Something Completely Different

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If Irish people go abroad, they're generally welcomed more than, say, English people. You're heard speaking English in a foreign country and they say "English?" and you shake your head and say "No, Irish." Immediately there is a change in attitude, and you're more welcomed. Why is that? Well, part of it certainly has to do with our amazing sports supporters, the rugby and especially soccer fans who follow the national team when they're in international competitions such as The World Cup or the European Championships. Their impeccable behaviour abroad, compared to some (cough) Russia (cough) has earned them the deserved respect and love of just about every country they visit. They are a credit to our nation, without question. There has never been, to my knowledge, a single instance of one Irish fan being involved in any trouble in all the time they've been travelling supporting their country. And given how we Irish are known for drinking, that's damned impressive.

Another reason though could be that, to totally simplify things, just about everyone (with the possible exception of the English) love us and identify with us because we are a small country that has been occupied for most of our history. We have never made war upon anyone, we have never invaded anyone (couldn't remain sobre long enough to do so probably! :laughing:) and therefore we are not seen as an oppressive nation, unlike Britain, Germany and the USA among others. We have only been an independent, free country for less than a century, which makes us a very young country in comparison to most of the rest of the world, and we have been on the receiving end of occupation, oppression, injustice and discrimination.

However, all is not rosy in Irish history, far from it. Without any means to invade other countries, without a standing army or anything even close to a navy, trapped on our own little insular island for thousands of years, we Irish have in the past typically turned to fighting ourselves. Clan chief fought clan chief, territories were disputed, civil war erupted and of course we had "The Troubles" for over thirty years. So I began wondering what Irish history was like, and having been very interested in it while at school, I thought I'd like to explore the story behind my native country.

I'll therefore be looking into the very beginnings of Ireland with the ancient Celts and Druids, the Viking invasion, the Norman occupation, everything up to the Easter Rising and the eventual procurement of freedom when we became a free state in 1923. I'll then be going on from there, to meet up with the present, where, after over eighty years of freedom and self-determination we handed back our sovereignty to Europe in return for an IMF bailout caused by greedy bankers. This will be, simply put, the entire history of Ireland, which is deeper and more interesting than many might think, and is littered with treachery, betrayal, wars, tragedies and a struggle for freedom that would take centuries to eventually achieve. Like most countries, it's a story of heroism and failure, or cowardice and reversal of fortune, of strength and honesty and belief and faith, and it has its heroes and its martyrs while standing alongside those are its traitors and its villains.

I'll be using multiple sources, and will include any relevant music I can find, but overall this will be a written journal, not a music one, and perhaps the first one to focus solely on history, and within that, the first to concentrate on the history of one small country. It will obviously take a long time and will be a work in progress, but as ever you're all welcome to join in and comment.

Which just leaves me to issue the traditional Irish welcome: Cead mile failte (A hundred thousand welcomes) and hope you enjoy what I write here.

Chapter I: Meet the Irish

Timeline: 1200 BC - 500 AD

So, where did the Irish come from? Was there some prehistoric pub from which, Flintstones-like, we all fell out of the door at closing time and started fighting in the street? Well, quite possibly, but historians and archaeologists link us to the ancient Celts, a pagan people who migrated from the Russian Steppes into northern Europe around about the time of the Iron Age, somewhere around 1200 BC, and ended up in the general areas of what was known at the time as Bohemia (part of Germany today) and Austria.

Before I go any further, I would like to qualify the rest of this by quoting from Richard Killeen's A Brief History of Ireland when he says "What follows is not entirely true. No history can be complete. The sources on which it is based are always partial, often in both senses of the word ... For here we are dealing with the era before written records – reliable or otherwise – and have only the inferences drawn from archaeology and certain artifacts to guide us." Worth bearing in mind, certainly.

The Celts were a deeply spiritual people, and though they worshipped goddesses as well as gods they were very much a male-dominated society, with few if any examples of female leaders having been discovered. They also are believed to have practiced ritual sacrifice, including human, to appease their gods and ensure bountiful harvests, fruitful women and victory in battle.

However, even these ancient people, though they became acknowledged as the ancestors of we modern Irish, were not the first people to live in Ireland. An unknown and vanished society which flourished from, it is thought, about 9000 BC (that's eight thousand years before the Celts got here) were responsible for the building of ancient tombs and monuments, such as the burial chambers in Newgrange, Co. Meath, which archaeologists believe were constructed five hundred years before the great Egyptian pyramids and over one thousand years before one of the most famous of the English monuments, Stonehenge. Hah! In your faces, ancient civilisations! :wink: Newgrange is therefore more or less accepted as one of the oldest monuments in the world today. It is probably well known (but I'll tell you anyway in case you aren't aware) that it is more than just a simple burial chamber. It is of the type known as a "passage tomb", due to its long narrow approach to the burial chamber itself.

As a child I remember visiting this as part of a school trip, and being a child (probably nine, ten years old, I can't quite remember but young definitely) I was less than impressed. For me, as for all my schoolmates, all this was was a chance to skip a day in school, ride on a bus and go somewhere we had never been. I wish I could have known at the time how important that visit should have been, but all I truly remember of it is it being cold, dark and just the tiniest bit disquieting as you descended into the dark, hoping the guide would be able to help us all find our way back out into the light.
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The truth about Newgrange though, which I never witnessed personally but is a matter of record and draws people to it in almost pilgrimage every year, is that it is so constructed that there is a point on the very top of the cairn (the burial mound) through which the sun will shine only on one particular day – the Winter Solstice, December 21 – and when it does, it travels along the passage until it illuminates, with perfect accuracy and precision, an ancient symbol of renewal and rebirth carved on the back of the furthest wall.

As a religious symbol, this marks the return of the sun, the giver of life, into the darkness to renew the spirit and bring hope. It is said to be a powerful, even religious experience to those who are lucky enough to see it for themselves, and it proves that ancient though the people were, they had enough knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and construction to be able to build such a thing, and they were obviously a people for whom religion was not just something you did; it was their whole life, perhaps their very reason for existence. They certainly worshipped what would be known today as pagan gods, but they were as faithful to (perhaps fearful of) them as the ancient Egyptians were to theirs.

The first known (given Mr. Killeen's important caveat above) inhabitants of Ireland were a Mesolithic people, meaning Stone Age (well, technically, Middle Stone Age, but you don't care about that, do you?) who were hunter-gatherers, and are believed (or assumed) to have come over from the mainland of Scotland to settle in what is now Northern Ireland, or the province of Ulster. This then essentially makes Northern Ireland the oldest civilised part of Ireland, which sucks for us in the Republic, but at least we have a better soccer team! As for the Mesolithics, they were supplanted or succeeded by a new race in around 4000 BC who began to settle and farm the land, these being Neolithic, or New Stone Age, and they created the first real settlements of people, farms and attempts at agriculture, sowing crops, raising cattle and building walled enclosures. With a good and regular supply of food and permanent settlements the population grew and expanded.

With the arrival of the Celts however, these people were either fought to extinction or intermarried with the newcomers, with the Celts becoming the ancient forebears of the modern Irish people. Unlike the Native Americans or the Australian Aborigines, there are no descendants of this original race that inhabited Ireland and nothing exists of them now but some fossils and the impressive structures they left behind. The future of Ireland would be written by the Celts.

Although we know virtually nothing about them, the original inhabitants of Ireland left no evidence behind to allude to any real sort of hierarchy or system of justice. Undoubtedly they had them, as even the most primitive society cannot exist without rules, laws and punishments for those who break them, but the first properly organised system of law, perhaps even a form of government, comes with the arrival of the Celts and the rise of their religious leaders, the Druids.
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Best likened these days to a cross between judges, historians and wizards, Druids kept the ancient beliefs alive, ensured the proper gods were worshipped, passed and enforced laws, and were answerable to no man, not even the king or chieftain. They were what we would call today "freelancers", and their word was law. Being outside the hierarchical structure of Celtic society, they could even call a king to account if he had transgressed the law. Despite what might seem though as unlimited power – an ancient form, perhaps, of Executive Privilege? - Druids did not challenge their leaders and were not involved in any military undertakings. They were peaceful men, whose main mission in life was to honour and preserve the Celtic way of life, to pass down the stories of their mythology – by mouth alone, for the Celts had no form of writing, beyond Ogham, of which more shortly – and to revere and placate the ancient gods.

They were poets and storytellers, judges and arbiters – none could be more partial in a dispute than a Druid – and even advisors to kings. They held great power, yes, but in this one instance power did not corrupt. While the Druids who served the Celts in Britain and Gaul rose up against the Roman occupation of their lands and led the resistance against the invaders, Irish Druids did not take up arms at all, remaining completely peaceful.
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Although the Celts did not or could not write, they did have a very rudimentary alphabet. It consisted of a number of straight lines, sometimes slanted and/or crossing other lines. This was called Ogham (I was brought up to believe it is pronounced "oh-am" but most documentaries on the Irish or the Celts I have watched seem to think it should be pronounced "og-ham". I'm not sure which is right) and was used mostly to decorate tombs, often by way of huge stone crosses which can still be seen on graves today, though of course the ones that mark headstones these days are replicas and copies. Still, originals can be found in various archaeological sites, and most people know what you mean when you speak of a Celtic Cross. If you don't, then look below.
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Ogham was a very simple alphabet, with twenty-five characters but was apparently very limited in what it could say: basically, they used it for inscribing the name of the person buried under the cross, and that was about it. But writing isn't everything, and the Celts must have had great memories as they passed their stories on down, word for word, through successive generations. Many of these were of course the exploits of kings or leaders, but much of their lore centred around the deeds of heroes, whether real or imagined, that came to make up the basis of Celtic mythology. Like most peoples, the Celts did not relate made-up stories for entertainment; they actually believed these events took place in a far-off time. Some of them may have – the idea of a young boy killing a dog who was attacking him by hitting him with a hurley ball and thereafter having to take the dog's place as the chief's guard (the genesis of the legend of one of Ireland's most revered heroes, Cuchulainn) could be seen to have happened – others perhaps might be a little more fanciful, such as tales of frost giants and warp spasms and the Salmon of Knowledge, to say nothing of Tir na nOg.

But in time, as Christianity took hold of the world and spread to Britain and Ireland, the Druids and the Celtic beliefs would be toppled, their gods either banished to fairy stories and myths or appropriated and metamorphosed into saints and martyrs, making Ireland in time one of the most Christian countries of the world. Old beliefs would die out as the new took hold, and civilisation of a different type would come to the Emerald Isle as we exchanged a group of powerful gods for one who couldn't even save his own son from death. Not the greatest bargain, in my view.

Chapter II: The Book of Invasions, Part One:
Onward, Christian Soldiers

Timeline: 500 AD - 800 AD

It might seem a hell of a leap to jump from, what, 1200 BC to 500 AD, and it is. We're talking about a millennium and a half here. But in terms of Irish history, it's where you really end up next, as this was the beginnings of the conversion of Ireland to Christianity, a power that holds sway over us even to this day. Throughout its long history Ireland has been subject to invasions: the Vikings, the Normans,  the English. Oddly enough, I was surprised to find my research turn up, we were not invaded by the Romans, unlike the English. Events seem to have conspired to have kept Ireland safe, as it were, at the eleventh hour. With a rebel Irish chieftain plotting with the Roman governor of Britain to aid in an Irish invasion, the governor was suddenly called back to Rome to deal with barbarian attacks closer to home, and so the invasion was cancelled.

We've always been a fighting people. On occasions we have allied to the enemy of our enemy (usually England), teaming up with or supporting the likes of the Scottish, the Spanish and the French, often along shared lines of faith, sometimes not. We have, in general, failed to drive back each wave of new invaders, but often have defeated them in more cunning ways, as they became integrated into our culture, marrying into Irish families and taking Irish land. Many Irish surnames that survive today have their origins in French, for example, as Norman conquerors became, slowly, Irish inhabitants. The same with the Vikings, with the famous slogan I recall from my history lessons that they "became more like the Irish than the Irish themselves." Well, they certainly mirrored our drinking habits, that's for sure!

But perhaps the most insidious and unstoppable invasion of all was that of the Christian missionaries who set out from the Roman Empire (mostly from Britain at the time) in around 500 AD to convert all heathens to the new religion that was sweeping across Europe, thanks in large part to the change of heart of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, who, in around 306 AD converted to Christianity. Taking the title of Holy Roman Emperor he decreed tolerance and acceptance of the new religion which had up until then been mercilessly prosecuted by previous emperors, with the infamous stories of Christians being thrown into the arenas to fight lions and other wild animals, as well as other horrible punishments for what was seen as denying the true gods of Rome. Christian priests and monks were now free to travel throughout the empire, teaching the Good News and attempting to convert all nations to the true faith.

The most famous of these missionaries was a man who was born Palladius Patricius, but became known and revered in Ireland as Saint Patrick.
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Saint Patrick

If you've ever wondered why Saint Patrick's Day is such a big deal in Ireland, you need to realise how important the man was to this country. Born to a Roman official in occupied Britain, he was captured by an Irish raiding party, many of which had become emboldened as the Roman Empire in general began to crumble and shrink back on itself, and as garrisons and commanders and governors were recalled to Rome to fend off the attacks of the barbarian hordes such as the Visigoths, the Franks and the Germanic tribes. I suppose from that point of view you could point to the beginnings of the long antagonism between Ireland and England as having been started by us, but I'm sure the English sent out raiding parties of their own.

At any event, Patricius was captured (some say by the famous Irish chieftain known as Niall of the Nine Hostages) and taken to Ireland, where he was pressed into service as a slave. After tending sheep for six years he escaped back home, but while there he was tormented by the voice, he claims, of God (sometimes this is claimed to be the voice of the Irish people) calling him back to Ireland. During his time in Ireland he had become quite religious, turning to the Christian God in his hour of need, and now he devoted his time to study of the word of God, training to be a priest. When he was ready, he returned to Ireland around 432 AD and became the most successful export of Christianity there, building churches, destroying the hold of pagan gods and beliefs over the Irish people, and virtually single-handedly converting Ireland to Christianity.

Around the fifth century he wrote what is generally accepted as the first proper written Irish work of literature, his Confession, in which he described his mission to build churches and bring the word of God to Ireland. It's from this account that we have most of our information about him confirmed, though there's still some debate raging, such as whether Palladius and Patricius are two people or the names of one, but that sort of stuff is really only semantics and doesn't matter here. What's more interesting is the legend that grew up around him; almost, you might say, a new Celtic mythology, some of which is related below.

