they had a mind to flee rather than to fight." They clung round the Court in order to receive favours, though they gave none. The Irish christened the new lords, French and English alike, the Dubh-Gaill, or "Black Foreigners," when comparing them with the great barons of an earlier day, as in times gone by they had so named the Danes in comparing them with the more friendly Norsemen who had preceded them.[41] These men of the old nobility were thrust aside and only young favourites were called to the Council. Thus, while busily engaged in building up their Irish estates, the Anglo-Irish lords were forced all the time to keep one eye fixed on affairs in England and on the policies of English kings. At any moment they might find themselves fallen into disfavour, either through a change in State policy or through the whispering of some malicious enemy near the throne who was anxious to undermine their influence. They became, in consequence, more and more independent of outside interference, and each baron ruled within his own domain like a free prince in his palatinate.

[41] Annals of Ulster, 1310, and Annals of the Four Masters, at same date.