A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes – Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Irish History: Fascinating Snippets of Irish History from the Ice Age to the Peace Process

by Jonathan Bardon

  Hear, noble king, whence I was born, of what country.

  Of Ireland I was born a lord, in Ireland acknowledged king;

  But wrongfully my own people have cast me out of my kingdom.

  To you I come to make plaint, good sire,

  In the presence of the barons of your empire.

  Your liege-man I shall become henceforth all the days of my life,

  On condition that you be my helper so that I do not lose at all ...

  Henry listened sympathetically, for Dermot had championed his claim to the English throne in the past, and, according to Gerald of Wales, he granted him letters patent in the following terms:

  Henry, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, gives his greetings to all his faithful subjects.... When you receive this present letter, be advised that we have admitted to our most intimate grace and favour Dermot, Prince of Leinster. Wherefore, if any person from within our wide dominions wishes to help in restoring him, as having done us fealty and homage, let him know that he has our goodwill and permission to do this.

  On a clear day Norman barons in south-west Wales could see the mountains of Wexford and Wicklow across the sea, seeming to beckon them on to further conquest. Now they could go by invitation, and eagerly they pledged their support to Dermot in return for promises of land. To the greatest of them, Richard fitz Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Striguil, better known as ‘Strongbow’, MacMurrough pledged the hand of his daughter Aoife in marriage, and the kingdom of Leinster when Dermot himself died.

  In August 1167 Dermot slipped back to Leinster with a small force of Flemings under Richard fitz Godebert of Rhos. Naturally the high-king, Rory O’Connor, and Tiernan O’Rourke of Bréifne made an appearance, but they allowed themselves to bought off: Dermot paid Tiernan a hundred ounces of gold as the honour-price for the abduction of Dervorgilla fifteen years before, and to Rory he gave seven hostages.

  Dermot passed an anxious year in 1168 without any sign of Norman help. Not until May 1169 did a substantial contingent arrive: some three hundred fighting-men, packed into three ships setting out from Milford Haven and led by Robert fitz Stephen, Hervey de Montmorency and Maurice de Prendergast. Landing at Bannow Bay they advanced on the Viking town of Wexford and forced its submission. Such a modest force was not enough to enable Dermot to recover his kingdom. Dermot had to contend with an attack from the neighbouring kingdom of Ossory, and when the high-king and the King of Bréifne returned, Dermot had no choice but to hand over his son Conor as a hostage.

  At last, early in May 1170, reinforcements commanded by Raymond ‘le Gros’ fitz Gerald arrived in a creek eight miles to the east of Waterford city. This place is known as Baginbun, named after the two ships which carried over the invaders, La Bague and La Bonne, and immortalised in the rhyme:

  At the creek of Baginbun

  Ireland was lost and won.

  A momentous new era in the history of the island had begun.

  Episode 27

  WATERFORD AND DUBLIN: A TALE OF TWO SIEGES

  The foreigners who came to help Dermot MacMurrough recover his kingdom of Leinster were as much Welsh as they were Norman and Flemish. At the core was a tightly-knit family group, all descended from a remarkable Welsh princess, Nesta, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, who had children by Stephen, Constable of Cardigan (father of Robert fitz Stephen), King Henry I of England (grandfather of Meiler fitz Henry), Gerald of Windsor, to whom she was married—and she had children by at least one other man. Even if Gerald was not actually their father or grandfather, most were happy to be named fitz Gerald and to be described as the ‘Geraldines’.

  Raymond le Gros and his men ensconced themselves in the old rath at Baginbun and soon found themselves besieged by a mixed force of Norse from Waterford and Irish from the kingdom of Decies. Outnumbered ten to one, their situation was desperate, as Gerald of Wales—himself also a Geraldine—informs us:

  Raymond with his men—conspicuous for their gallantry, though few in number—went out to meet them and engaged them in a most unequal contest. But because such a small force, though an excellent one, could not withstand such large numbers on level ground, they turned back to their camp. In their haste to enter it, they allowed the enemy, who were pursuing them from behind, inside the doors.... When Raymond saw that his men were in the direst straits, he turned bravely to face the enemy, and in the very doorway transfixed with his sword the first to enter.

