Part 575

"The feudal system as established in Ireland differed in important respects from that existing in England. It is usual for Irish writers to attribute much of the sufferings of Ireland to the misgovernment of England and the introduction of feudalism, whereas most of these evils may be referred rather to English non-government and to the peculiar anomalies of the Irish feudal system. The feudal system as introduced into Ireland, like most other institutions imported from England, was altered in such a manner as to retain all its evils, and lose all its advantages. The Crown in Ireland possessed no power of controlling its vassals. … In Ireland there were no manor or valuable estates that the Crown could appropriate—the entire country had to be conquered; and as the Crown did not assist in the conquest, it received no part of the spoils. Thus we find the Crown had absolutely no demesnes of its own, and, being deprived of any military force of its own, it had to rely upon such of the great feudal vassals as might remain loyal for the purpose of crushing those who might be in rebellion. The inevitable result of this policy was to kindle a civil war and excite personal feuds in the attempt to maintain order. … We have thus a feudal system, in which the Crown is powerless to fulfil its duties, yet active in preventing the greater nobles from exercising that influence which might have secured a reasonable degree of order. The whole energy of the nobles was turned away from government to war; and lest they should become local potentates, they were allowed to degenerate into local tyrants. But what, meanwhile, had become of the Irish nation? As the feudal system ignored their existence, we have permitted them to fall out of our view; but they still existed, and still were politically independent. The invaders had occupied the flat country, suitable for the operation of their forces, and the original inhabitants had retired into either the mountainous districts, impassable to cavalry, or into districts protected by the bogs, and difficult of access; nay, even in some parts of the island, where the Normans were not in force, they had re-occupied large portions of the open country. They did not retire as disorganised fugitives, but the tribes retreated, keeping their social organisation unbroken; and, although removed from their original habitations, still preserved their social identity. The remarkable point in the conquest was, that the Celtic population was not driven back upon anyone portion of the kingdom, but remained as it was, interpolated among the new arrivals. … The Celtic population possessed no definite legal position, filled no place in the feudal hierarchy, and was in the eyes of the English Government hostile and alien; the only exception to this was the case of the O'Briens, who, though not actually feudal vassals, had their estates secured by a charter, and five Irish families, through some unknown reason, were considered as the king's men and entitled to his protection; these were known as the five bloods, who enjoyed the law of England to the extent of the privilege to sue in the king's courts, viz., O'Neill, O'Molaghlin, O'Connor, O'Brien, and M'Murrough. … The Irish in Ireland were treated by the king's courts in Ireland as an alien and hostile nation; an Irishman out of the king's peace could not bring an action against an Englishman. … But, though legally ignored, the Irish tribes could not be politically disregarded. The English Government used their assistance to repress the rebellions of insurgent vassals. … They were called on to furnish assistance to the English armies, and on many occasions we find their chiefs summoned by writ of Parliament, as if feudal vassals; but the mode in which they were treated depended upon the immediate objects and want of the English Government, and the general course of conduct pursued towards them was such as has been previously stated. … We thus find the English and Irish races hopelessly at variance, and it would seem that one or other must have been crushed out in the contest; but such was not the result; they both survived, and, contrary to reasonable expectations, the Irish exhibited the greater vitality. The expulsion of the English colony was an effort beyond the power of the disunited Irish tribes; for in the darkest hours of the English settlement the power of England was ready, by some sudden effort, to reassert the English supremacy. But why did the Anglo-Normans wholly fail to subdue the Irish? …

1. The large extent comprised in the grants made to the first colonists led to a dispersion of the Norman nobles over the more fertile portions of the country. The English colony never formed one compact body capable of combined action. …

{1760}

2. The military equipment of the Normans, and their mode of carrying on war, rendered their forces wholly inefficient, when, leaving the flat country, they attempted to penetrate the fastnesses of the native tribes. …

3. From the absence of any central government, civil wars continually arose between the several Norman lords; thus the military power of the colonists was frittered away in dissensions. …

4. The English Government continually called upon the Irish barons for aids and military service, to be employed in wars elsewhere than in Ireland. …

5. Many of the estates of the Norman nobles descended to heiresses who married Englishmen already possessing estates in England: hence arose absenteeism.

6. Even the lords who resided constantly upon their Irish estates gradually lost their Norman habits, and tended to assimilate themselves to the manners, and to adopt the language, of the Irish."