The Shamrock: One of the most famous stories told of St. Patrick is when he wished to explain the complicated nature of the Divinity to the Irish, who just didn't understand. Three gods in one? What a bargain! How can I do better than twenty-nine ninety-nine, Troy? :) But seriously, it's a hard concept to get: how can you have one god who has a son and another part of him, each separate yet of the same being? Patrick explained this by picking a shamrock, and showing that though it has three leaves, they all rise from the one stalk. And so the people finally got it, and the shamrock became one of our most treasured plants, and indeed the emblem of our country.
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The Snakes: Although historians agree that at no time in its history was Ireland ever troubled by snakes (except in the Dail! Irish in-joke) Patrick is said to have stood on a hill and waved his staff, driving them all into the sea. He is therefore credited with banishing all snakes from Ireland, though this is more than likely metaphor for his attempts – pretty much successful – to drive out the old pagan beliefs and discredit the gods of the Celts. Snakes being seen as evil, and all, and linked with Satan and the Garden of Eden. You know the kind of thing.
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With the coming of Saint Patrick, it was the end of the old ways in Ireland. Christianity one, Pagans nil. Of course, in some corners of Ireland the worship of pagan deities continued for a time, and the old practices were kept up, but in time the Church consolidated its absolute power over the Irish people, and the old gods were remembered only in folk tales and legend. If you take Rome as being the centre of the Christian Church, as it was, then  essentially the Romans did invade, and subdue, Ireland, though not by military might. This was one of the only invasions of our island against which there was no standing, and though in later centuries when the Church underwent a fundamental schism one faction of this new religion would battle another for supremacy, Ireland would always be, and always has been, a Christian country.

Hot on the heels of Saint Patrick came other missionaries, priests, monks, abbots and bishops, who built monasteries, seen as the first real centres of any sort of governance in Ireland, where the idea of towns or even villages had yet to take hold. With the newly-converted Irish people holding them in awe, and with tacit support from various chieftains and leaders in the hope of bolstering their own power, the monasteries became almost a ruling force in Ireland. This next-to-absolute power of the Church only strengthened over the centuries, and indeed, even as late as the middle of the twentieth century, and further, up to the 1950s, 1960s and even 1970s, the Church held a sort of hypnotic power over the people of Ireland. Priests were sacrosanct and their word was taken as fact. The advice or decree of one was followed blindly. Families sent their sons into the priesthood, seen as a status symbol, and if a priest accused you or your family of doing something, even if you had not done it, you had. The power of the Church was absolute, and though it was ostensibly separated from the State, in real terms the two colluded more than they disagreed.

This blind obedience to the Church, especially the one which held sway over almost all of Southern Ireland, or what came to be known as The Republic, only began to be questioned around the 1980s, when evidence of clerical abuse towards children began to surface, and the almighty name of the Catholic Church began to be seen as an idol with clay feet. Suddenly, the evidence was there and the scales fell from (most) people's eyes; the Church was just another organisation, ripe for corruption and perversion, and priests were not infallible saints, merely men with men's sometimes ugly appetites. What did emerge during the various reports into clerical abuse was that the State, especially the national police force, the Gardai, who should have been the protectors of the children who were abused, failed miserably, allowing itself to remain bedazzled by the worship of the Church and unable to fathom how priests could after all be just men, and flawed men at that. Now we know better, and the Church has had to try to amend its ideas and remake itself in the image of twenty-first century Ireland – not, it has to be said, with too much success so far, though the new Pope is helping matters a great deal with his down-to-earth, return-to-basics approach, something that has not been seen coming out of Rome in hundreds of centuries – and people are wiser, no longer trusting blindly in their spiritual leaders, and holding them to account when necessary.

But back in Saint Patrick's time, such ideas were totally alien to the Irish and the clergy were seen almost as gods, or would be if the Christian faith allowed belief in more than one deity. In a way, I suppose the Irish transferred the awe and reverence and respect they had had for the Druids to the new preachers of the gospel of Christ, and priests and bishops and all the rest became the successors to the trust people had placed in their ancient judges and holy men. It should, in the interests of fairness, be pointed out that at this point the Church – certainly the Church in Ireland – did not at any time capitalise on their power in the sort of ways Rome's Popes would do later, raising private armies, living in luxury while their people eked out a pathetic existence, fighting "holy wars" and levelling taxes on the pilgrims who came to worship at the holiest shrine of Christianity. On the contrary, monks typically took a vow of poverty and chastity, leading a quiet life of gentle contemplation, praising God, preaching to the masses and when Latin was introduced to Ireland creating some of the most beautiful works of written art ever seen, including the famous Book of Kells, completed around 800 AD.
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The Book of Kells

There can be few people, even outside of Ireland, who have not at least heard of the famous Book of Kells. Written, it is believed, on the island of Iona, in the Inner Hebrides just off the coast of Scotland, it was said to have been begun in 800 AD by Saint Columba, and because of this has sometimes been called the Book of Columba. Modern historians have challenged this though, pointing to the fact that the Book is known or accepted to have been begun in 800 but that Columba was already over two hundred years dead by then. Whatever the case, whatever its origin, the Book of Kells is essentially the four Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible, lavishly illustrated with animal, human and Celtic imagery, and is widely accepted to be the finest example of what is known as "insular art" in history.

At its core, insular art is a type of writing where the words are "illuminated" by having figures stand under them, surround them or wind themselves around them, or otherwise colourfully decorated. These are known as illuminations, and Irish monks are acknowledged as having been the finest experts of this art in the world. This concentration of expertise (as well as the fall of the Roman Empire) drew like-minded artists to Ireland, where they studied under the monks, and led to the famous epithet for Ireland as being "a land of saints and scholars", true today as when it was written, I do assure you! ;)

When Viking raiders attacked Ireland in the tenth century, sacking the monasteries and plundering their treasures, the Book of Kells was moved for safekeeping to the Abbey of Kells, in County Meath, which is where it acquired its name. Of course, this did not stop the Norsemen and they attacked the Abbey of Kells, yet somehow this amazing book survived, donated to Trinity College in Dublin in 1661, and can be seen today, for free, by anyone who wishes to do so, in the Library  of the college It is a huge attraction and draws visitors from all over the world to see it.
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Interestingly, as the rest of Europe suffered with the fall of the Roman Empire and was plunged into what we know today as the Dark Ages (approximately 500 AD to 1000 AD), Ireland enjoyed a time of peace and tranquility, and great artistic advancement as monks and even lay persons worked in the monasteries, translating books like the Bible into Latin and even Irish – now that there was finally a written language that could be used in Ireland , carving huge stone Celtic crosses, and engraving fabulous detail on items like drinking cups, brooches and other jewellery.

With the decline of the Roman Empire, it was in fact Ireland that took up the baton, as it were, of missionary zeal and monks and priests from here travelled extensively across Europe, bringing the word of God to the heathen, whose ranks they had previously belonged to. Irish scholars and poets, writers and thinkers began to populate the courts of the more important kingdoms, such as France and Italy. For a time, Ireland enjoyed the reputation of, if not being the saviour of Christianity, then certainly its most voiciferous, powerful and successful ambassador. Comparatively suddenly, a tiny, unregarded island far from the centre of the mighty Roman Empire had become all but its successor in terms of orthodoxy and belief, and from the court of Kiev to that of Charlemagne himself, everyone knew of her existence.

But with increased presence and fame comes unwanted attention, and far across the seas to the cold north, to paraphrase H.G Wells, other eyes regarded this island with envy, and slowly, and surely they drew their plans against us. The next invaders would not use faith and piety as a weapon, but brutal aggression and a callous disregard for the new religion, which they saw as vastly inferior to, and threatening to supplant their own.

Note: Although the early history of Ireland is replete with saints and mythological beings who may or may not have existed, I am not covering them in this journal, as although they would certainly be seen as central to Irish beliefs and therefore an important part of Irish history, I want to concentrate more on the actual happenings and not get too bogged down with who saw what, where, and how. If such events are to be recounted at all, I'll address them in my mythology journal at some later point. I've only given space to Saint Patrick and Saint Columba because it was impossible not to.

Chapter III: The Book of Invasions, Part Two: Here Be Dragons!

It's hard to imagine properly the impact the sudden arrival of the Vikings had in Ireland. Apart from a raid on the nearby island of Lindisfarne in Northumbria (Wales) in 793 AD, there had been no sign of invaders from across the sea and the explosion of violence and mayhem unleashed by the Norsemen when they attacked Irish ports in 795 surely took the Irish totally by surprise. Apart from anything else, though they warred among each other as frequently as ever, Ireland would have to have been said to have been a generally peaceful place, and it was those centres of peace, the Christian monasteries and abbeys, that first became the targets of these fierce warriors from across the sea. Stuffed with gold and jewels and precious statues as well as fine cloth and other riches – most if not all for use in the creation of their works and not the monks' own personal goods – they were treasure troves to the Vikings, and even better, weren't even defended! The monks were men of peace, sworn to oppose violence and forgive those who trespassed against them, but that wasn't much use when a Viking sword was slicing into your ribs or you were on the receiving end of a blow from a battleaxe that could remove your head clean from its shoulders!

And so the early raids went largely unopposed, as fragmented Irish tribal kingdoms tried to come to terms with the fact that they were under attack, not from another clan, but by experienced and battle-hardened veteran fighters who seemed to know no fear, and dispensed no mercy to their foes. Apart from threatening their religion with their pagan beliefs and their vicious aim of forcing these beliefs on the Irish (a role reversal if ever there was one, minus the violence) the Vikings posed a threat to the fragile alliances and small kingdoms dotted throughout Ireland, and the Irish knew if they did not fight back they would soon be overrun, and so began to try to put aside petty rivalries in an attempt to present a united front against the common enemy.

This was not, however, easy, and to realise why we have to take something of a hard look at exactly how the system of government, such as it was, worked in Ireland at this time, which was, to be fair, not very well at all.

The Tuatha

Irish people were divided into clans, or tuatha, these being more or less simple gatherings of people in the same area. Like any clan, there was a leader, though in general he (always he) had no authority outside of his own tuath. They called these tuatha (the plural has an "a" added, like a lot of Irish words, in case you think I'm just being lazy with the spellcheck; one tuath, two tuatha) kingdoms but they really weren't, and there were about two hundred of them scattered across Ireland. Of course, they all got on with each other. :rolleyes: To add to this, the north/south split had already been well in evidence in Ireland, with the powerful O'Neill family ruling pretty much all of Ulster, and casting greedy and ambitious glances South, and if O'Neill (known as "The" O'Neill, to denote the head of the family and the man in power, to differentiate him from the many other O'Neills scattered throughout Ulster) believed himself king of Ireland (High King), while there was no actual king in the South, his authority was not acknowledged there, though his southern cousins did control much of it.

The coming of Saint Patrick and the advent of the monasteries did little to change the age-old rivalries and tribal differences between the Irish, and while this tuath or that, this small king or that would support the monasteries with their patronage or gold, they continued to fight among themselves. Irish history is, sadly, replete with the seemingly unquenchable need to fight someone, often ourselves. With really little to no power over the local kings the abbeys and monasteries existed in a kind of oasis of peace within a maelstrom of in-fighting, petty rivalries and sneak attacks by one self-proclaimed king on another. As a matter of sad fact, the riches and lack of defences of the monasteries began to appeal even to certain Irish warlords, who would originally have fought to save them, and so the monks were caught between a rock and, well, another rock. Certain kings, chieftains or warlords would even ally with the Vikings if it served their cause, all of which increased the level of rivalry and violence that was spreading throughout Ireland.

Although power was mostly held in the fists of the Northern king, the O'Neill, history would record that Ireland's greatest leader of the time would arise out of an obscure town in the south of the country, near Limerick. It was called Dal Cais, and when the southern side of the O'Neills, led by a man called Mael Seachnaill, claimed overlordship and High Kingship of Ireland, they were opposed by the man who would eventually become Ireland's first true High King.
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Brian Boru (941 – 1014 AD)

Born in the south province of Munster, Brian succeeded his brother to the throne shortly after the death of their father, and became the king of Munster. He then marched to challenge the declared High King, Mael Seachnaill, who controlled Meath, another province of Ireland. Brian wished to take Leinster and Connacht, the remaining two provinces in the south, and so went to war against Meal Seachnaill. Although he did not win every battle he fought, he proved a determined commander and a shrewd tactician, laying down much of the strategy later generations of Irish military would use. After fifteen years of attack and withdraw, bloody fighting and huge casualties on both sides, Brian finally prevailed and brought Leinster under his control. Meal Seachnaill was allowed to live, providing he swear fealty to Brian as the new High King, and the two men divided control of the southern half of Ireland between them. Meal Seachnaill, however, was quickly overthrown on his return to his own province, leading to a new rebellion against Brian, led by Mael Seachnaill's successor, Mael Morda .

It took another three bloody years before Brian finally took Dublin, after fighting the Viking lord of the city, Sitric Silkenbeard, whom he sent back to rule over the city in his name, as well as giving the Viking one of his daughters in marriage. As the first millennium turned, Brian faced off against the High King again, this time for the overall kingship of the island, and after two years of war Brian was crowned High King of Ireland in 1002. He then turned to consolidate his power by warring upon the long-independent northern province of Ulster and taking on the O'Neill and his allies there. A measure of how implacable and determined an enemy Ulster was shows not only in the fact that it took him a further ten years to subdue the province, but also when you realise that Brian had the massed forces of three quarters of the country against essentially a much smaller land, and yet they held out. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that the superior forces should triumph, and eventually in 1011 Brian Boru was crowned High King, and also recognised as the only Emperor of Ireland.

However the replacement for Mael Seachnaill, Meal Morda, decided he was going to challenge Brian's power, but knowing he could not do so by himself, and failing to sway any of the other leaders to his flag, he turned to Silkenbeard – who in addition to being ruler of Dublin was his cousin -  for help. The Viking lord was able to reach out to his comrades in the Orkney Islands and the Isle of Man and bring them to the assistance of Mael Morda, and the two armies finally met in one of the most climactic battles in early Irish history.
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The Battle of Clontarf (1014 AD)

The struggle between Mael Morda and Brian Boru for control of Ireland was pretty much the very first Irish civil war, though it would not be the last. It was not Vikings against Irish, as Brian had Norsemen on his side too; the Vikings who fought for Mael Morda did not do so out of any family loyalty, despite Sitric Silkenbeard's ties to him, nor indeed in the hope of gaining land. This was a raiding party, a chance to grab riches, loot the monasteries (again: you get the feeling the monasteries must have had something similar to a sign on the door saying "X days/weeks since being looted"!) and return across the seas. They were not interested in settling in Ireland, and once they had made Mael Morda High King and taken their spoils they would just **** off back to where they came.

Brian suffered his first setback when his old enemy Mael Seachnaill, with whom he had once shared the High Kingship of Ireland, withdrew his forces, though promising not to join in the attack. However he did not take part in the defence either, severely weakening Brian's forces. Though the Viking were armoured and the Irish were not, the former used swords and battleaxes, which required close-quarters fighting, while the Irish tended to hurl short spears that could kill from a distance, and they had the numerical superiority. Brian's own son, Murchad, is said to have fought valiantly, killing "fifty men with the sword in his left hand and fifty with the sword in his right". That's probably over-romanticised, but the facts of the battle are that there was much death on both sides, and that the fighting was fierce. It's said the battle lasted the entire day, though this again could be down to the poets making more of the story later.

