Ireland: The People's History of Ireland, Volume 1 (of 2)

RECORDING THE DOINGS OF THE ENGLISH AND IRISH, IN 183 IRELAND, FROM THE TIME OF JAMES I TO THE JACOBITE WARS IN THE DAYS OF JAMES II AND WILLIAM III

CHRONICLING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN IRELAND FROM THE 259 ARRIVAL OF JAMES II IN THAT COUNTRY UNTIL THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE OF BERWICK TO FRANCE AFTER THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK,...

NARRATING THE MANY PENAL STATUTES AGAINST THE 409 CATHOLICS, AND CARRYING THE STORY DOWN TO THE ACQUIREMENT OF A FREE COMMERCE BY THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF G...

THAT famous English Republican, Thomas Paine—whose political pamphlets have been admired quite as much as his theological works have been censured—uttered in “Common Sense,” pub...

GOLD, silver, copper, lead, iron, and other malleable minerals are found in Ireland. The gold is discovered in small quantities, at least in modern times, but the beautiful orna...

VAGUE poetical tradition flings a mystical veil over the origin of the earliest inhabitants of Ireland. The historian, McGee, who would seem to have made a serious study of the...

WE have mentioned that sun-worship was one of the forms of ancient Irish paganism. There is much difference of opinion on this point, and the late learned Gaelic expert, Profess...

A MAJORITY of learned historians claim that Christianity was introduced into Ireland by Catholic missionaries from the continent of Europe long before the advent of the accepted...

IRELAND, ages before she was Christianized, possessed a legal code of great merit, generally called the Brehon Laws. These remained more or less in force, from the earliest hist...

THE Irish people, having settled down to the Christian form of worship, were enjoying “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” building churches and colleges, and sending...

MANY of the princes of Leinster, more especially the MacMurroughs (MacMurro) were generally, in some measure, allied to the Danes, and fought with them against their own country...

FROM the deposition of Donough O’Brien down to the period of the Norman invasion of the island—about a century and a half—Ireland was cursed by the civil wars which raged interm...

POPE ADRIAN’S “gift” of Ireland to Henry II, absurd as it may appear in this age, was not without precedent in the Middle Ages, when the Roman Pontiff was regarded as supreme ar...

ALTHOUGH two of the chief Irish cities had fallen to the invaders, the struggle was not entirely abandoned by the Irish nation. Ulster and most of Connaught remained intact, and...

HENRY II, whatever may have been his original intentions toward Ireland and the Irish, soon after his return to England assumed the tone of a conqueror and dictator. He forgot,...

AFTER the death of King John, affairs in Ireland proceeded tamely enough until the repeated encroachments of the Anglo-Norman settlers and their progeny, who occupied chiefly a...

EDWARD III, that valiant, vigorous, and ambitious “English” king—he was almost a pure-blooded Frenchman and about the last Norman monarch who occupied the throne of England that...

THE first half of the fourteenth century passed away quietly enough in Ireland, except for occasional conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Celtic tribes, or an odd encoun...

AFTER the premature death of Henry IV, an able but unscrupulous sovereign, in 1413, the attention of England was again directed to the conquest of France by the chivalrous and s...

THE bitterness of race hatred had almost died out when the Reformation, as the opponents of the Church of Rome called the great schism of the sixteenth century, began to shake E...

WHEN Edward VI, another boy-king, came to the throne, in 1547, Ireland was pretty well distracted, owing to the seeds of discord sown by his ferocious father. The young monarch...

ULSTER was subdued, for a time, but, in Munster, the younger branch of the Geraldines, known as Earls of Desmond, rose against the edicts of Elizabeth and precipitated that long...

THERE had been, of course, a general “confiscation to the Crown”—that is, to the English “carpet-baggers”—of the broad domains of the defeated Desmonds, and their allies, and am...

THE first jury “trial” in Ulster was that of Hugh Roe MacMahon, chieftain of Monaghan, who became entangled with Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam in some one-sided “alliance,” and, faili...

MARSHAL SIR HENRY BAGNAL—one of Elizabeth’s most potent military commanders—had never liked Hugh O’Neill, whom he had often met in London and Dublin, but this hatred of the Iris...