_A. G. Richey, Short History of the Irish People, chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _P. W. Joyce, Short History of Ireland, part 3._

See, also, PALATINE, THE IRISH COUNTIES; and GERALDINES.

IRELAND: The Celticizing of the Anglo-Norman conquerors.

"Prior to experience, it would have been equally reasonable to expect that the modern Englishman would adopt the habits of the Hindoo or the Mohican, as that the fiery knights of Normandy would have stooped to imitate a race whom they despised as slaves; that they would have flung away their very knightly names to assume a barbarous equivalent [the De Burghs became Bourkes or Burkes, the M'Sweenies had been Veres in England, and the Munster Geraldines merged their family name in that of Desmond.—Foot-note]; and would so utterly have cast aside the commanding features of their Northern extraction, that their children's children could be distinguished neither in soul nor body, neither in look, in dress, in language, nor in disposition, from the Celts whom they had subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary fact. The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in yielding, yielded only to fling over their new masters the subtle spell of the Celtic disposition. In vain the government attempted to stem the evil. Statute was passed after statute forbidding the 'Englishry' of Ireland to use the Irish language, or intermarry with Irish families, or copy Irish habits. Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines, forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for such offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on irresistibly. Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the system, but only for themselves or their children to be swept into the stream; and from the century which succeeded the Conquest till the reign of the eighth Henry, the strange phenomenon repeated itself, generation after generation, baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralysing every effort at a remedy."

_J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 8 (volume 2)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1314-1318. Edward Bruce's invasion.

The crushing defeat of the English by the Scotch at Bannockburn (1314) rekindled a spirit of rebellion in Ireland, and the discontented chiefs made haste to solicit aid from Scotland, offering the sovereignty of their island to Edward Bruce, brother of king Robert, if he would come to their help and conquer it. "By consent of king Robert, who was pleased to make a diversion against England upon a vulnerable point, and not, perhaps, sorry to be rid of a restless spirit, which became impatient in the lack of employment, Edward invaded Ireland at the head of a force of 6,000 Scots. He fought many battles, and gained them all. He became master of the province of Ulster, and was solemnly crowned king of Ireland; but found himself amid his successes obliged to intreat the assistance of king Robert with fresh supplies; for the impetuous Edward, who never spared his own person, was equally reckless of exposing his followers; and his successes were misfortunes, in so far as they wasted the brave men with whose lives they were purchased. Robert Bruce led supplies to his brother's assistance, with an army which enabled him to overrun Ireland, but without gaining any permanent advantage. He threatened Dublin, and penetrated as far as Limerick in the west, but was compelled, by scarcity of provisions, to retire again into Ulster, in the spring of 1317. He shortly after returned to Scotland, leaving a part of his troops with Edward, though probably convinced that his brother was engaged in a desperate and fruitless enterprise. … After his brother's departure, Edward's career of ambition was closed at the battle of Dundalk, where, October 5th, 1318, fortune at length failed a warrior who had tried her patience by so many hazards. On that fatal day he encountered, against the advice of his officers, an Anglo-Irish army ten times more numerous than his own. A strong champion among the English, named John Maupas, singling out the person of Edward, slew him, and received death at his hands. … A general officer of the Scots, called John Thomson, led back the remnant of the Scottish force to their own country. And thus ended the Scottish invasion of Ireland, with the loss of many brave soldiers."

_Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 11 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _T. Moore, History of Ireland, volume 3, chapter 36._

IRELAND: A. D. 1327-1367. Oppressions of the reign of Edward III.