In the end, as darkness began to fall and the Vikings withdrew, pressed by Brian's men, the high tide at Clontarf rose and cut them off from their ships, which were carried away. Didn't they think to anchor them? Did Vikings not have anchors? Anyway, that's the account.  With many of them perishing in the sea as they drowned, others making for the safety of a nearby wood but unable to gain access thanks to the rising tides, the men under Brian Boru surged forth and dealt them a crippling blow. By nightfall, they had proven victorious.

Brian, however, paid a high price for his victory. As the Vikings fled, and while praying in his tent in thanks for their defeat, Brian was discovered by one of the leaders of the opposition, Brodir, who had led the forces from the Isle of Man, and beheaded as he knelt. Shortly afterwards Brodir himself was killed, but the first Irish High King was dead. His son, too, died in the battle, as did his grandson, effectively ending the line of succession. Perhaps ironically, Mael Seachnaill was restored as High King after Brian's death. Brian was given probably the first official Irish state funeral, his body lying in state for twelve days of mourning before being finally buried in Armagh.

Although the power of the Vikings was not broken after the Battle of Clontarf, and indeed Silkenbeard remained as King of Dublin until 1036, though like most of his people in Ireland by now he seems to have converted to Christianity, making a pilgrimage to Rome in 1028, they were no longer invaders, no longer an occupying force. Like other invaders would find as the centuries turned, Ireland was a place that tended to defeat you not by military might, but by its allure of lands and climate. Most of those who attacked Ireland ended up settling in it, intermarrying Irish women and forming alliances, and often defending the country against their own fellows when fresh invasions came.

The next to try would also learn this lesson, though it would take a longer span of time before the Normans would yield up and surrender to the irresistible pull of the Emerald Isle. Their arrival would also echo down the annals of Irish history and change Ireland forever.

Chapter IV: The Book of Invasions, Part Three: Boots on the Ground –
The Beginning of Eight Hundred Years of Occupation and Oppression

Timeline: 1073 – 1316

With the death of Brian Boru Ireland descended - or rather, returned -  into petty wars, as claimants to the throne of Ireland (not literally: there was no single throne, no ruling palace or even indeed any idea of real kingship in Ireland, and would not be for hundreds more years, but various chieftains and warlords vied for the position of High King of Ireland) fought among themselves, but nobody was a worthy successor to Brian. As ever, the power of the Christian, and in  particular Catholic Church, would be the real force for change in Ireland, and the real power would rest not in Dublin or Ulster, but in Rome. With increasing dissatisfaction with what it saw as the unacceptably semi-autonomous power of the Church in Ireland, and the reported misuses of power there, the papacy was eager to assert its own control over the island. Pope Gregory VII had already established his absolute accepted rule,not only over the Christian Church, but all of creation (and that surely included Ireland!) so the way was clear, in 1155, for Pope Adrian IV (who just happened to be an Englishman, the only English pope in history) to issue a papal bull.

A papal bull, in case you don't know, was not some sort of pet the pope kept, nor was it a description of doubletalk coming out of the Vatican. It was a letter signed by the Pope, each a formal decree, a command that something must be done. Papal bulls could start or finance wars, revoke kingships or even excommunicate sinners from the Church, denying them the benison of Heaven on their death and banning them from churches. They could also provide annulments of marriages and, as in this case, confer authority upon a person to do something the pope wanted done. The papal bull of 1155, called Laudabiliter ("laudably", or "in a praiseworthy manner") allowed King Henry II of England to invade, at his convenience, Ireland, in order to bring it into line with religious orthodoxy. In other words, the King of England was encouraged to reassert the power of the Pope over the Irish monasteries.

Henry, however, was a little busy, fighting those pesky French, his eternal enemy, so he deferred invasion until such time as it might be possible, or, in the event of the war ending in victory for him, politically expedient. With rather telling Irish tragedy though, it would actually end up being the Irish – or one Irish lord, anyway – who would force Henry's hand and bring his troops to the shores of Ireland, where, once entrenched, we would suffer their yoke and oppression for the next nine centuries. As you read on through this journal, you may get an idea of exactly why Irish people hate English – historically; not so much now, but even when Ireland plays England at football or rugby, the latter is always referred to as "the old enemy".

Prelude to invasion: the Normans

The story is well known in Ireland about Diarmuid MacMurchada who, having abducted the wife of a rival chieftain, had his lands in Leinster confiscated by the closest to a High King Ireland had at the time, the powerful Rory O'Connor. Forced to flee abroad, Diarmuid plotted revenge and swore to regain his kingdom. If you feel bad for him, don't: legend has it that the man said himself he would rather be feared than loved, and any of his enemies he did not have killed outright he had castrated and blinded, so that they could have no progeny who could avenge them. Indeed, the story is told of the time he became incensed because leadership of the Abbey of Kildare had been granted to one of his rivals, and furious he rode there, attacked the place and seized the abbess and had her thrown into a soldier's bed and raped, thereby disqualifying her from holding her position. Not a nice guy!

And forevermore branded as a traitor in Ireland, though some historians see it differently. However the indisputable facts of the case are this: Diarmuid fled to France, where he found the English King, Henry II, engaged in war. Busy as he was, Henry could not spare any troops to help the dispossessed king, but he allowed him to go to Britain and recruit men in his royal name, in return for Diarmuid's promise to submit to him, hold the province of Leinster in his name and offer his daughter to the leader of the troops he would raise.
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And he found troops in Wales, men who called themselves Normans. These were the descendants of Vikings who had come to originally raid and then settled in France, in what is now known as (anybody?) Normandy. Gradually acclimatising to and being assimilated by the French lifestyle, they basically became French, and when they invaded England in 1066 led by the famous William the Conqueror, a whole new way of life was stamped on the English nation, and would be visited on the Irish too, a hundred years later. 1167 saw the first wave of Norman troops arrive in Ireland, where they quickly regained Diarmuid's kingdom, and two years later their leader brought more troops, this time taking Dublin and Waterford, sweeping all before them contemptuously.

Strongbow (1130 – 1176)

Having inherited his late father's lands as the Earl of Pembroke in 1149, Richard Fitzgilbert de Clare, known as Strongbow, lost them again when he supported King Stephen when Henry's mother, the Empress Matilda, rode against him but failed to take the throne of England. When Stephen died, and Henry inherited the throne after his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry had his revenge on the rebel earl. Seeking to better his fortunes, Strongbow was receptive when Diarmuid came looking for help to reclaim Leinster by force of arms, and after first dispatching some of his knights to aid the dispossessed Irishman, Strongbow himself followed Diarmuid to Ireland where he began a two-year rule of the country.

1170 saw the arrival of Strongbow and he laid siege with his knights to Dublin and Waterford, taking both towns easily. The Irish had never seen anything like the Normans: they were mounted and armoured, and they used longbows and crossbows, which could kill with great accuracy at a distance, and pierce armour (though the Irish wore none; indeed, they often charged naked into battle), as well as long lances. There was no contest, and Rory O'Connor, the de facto High King of Ireland, was reduced to the role of a provincial king. Diarmuid MacMurchada, who had married his daughter Aoife to Strongbow as part of the agreement, and had hoped not only to regain Leinster but to take all of Ireland and make himself High King, would not live to see this ambition fulfilled. In 1171, a mere year after Strongbow arrived, he died. On his death the kingship of Leinster fell to Strongbow, through Aoife. He was now in total control of the province.
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The marriage of Strongbow and Aoife

Rory O'Connor, however, while weakened was still a threat, and the Normans under Strongbow only held Dublin, Wexford and Waterford, a relatively small percentage of the whole of Ireland. In 1171 O'Connor laid siege to Dublin, hoping to starve Strongbow's people into submission. The Irish were not experts at siege: they had no clue what siege engines were, and merely surrounded the town with their troops. After a weak attempt at a truce, wherein his promise to swear fealty to the High King and renounce the feudal ties to his king were rejected, Strongbow engineered a daring attack by day. He literally (so the tales say) caught Rory O'Connor and most of his men bathing in the river Liffey. Unprepared (as you are, when naked) for the assault, the Irish were routed and the story spread of Strongbow's cunning and guile, bringing more Irish lords over to his side and further weakening Rory O'Connor.

But all was not well for Strongbow. He had taken Ireland (well, Leinster) at the command of and under the auspices of King Henry, on condition he hold it as a vassal of the English king. When he offered to renounce this fealty, even though the offer was dismissed, it would not take long for the news to reach Henry. And news of attempted treachery and betrayal never sits well with kings.
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Henry II and the arrival of the English

As already related, Henry was no friend to Strongbow, and did not select him for the task of helping MacMurchada regain Leinster; he told the Irish king he had licence to seek aid in his royal name, but did not mention Strongbow. Henry and the Earl of Pembroke had already butted heads, and the king certainly did not trust Strongbow. When his vassal seemed on the point of turning Ireland into a staging point for a possible attack against his former king – which may or may not have been in Strongbow's mind; remember, his roots went back to the Vikings, whose ethos had always been conquest – he decided it was time for him to take a personal hand in things. With the war in France over he was able to turn his attention to this annoying little island, and see how it might become a problem.

In October of 1171, a mere five months after the death of the man who had unwittingly provided him the excuse he needed to come to Ireland, and only two months after Strongbow had married Aoife and taken the kingship of Leinster, King Henry II arrived in Waterford with a massive fleet of four hundred ships. This was a proper invasion, intended to bring the Irish church into line with the Crown and to subjugate the population to its rule. It was the beginning of an occupation which would last well into the twentieth century.

Although Henry II only stayed in Ireland for six months, he ensured that his power and authority there was unquestioned, securing fealty from Irish chieftains – including, eventually, the self-styled High King, Rory O'Connor, who was granted the province of Connaught – and conferring land on barons from among Strongbow and his own contingents, English nobles who were awarded Irish counties, such as Meath, Westmeath and Cavan, which were granted to Hugh de Lacy, one of the king's trusted advisers. Henry's son, John Lackland, who would become King John on the death of his father in 1199, presaging a new century which would be plagued by deprivation and bad governance, rebellion and unrest, and give rise to the legend of Robin Hood, was named Lord of Ireland. And yes, he was the same King John who signed the Magna Carta – not Encarta, kids: that's a whole different thing.

An interesting and indeed important historical event around this time was when Rory O'Connor, former High King of Ireland and now content (without any real choice) to have Connaught for his realm, married off his daughter to Hugh de Lacy,  which not only strengtened ties between Ireland and England but became the point in history to which the direct involvement of the English in Irish affairs can be traced. The status of Ireland was changed from a free independent land to that of a lordship of the English Crown, bringing it  under direct rule of the English king. Meanwhile, John de Courcy, another English baron who had arrived with King Henry, set out for Ulster and took various towns there, setting himself up as the ruler of Ulster. He had done this, however, without the blessing or even the permission of the King, who then sent Hugh de Lacy to rein him in.

The story goes that de Lacy was told that de Courcy was such a religious man that the only time he would take off his armour and shield (which, it was said, he even slept in) was on Good Friday. On that most holy of days, he could be found in the church, praying, and defenceless. Caring, it would seem, nothing for the sanctuary of the church, de Lacy sent his men to apprehend the earl of Ulster, who was taken after a ferocious fight. Hugh de Lacy was then granted the earlship in his place by Henry. De Courcy would spend much of his life in exile, and after an abortive attempt to retake his holding in Country Down, but was repulsed and late imprisoned by the king.

In addition to their fierce knights and terrifying longbows and crossbows, the Normans were superior to the native Irish in that they believed in towns and settlements, and built castles, many of which survive today. Notable among these are Dublin Castle, which served as the centre of English power in Ireland right up to the Rising and until Ireland's independence was procured in 1922. They introduced the idea of towns and cities to Ireland, though their superior weapons and charging knights could become bogged down in the mazy Irish landscape, which the Irish, familiar with, could navigate much more easily and use to set traps for their enemy. The Normans also introduced the idea of proper commerce to Ireland, with trade guilds set up. These were basically clubs, but vital to be part of. If you were not, for instance, part of the baker's guild, you could not bake. If you weren't a member of the carpenters' guild, you couldn't be a carpenter. And so on. As a way of excluding Irish tradesmen, membership of any guild was restricted to those of English name and blood. The very first "No Irish!" sign, as it were, something that immigrants down the centuries would see and turn away from.
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Dublin Castle today

And so the subjugation of the Irish began in earnest: their lands were taken over by Norman barons and they were forced into serfdom to the lords. As the thirteenth century drew to a close, over sixty percent of the land of Ireland was occupied, owned and held by Norman lords loyal to the Crown, but essentially allowed a modicum of autonomy, as the feudal system was introduced to the previous independent island. Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinian orders moved in to "civilise" the Irish Church, taking over the monasteries and building new ones, and stamping their authority – and the authority of the King and the Pope – on the abbeys and monasteries that had enjoyed such independence for so long.

In England, the reign of King John had passed by now and he had been supplanted by the weak Henry III and then by Edward I, who came to be known as "The Hammer of the Scots" (you've seen Braveheart, haven't you?) for his implacable suppression of the Scots' attempt to gain independence. He further impoverished Ireland by taking thousands of fighting men and sending them to war against the Scots, at Ireland's expense. Scotland had her revenge though when the king's son and successor, Edward II, lost to Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314, and his own son Edward Bruce then tried to take Ireland from the Normans, at the behest of the Irish in Ulster. Ireland sent a famous letter to the Pope, The Papal Remonstrance, decrying the conditions the Normans foisted upon them, and asking His Holiness to intervene, but he never did. Edward Bruce landed in Ireland in 1315 and though initially he had many successes, and was in fact on the verge of complete victory, nature conspired to overturn his plans.

He failed, mostly due to the terrible famine that was sweeping across Europe at that time, and which had reached Ireland in 1316,  but the power of the Normans was beginning to wane.  Irish power was being re-established by the middle of the fourteenth century, by which time Ulster and most of Connaught were again under the control of the Irish chieftains, and even the Norman invaders were beginning to "go native", adopting Irish customs and language and laws, intermarrying with Irish women and considering themselves, as the quote went, "more Irish than the Irish themselves", resulting in the Statutes of Kilkenny, laws passed by British Parliament which made adopting Irish customs, language and laws illegal.

I'd like to digress here for a moment to recount a very funny story our history teacher told us, to illustrate how sometimes, winging it can be hilarious. He related how one question on the history paper at an exam was "What were the Statutes of Kilkenny?" and one clever dick wrote "The Statutes of Kilkenny were tall stone figures, twenty feet high, and Americans from all over the world came to see them"! :laughing: Yeah, well I thought it was funny. Anyway, back to the real text.

With the defeat of Edward II at Bannockburn, Robert the Bruce had achieved for the first time that which no other Celtic country could boast: he had taken on England and won. The mythical infallability and superiority of English forces developed an important crack, one the Irish would worry at and exploit over the next few hundred years. The power of the English in Ireland would be further weakened, as would all reigns and all kingdoms across Europe, by a force that not even kings or popes could stand against, and which was believed by many to be a punishment from God.

Chapter V: A plague on both your Houses: The Black Death, the War of the Roses and the rise of Kildare.