  The defenders then drove out from the fort a herd of cattle, and in the ensuing stampede the attackers were scattered and suffered fearful slaughter. Soon after, according to The Song of Dermot and the Earl, followed an atrocity:

  Of the Irish there were taken

  Quite as many as seventy.

  But the noble knights

  Had them beheaded.

  To a wench they gave

  An axe of tempered steel,

  And she beheaded them all

  And threw their bodies over the cliff,

  Because she had that day

  Lost her lover in the combat.

  Alice of Abergavenny was her name

  Who served the Irish thus.

  Meanwhile Strongbow was on his way. Gerald of Wales continues:

  Having made the necessary preparations for such an important venture, Earl Richard [Strongbow] passed through the coastal regions of south Wales on his way to St David’s, and collected together the pick of the fighting men in those parts. When everything needful for a naval expedition on such a scale had been procured and made ready, he embarked at Milford Haven, a following wind filled his sails, and he put in at Waterford with two hundred knights and about a thousand others on St Bartholomew’s Eve....

  On the following day, when rumour had spread of this event, Raymond went to meet the earl with forty knights.... They joined forces to carry forward to the assault of the city those battle standards which were already menacing its walls. They were twice vigorously repulsed by the citizens. Then Raymond noticed a small building which hung down from the town wall on the outside by a beam. He quickly sent in armed men to cut down the aforesaid beam. The building immediately collapsed, and with it a considerable part of the wall. The invaders eagerly effected an entry, rushed into the city and won a most bloody victory, large numbers of the citizens being slaughtered in the streets.

  At the moment of victory Dermot MacMurrough arrived, and, after the rulers of Waterford, both called Sitric, were executed in Reginald’s Tower, his daughter Aoife was married to Strongbow amidst the ruins of the city. The next objective was Dublin. Here the high-king, Rory O’Connor, had assembled a formidable army outside the walls at the urgent request of Earl Hasculf, the city’s ruler. Hasculf guarded the approaches along the coast at Bray and the Scalp, while from the plain of Clondalkin Rory kept watch over Slí Cualann, the road on the western side of the Wicklow Mountains. Dermot knew his own kingdom, however, and brought his allies across the thickly wooded plateau from Glenmacnaas to Sally Gap, and from there over the flank of Kippure Mountain to Rathfarnham.

  Seeing the impressive array of mailed horsemen and archers emerge from the woods, Hasculf sent out Laurence O’Toole, the Archbishop of Dublin, to seek terms. The Norman adventurers had come too far to parley now. With Milo de Cogan and Raymond le Gros in the van, Strongbow’s men made a furious assault on the walls, overran the city and butchered many citizens.

  Hasculf was fortunate to make his escape by ship. So swift had been the Norman triumph that Rory could do nothing for Dublin; the high-king’s sole response was to put three hostages to death, one of them a son of Dermot MacMurrough. Strongbow was near to his objective of creating a dominion for himself in Ireland—and this was a matter of growing concern for his liege lord, Henry II.

  Episode 28

  HENRY II COMES TO IRELAND

  Strongbow had seized Waterford and Dublin, and Dermot MacMurrough had been restored to his kingdom of Leinster; but neither Hasculf, Earl of Dublin, nor Rory O’Connor, High-King of I
reland, were prepared to accept this new state of affairs. During the winter of 1170–71 the newcomers repaired Dublin city’s defences and built a motte castle surrounded by a deep ditch. Then, in the spring of 1171, the whole Norman enterprise was threatened with disaster. Hearing that Dermot was dying in Ferns, Strongbow sped southwards to claim the kingdom pledged to him, only to find that the Leinstermen, rallying to Murtagh MacMurrough, had risen in revolt against their new overlords.