THE year 1597 witnessed the recall of Lord Deputy Russell from the government of Ireland, and the substitution of Lord De Burgh. A temporary truce was entered into by the bellig...

WE dwell at greater length on the Elizabethan era in Ireland than, perhaps, on any other, because then began the really fatal turn in the fortunes of the Irish nation. Notwithst...

THE limits of this simple narrative of Irish history will not permit us to go into the details of the numerous “risings” of the Irish and encounters with the disheartened Englis...

PHILIP II of Spain died in September, 1598, and was succeeded by his son Philip III, who, it would seem, took more interest in the Irish struggle against Elizabeth’s temporal an...

THE English force in Ireland was now (1600-1601) overwhelming, and as the Irish had no fleet whatever, the English were enabled to plant garrisons, almost wherever they wished t...

O’NEILL, when he perceived the hopelessness of the Irish situation in Munster, conducted what remained of his defeated army back to the north and cantoned it along the Blackwate...

WITH the fall of Dunboy, Ireland’s heroic day was almost at an end for that generation. O’Sullivan and some other Munster chiefs still held out, but their efforts were only desu...

AT the outset of his reign, James I, of England, and VI of Scotland, collateral descendant of that Edward Bruce who had been crowned King of the Irish in the beginning of the fo...

THE first Anglo-Irish Parliament held within a period of twenty-seven years was summoned to meet in Dublin on May 18, 1613, and, notwithstanding the Act of Uniformity, it would...

SINCE Sir Cahir O’Doherty fell on the rock of Doon, in 1608, no Irish chief or clan had risen against the English interest throughout the length and breadth of the island. The m...

AT first the civil war in Ulster—for in the main it was the Old Irish against the Anglo-Irish settlers of the Elizabethan régime, or their immediate descendants—was carried on w...

OUT of the chaos of a popular uprising, and a number of minor councils, which could decide only for localities, there sprang into existence the National Synod, composed of cleri...

The Papal Nuncio, although only in the prime of life, was in feeble health, and had to be borne on a litter by relays of able-bodied men, from his landing-place, at Kenmare in K...

THE forces of the belligerents were not large, according to our more modern standards. In his comprehensive “History of Ireland,” the Rev. Abbe McGeoghegan credits Owen Roe with...

ORMOND would seem to have been the evil genius of the Irish nation at this period of its history. He was suspected by the Confederates and distrusted by the Parliamentarians. Th...

THEIR adherence to the cause of the young Stuart brought upon the Irish nation the blighting “curse of Cromwell,” so terribly remembered down to the present hour in every nook o...

THE subsequent fate of other chief actors in this great political and military drama is summed up by a learned historian thus: “Mountgarret and Bishop Rothe died before Galway (...

THE Irish Catholics had built high hopes on the restoration of Charles, but were not very jubilant when they learned that he had appointed as Lords Justices, in Dublin, their an...

ALTHOUGH the final outcome of his policy was disastrous to Ireland, we feel justified in saying that James II meant well by all his subjects. He was a friend of religious equali...

SUCH Irish soldiers as had remained in England after the flight of James were mobbed, insulted, and even murdered by the unthinking multitude, so easily excited to deeds of crue...

CHRONICLING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN IRELAND FROM THE ARRIVAL OF JAMES II IN THAT COUNTRY UNTIL THE DEPARTURE OF THE DUKE OF BERWICK TO FRANCE AFTER THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK, IN 1690

NOTHING could exceed the enthusiasm with which the Irish people welcomed King James. In the cities and towns, flowers were strewn in his path, corporation officials turned out i...

THE siege of Derry was continued under the supervision of Maumont and Hamilton, who had quite a large force at their disposal. It is regrettable to have to state that the Protes...

OUR last chapter showed that Ireland, although her population was overwhelmingly Catholic, began her struggle for civil liberty by a non-sectarian enactment, which left the exer...

DURING the spring and early summer of 1690, the war clouds began to mass themselves heavily in the northeastern portion of the island, where Duke Schomberg, his depleted army so...

TUESDAY morning, July 1, old style, dawned beautifully on the river Boyne. Both of the royal hosts were drawn out in all their bravery, and the early sun glittered on their burn...