The Pale
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As already related, the power of the English Crown did not establish itself much beyond a few small kingdoms – the counties of Waterford, Wexford and Dublin basically – and anywhere inside that small region controlled by the King was denoted the Pale, or often the English Pale. This word seems to have come from an old word for fortress or stronghold, though there are some differening accounts of its origins. However we can probably best think of it as the equivalent of the Green Area in Iraq, an area wherein the occupying force was located, and which was considered his stronghold. Outside the Pale, the Irish lords ruled, and from this state of affairs comes an old Irish phrase, still occasionally in use today: "beyond the Pale" has come to mean anything that is beyond the bounds of normality or anything that is hard to believe: "You got the promotion instead of me? Ah, that's a bit beyond the Pale now!" and so on. It is often used colloquially to refer to any area outside Dublin as being "outside the Pale".

As the Norman settlers were left inceasingly isolated, the king turning his attention to more important matters such as wars with France, and later, within his own power structure, the Pale slowly shrunk, until by the mid-fifteenth century it comprised a relatively small area which took in Dublin, Louth, Meath and Kildare, and indeed, not all of those counties (see map above), and was shrinking fast. Even within the Pale, while the lords and landowners may have been English and mostly acted as such, the common folk were all Irish, speakng the Irish language and reverting to Irish customs, in spite of the Statues of Kilkenny, which really, nobody obeyed anyway. The fortification and concentration of Dublin and other Norman towns ironically left them more exposed to the great sickness which would soon reach sticky black fingers down from Europe to touch every part of Ireland.

Although it's not strictly part of the history of Ireland specifically, the Black Death did significantly impact the island, as it did just about everywhere else, and is a part of the tapestry of the history of Ireland, if only a relatively small thread. Nonethless, to understand fully its implications for Ireland I think it's necessary to turn the microscope on that small thread and examine it more closely in respect to the rest of the world.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Bubonic_plague_map.PNG/600px-Bubonic_plague_map.PNG)
Believed to have originated in China in the fourteenth century, the Black Death, also called the Plague, the Black Plague, the Great Plague and, later, Bubonic Plague, swept across Europe and successfully wiped out what is reckoned to be around forty percent of its population. That's approximately seventy to two hundred million people, over a period of seven years, more than all the deaths in the two world wars of the twentieth century combined. Lack of medical knowledge, as well as poor hygeine practices and the total lack of, or understanding of quarantines, led to the disease having free rein across the world, and by the time it had finished its first attack it had infiltrated and wrought massive death tolls in virtually every country, from Asia and Africa to the Middle East and from Russia to all of Europe, including of course Ireland. Later, in the nineteenth century, as resurgence of the Plague would reach Australia and even at the beginning of the twentieth century it would surface in the USA.

Carried by fleas infesting black rats, which came over on ships from China or along the main trade route, the Silk Road, the Plague spread to Europe and nobody had any idea what it was, where it came from, much less how to combat it. What was certain was that it was almost one hundred percent contagious, and once one member of a family was infected, the rest of the family would likely follow. Houses were often boarded up and marked with a red "X" in an extremely crude form of quarantine, though this did not stop the spread of the disease, as the fleas simply hopped through cracks in walls and floorboards and through windows in search of new hosts. Theories abounded (all wrong), from alignment of the planets to bad water, to the famous "miasma" theory, where it was held that the Plague was airborne, and that in order to avoid being infected you should avoid the "bad air" outside and remain indoors. Naturally, this only helped to incubate the disease more quickly and led to more deaths.

Many believed the Black Death to be a curse from God, and who could blame them? If you've read my review of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal in The Couch Potato, or seen the movie, you'll agree that it must have seemed to the people of the time that the world was coming to an end. Nobody could stand against this Plague, and kings and popes were cut down as easily as commoners. Poor suffered with rich, and no amount of barring your door or isolating yourself could stay the dark hand of death, nor could it be bargained with. As we always do in times of crisis, people looked around for scapegoats, culprits, someone to blame, and as would be the case throughout most of recorded history, the Jews became a target, accused of poisoning wells and lepers and gypsies were also attacked. But perhaps the saddest of all these incorrect accusations was the blame levelled on cats.

Specifically, witches. Cats were seen as the familiars, or companion demons, of witches, and had been since the early Dark Ages. Any cat therefore was seen as an agent of the devil, and thousands were burned on pyres in an effort to expel the devil and lift the curse. The irony being, of course, had the cats been left to their natural devices they would in all likelihood have killed the rats who were carrying the fleas. Of course, the fleas if they survived would then just transfer to the cats, so maybe that would not have been such a solution. But because nobody back then even understood how diseases could be transmitted from one person to another, the lack of knowledge worked against them. If knowledge is power, then it probably follows that in most cases, ignorance is weakness and impotence, and the world at large was completely impotent in the face of this inexplicable horror.

Imagine the terror: seemingly all of a sudden, out of nowhere you start to hear of people dying in far-off cities, and then nearer ones. Then outbreaks are reported in your own country. With little in the way of communication there would of course be a dearth of news, but travellers would bring the tales of the death they had seen, and armies and ambassadors, priests and pedlars, sailors and adventurers would all carry news of this great blight advancing across Europe. And then the dread when one of your neighbours died, and the Black Death was suddenly in your town, your village, your city. Or even your castle. And there was no stopping it. Medical science offered no solution, no hope. The word "quack" to describe a doctor has come about from the practice medical men had of wearing long, conical masks over their faces stuffed with flowers and herbs to ward off the disease, a very crude form of facemask. But all they could do was bring comfort to the patient; there was no way they could save them. They simply did not even know where to start.

The Black Death arrived in Ireland (no I haven't forgotten what I'm writing about) in 1348, two years after it had reached its peak in Europe and five years since it had begun its deadly trip from Central Asia, and was a disaster for the Normans. Already reeling from rebellions, civil wars and the recent European famine, and bereft of any support from the Crown, as the king was busy fighting the French in the Hundred Years's War, the Normans (now beginning to be called Ango-Irish) found that their fortified cities and towns, while superior for defence and protection, were more a breeding ground for the Plague than the more scattered, rural habitations of the native Irish, and as a consequence the Black Death took a heavier toll on the Normans than the Irish.

With their enemy weakened, and no reinforcement looking possible from across the water, the Irish chieftains moved. The first real challenger was Art McMurrough Kavanagh, a descendant of Diarmuid MacMurchada (remember him?) and also, like his ancestor, heir to the thone of Leinster, which he assumed in 1370. For the next forty years he harrassed the Normans, even advancing on Dublin, though he did not take it. In 1394, able to take a break from the Hundred Years' War, King Richard II paid a personal visit to Ireland at the head of an army which has been variously reported as being between five and ten thousand strong. Even at the lower end of the scale of estimates, this still makes it the largest armed force to land on Irish soil in the medieval period. Needless to say, the king quickly quelled all revolt against his authority and all the Irish chieftains swore fealty to him, only to renounce it once he had been recalled to England. He returned five years later but was unable to stay, as he had to return to meet the challenge of the man who would go on to kill him and take his crown, Henry Bolingbroke, who would become King Henry IV.

Into this power vacuum stepped three influential Irish families: the Desmonds controlled much of Kerry and Cork, while the Kildare family were based, obviously, in the county of Kildare. Between their lands, all other southeastern territories were the jurisdiction of the Ormonds. These three families stepped up to add their weight to supporting each faction as the Hundred Years War ended and, in historic terms, the War of the Roses almost immediately begun. Unfortunately for Ireland, we picked the wrong side, with the Fitzgeralds, who were in control of Kildare and Desmond, betting on the House of York, while the Butlers of Ormond supported the House of Lancaster. When Edward IV then won for the House of York initially, he in gratitude granted the governorship of Ireland to the Earl of Desmond, who was later defeated by the O'Connors, and executed by his successor, Lord Tiptoft. In revenge, his brother Geraoid rose in rebellion, and at the end of a bloody campaign Gearoid Mor Fitzgerald, eighth Earl of Kildare, was pronounced Governor of Ireland.

This then began the rise to power of an already powerful family, as Fitzgerald consolidated his power. Even when the final victory in the War of the Roses fell to the House of Lancaster, and Henry VII took the throne, Fitzgerald proved immovable from his position. Despite having been, and remaining, a staunch supporter of the York family, he had too much popular support in Ireland to allow the new king to remove him and replace him with an Englishman, and so, for the sake of peace and to keep the Irish quiet, Henry allowed Geraroid Mor to remain in charge of Ireland, effectively a High King, though nominally subservient to the Crown. This leeway from the English king did not prevent Fitzgerald from supporting two separate pretenders to the English throne as he struggled to unseat his old enemy.

Pretenders to the Throne

With the defeat and death of Richard III, the last king of the house of York was consigned to history, however this did not mean the end of his family, his House or indeed the supporters of that House. The fragility of the claim of Henry VII to the throne, coupled with the outcome of the Hundred Years' War as well as England's seemingly unending enmity for France, meant that it was from there that the plot to unseat Henry and plant a puppet king on the throne of England originated. Coached and groomed by the Duchess of Burgundy, sister to Edward VI, the first king of the House of York, two men were sent to England purporting to be the rightful king and demanding and attempting to enforce the abdication of Henry VII.

Lambert Simnel

No more than a boy of about ten years of age when he became the figurehead for a Yorkist rebellion against the Crown, Simnel was drawn into the plots of older and more devious men when the priest who was schooling him noticed a striking resemblance between him and Edward Earl of Warwick, whom King Richard III had had imprisoned (and some say murdered) in the Tower of London. Being a son of Richard II he had a very good claim to the throne, so when the aid of the Duchess of Burgundy was sought she helped school the boy so that he would be able to pass as a nobleman.

Simnel landed in Ireland in 1487 and was crowned as King Edward VI, after which he set sail with Irish and Flemish troops – the former supplied by Gearoid Mor Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare and the latter by Her Grace the Duchess of Burgundy – to assert his claim. Being only ten years old, he was of course merely a pawn, and when his army was defeated the king recognised this and set him to work in his royal kitchens. Thus the Irish had once again backed the wrong horse in trying to reassert the power of York which, unbeknownst to them, would never again see a member of their House sit on the English throne.

Perkin Warbeck

More of a threat however was Perkin Warbeck, who presented himself at the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, claiming to be in fact Richard, Duke of York, the other prince who had been imprisoned in the Tower by Richard III, and believed killed. With monarchies like the Scots and the French taking up his claim, Perkin represented a real threat to the Tudor king, and though he was beaten and this time hanged, his claim dying with him, he again swayed the vote of the Irish, and Gearoid Mor supported him. As a result of this he was dismissed when Perkin was defeated, and his successor, an English noble called Poynings, passed a law in Ireland which prevented the Irish parliament convening or passing any legislation without the express order and consent of the king, to ensure that never again would a pretender be crowned in Ireland.

Gearoid Mor, however, proved to be too formidable a leader to be displaced for long, and a mere four years later he was back in control of Ireland, the Lord Deputy, but in all but name ruler of Ireland. With so much support back home that his arrest and imprisonment led to revolts and rebellions springing up all over Ireland, and the expense of two major wars to attend to, to say nothing of fighting off pretenders to his crown, Henry VII is said to have observed philosophically, "If all Ireland cannot rule this man, he shall rule all Ireland", and Gearoid was re-invested. His claim on power was so strong that when he died in 1512, the Lord Deputyship of Ireland passed directly to his son, Gearoid Og, establishing something of a dynasty, a thing Ireland had not had in its history before.

Although on his ascension to the throne, King Henry VIII also confirmed Geraoid Og as Lord Deputy, his future did not bode well for Catholicism, and in the end, he would go down as the king who finally established direct English rule over Ireland, and began its true religious persecution.

Hey TH, good to read ya!
Interesting stuff, and so confusing to keep up with developments.
Roman Catholicism had clearly spread to the outposts i.e. Britain and Ireland.
My mother was from Galway and I always presumed it was the Spanish Armada coming up the west coast of Ireland which stamped their Catholic influence on the nation. But actually Catholicism was already well established right? (until Henry VIII came along that is).

Quote from: Saulaac on Mar 03, 2024, 11:19 PMHey TH, good to read ya!
Interesting stuff, and so confusing to keep up with developments.
Roman Catholicism had clearly spread to the outposts i.e. Britain and Ireland.
My mother was from Galway and I always presumed it was the Spanish Armada coming up the west coast of Ireland which stamped their Catholic influence on the nation. But actually Catholicism was already well established right? (until Henry VIII came along that is).

Hey Saulaac! Good to talk to you again.
Yeah, what happened was that after the fall of the Roman Empire the "new" empire, as in, Rome but now run by the Church, sent out missionaries who arrived in Ireland - and England - around about I think the 7th or 8th century (have to check; could have been earlier) to "civilise" and convert the heathen, cos at that time Ireland was into her pagan gods. I'm pretty sure I laid it all out in the first chapter or two, but you might in fact be interested to know that up until the late sixteenth century England was Catholic too, in fact the recently emerging Protestantism (or Lutherism, as it was called at the time) was so banned that they happily burned them as heretics. It was no change of attitude that made England forever Protestant, just a desire by King Henry VIII to get out of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could give Anne Boleyn one, and officially, so that their children would be legit, and if she dropped a son then Henry had the heir he wanted. Didn't quite work out that way of course, but she didn't lose her head over it. Oh, wait: she did.  :D  ;)

Chapter VI: The Book of Invasions, Part Four: Terra Incognita, Treachery and The Fall of Ireland

Timeline: 1512-1607

Papal Enemy Number One: Henry VIII and the English Reformation

Having, as I mentioned earlier, only won our independence in 1923, the history and destiny of Ireland has been throughout our long history controlled by outside forces, most notably of course by England, who held sway over us for over eight hundred years. It's therefore necessary, I feel, to look at the major figures who orchestrated the invasion, occupation and governance of Ireland, and as the timeline progresses this is what I will be doing.

Many kings and queens of England of course had a hand in the subjugation of Ireland, and we've already heard about Henry VII and the Normans, but to my mind there's one figure who typifies the antagonism that would come to define the relationship between Irish and English, which would lead to a schism in Irish belief, and to the very sectarianism that plagues our island even today.

When the Celts were under the sway of the Druids, they worshipped gods, but more importantly goddesses; Ireland, though controlled by a patriarchy, was a matriarchal theocracy, or something. Goddesses were big in Ireland, is what I mean, and through the intercession of the Druids laid down the laws by which the Celts lived. When the druids, along with their deities, were driven out of Ireland, the Irish looked to a new mother figure: the Catholic Church. She protected and nurtured them all through the Dark Ages, even into Tudor times, and when one king took on the Pope, it spelled trouble for Ireland, and began a hatred and enmity that has existed to this day.