  Earl Hasculf now returned with sixty longships filled with warriors from the Northern Isles, led by John the Wode, a famous berserker fighter. At the mouth of the Liffey the Northmen leaped from their vessels to advance in phalanx on the city walls. They were, in the words of Gerald of Wales,

  warlike figures, clad in mail in every part of their body after the Danish manner. Some wore long coats of mail, others iron plates skilfully knitted together, and they had round, red shields protected by iron round the edge. These men, whose iron will matched their armour, drew up their ranks and made an attack on the walls at the eastern gate.

  At the first onset a knight’s hip-bone, protected though it was by an iron cuirass, was cut away with one blow of a Viking battle-axe. Milo de Cogan, appointed governor of Dublin by Strongbow, was forced to retreat behind the wall; his brother Richard and his men, however, made an unobserved sortie through the southern gate and rounded on the attackers’ rear.

  The Northmen now faced a new enemy. Mounted knights—protected by chain-mail from head to toe, carrying kite-shaped leather shields, secure on high-fronted saddles and with their feet firmly placed in stirrups—were able to charge the foe directly with long lances. In support were Welsh longbowmen, and Flemish foot-soldiers with crossbows shooting mail-piercing arrows. The Norse were put to flight; John the Wode was slain by Walter de Ridelsford; and Hasculf was dragged back from the shore.

  His life was spared [recorded Gerald of Wales] with a view to ransom, and he was in the court, in Milo’s presence, when in everyone’s hearing he made the following angry assertion: ‘This is only our first attempt. But if only I am spared, this will be followed by other expeditions on a far larger scale, and having a different outcome from this one.’ When they heard him say this he was immediately beheaded on Milo’s orders, and these arrogant words cost him that life which he had been mercifully granted only a short while before.

  Next the Normans had to face a great Gaelic host led by Rory O’Connor with his own men of Connacht, O’Rourke of Bréifne, O’Carroll from Ulster, and Murtagh MacMurrough with his Leinster kinsmen. With no knowledge of siege-engines, the high-king counted on starvation to bring the invaders to submission, and with the help of thirty longships from Man and the Isles, he very nearly succeeded. A daring stroke was needed to extricate the garrison from its desperate position. Shortly after noon, on an early September day in 1171, picked fighting-men burst out of Dublin, the van of twenty knights led by Raymond le Gros, followed by Milo de Cogan’s company of thirty knights, with Strongbow in the rear commanding forty knights. Crossing Dubhgall’s Bridge and taking a circular route over the Tolka, they fell on the Irish camp so suddenly that Rory, bathing in the river at Castleknock, barely escaped with his life. Hundreds of the Irish were slain, and the foreigners now had secure possession of Dublin.

  Henry II, the most powerful monarch in western Europe, ruler of England, Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Aquitaine, and much of Wales, viewed Strongbow’s victories with deep misgiving. The defeat of the high-king presented him with a spectre—an independent Norman state which could threaten his empire from the west. Henry prepared a great expedition for Ireland, though the cares of his vast dominions lay heavy on his shoulders. There was another reason for removing himself from his usual sphere of activity: he was deeply implicated in the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and cardinal legates had arrived in Normandy to put embarrassing questions to the king concerning the atrocity.

  On St Luke’s Day, 18 October 1171, four hundred ships entered Waterford haven, and King Henry’s progress from there to Dublin was one of the finest triumphs of his long reign. So great was the royal retinue and baggage that camp had to be made outside the city walls at the Thingmote, a forty-foot-high man-made hill where the Vikings held their assemblies. On this spot a great hall was built of stripped willow rods. Here Henry held court and received the submission of a queue of Irish kings, acknowledging his new title as Lord of Ireland.

  Episode 29

  THE LORDSHIP OF IRELAND

  As the solemn festival of our Lord’s birth drew near, the princes of that land came to Dublin in great number to view the king’s court. There they greatly admired the sumptuous and plentiful fare of the English table and the most elegant service of the royal domestics. Throughout the great hall, in obedience to the king’s wishes they began to eat the flesh of the heron, which they had hitherto loathed.