TYRCONNEL, Sarsfield, Berwick, De Lauzun, and their forces immediately evacuated Dublin and its neighborhood, and, practically, gave up all of Leinster to the enemy, while they...

WILLIAM was not discouraged by the loss of his siege material. He found that two of the cannon captured by Sarsfield had failed to explode. Some heavy pieces, with mortars, also...

THE successful defence of Limerick by the Irish was somewhat offset in the following month of September by the victorious expedition from England, against Cork and Kinsale, led...

THE garrison of Limerick was beginning to despair of any farther succor from France, and murmurs against the viceroy became loud and deep, when runners arrived from the southwes...

ST. RUTH had been advised by the Irish officers of his staff not to attempt the defence of the “Englishtown” of Athlone, on the Leinster bank of the Shannon; but, rather, to con...

BOTH history and tradition affirm that St. Ruth and Sarsfield almost came to swords’ points over the loss of Athlone, and it is still believed, in that section of Ireland, that...

REINFORCEMENTS continued to reach De Ginkel’s camp near Athlone, where he lingered much longer than he originally intended, owing to the utter ruin which the bombardment had wro...

BUT the fog, “arising from the moist valley of the Suck,” had, meanwhile, gathered so densely that the rival armies, for a time, lost sight of each other, and De Ginkel’s forwar...

THE lodgment made by the English, or, rather, Ulster regiment of Gustavus Hamilton in the dry ditch, as described by Chaplain Story, together with another lodgment made in front...

BESIDES St. Ruth, the chief officers killed on the Irish side were, according to Story’s account, General Lord Kilmallock, General Lord Galway, Brigadier-General Connel (O’Conne...

THE decisive battle having been lost by Ireland, what followed in this campaign became almost inevitable. Louis XIV and his ministers were criminally culpable in encouraging the...

THE Irish cavalry, which would seem to have been inefficiently commanded by General Sheldon during the late operations, and now completely outnumbered, fell back to Six-Mile-Bri...

IMMEDIATELY after the signing of the treaty, it was fixed upon between De Ginkel and Sarsfield that, on October 6, the Irish infantry would march out of the King’s Island by Tho...

IN the preceding chapter we indicated that we would deal with the history of the Irish brigades in the French service, from 1692 to 1792, before touching on the terrible penal p...

IN the summer of 1705, the Irish again, at the battle of Cassano, where they fought under Marshal Vendome, paid their respects to Prince Eugene. They fought with a bravery that...

THE famous battle of Fontenoy was fought on the soil of Belgium, in the ancient province of Hainault, within some thirty miles of the memorable plains of Waterloo, on May 11, ne...

NARRATING THE MANY PENAL STATUTES AGAINST THE CATHOLICS, AND CARRYING THE STORY DOWN TO THE ACQUIREMENT OF A FREE COMMERCE BY THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF GRATT...

WE now approach a period of Irish history from which we would gladly escape, if we could; a period degrading to Ireland, disgraceful to England, and shocking to humanity. We are...

SINCE the days of Charles II, and probably before his reign, a contemptible jealousy of the growth of Irish commerce had taken possession of the commercial element in England. W...

SEEING that Ireland had taken no part in the attempted Stuart revolution at the beginning of his reign, it might be imagined that George I showed some favor to the Irish people,...

AN attempt made in 1729 to place an extortionate estimate on the public expenses, and which emanated from “the Castle of Dublin,” had the effect of consolidating the Irish oppos...

THE Duke of Bedford became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1757, and came as a “conciliator,” with a smile on his face “and a bribe in his pocket.” His mission was to “soften” the...

THE long reign of George III, grandson of the late monarch, began in the month of October, 1760, when he had attained the age of 22 years. His father, Frederick Louis, Prince of...

THE Peace of Paris, 1763, brought the Seven Years’ War to a conclusion on the Continent of Europe. Frederick the Great retained Silesia, formerly an Austrian province, to which...

IT was unfortunate for both America and Ireland that Henry Grattan, who had entered Parliament in December, 1775, had not attained to the leadership of the Patriot party when th...