Henry VIII (1491-1547)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/HenryVIII_1509.jpg/340px-HenryVIII_1509.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Hans_Holbein%2C_the_Younger%2C_Around_1497-1543_-_Portrait_of_Henry_VIII_of_England_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/340px-Hans_Holbein%2C_the_Younger%2C_Around_1497-1543_-_Portrait_of_Henry_VIII_of_England_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Even those of you with zero interest in history know Henry VIII, if only from the famous portrait that shows him as a fat, lame corpulent man scowling out of the picture. Of course, he wasn't always like this - witness his many marriages, few if any ones of convenience - but this is the popular image we have left of him, just as Shakespeare was also obviously young and handsome at one point, but we now picture him as a balding, oldish man in a high Elizabethan ruff. If we know Henry for anything though, it's likely one of two things (or both): firstly, for having six wives, two of whom were beheaded at his command, and secondly for his spat with the Pope and the formation of the Church of England. None of this would of course endear him to the fiercely Catholic Irish, and his actions during his reign would not help that cause. For those who may have the sketchiest knowledge of one of the most famous and written about English kings, here's a very quick potted history.

Only one of four to survive from the six children born to his father, Henry VII, Henry was already appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland at the tender age of three. What this actually meant was that his father, Henry VII, retained control over Ireland and no other noble could request or even demand the position. Nevertheless, though it may have been nothing more than a nominal or symbolic position, the fact remains that from his infancy right through to his death, King Henry VIII's fate would be inextricably and irrevocably linked with that of Ireland. The youngest of the surviving royal children, he was never expected to ascend to the throne, this honour to befall his elder brother Arthur. However Arthur did not reach his sixteenth birthday, dying before he could claim his heritage, and as the two other children were girls, it was Henry who became heir to the throne of England.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Catalina_de_Arag%C3%B3n%2C_por_un_artista_an%C3%B3nimo.jpg/340px-Catalina_de_Arag%C3%B3n%2C_por_un_artista_an%C3%B3nimo.jpg)
Catherine of Aragon

When his father died in 1507 Henry realised his destiny, taking the wife, well, widow, of his late brother Arthur, Catherine, youngest child of the rulers of two powerful Spanish kingdoms, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, but when she failed to provide him a son (all of her children, boys and girls, being stillborn, and the last one to survive being a girl) he decided to look further afield. Having had an affair with Catherine's lady-in-waiting, Mary Boleyn, he then took a fancy to her sister. But Anne was not content to be a mere king's mistress, and demanded marriage. This meant that Henry's marriage to Catherine had to be annulled, and the only one who could do that was the Pope. There was, however, a problem.

Catherine was aunt to one of the most powerful Spanish rulers, the Holy Roman Emperor himself, Charles V, and Pope Clement VII, reluctant to get on his bad side by sanctioning what would be seen as the public dishonour of Catherine, demurred. Annoyed at this seeming refusal (which it pretty much was) to grant him the freedom to marry again, Henry decided to dissolve the power of the Catholic Church in England, setting himself up as supreme head of the Church, and thereby making an enemy of the Pope. This is curious in a historical context, as the previous Pope, Leo X, had conferred upon Henry the title of "Defender of the Faith" for his defence of papal authority! I guess sentiments like that are fine as long as they fit in with your own requirements.

Henry married Anne Boleyn in 1533 (though technically she had been unofficial queen since 1531, Catherine having been banished from the royal apartments, stripped of her title and no longer recognised as the king's consort) and she gave him one child. It was a girl, which was surely disappointing to Henry at the time, though she would grow up to become one of the greatest rulers England had ever seen. Elizabeth was born on September 7 1533, a mere three months after Anne had been officially crowned as Queen Consort. For his temerity in going against Rome and setting up the Church of England, Pope Clement excommunicated Henry. This meant he was forbidden to attend mass, have his sins forgiven and his soul was damned to Hell for eternity. Henry wasn't worried.

He was worried, however, about the line of royal succession. If there was one duty a king took as seriously as protecting his realm it was securing an heir to continue his dynasty. Not for another six years would a woman sit on the English throne, the only one to ever do so up to that point, other than Matilda, whose monarchy is hotly disputed even now, the line of succession always falling to the male heir. If a king were to die without a son therefore, there would be no legitimate king, and infighting would result as those next in line to the throne would all vie for the position. This could lead to civil or even outright war, as in the War of the Roses, as already related, although the king in that case did have an heir, but he was allegedly murdered.

So producing a successor to his reign was of paramount importance to Henry, and while this was the task of the queen, if successive wives failed him then it would be hard to continue pointing the finger at the woman, and suspicion might fall upon the king himself. Apart from the ignominy of being talked of as impotent, the strategic and historical imperatives were clear here: die without an heir and risk plunging England into bloody conflict, in the process leaving her at the mercy of her enemies, who would surely capitalise on her weakness.

Henry's desire to ditch Catherine and take up with Anne however was not purely motivated by regnal duty; he was also a randy old sod, and as king he could have as many mistresses as he liked, but any progeny from such unions would be illegitimate, and therefore ineligible for the throne. To produce a proper, legitimate heir who would be supported by all and whom the law would recognise, Henry had to have a son by his queen.

But that didn't mean it had to be this queen.

When Anne failed to satisfy his need for an heir, Henry had -  perhaps trumped-up - charges of infidelity and adultery levelled against her, branding her a traitor and allowing him to have her executed. He then moved on to Jane Seymour, whom he had been seeing more of (sorry) even as Anne Boleyn awaited her trial and execution. Jane finally gave him the heir he had craved, and which England needed, and Prince Edward was born on October 12 1537. However Henry's joy was cut short as his wife and queen of only a year died twelve days later of complications from the birth. It could be said that though she was the wife who lasted the shortest time, she was also the most loyal, giving him his heir and also her life, though the latter hardly willingly.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Anne_of_Cleves%2C_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg/340px-Anne_of_Cleves%2C_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg)

Anne of Cleeves

For the first time since ascending the throne of England, Henry needed but did not necessarily desire a new wife, which is to say he was in mourning for Jane, not bored of or frustrated with her, but as king he knew he had to have a queen, and this time one was chosen for him - well, let's say suggested to him: I doubt anyone ever told King Henry VIII what to do. But on the advice of Thomas Cromwell, he married Anne of Cleeves, who then became his fourth wife. But already Henry's eye was wandering, and this time it fixed on a seventeen-year-old niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Catherine Howard, much to Cromwell's annoyance, as her father was a political opponent of his. He was right to be worried, as on the very day of the king's fifth marriage he was accused of treason and executed. No doubt the good Duke had a hand in that.

Catherine would not survive him long though. Embroiled in adulterous affairs, she was caught out and though Henry initially refused to believe his new wife had been unfaithful to him, he was forced to accept the evidence, especially when it came from her own mouth, and Catherine Howard became the second of Henry's so-far five wives to literally lose her head over the king. His final marriage would see him attracted to yet another Catherine, this time Catherine Parr, who had already had three husbands before Henry. She helped him reconcile with his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, resulting in an Act of Parliament that allowed both the girls to join the royal line of succession, paving the way for England's first two queens.

So that's Henry VIII and his famous six wives, but why did the Irish hate him so? Well, clearly when you defied the authority of the Pope you were going to make no friends in a country that, while ruled by English nobles (Normans) was still staunchly and defiantly Catholic, and who after all wants to swear fealty to a heretic? But it wasn't just that. Henry had demanded loyalty to the Crown from Ireland, and this put the Irish nobles in a very tough and unenviable position. Fiercely loyal to the Pope, they did not want to be seen to be going against the wishes of the Holy Father, but Rome was a long way away, much more distant than England, and when Henry declared that all of Ireland must follow "the English way", including worship, he found stiff opposition from the Irish against his plans.

Here I want to pause for a moment, and explain in basic terms how the massive split occurred in the Catholic Church, how that affected Europe, Rome and later England, and by extension Ireland, and how it continues to do so even today, dividing our island along geographical as well as religious lines of orthodoxy, giving rise to conflict, hatred, prejudice and our own horrible version of holy war.

The Rise of Protestantism: Martin Luther goes head-to-head with the Pope

There can be no argument that in the time before, and even during the Renaissance, the Catholic Church was not only a major world power, almost the major world power, a huge player in politics, maker and breaker of kings, and the agency that called for retribution against the heathen with the Crusades, but one of the most corrupt organisations in the world. Successive popes set themselves up as kings, emperors or warlords (or all three), keeping standing armies and enriching their own coffers, more concerned with material wealth than spiritual salvation, while their priests and bishops preached exactly the opposite message to the faithful from the pulpits every Sunday.

A young German monk named Martin Luther had been watching all this misuse of power for some time, but the final straw for him came in 1516, when the Pope at the time, Leo X, sent an envoy to Germany to sell indulgences in order to finance the rebuilding of the church of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Indulgences were, essentially, get-out-of-jail-free cards for Christians, though scrub out the word free. For a payment, large or small depending on the sin to be expunged, penitents could purchase a letter signed by Leo which would then allow a soul held in Purgatory (transient state between Heaven and Hell) to be released into Heaven. Basically you were paying for the soul of your mother, father, child, wife, whoever, who had died, to be sprung from Limbo.

The phrase "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,The soul from Purgatory springs" so enraged Luther that he wrote to the Pope, decrying the practice of indulgences, and asking, quite reasonably really, why a man so incredibly wealthy as Leo X, reckoned at the time to be one of the richest men in the world, if not the richest, had to rely on the contributions of the poor to rebuild a church when he had the money to do so out of his own pocket? Instead of answering this accusation, the Pope decided to brand Luther a heretic and excommunicated him, in the same way as he would deal with England's upstart king a decade later.

But Luther would not be so easily silenced. He saw the rot in the Catholic Church, most especially at its venerated head, and the disrespect that the man supposedly chosen by God as His agent on Earth paid to the office, and he and his followers broke with Rome, splintering into their own religion, which though still Christian would be rabidly opposed to Catholicism. It was, of course, called Protestantism. As already noted, the later heretic King Henry VIII initially defended the Pope against this blasphemer, only to find himself, perhaps not allied with Luther's ideals so much as using them for his own expediency, but certainly on the same side as the German reformer.

This of course put the king of England on a collision course, theologically and ideologically with the Irish, but it wasn't just esoteric concerns that upset them. Having broken with Rome, Henry now felt entitled to break up the monasteries, which were of course run by Catholic monks and abbots, and seize their assets for the Crown. This became known as "the dissolution of the monasteries", and this was bad enough, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, he then ordered the same fate for the monasteries in Ireland. These had existed, more or less unbothered by the Crown, for centuries, and had survived invasions both Viking and Norman. The dissolution of the monasteries was a direct and very public middle finger from England to Rome, and shocked and angered the Irish, who still considered themselves mostly the Pope's subjects. Although the dissolution of the monasteries represented a seismic shift in English royal policies, Henry's action was neither unprecedented nor unique throughout Europe.

As the rise of Protestantism and Anglicanism, both versions of Lutheran teachings, gripped Germany and expanded outside its borders to places such as Switzerland, Holland, Scotland  and even fiercely Catholic France, the idea of monasteries was slowly being eroded. Monasteries were quintessentially a Catholic, or as some preferred to call them, papist idea, and those who no longer wanted anything to do with Rome wanted all trace of their power removed from their countries. In that context, then, it's not at all to be wondered at that Henry wished to reinforce his own power as the new Supreme Head of the Church of England, and remove the agents of the Pope. Of course, the fact that these monasteries stood on choice land and contained valuable artifacts that could be sold, or melted down, and used to fill the king's coffers, didn't hurt either.

However in Ireland things were different, and Henry had a much harder time putting his plan into operation. For one thing, having been for a very long time the centre of Catholicism, even when the Roman Empire held sway over the Eternal City, Ireland had a lot more monasteries, convents and friaries than England did. About twice as many, in fact. Henry's authority in Ireland was quite nominal; though he was officially declared King of Ireland, in reality his power only extended to the area around the Pale (as discussed in a previous entry) and so in order to work his will he had to make deals with local Irish lords. This meant that the land, and the wealth of the monasteries mostly went to these compliant lords as compensation, so the Crown saw little return for its efforts. In fact, up to the time of the accession of Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, half of the monasteries in Ireland had not been dissolved.

The Revolt of Silken Thomas and the Fall of the House of Kildare
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Thomas_FitzGerald%2C_10th_Earl_of_Kildare.jpg)
Realising that the most powerful family in Ireland at that time were the Fitzgeralds, the Earls of Kildare, Henry summoned Gearoid Og (son of already mentioned Gearoid Mor, the de facto High King Henry VII had grudgingly installed) to London and imprisoned him in the Tower. However the Englishman sent to Ireland to replace him found it an impossible task, and Gearoid Og returned home in triumph, but was summoned back to London in 1534, and this time died there. Before he left for England though, wary of the king and remembering his previous treatment, Gearoid Og left his son Thomas, Lord Offaly, in charge, warning him to ignore any summons to England and to be on his guard against the Irish Council, whom Gearoid did not trust. Thomas, Lord Offaly, is known to history as Silken Thomas.


Mindful of his father's cautions, Silken Thomas - so called due to the finery he was purported to wear - rode to Dublin and crashed a meeting of the Irish Council, slamming down the ceremonial sword of office that marked him as vice deputy in front of the lord chancellor, and declaring his opposition to the Crown. He then massed his troops, demanding all Englishmen be expelled from Ireland and calling for allegiance to the Pope, in the process hoping for aid from Rome and from Spain, but none arrived. Once again, however, it was not the English who defeated an Irish revolt but in-fighting and score-settling among the Irish themselves. Jealous of the power of the Kildares, the Butlers saw a chance to break that dynasty and fought against Silken Thomas's army, defeating him and sending him to England, where he was executed in 1537.

Enraged at the revolt, and sensing also a chance to break the power of the Kildares forever, with Gearoid Og and his son both dead, Henry sent a sizeable army - somewhere in the region of around two thousand men - to lay siege to the stronghold of the Kildares, Maynooth Castle, his army bringing with them artillery, the first time this had been used in Ireland. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, and the defeat of the most powerful family in Ireland was quickly accomplished. Worried that their tacit support for the rebellion might anger the king, the Irish lords moved quickly to confirm Henry as Head of the Church of Ireland.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cb/Arms_of_Ireland_%28historical%29.svg/170px-Arms_of_Ireland_%28historical%29.svg.png)
The Kingdom of Ireland

Having no choice but to send settlers to colonise Ireland and thus regain control of the lawless land, Henry used a practice called "surrender and regrant". What this meant was that the Irish lords would surrender their lands to the Crown, who would grant them back to them, under multiple conditions. First, and most importantly, they must swear fealty to Henry and renounce the authority of the Pope. Second, they must take English peerage titles and abandon their traditional Irish titles. They had to attend parliament, speak English and undertake English customs, live by English laws and encourage the spread of the same throughout their holdings.

In return they would be granted a royal charter to confirm their ownership of the lands, and the protection of the Crown. In 1541 Ireland was declared a kingdom, no longer just a lordship as it had been, and all its inhabitants considered subject to the English Crown. In some ways though it would be separate, with its own House of Lords and House of Commons, and its own courts. The Church of Ireland was established as the state church under Henry, and the dissolution of the monasteries was passed by a compliant Irish parliament. Nevertheless, for all their subservience, the Irish people never acceded to Protestantism and the Reformation in Ireland was pretty much a failure.

