The Bruces in Ireland

About fifteen years after his first sojourn in Ireland, John, now king of England, paid a second visit to that country. But this time he went over, less for the purpose of conquering the Irish, than to curb the too rapidly growing power and independence of the great Norman-English lords. John's acts on this second visit were wiser than those he had committed during his first sojourn in Ireland. He arrived with a large fleet, which is said, by some historians, to have comprised no less than seven hundred vessels; and his first proceeding was to subdue the haughty De Lacys, who had assumed a sort of royal power in Meath.

The De Lacys were soon overcome, and, flying from point to point, at last took refuge in Scotland. Later, however, they came to terms with John, who restored them to their Irish domains upon the payment by them of large tributes. John also made a treaty with the valorous Cathal, king of Connaught, by which the latter was secured in a part, at least, of his patrimony. Cathal fought doughtily against the De Lacys and other English settlers as long as he lived, and died, after a brilliant career, at nearly eighty, in the abbey of Knockmoy.

The only other notable thing which John did during his brief stay in Ireland was to divide Leinster and Munster into the twelve counties which have existed to the present day. Many generations elapsed, after John's departure from Ireland, before an English king again trod her soil. The long reign of Henry the Third, who succeeded John (1216), was mostly taken up with troubled affairs in England, and with conflicts with the Welsh and French. Ireland, therefore, during the greater part of the thirteenth century, was left pretty much to herself.

The English who were settled in Ireland could not count on help from England, but were forced to maintain themselves as best they could by their own unaided resources. The Irish, on the other hand, did not have to fear fresh English attempts at general conquest, but rather that the feuds of their own chiefs would undo them. On each side, indeed, jealousy and dissension prevented the achievement of decisive triumph. The English knights, like the Irish chiefs, were as often found quarrelling and fighting with each other, as combining against the common foe.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of this period was the rise of certain great Anglo-Norman (or, as it is more convenient to call them, English) families in Ireland. The power and warlike ability of some of these families produced important results through a long period of time. One of the most eminent of these families was that of Fitzgerald, descended from the Maurice Fitzgerald who had been among the first Norman knights to attempt the conquest of Ireland. This family was known as the Geraldines. The heads of its two leading branches were afterwards famous as the earls of Kildare and Desmond. These two branches of the Geraldines are represented to this day by the Duke of Leinster (descended from the earls of Kildare) and the marquis of Lansdowne (descended from the earls of Desmond). Both branches received from time to time large domains in Ireland, some of which still remain in possession of their successors. Another great family which became powerful in that early time was that of the Butlers, the founder of which family received extensive gifts of land in Kilkenny and Tipperary. The Butlers played a notable part in both Irish and English history in succeeding generations, and were known as the earls and dukes of Ormond.

At first, these English possessors of Irish domains lived to themselves, in the strong, towering castles which they built. These castles were protected by massive walls and towers, moats and bastions. Here the English knight might at least hold his own against the hostile clans who dwelt in his neighborhood; and, on favorable occasion, issue forth with his retainers to punish the depredations of the natives. Thus he protected the farms of his tenants, which lay below the castle-walls. Often he had no slight task in defending the herds and flocks of these tenants, which were a favorite object of pillage by the Irish bands. The English lord held a court in his castle, in which he punished the misdeeds of his tenantry, or settled the quarrels which arose between them. He was rough and cruel towards the Irish, and from the first regarded them as an inferior and conquered race.

The Irish chiefs, in many parts of the country, found themselves forced to submit sullenly to the superior prowess of the English settlers. They were forced to see the most fertile domains held and cultivated by the foreigners, and to be content with the less productive lands in the remoter districts. But there can be no doubt that, while they thus submitted, the Irish, whether chiefs or peasants, fostered a deep-seated hatred of the English, and seized every opportunity to attack them, and to rise in revolt against their rule. When a child or a woman came into possession of lands, the fierce Irish chiefs would seize the domain, and stoutly defend it against assault. But in course of time the English barons, perceiving that they could not hope for aid from England, and becoming accustomed to an isolated life in Ireland, began to mingle more freely with the native Irish. Their customs and manners began to change, and to adapt themselves to those of the natives. They began to receive the Irish into their castles as servants, and to employ them as soldiers in military enterprises. They formed alliances, sometimes, with the Irish chiefs, in their conflicts with their English rivals.

By and by this curious change in the English became very marked. They mingled with the Irish to such an extent that they were fast becoming absorbed by the native race. They allowed their hair to grow long, and wore heavy, sweeping mustaches, like the Irish chiefs. They assumed the Irish costumes, adopted the Irish festivals and amusements, and even, in some cases, allowed themselves to be governed by the ancient Irish laws. They married the daughters of Irish chiefs, and gave to the Irish chiefs their own daughters in wedlock. Even scions of the great family of Desmond took to themselves Irish wives, and in this way encouraged a fusion of the two races. Thus, in many parts of the country, the contentions between the natives and the settlers became less bitter. The English barons desired no longer to be the garrison of the English crown in Ireland, but independent Irish chiefs, with despotic power over their domains. It began to be said in England, that the English in Ireland were getting to be "more Irish than the Irish themselves."