"Of all the legislative measures of this period the most notable was the Statute of Kilkenny, passed at a Parliament held in that town, in the last year of the decade, in the Lent session of 1367. This 'famous, or infamous,' enactment gathered up into one, and recapitulated with additional aggravations and insults, all the former oppressive, exasperating, and iniquitous ordinances by which English legislation for Ireland had hitherto been disgraced. … Among the earliest measures passed in the reign of Edward III. was a statute directed against absenteeism, obliging all Englishmen who were Irish proprietors either to reside on their estates or to provide soldiers to defend them. But this enactment was unproductive of good results. The O'Neills drove the colonists out of the 'liberty of Ulster,' and the English De Burghs, so far from helping to uphold English ascendency, appropriated to themselves the entire lordship of Connaught, made common cause with the native tribes, and adopting their dress, language, and customs, became 'Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,' threw off their allegiance to King Edward, and bade defiance to the King's authority. Thus it came to pass that before many years of this reign had elapsed more than a third part of the territories of the Pale was again in the hands of its original possessors. … Edward III. inherited the barbarous and iniquitous traditions of English rule in Ireland, but he improved upon them. {1761} He ordered all his officers in that country who had Irish estates to be removed and give place to Englishmen with no Irish ties. He next declared void every grant of land in Ireland since the time of Edward II., and made new grants of the lands thus recovered to the Crown. The tendency of this monstrous measure was to create two more antagonistic parties in Ireland, destined by their bitter dissensions to bring about the result that ere long 'all the King's land in Ireland was on the point of passing away from the Crown of England,'— viz., the 'English by blood,' as the established settlers were called, and the 'English by birth,' or new grantees. Some of the chief of the former, in despair of a career, or even of a quiet life, at home, were about to bid good-bye to Ireland and seek their fortunes elsewhere, when they were arrested by a proclamation making it penal for any English subject capable of bearing arms to leave the country. … The 'English by blood' became more and more intimately connected and identified with the native Irish, and the 'English by birth' became more and more powerless to maintain the English ascendency; till at last, in 1361, the King determined on sending over a viceroy of the blood royal, and appointed to the post his son Lionel, created shortly afterwards Duke of Clarence, whom he had married to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter and representative of the last Earl of Ulster. But though Prince Lionel, on his arrival, took the precaution of forbidding any man born in Ireland to approach his camp, his position soon became so critical that the King issued writs commanding all the absentee Irish lords to hasten to Ireland to the assistance of the Prince, 'for that his very dear son and his companions in Ireland were in imminent peril.' The next step was the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny. It re-enacted the prohibition of marriage and foster-nursing, rendered obligatory the adoption of the English language and customs, forbade the national games of 'hurlings and quoitings,' and the use of the ancient Gaelic code called the Senchus Mor; a code by which the native brehons, or judges, of the Irish septs had decided causes among them since the time of the conversion of the race to Christianity in the fifth century."

_W. Warburton, Edward III., 4th decade, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _W. Longman, Life and Times of Edward III., volume 2, chapter 1._

_T. Leland, History of Ireland, book 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1494. Poynings' Laws.

During the Wars of the Roses, "if Ireland had any preference for either of the great contending parties in England, it was … for the House of York; and from this cause chiefly sprang the change of Henry VII.'s mode of governing the dependency which on ascending the throne he had found all but severed from his dominions. At first he had thought it best to employ the native nobility for this purpose, and had chosen for Deputy the Earl of Kildare—setting him, as the story ran, to rule all Ireland, because all Ireland could not rule him. When, however, he had time to reflect on the dangers springing from the Irish support of Simnel and Warbeck, from which he and his dynasty had escaped so narrowly, he perceived the necessity of bringing the country under a more regular government. Accordingly he sent over in 1494 (at the time when Warbeck was preparing for his descent on England) Sir Edward Poynings as Lord Deputy, a statesman and commander well experienced in the most important affairs of the time."

_C. E. Moberly, The Early Tudors, chapter 6._

After some military operations, which he found to be beset with treacheries and difficulties, the new Lord Deputy held a Parliament at Drogheda—"perhaps the most memorable that was ever held in Ireland, as certainly no other Parliament in that country made laws which endured so long as two which were then enacted, and were known for centuries afterwards as the 'Poynings Acts.' By the first of these it was ordained that no Parliament should be held in Ireland in future until the king's Council in England had approved not only of its being summoned, but also of the Acts which the Lieutenant and Council of Ireland proposed to pass in it. By the second the laws enacted before that time in England were extended to Ireland also. Thus the Irish legislature was made entirely dependent upon England. The Irish Parliament had no power to originate anything, but was only free to accept or (if they were very bold) to reject measures drawn up by the Irish Council and approved already by the king and his Council in England before they were submitted to discussion. Little as this looks like parliamentary government, such was the state of subjection in which the Irish Parliament remained by virtue of this law for nearly three centuries later. Almost the whole time, that is to say, that Ireland had a separate Parliament at all it remained in this manner restricted in its action by the legislation of Sir Edward Poynings. … It should be remembered, however, that Henry VII. merely sought to do in Ireland what there is every reason to suppose he practically did in England. Legislation was not at this time considered to be the chief business of a Parliament."