Three's Not Company: Political Factions in Ireland

Around this time then you had three separate social and ethnic groups in Ireland, who are designated as a) the Old English, who were descendants of the original Norman settlers, b) the Old Irish, no explanation needed there and c) the New English, the settlers who arrived during Henry's reign. Of these three groups, only the last took to the Reformation, being not only staunch Protestants but also Puritans, the toughest, most uncompromising and most hardline opponents of Catholicism (it was of course these who would later sail away from persecution in the seventeenth century to find a new life in a new world, as they departed aboard the Mayflower, bound for America, where they would become the Founding Fathers of that embryonic nation). Both the Old English and Irish clung to their old religion, devoted to the Pope, the former the richest of the three groups while also possessing the most land.

Hatred would of course erupt between the New English and their other counterparts, both English and Irish, but in 1542 the Counter-Reformation was underway and Jesuit and Franciscan monks arrived in Ireland to minister to the population, bolster the observance of the Catholic faith, and ensure forever the defeat of the Reformation in Ireland, a momentous event that left our tiny island unique in being ruled by a Protestant monarch but practicing our own religion.

The death of King Henry VIII would allow his son, Edward, to succeed him as Edward VI, but this was at age nine, and so for his six-year reign power would be in the hands of his regents the Dukes of Somerset and Northumberland. A sickly lad, he would die in 1553.  England would thereafter experience fifty years of female monarchy, as the first woman to officially sit on the English throne would avenge her father's persecution of Catholics by reversing the trend, while her sister, succeeding her, would become one of the most famous rulers in English history, and practice a more lenient attitude towards the worship of her subjects. Both would, however, impact negatively upon the history of Ireland, which would stubbornly refuse to bend the knee to the English Crown, and would pay a heavy price for her disobedience and rebellion.
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Bloody Mary - Mary I (1553-1558)
Anxious that his Catholic sister Mary should not ascend the throne and undo all the reforms he and their father had instigated, Edward named Lady Jane Grey in his will, a cousin once removed, but she lasted a mere nine days after the young king's death, when she too was put to death and Mary was crowned Queen of England and Ireland. How the Irish must have celebrated, overjoyed that a Catholic now sat on the English throne! Sadly for us, it made no difference. Mary was as unfeeling towards the "troublesome Irish" as had been her predecessors, and she went ahead with the plantation of the counties of Offaly and Laois, closest to the areas outside the Pale, determined to Anglicise Ireland once and for all.

Mary attained her dark sobriquet, however, not due to her persecution of the Irish but of her own countrymen, the  Protestants of England. Once the ruling class and favoured state religion for over forty years, these were now urged to recant their beliefs or be burned at the stake for heresy, a threat she put into horrible practice. Although Mary was married to the Spanish King Philip II, he was not proclaimed as King of England, merely jure uxoris, a kind of "queen's consort" title for a male, sort of like I assume, had America a female president, her husband would be, what, First Gentleman? Also something similar, maybe, to the position Prince Albert occupied when married to Queen Victoria later. Anyway, Philip was never King of England, merely the husband of the Queen. The close involvement, however, of the Spanish king allowed Mary to repair the relationship with Rome which had fractured under her father's reign, and England came once again under the jurisdiction of the Pope. Tellingly though, the monasteries seized by Henry VIII were not returned to the Church.

Mary was a cruel woman. Even after he recanted his faith, having watched his brother bishops being burned alive, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was forced to go to the stake too. The burnings of what would later become Protestant martyrs were highly unpopular, even among the Spanish, but Mary persisted with the persecution and burning of Protestants until her death in 1558.
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Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
Surely one of the most famous and celebrated of England's monarchs, and the second woman (discounting Matilda in the far past and Lady Jane Grey's nine-day reign) to occupy the English throne, Elizabeth banished forever the idea of pure male succession in England. From her reign on (well, from Mary's, but that was so relatively short and fraught with anger and fear that it didn't do much to sweeten the people's attitude towards a Queen) both men and women could be expected to rule if their claim was legitimate. Speaking of which, Elizabeth, as the daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose marriage to Henry had been annulled by the Pope, was seen as illegitimate, and proclaimed as such by Pope Pius V. More, he pronounced her a heretic, and called for all Catholics to rise up against her and overthrow her, calling her "the pretended Queen of England and the servant of crime". He also warned that any Catholics who obeyed her or swore allegiance to her risked excommunication, absolving them from their loyalty to her and encouraging them to support her rival, Mary Queen of Scots.

In the event, the attempts by Mary's Scottish and French supporters to dethrone or indeed assassinate Elizabeth all failed, and Mary was executed, leaving Elizabeth as the unchallenged Queen of England, and the Pope as a lasting enemy as she confirmed Protestantism as the state religion. Unlike her sister and predecessor, however, Elizabeth did not force her subjects to conform to her own religion, and allowed them to worship as they saw fit, once they swore loyalty to the Crown.

Which is, of course, where Ireland once again comes in.

Although Elizabeth took a much less hardline approach to religion than had Mary or Edward, or her father before them, she had no patience with those who tried to convert Protestants to the Catholic faith in order to draw them away from their allegiance to her, fulfilling Pius's edict, and the missionaries that arrived in England to do just that were hunted, persecuted and executed. This naturally did not go down well in Ireland, and though Elizabeth herself, who disparagingly referred to Ireland as "that barbarous and rude country", declared no harm would come to the Irish, she turned a blind eye (or gave tacit, plausible deniability-like approval) to the efforts of her commanders there to put down the many rebellions that sprung up against her rule, and indeed, between rival Irish families, as it had ever done.

Blood Ties, Bloodshed and Blood Oaths: Rivalries in Ireland

Two of the then most powerful Houses in Ireland were the Ormonds and the Desmonds in the south. After a failed rebellion by the Desmond Fitzgeralds in 1573, their leader, James Fitzmaurice, sailed to Europe in search of Catholic support to overthrow the heathen English. This gave the new pope, Gregory XIII, the chance to sow mischief for the heretic queen, and he promised 1000 men, at the head of whom James Fitzmaurice landed near Dingle in Kerry, bearing papal letters that exhorted the Irish and the Irish lords to defy the queen and rise up against her in the name of Rome and the Catholic faith.
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Unfortunately, the pope's men were easily outnumbered by the English forces, and they were trapped and massacred. A terrible revenge ensued, as Elizabeth's commanders carried out a scorched-earth policy, reducing the south to a smoking wasteland as famine walked the land, all cattle and livestock having been slaughtered by the English in addition to the wholesale murder of the populace. This defeat and the ravaging of their earldom put paid to the Fitzgeralds of Munster, and like their cousins the Earls of Kildare under Henry VIII, their power was forever broken. Their lands were confiscated by the Crown and given to English settlers, as the policy of plantation took hold, something that would continue to be the English answer to subduing Ireland over the next few centuries.

Across the border though, things were very different. For anyone who may know something of Irish history and/or geography, it should be pointed out that at this time all of Ireland was one: the division we have today which created Northern Ireland and the Republic was a long way away, and the entire island of Ireland was one country, under Irish control. Ulster, the northern province, had resisted the English more fiercely than its southern cousins, and Elizabeth found it hard to break them, as almost all of Ulster was still Irish. In addition, there were no maps the English could follow that showed them what lay beyond what we now know of here as the border: none had been made, and none were encouraged obviously. Ulster was, to the English, terra incognita, as unknown and wildly terrifying as Darkest Africa - and probably as dangerous.

The ruling family in Ulster was the O'Neills, and The O'Neill was Shane, who brooked no opposition to his rule, striking from his stronghold of Tyrone and demanding fealty from every other lord. English expeditions who ventured into Ulster typically became lost, then ambushed, and were never heard from again. In an effort to come to a compromise with Shane, the queen invited him to London, where he was made a Captain of Tyrone, but on his return, as he attacked other lordships, he was defeated by an alliance of his enemies and killed. However, his successor would go on to be one of the most famous and dangerous men in Irish history.

Hugh O'Neill and the Nine Years War: Ulster Stands Alone

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Banished at an early age from Ulster by Shane O'Neill, who feared his claim to the lordship of Tyrone, Hugh was brought up at the English Court, and was in fact made Earl of Tyrone in absentia. Though he had lived his adolescence in England, Hugh hated the English and their occupation of his native land, and planned a rebellion, which would in fact turn into a war. He waited his chance, and when Shane O'Neill was killed and then succeeded by Turlough Luimneach, he became The O'Neill on Turlough's death in 1595.

When the lord of Fermanagh, Hugh Maguire, fought back against English incursions into his land, he was aided by Red Hugh O'Donnell (no, I don't know why so many people were called Hugh in Ulster: must have been a Nordy thing, as we say here in the south) and eventually he would form an alliance with O'Neill as they took on the English together. As The O'Neill, and also Earl of Tyrone, Hugh had the clout to enlist Scottish warriors, Irish mercenaries and even Spanish aid from Philip II. However he did not at first show his hand so early, siding with the Englishman chosen to impose the authority of the Crown on Ulster, Sir Henry Bagenal. There was bad blood between the two men, as Hugh had abducted Sir Henry's sister and married her without his consent. She had later died, some say as a result of a broken heart over the infidelities of Hugh, who seems to have become bored and uninterested in her once he had accomplished his adventure. In time, these two men would face off against each other, but for now they were allies, if uneasy ones.

The execution of The MacMahon in Monaghan, along with the seizing of other counties by the English invasion force pushed more and more Irish chieftains into opposition against Bagenal, and Hugh O'Neill, realising that Queen Elizabeth had no intention of granting him any royal commission that would give him power in Ulster - he had hoped or expected to be named Lord President - switched sides, deciding that his loyalty to his homeland was stronger than his ambition, at least as far as English rule went. Besieging the English castle at Monaghan, O'Neill engaged his erstwhile ally as Bagenal marched to its defence. The two-day Battle of Clontibret was the first major defeat for England in the Nine Years War, and demonstrated that Hugh O'Neill was a capable commander, a charismatic leader and a focal point for Irish resistance, and an enemy to be respected and feared.

Only a few hundred are known to have perished in the Battle of Clontibret, but the next time Bagenal and O'Neill clashed it would be much different, and only one would survive to tell the tale. A mere three years later O'Neill had again besieged an English fort, this time Lord Deputy Thomas Burgh's one on the River Blackwater, and Bagenal, after some argument with the authorities at Dublin Castle, marched to relieve it. O'Neill gathered his forces, pulling in reinforcements from Red Hugh O'Donnell, whom he had previously been hunting with Bagenal. The English learned too late there was a very good reason why they hadn't ventured too far into Ulster: the territory. It was hilly, rocky, mucky and provided little cover. The Ulstermen knew it intimately, the English were completely out of their depth. Cue ambush after ambush, and a major victory scored for the Irish in the Battle of Yellow Ford, wherein Sir Henry was killed by the man who had originally come back to Ulster as his ally.

Significantly, and as was to prove the case for centuries to come, the southern Irish did not support O'Neill, though he requested their help to push the Protestants out of Ireland. Their shared religious belief was not enough to overcome their aversion to the "wild Irish" and they still considered themselves at heart English, and loyal to the Crown. However, the aid of the Spanish raised the stakes for Elizabeth, who could not afford to allow Philip to gain a foothold in Ireland, a staging post from which he could launch an invasion of England, and so the repression of the Irish rebellion in Ulster - now a war really, hence the name - was stepped up and more commanders sent in to pacify, and destroy the resistance.

Not by any means for the first, nor the last time, did old enmities, bribes and pure enlightened self-interest among the Irish families lead to their defeat. After the Earl of Sussex had returned in disgrace to London, having failed to achieve his and Elizabeth's objective even with 17,000 men, command of the English forces was given to Lord Mountjoy, who proved a more savage prosecutor of the war against the Irish, making great gains in Leinster and Ulster. He bought off though one of the major Irish chieftains, Finghin MacCarthy, who promised to remain neutral and therefore did not respond to Hugh O'Neill's demand for reinforcements for James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald of Munster, leaving the earl on his own to face Mountjoy, and soon to be defeated. MacCarthy got his though, as the treacherous English repaid his collaboration by arresting him along with Fitzgerald and putting both to death, thereby effectively ending resistance in the south.

In Ulster, now standing alone, Mountjoy continued to advance, his army now all but unstoppable, driving O'Neill and his forces back. But Hugh was waiting for his allies from Spain to arrive, which they did in 1601. Like the original Spanish armada though, this fleet of ships fell foul of the temperamental English weather and was scattered, a third of the six thousand troops having to return to Spain. The remaining 4000 landed at Kinsale and dug in to await the arrival of O'Neill, and the final battle.
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The Battle of Kinsale (1600)

Hearing of the landing of the Spanish, Mountjoy rode to besiege them, and O'Neill, reluctant to venture into enemy territory in the south, delayed his march from his stronghold as autumn turned to a particularly bad winter. Finally realising that if he let the now surrounded Spanish force be defeated, further aid from Spain would dry up,  O'Neill marched to face the English and help his allies, who were at this point in a bad way, most of their arms and ammunition having been taken back to home port on the ships that had had to turn back during the storms.

But in the freezing and wet winter weather, as Christmas Eve 1600 approached, and the forces of O'Neill and O'Donnell arrived at Kinsale, it was obvious things were not going to go their way. Far from home, on unfamiliar territory and without the cover of their beloved bogs and forests of Ulster, the Irishmen were easy prey for the English cavalry and artillery, and they and the Spanish were routed in the final pitched battle between Irish and English for another several hundred years. The Spanish, surrendering while unaware that reinforcements from their king were already on the high seas, were allowed return home with honour. The fleet due to join them, on hearing of the defeat at Kinsale, also turned and headed home. Spain would no longer involve herself in Irish military affairs.

The Flight of the Earls and the End of Free Ireland

Broken, beaten and in disarray, the two main leaders of the rebellion fled, O'Donnell to Spain where he died a few months later, O'Neill back to Ulster where he fought on in what was becoming a hopeless war, and in which he admitted defeat in 1603, signing the Treaty of Mellifont in which he swore fealty to the Crown. English anger at the lenient terms allowed him and the other rebel lords forced him and Red Hugh O'Donnell's father, Rory, The MacHugh of Fermanagh and other Irish lords to take a ship out of Ireland for Spain, in the hope of raising an army to retake their homeland. This became known in Irish history as "The Flight of the Earls."

Blown off-course on their way to Spain, the earls landed instead in France, from whence they made their way to Rome, but though they were welcomed no monarch was willing to lend them military support, either in fear of the might of the victorious English army, or out of political necessity, unwilling to make an enemy of a country with whom they were not currently at war. Add in the fact, not inconsiderable, that after nine years of conflict the greatest chieftain in Ireland had been roundly defeated by the English, and a new offensive under his leadership seemed doomed to fail. Who, after all, backs the losing horse again?

So none of the earls ever saw Ireland again, living and dying in self-imposed exile, while the country they left behind, leaderless now, fell to the merciless English sword. Ulster was planted, settlers from Scotland and England, all Protestant of course, encouraged to move onto the land and build upon it, the native Irish reduced to little more than slaves. Thus did Ulster become almost an outpost of England, which it still is today, but more on that later.