  Henry II was a noted practical joker, and the rank, fishy flesh of the heron was loathed not only by the Irish but by everyone. Courtesy and respect prevailed, nevertheless. The Irish had never seen an army of such size in their country before and were certainly not about to put its strength to the test. From the moment he had landed in Waterford, Irish kings had lined up to make their submission to this alien ruler and to acknowledge him as Lord of Ireland. Of course, they may have had little understanding of feudal terminology and of the obligations involved in giving fealty to a liege lord. At the same time, Henry did not attempt to detach Irish princes from their duty to their high-king, and when Rory O’Connor made his submission, there was no suggestion that he should cease to be high-king.

  Henry II possessed a great asset: back in 1155 John of Salisbury, adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, had prevailed on Pope Adrian IV to grant Ireland to Henry. It just so happened that Adrian, born Nicholas Breakspear, was the only Englishman ever to have been elected pope. John of Salisbury explained later:

  In response to my petition the pope granted and donated Ireland to the illustrious King of England, Henry, to be held by him and his successors.... He did this in virtue of the long-established right, reputed to derive from the donation of Constantine, whereby all islands are considered to belong to the Roman Church.

  This was the notorious bull Laudabiliter.

  At the time of its original issue Henry II’s mother, the Empress Matilda, discouraged him from attempting to act on this papal grant. Now the bull Laudabiliter suited him well: it gave him the opportunity to make amends with the church in the wake of the murder in Canterbury Cathedral of Thomas Becket. Furthermore, English and Irish bishops alike keenly supported a campaign to reform the church in Ireland. Gerald of Wales, a cleric himself, was in no doubt that such reform was overdue:

  This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. Of all peoples it is the least instructed in the rudiments of the Faith. They do not yet pay tithes or first fruits or contract marriages. They do not avoid incest. They do not attend God’s church with true reverence. Moreover, men in many places in Ireland, I shall not say marry, but rather debauch, the wives of their dead brothers.

  This condemnation, as with many other observations made by Gerald on the Irish, was completely unfair. It was true that the Celtic Church still deviated somewhat from accepted practice in the Roman Church—in particular by allowing many clergy to marry—but even before the arrival of the Normans synods had been held to promote standardisation. In any case, Henry II won credit not only from the papacy but also from the higher clergy in Ireland for sponsoring a synod at Cashel to promote reform.

  Perhaps Henry’s main purpose in coming to Ireland was to clip Strongbow’s wings, though his fear that the earl intended to set up a separate Norman state in Ireland was probably unfounded. The city of Dublin, for which Strongbow’s men fought so hard, the king gave to the men of Bristol who had fitted out his great expedition to Ireland. He put a strict limit on the borders of Strongbow’s possession of Leinster by granting the fertile land of Meath—for so long disputed between Dermot and Tiernan
—to Hugh de Lacy, provided he could conquer it. For himself Henry took the title of ‘Lord of Ireland’—with the unwritten assumption that the lordship covered only the territory possessed by the Norman newcomers. During the winter of 1171–2 Henry became anxious to return to the heart of his dominions:

  Then Aeolus burst asunder the bars of his prison and the heaving billows of the sea were churned up. The storms raged so unceasingly and with such persistence that throughout that whole winter scarcely a single ship had succeeded in making a crossing to the island, and no one could get any news whatsoever from other lands.... Meanwhile the king stayed at Wexford, being extremely anxious to hear any rumours from across the sea ... but after mid-Lent the winds at long last went into the east, and ships arrived both from England and Aquitaine, bringing news of a grave development and of evil deeds.

  Henry returned to a sea of troubles, but his lordship of Ireland was now firmly established, and it was destined to grow.

  Episode 30

  CONQUESTS AND A FAILED TREATY

  In May 1172 Henry II faced the papal legates at Savigny in western France, and his argument that he had gone to Ireland to reform the church there served him well. The king then had to contend with the rebellion of his three older sons, Henry, Geoffrey and Richard. When the French king, Louis VII, attacked his possessions, Henry had to call on the assistance of his Irish vassals. Strongbow and de Lacy brought over strong contingents which helped Henry to reassert his authority in his dominions.