_J. Gairdner, Henry the Seventh, chapter. 8._

ALSO IN: _R. Bagwell, Ireland Under the Tudors, chapter 8._

_W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, book 2, chapter 4, section 7._

_H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 18 (volume 3)._

IRELAND: A. D. 1515. The English Pale and the Clans and Chiefs beyond it.

"The events on which we are about to enter require for their understanding a sketch of the position of the various chiefs, as they were at this time scattered over the island. The English pale, originally comprising 'the four shires,' as they were called, of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel or Louth, had been shorn down to half its old dimensions. The line extended from Dundalk to Ardee; from Ardee by Castletown to Kells; thence through Athboy and Trim to the Castle of Maynooth; from Maynooth it crossed to Claine upon the Liffey, and then followed up the line of the river to Ballimore Eustace, from which place it skirted back at the rear of the Wicklow and Dublin mountains to the forts at Dalkey, seven miles south of Dublin. This narrow strip alone, some fifty miles long and twenty broad, was in any sense English. Beyond the borders the common law of England was of no authority; the king's writ was but a strip of parchment; and the country was parcelled among a multitude of independent chiefs, who acknowledged no sovereignty but that of strength, who levied tribute on the inhabitants of the pale as a reward for a nominal protection of their rights, and as a compensation for abstaining from the plunder of their farms. … {1762} These chiefs, with their dependent clans, were distributed over the four provinces in the following order. The Geraldines, the most powerful of the remaining Normans, were divided into two branches. The Geraldines of the south, under the Earls of Desmond, held Limerick, Cork, and Kerry; the Geraldines of Leinster lay along the frontiers of the English pale; and the heads of the house, the Earls of Kildare, were the feudal superiors of the greater portion of the English counties. To the Butlers, Earls of Ormond and Ossory, belonged Kilkenny, Carlow, and Tipperary. The De Burghs, or Bourkes, as they called themselves, were scattered over Galway, Roscommon, and the south of Sligo, occupying the broad plains which lie between the Shannon and the mountains of Connemara and Mayo. This was the relative position into which these clans had settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with little variation. The north, which had fallen to the Lacies and the De Courcies, had been wholly recovered by the Irish. The Lacies had become extinct. The De Courcies, once Earls of Ulster, had migrated to the south, and were reduced to the petty fief of Kinsale, which they held under the Desmonds. The Celtic chieftains had returned from the mountains to which they had been driven, bringing back with them, more intensely than ever, the Irish habits and traditions. … The O'Neils and O'Donnells had spread down over Ulster to the frontiers of the pale. The O'Connors and O'Carrolls had recrossed the Shannon and pushed forwards into Kildare; the O'Connor Don was established in a castle near Portarlington, said to be one of the strongest in Ireland; and the O'Carrolls had seized Leap, an ancient Danish fortress, surrounded by bog and forest, a few miles from Parsonstown. O'Brien of Inchiquin, Prince—as he styled himself—of Thomond, no longer contented with his principality of Clare, had thrown a bridge across the Shannon five miles above Limerick, and was thus enabled to enter Munster at his pleasure and spread his authority towards the south; while the M'Carties and O'Sullivans, in Cork and Kerry, were only not dangerous to the Earls of Desmond, because the Desmonds were more Irish than themselves, and were accepted as their natural chiefs. In Tipperary and Kilkenny only the Celtic reaction was held in check. The Earls of Ormond, although they were obliged themselves to live as Irish chieftains, and to govern by the Irish law, yet … remained true to their allegiance, and maintained the English authority as far as their power extended. … Wexford, Wicklow, and the mountains of Dublin, were occupied by the Highland tribes of O'Bryne and O'Toole, who, in their wild glens and dangerous gorges, defied attempts to conquer them, and who were able, at all times, issuing down out of the passes of the hills, to cut off communication with the pale. Thus the Butlers had no means of reaching Dublin except through the county of Kildare, the home of their hereditary rivals and foes. This is a general account of the situation of the various parties in Ireland at the beginning of the 16th century. I have spoken only of the leading families. … 'There be sixty counties, called regions, in Ireland,' says the report of 1515, 'inhabited with the king's Irish enemies.'"

_J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 8 (volume 2)._

See, also, PALE, THE ENGLISH.

IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553. The reconquest under Henry VIII. and the fall of the Geraldines. The political pacification and the religious alienation.