Elizabeth did not live to see the eventual defeat of Ireland, dying in March of 1603, only six days before O'Neill's surrender, and succeeded by her cousin Mary's son, James VI of Scotland, who then became James I of England. It was however through her efforts that Ireland was subdued, even if James reaped the rewards of such a successful campaign.

Ireland's last gasps of resistance died in the Battle of Breifne, where Brian Og O'Rourke was defeated by his half-brother Tadhg, aided by Henry Folliot and Rory O'Donnell (who would later flee Ireland with O'Neill and MacHugh and the other earls), bringing at last all of Ireland under undisputed and unchallenged English rule.

To paraphrase H.G. Wells: Ireland belonged to the English.

Chapter VII: Under the English Heel, Part I: New Kingdoms for Old

Timeline: 1603 - 1658

On the death of Elizabeth in 1603 the son of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, James, who had reigned as King James VI in Scotland, became James I of England, uniting all three realms - England, Scotland and Ireland - under one monarch, and thus becoming James I, King of England and Ireland. Although as a Protestant he was initially tolerant towards Catholics, even Irish Catholics, the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and other rebellious English Catholics hardened his attitude towards those not of his faith (and therefore seen as disloyal) and in accordance with this new policy he accelerated the policy of plantation of Ireland begun by his predecessor.

The idea of plantation was basically not only just colonisation but also control. Grants were given to families - always noble ones of course, and loyal ones too - mostly in Scotland and England, who would settle the land in Ireland and swear allegiance to the king. They were abjured to speak only English, follow the Protestant faith and assist in breaking the control of Irish lords over the country. With the Flight of the Earls in 1607 there was little left to stand against English rule of the country, and the most fiercely Irish and resistant of the provinces was singled out for special attention, plantation that would forever change the northern half of Ireland, and lead to the state of affairs we have today.
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The Plantation of Ulster

Spearheaded by the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, the Plantation of Ulster involved confiscation of their traditional and ancestral lands from Irish chieftains, these including the strongholds of the exiled earls of Ulster, the Irish reduced to little more than serfs on land which had once been theirs. Six counties were to be planted in all - Cavan, Fermanagh, Derry (renamed to Londonderry), Donegal, Tyrone and Armagh. In time these would become the "six counties" of Northern Ireland and be under British control and rule, while the other twenty-six counties south of the border would become the Free State and later the Republic of Ireland, as is the situation today.

The new landowners were forbidden to rent land to Irish tenants or employ Irish workers, and had to ensure their new settlements were protected against Irish rebellion. They were also banned from selling land to Irish people. Unsurprisingly, all the lands previously owned by the powerful Catholic Church was granted to the Protestant Church of Ireland, in the hope that the population could be converted and the power of the Church of Ireland stretch across Ireland. In general this did not happen, due mostly to the language barrier. Protestant English and Scottish clerics spoke only English, while the population of Ulster were all native Irish speakers. The plantation itself also suffered from many setbacks, some of these being due to the English casting their net too wide.

Around this time the first permanent English colony had been established in America, the plantation town of Jamestown in Virginia, and many of the guilds and firms who had intended to support and finance the Ulster Plantation by investing capital and infrastructure in Ireland decided instead to sink their money into opportunities in the New World. Many of the settlers, too, originally keen to colonise Ulster, changed their minds and headed over the Atlantic. As surely must have been expected by James and his ministers, the plantation of Ulster did nothing to quell anti-English sentiment among the native Irish; in fact, it fuelled and fanned the flames, and led, inevitably - though not in his reign - to rebellion. Again.

Don't Lose Your Head, Your Majesty: Charles, Cromwell and the Irish Confederate Wars

Distraught and angry at their fall, Catholic lords petitioned the new king, Charles I, for the restoration of their lands and right to worship, in what were known as The Graces. Put off by Charles, the lords then attempted a coup by taking Dublin Castle, the seat of English rule in Ireland, but failed. They worried that an invasion of Ireland was coming, as Scottish and English Parliamentarians, impatient with the weakness of the king, drew England closer to civil war and into what would become known as The War of the Three Kingdoms. No, it's not the latest volume in A Song of Ice and Fire: this one was real, and involved, well, three kingdoms: England, Scotland and Ireland. Ireland's contribution to it would be known as the Eleven Years' War.

Bad harvests, poor weather and spiralling interest rates all helped to create a crucible in which dispossessed Irish nobles and even peasants heated the steel of rebellion, and given that it had been so heavily planted, and had been the most aggressive opponent of English rule, it's no surprise that the leaders of the rebellion came from Ulster. Hugh (yeah, another one!) Og MacMahon and Conor Maguire planned to take Dublin Castle, while confederates Pheilim O'Neill and Rory O'Moore were charged with taking Derry and northern towns in Ulster. As usual though, it was a traitor who sold them out, and MacMahon and Maguire were arrested.

O'Neill and O'Moore did better though, taking several forts in the north and calling on all of Ireland to join them, most of which did, provoking a disproportionate response from the English, who sent troops in to massacre the populations of Wicklow and Cork, though the rebellion had been planned as, and mostly succeeded as, bloodless. In Ulster, rebels rose with a vengeance and descended on the hated settlers, vowing "We rise for our religion. They hang our priests in England!" The intended bloodless coup/rebellion quickly spun out of control, with more and more people now killed rather than just being beaten up and robbed, and horrible massacres in Ulster, including at Portadown, Armagh and in Kilmore, where not even children escaped being burned alive by the Irish. As ever, there were atrocities on both sides, as settlers fought back and often took the initiative, taking the fight to the Irish, and it's hard to say who was the more savage or inhuman.
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The Enemy of My Enemy: Charles I (1600-1649)

After five hundred years of resentment against the English invader and later occupier, and standing against a total of twenty-one monarchs of England, why did the Old English - and the Irish lords themselves - decide to ally themselves to the Protestant king of England in 1642? To answer that question, we need to look a little into the way Charles I governed, married and indeed how he was perceived by his people, especially parliament.

Second son of James I, Charles succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in 1625, the previous claimant, his elder brother Henry Frederick having died thirteen years previously at the ripe old age of eighteen. Wishing to emulate the absolute monarchs of Spain and France, Charles demanded the divine right of kings be conferred upon him. In essence, this was an ancient belief that the power of a monarch was given to him directly by God, and so as a result he was subject to no authority on Earth. In effect, he could do what he liked, pass what laws he wanted, raise or lower taxes, wage war, all without needing the consent of parliament. But England had been a constitutional monarchy since 1217, when Magna Carta delineated and imposed restrictions on monarchs, and parliament, unsurprisingly, was reluctant to lose the power it held: the king or queen basically had to request funds for wars from parliament, and if they disagreed, no dice. In this way, King Henry V was prevented/counselled to avoid war with France in 1414, before finally being fronted the funds to pursue his claim to the French throne.

Charles had also alienated many in court and almost all of parliament by marrying a French princess, a Catholic, and by watering down (perhaps at the insistence/request of his wife, perhaps not) the stringent rules governing Protestant worship in England and Scotland. He angered the Scots by trying to impose his own diluted Anglican religion upon the fiercely Presbyterian northerners, and drew the ire of Oliver Cromwell, then a mere Member of Parliament but vehemently and zealously opposed to the king's rule and religion, and who would later command the armies who would oppose and eventually defeat him in the English Civil War.

Because the parliament, and Cromwell in particular, a rising figure therein, were so hardline Protestant - he was a Puritan and so were many of them, regarding all Catholics as heretics - the Old English and the Irish feared what might happen - what surely would happen - should the parliamentarians, or roundheads, be victorious in the Civil War. They therefore allied themselves to Charles and his Cavaliers, the Old English deciding that siding with other Catholics, or at least non-Puritans, even if they were their old adversaries the Irish, was the best and safest policy. Of course, this meant they had technically chosen the wrong side, but the chances are that no matter who won the English Civil War, it would not have ended well for Ireland.

The outbreak of the English Civil War in October 1642 provided the embattled Irish some breathing space as troops were recalled to England to fight for Charles against Parliament and the forces of Oliver Cromwell. They set up the Irish Confederacy, with its headquarters in Kilkenny, and with little opposition now, they retook and ruled most of Ireland, though they spent three years in pointless negotiations with the English, leading up to the arrival of a victorious Cromwell in 1649. The new Lord Protector, having presided over the defeat and execution of the king himself, and the abolition of the monarchy and establishment of the English republic, was in no mood to play games.

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The Devil is an Englishman: Cromwell in Ireland

Not only a Protestant but a Puritan, the worst kind for Catholics, Oliver Cromwell took effective reign over England December 16 1653, declaring himself not king but Lord Protector, and the realm now a republic, the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Concerned over the possibility of a Catholic uprising in Ireland, led by the defeated Royalists who had allied with the Irish there, and also as part of a commitment already made during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Cromwell took a large army across the Irish Sea to subdue Ireland once and for all.

It's good to note (sarcasm detector overloading!) that good old financial imperatives also played a part in the invasion and subsequent conquest of Ireland. Over ten million pounds had been borrowed by Parliament to put down the Irish Rebellion, and that money was to be repaid by the granting of land seized from Irish lords. Rumblings of discontent in the army since the end of the Civil War didn't help, so soldiers needed something else to apply their attention to. Last and possibly most unfortunate for the Irish was the fact that Cromwell, a rabid Puritan, considered all Catholics to be heretics, making the invasion of Ireland a personal and religious crusade for him and his followers.

There would be no mercy, and even today, while Cromwell is feted in England (despite being the only man in history responsible for the execution of a sitting English king) he is a figure of hatred in Ireland, remembered for his brutality, his intransigence and his contempt for the Irish people.
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England's Shame: the Massacres at Drogheda and Wexford

After the Battle of Rathmines was quickly and decisively lost by the Irish, the port of Dublin was open to Cromwell's invasion force, and he duly landed on August 15 1649 and proceeded to Drogheda, another coastal town and an important port for resupplying his troops. Having ordered the garrison there to surrender, and been rebuffed, Cromwell laid siege to the town. Note: in a weird aside I've just discovered that one of the commanders of the defenders of Drogheda was called Colonel Wall, while a corresponding commander in the New Model Army was called Colonel Castle! Castle, Wall, and they were besieging a walled fort? How weird is that? But back to the slaughter.

Drogheda was taken in a matter of hours, (on September 11: go figure, huh?) and though prisoners were promised they would be spared if they surrendered, Cromwell, probably with the atrocities (as he would have seen it) of the murdered settlers who perished at Irish hands in the 1641 Rebellion in mind, gave no quarter and ordered his men to kill everyone. Churches were looted and burned, houses ransacked, rapine and murder both condoned and approved. Sir Arthur Aston, in command of the garrison and a staunch Roman Catholic, was reportedly bludgeoned to death with his own wooden leg. Soldiers who took refuge in a church were burned to death, some of them killed as they rushed from the flames, while another two hundred or so who had retreated into two towers were killed or shipped as slaves to the West Indies. The heads of sixteen officers were cut off and placed on spikes along the road to Dublin, and any clergy within the town were clubbed to death by the English soldiers.

It's not known, but surely is likely, that many civlilans as well as defenders of the town were killed. Though no accounts verify this, if you put yourself in the boots of an English soldier who has just won a hard-fought victory and been told to "give no quarter" to the defenders, and given that these were men whose blood was up and who, also, believed all Catholics to be heretics, then it doesn't appear to me that they were going to make too many distinctions between armed men and defenceless ones, or indeed women, or possibly even children. Certainly, taking Cromwell's anger at the casualties he suffered taking the town, his hated of Ireland and Catholics, his fury that these upstart "barbarous wretches" should have supported the now-dead king, and remembering the massacres of 1641, I doubt there can be much reason to suppose he was able to, or wanted to, separate the two.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, and without any real evidence to back such figures up, Irish Catholic sources claimed, over a hundred years later, that four thousand civilians had been executed by Cromwell's troops and called it "unparalleled savagery and treachery beyond any slaughterhouse". Regardless, what happened at Drogheda was certainly close to a war crime, and is remembered here in Ireland as such, one of the many reasons that the name of Oliver Cromwell is spat on and reviled even today. It had the desired effect at the time, though, of demoralising and terrifying the Irish, who fled or surrendered without any resistance at both Trim and Dundalk. But Cromwell was not finished yet.

On October 2 he arrived at the fortified town of Wexford, and began to lay siege to it. Most of the defenders, having heard of the atrocities practiced in Drogheda, wanted to surrender, but the garrison commander, Colonel David Sinnot, also Governor of the town, played for time, stringing out the negotiations as he demanded such concessions as freedom of worship, amnesty for the town's defenders and protection for the fleet of privateers who were anchored there.

In Cromwell's defence, what happened next does not seem to be attributable to him. While still negotiating the town's surrender he witnessed his troops storm the walls, when Captain Stafford, in charge of the defence of Wexford Castle, surrendered the fort and all hell broke loose. As the English swarmed over the walls, the defenders panicked and ran. Pursued by the victorious New Model Army, they were slaughtered indiscriminately, despite a surviving letter from Cromwell to Sinnot which promised safe passage for his people. Sinnot himself was captured and hanged. Once again, civilians were murdered along with soldiers, and clergy were specifically targeted. The port was burned, making the harbour unusable, causing problems for the English. However, while we can't blame Cromwell for this particular massacre, let it also be noted that afterwards he took no action against his commanders for acting (apparently) without or against his orders, and even justified the killing by once again invoking the memory of 1641 when he said "They were made with their blood to answer for the cruelties they had exercised upon diverse poor Protestants".

Cromwell's next target was the nearby town of Waterford. Oddly enough, given that Protestants had been forcibly expelled from here, and that the Catholic synod of Bishops which threatened excommunication to any Catholic who supported the Irish Confederacy was based here, no massacre occurred. The town was besieged, but it took two attempts over a period of almost a year, combined with the effects of hunger and a rampant plague thought to be a resurgence of the Black Death to accomplish the defeat of the town. Its commander, soldiers and civilians were all allowed to leave without any harm coming to them, and perhaps this might have been Cromwell deciding enough blood had been shed, and that his continued rampage through town after Irish town might, rather than instil fear and surrender in the Irish, raise hackles and give cause for more strenuous resistance.

He went on to take the former Irish Confederate capital of Kilkenny, as well as Clonmel. Both towns held out but eventually surrendered, and again were treated honourably. A mutiny in Cork by their former allies ended resistance in Munster, and with the death of Owen Rua O'Neill Ulster quickly fell too, leaving only the west coast of Ireland holding out. Both the cities of Limerick and Galway proved hard, even impossible to take, but hunger and disease accomplished what force of arms could not, and the cities both fell in 1651. Cromwell had left Ireland the year before to fight the third English Civil War, secure in the knowledge that he had achieved what nobody before him had, and subdued Ireland entirely, from north to south and east to west, to the English, well, not Crown, not now, but to English rule.