At last the English sovereign became thoroughly alarmed at this state of things. He began to fear lest his power over Ireland should entirely disappear. He was displeased to see the English barons in Ireland acting as if they were its independent lords,—as if they were no longer bound by any allegiance to him as their king. He dreaded the fusion of the two races in Ireland into one, which would resist his rule. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, therefore, the English king, Edward the First, caused his Parliament to make a law, which was intended to revive all the old hatred between the English in Ireland and the natives, and to sever the close social connection which had grown up between them. This law (1295) compelled the barons who had given up their lands to the natives to recover them; decreed that the English owners of Irish land who lived in England should contribute a part of their incomes for maintaining the army; restricted the number of Irish soldiers to be employed by the barons; and forbade the English to wear the Irish dress, and form of beard. But this law did not at once have the desired effect.

The defeat of the English king, Edward the Second, at Bannockburn in Scotland (1314), was a signal for the native Irish to make a desperate attempt to recover their country. The victor at Bannockburn was the heroic Robert Bruce. Bruce was already known to the Irish, as he had once taken refuge among them. The Irish, moreover, had always had sympathy with their kinsmen, the Scots, in their long and obstinate struggle with the English. When the Scots triumphed at Bannockburn, therefore, the Irish not only rejoiced, but resolved in their turn to resist the English.

The great Ulster chief, Donald O'Neil, led the revolt. He sent to Scotland, and invited Edward Bruce, Robert's brother, and no less valiant in war than Robert, to come and head the Irish patriots, Edward Bruce promptly responded to the summons He crossed over from Scotland with a company of hardy Scottish knights and six thousand soldiers. He was speedily joined by O'Neil near Glenarm, and soon after by Felim O'Connor, king of Connaught. At the head of the English forces was the redoubtable De Burgh, Earl of Ulster.

The news of the landing of Bruce spread swiftly through Ireland. O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnel, took and plundered Sligo, and the country round about that town. The lord of Thomond put himself at the head of his impatient clans, and the lesser chiefs of the south and east hastened to take up arms. The contagion of revolt spread even to some of the English barons themselves. The De Lacys, lords of Meath, joined hands with the native chiefs. A series of obstinate conflicts, with varying fortune, ensued. Edward Bruce was crowned king of Ireland at Dundalk, by the native princes; but he was forced to fight desperately for his new crown, and was doomed at last to defeat and death. He was first forced to retreat into Ulster by the greatly superior army of De Burgh. Then the tide for a while turned. De Burgh was obliged to retreat; and Bruce, with the allied chiefs, swept down through Meath. Robert Bruce came with a large Scottish force, to his brother's succor; and their arms were carried to the very walls of Dublin.

But Robert Bruce was soon compelled to return to defend his own kingdom of Scotland; and, from the time of his departure, Edward's fortunes began to wane. The Geraldines gathered together an army of thirty thousand men. Dublin was put in a state of defense. Sir John de Bermingham, at the head of a well-equipped force, pushed forward to meet Bruce, and confronted him at Dundalk. There a brief but bitter struggle took place. The Irish and their Scottish allies were completely defeated; and the brave Edward Bruce fell dead in the midst of his discomfited warriors. The revolt was at last suppressed. But no aid had come from England to the English barons; and the conflict had, on the whole, been disastrous to English ascendancy. The limits of English rule shrank, and the Irish entered upon many domains which the English deserted. Large numbers of the English farmers left the country altogether. The English barons not only abandoned their allegiance to the English crown, but became more than ever Irish in their habits and tendencies, and even here and there abandoned their Norman for Irish names.

Thus it came about that, early in the reign of Edward the Third, the dominion of the English in Ireland was reduced to much smaller dimensions than it had once held. Ulster had never been wholly conquered. Munster was by no means under the complete control of the Geraldines. Connaught was in a state of insurrection. The English Pale had dwindled to the region immediately around Dublin. The fortified towns, and the domains of the earls of Kildare and Ormond, were nearly all the places outside the Pale which were still securely held by the English. At least one-half of the ancient royal province of Meath was in possession of the Irish chiefs. Edward the Third, like his grandfather, tried, as we shall see in the next chapter, to recover at least the allegiance of the English in Ireland. But he does not seem to have thought it possible to subdue the whole island to his rule. More than a century was yet to elapse before an English monarch would again attempt the con-quest of all Ireland.