Life under Cromwell

Back home and in his role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, Cromwell was not slow to punish his defeated enemy. He passed the Act of Settlement in 1652, which prohibited Catholics from being members of the Irish parliament. Anyone who had taken part in the 1641 Rebellion was executed, and Catholics were banned from living in towns. Priests and clergy were hunted throughout the country, executed when captured. Land was confiscated from all Catholic landowners and given to the creditors who had financed Cromwell's campaign. Many of the former owners of these lands were forcibly removed to less arable lands in Connaught and Clare, those that remained were to serve their English masters. A combination of famine, the Black Death and a scorched-earth policy by English commanders had reduced Ireland to almost a wasteland, where scratching a miserable living was about all any Irish person could expect, and many of the soldiers left to fight in France and Spain.

What Cromwell did accomplish through his policies was the near-eradication of the Catholic Church in Ireland (though it would of course return, far stronger and unable to be again toppled after his death) and the elimination of the Catholic landowner class. Over time, history would come to refer to the new landowning Protestant class in Ireland as the Protestant Ascendancy, though their holdings would eventually shrink, to be confined to Ulster and what is today known as Northern Ireland. He more or less successfully abolished the popular use of the Irish language, ensuring only English was spoken, as it is today in all but the most remote and rural parts of Ireland. Ulster, which had resisted the influence of towns and villages brought to Ireland by the Normans, became urbanised, as did the rest of Ireland, and her resources - mostly wood from the many forests and peat from the even more numerous bogs - were plundered, changing the entire landscape of the island.

Cromwell died in 1658, a mere six years left to him to enjoy his success in taming Ireland. He was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard, but his tenure did not last and it wasn't long after that before the exiled son of the king, Charles II, was invited back to England to take his rightful place on the throne, and the monarchy was restored.

But if the Irish thought their troubles were over with Cromwell's death, well, perhaps they had consumed one Guinness too many...

Chapter VIII: Under the English Heel, Part II: The Return of the King

Timeline: 1650 - 1691

England was never a country built to be a republic. It may have worked for France, and it may have worked for the United States, but England had been ruled by monarchs from its earliest days, and though the execution of Charles I and the ascension of Oliver Cromwell shook English society and politics to its roots, in the grand scheme of things it was more a small tremor than the earthquake it could have been. Unlike the French Revolution a century later, where the deposing of the King and all the noble classes led to a true republic (though first to The Terror) which never went back to a monarchy, England was a land of kings and queens, and Cromwell's attempt to turn it into a republic was really nothing more than a blip on history. Even now, four hundred years after his rule, and when it certainly has little or no need of one, England - Britain, indeed - stubbornly persists in perpetuating an outdated and completely unnecessary monarchy.

It's probably true to say England will never be free of the Crown.

Which is why it was no great surprise to find that soon after Cromwell's passing and with the ineffectual attempts of his son to govern, England was soon welcoming a king back onto the throne.

Charles II: Back in the Saddle
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Charles II (1630 - 1685)

No stranger to the battlefield, Charles II had fought with his ill-fated father at the Battle of Edgehill during the English Civil War, and had been made commander of the English forces in the West Country by 1645, at the tender age of fifteen. However the war was not going in his father's favour, and in 1646 Charles fled to join his mother in exile in France, later moving to Holland where he tried to aid his father against Cromwell but was unable to prevent the king's death and the abolition of the monarchy. Enraged at Cromwell, and loyal to the Crown, Scotland proclaimed the king's son as monarch of Scotland, but he was not allowed travel there unless he gave an undertaking to impose the Scottish Presbyterianism religion upon the kingdom of Britain, which he refused to do. After his attempts to invade Scotland and force them to accept him as king on his terms failed miserably though, he had no choice and so agreed in 1650, arriving in Scotland and riding to take England back.

In this he again failed miserably, Cromwell's forces beating his armies back and necessitating his going on the run to avoid capture, literally hiding in a tree (now called the Royal Oak) in Shropshire until he could be smuggled back to France in defeat. It would therefore not be by force of arms or in military victory that Charles would return to England, but rather at the invitation of the English Parliament, frustrated with the incompetent and inexperienced son of Oliver Cromwell. The grand experiment was over; Charles was asked to retake his place on the throne of England, the republic was abolished and the monarchy restored.

But what did all this mean for Ireland?

Like much of Ireland's troubles, Charles' return and the Restoration, as it became known, can be summed up in one word: Catholicism. Despite his assurances to the Scots that he would promote and disseminate their religion, it was Anglican Protestantism that was made the sanctioned, and indeed compulsory, faith in the new England. With the outbreak of the Great Fire of London in 1666, things began to turn bad for Catholics.

Great Balls of Fire! London's Burning! (September 2 - 6, 1666)

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A fire broke out in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane in the early hours of September 2 1666. The family managed to escape the blaze but by then the fire was spreading, and delays in obtaining the permission of the Lord Mayor of London to demolish the adjacent buildings to stop the growth of the fire meant that by the time he had arrived it was already too late. Most of London's buildings were of wood at that time, and easily caught fire, aided by the dry spell the city had been experiencing that month. Add in the overcrowding, the use of thatch for roofs, towering, crumbling tenement buildings that often reached six or seven stories and warehouses filled with tar, pitch and other combustibles, to say nothing of the stocks of gunpowder left over from the Civil War, and the City was quite literally a powder keg just waiting for a spark.

And when that spark was lit, the entire thing went up with frightening speed.

There being no fire brigade to speak of, the blaze had to be tackled by local people, the militia and the Watch, none of whom had any real professional training in fire-fighting, and the narrow, crowded streets, further congested by the panicked populace trying to get away from the fire, complicated matters as well. Essentially, the efforts to combat the fire turned more into attempts to escape or outrun it than to extinguish it, leaving the flames to hungrily devour the city unchecked, ranging further and further, and razing the city to the ground. In the aftermath, Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth, a man universally deemed unequal to his role and completely useless, was blamed for the fire's development, refusing in the early stages of the fire to allow houses be pulled down as their owners could not be located, and growling of the fire that "a woman could piss it out."

By sunrise on Sunday September 2 over 300 houses had been burned down and the fire had reached London Bridge, aided by a high wind. By mid-morning efforts to combat the fire had been abandoned, and everyone was running to escape it as the city burned. Charles himself intervened to have houses and buildings pulled down, after Bloodworth had made a half-hearted attempt at it, fainted and gone home to bed, leaving the city to the fire. But even demolition of buildings was insufficient to prevent the fire spreading, and it roared hungrily across the city, reaching the business district by Monday, devouring the Royal Exchange, the houses of bankers and exclusive shopping precincts.

Imagine the terror of a fire that raged on unchecked for four days! No emergency services to call, no way to put it out, and nothing to do but watch and wait, prepare and hope it didn't get to your part of town, being ready to do what everyone else was, what everyone else had no option to, but flee as the flames advanced and claimed more of London. Those who could escaped via the boats on the river, those who couldn't were hemmed in by the ancient Roman wall, which made a firetrap of the city. The king put his brother, James, Duke of York, in charge of combatting the fire - the Lord Mayor had fled the city - and he had some success, but he was fighting a losing battle. The fire raged on through Monday, and far from showing any signs of abating, was strengthening by the next day.

To the horror of all watching, the venerated Cathedral of St. Paul's, surrounded by wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of restoration work, went up like a torch and was completely gutted on Tuesday. As the flames headed for the Tower of London, with its gigantic store of gunpowder, the army took matters into their own hands and blew up buildings to halt the advance of the fire. The wind dropped near the end of the day, and with it the fire, which began to gutter out. In the end, over 13,500 houses as well as major buildings like the Royal Exchange, St. Paul's Cathedral and The Custom House had been destroyed, the damage originally estimated at one hundred million pounds, later revised down to ten million.

In the immediate aftermath of the Great Fire (and even during it) speculation ran rife as to who might be responsible for such a tragedy, popular opinion excluding the possibility that this could have been, as it was, a tragic accident. Nebulous accusations against "foreigners" led to Dutch, French or any other non-English people in London running the risk of being lynched by mobs, and the army spent a good deal of its time rescuing innocent travellers from the hands of the angry crowds. And of course, as was ever the case in Protestant England, much of the blame fell, without a shred of evidence, upon the shoulders of the hated Catholics. The famous Gunpowder Plot had been, after all, only sixty years ago and was still fresh in the minds of most English people: the attempt to blow up parliament and assassinate the king (James I) and all of his ministers fuelled the hatred and widened the division between Catholics and Protestants.

Having dealt already with the Great Plague the year before, Charles was in no mood to fuck around with the Irish, and having a scapegoat to hand was useful for him, to divert attention from the fact that the streets which had been built during his father's day, and his father's, and so on, had been directly responsible for the spread of the fire. A monument to the Great Fire bore the inscription "Popish frenzy which wrought such horrors is not yet quenched."

When the Lie Becomes the Truth: The Popish Plot (1678 - 1681)

Although Charles II had been welcomed back after the rigours of life under The Lord Protector, his marriage to the Catholic Catherine of Portugal, his alliance with the old enemy France against Protestant Holland, and the embracing of his brother and heir James, Duke of York, of Catholicism, all led to there being much suspicion as to where the king's loyalties lay, in terms of religion. His lenient attitude towards and treatment of Catholics had not gone down well with his people, and they worried that on his death they could be left with a Catholic King.

Sometimes, into such a cauldron of worry and paranoia the tiniest match has to be dropped to set the whole thing off, and two men who had many reasons to hate Catholics, one of which was believed to be actually insane, somehow gained the trust of the authorities, whipped up the public into a frenzy, and engineered the execution of innocent men, including priests, and one man who would later be canonised by the Church.

And it was all a lie.


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Titus Oates (1649 - 1705)
One of the two instigators of the plot, Oates was an English priest, and a poor one. A terrible scholar, he only managed to be ordained due to a false claim to have a degree (oddly enough, its production was never demanded and its existence seems to have been taken on trust by the Bishop of London, who ordained him) and later got into trouble while serving aboard a naval ship and being accused of "buggery" in Tangiers. Only his status as a priest saved him, but he was dismissed from the Navy. Prior to this incident, he had, while serving as curate in All Saint's, Hastings,  accused a teacher of sodomy with one of his pupils, completely baselessly, in order to take his job, and when the allegations proved groundless was himself accused of perjury.

Having been ordained into the Church of England in 1670 Oates, after some misadventures and after making some powerful enemies, switched his allegiances and became a Catholic priest seven years later. He met and cultivated the friendship of Israel Tonge, and together they authored anti-Catholic pamphlets, Oates later confiding to Tonge that he had only pretended to convert in order to get close to Catholics and learn their secrets. Between them they concocted the Popish Plot in 1678.

Israel Tonge (1621 - 1680)

A Doctor of Theology, Tonge blamed Catholic Jesuits for the burning down of his church during the Great Fire of London, He became even more anti-Catholic, writing tracts and essays denouncing them, and fabricating wild conspiracy theories about Rome's lust for power and the danger of the Pope. Another rabidly anti-Catholic doctor, Richard Barker, sponsored him (and later, Oates), providing him with food, lodgings and money, and securing for him a position as rector in the parish of Avon Dasset, in Warwickshire, a post Tonge did not however accept.

Together these two men would create a conspiracy to rival the best of Qanon or any in Trump's time. Completely fabricated, with no evidence or provenance whatever, it would still be accepted as legitimate and lead to the further persecution and death of many blameless Catholics.

Writing the manuscript himself, Oates laid out a plot by the Pope to have the king assassinated, naming Jesuit priests who were to carry out the attempt, about a hundred in all. He then slipped the note into the house of Richard Barker, where his friend Tonge was living. Tonge then "discovered" the writing, passed it on to his friend Christopher Kirkby, who became alarmed and informed the king. Charles was sceptical, but agreed to see Tonge and Oates, then passing the matter on to his Treasurer, Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby. Danby seemed convinced, but the king brushed the whole thing off, believing Oates a liar. The Duke of York, however, fearful for his brother's life and knowing (though he was himself a Catholic) how vehemently opposed to the Church of England English Catholics were, ordered an investigation into the threat.

Though Charles was still reluctant and did not believe a word of it, he probably worried that ignoring the threat might make him look overly sympathetic to Catholics, further cementing in the minds of his subjects his untrustworthiness, and recalling to their memory the fact that he was married to a Catholic princess. Therefore, he agreed to the investigation, and as it gathered steam and people were arrested on various spurious charges, Oates was given a complement of soldiers and allowed to begin rounding up Jesuits. The murder of a prominent anti-Catholic minister in suspicious circumstances set things in proper motion.
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Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, to whom Oates had made his first depositions about the alleged plot, was found murdered with his own sword. The slaying was never solved, and laid at the feet of unnamed Catholics. As a result, and with the supposedly genuine threat of an attempt on the king's life by these heathens, Charles was prevailed upon to exile all Catholics to within twenty miles of London. Parliament issued the declaration that  "This House is of opinion that there hath been and still is a damnable and hellish plot contrived and carried out by the popish recusants for assigning and murdering the King." Things began to move fast.

Oates seized upon his success and accused five Catholic lords: (William Herbert, 1st Marquess of Powis, William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford, Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, William Petre, 4th Baron Petre and John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse) and while the king scornfully maintained that at least one of them was so afflicted with gout that he could barely stand, and was unlikely to be plotting anything, the Earl of Shaftesbury had them all arrested and taken to the Tower. Shortly afterwards he demanded that the king's brother, James, Duke of York, be excluded from succession to the throne, due to his Catholic allegiances. At the end of the year the second Test Act was passed, as anti-Catholic fervour swept through England, which forbade Catholics from sitting in either the House of Lords or the House of Commons, and so effectively banning them from holding any political office.

Two of the "Popish Lords"  would die - Stafford beheaded while Petre simply died in the Tower - but the remaining three would be acquitted. However Catholic hysteria had descended on England long before this and as would happen in the Salem witch trials ten years later, accusations flew, unproven allegations were taken as evidence, and Catholics were persecuted, exiled and murdered.
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Oliver Plunkett (1625 - 1681)

Last of Oates' victims was a man who would go on to be canonised and therefore made a saint in the latter half of the twentieth century. Oliver Plunkett was Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of All Ireland. The grandson of a Baron, he was well connected to powerful Irish families such as the Earls of Roscommon and the Lords of Louth. He travelled to Rome in 1647, his ambition to become a priest, but by the time he was ready to return Cromwell held sway over Ireland and it would have been death for him to set foot on his native land again, so he remained in Rome until 1670, when the Restoration returned Charles II to the throne and, for a time, a more tolerant attitude was observed by the Crown towards Catholics.

With the passing of the Test Act, however, his church was destroyed and he had to flee into hiding, refusing to be exiled. When the Archbishop of Dublin was arrested as part of Oates' crazy conspiracy, Plunkett was accused of plotting a French invasion of England. He was arrested but Lord Shaftesbury, knowing he would never be convicted in Ireland, sent him to be held in Newgate Prison, where, despite the first trial collapsing on the grounds of the witnesses against Plunkett also being on the run, wanted men, and total lack of any evidence to convict, the second trial found him guilty and he was sentenced to be executed.

Much again like the Witch Trials would, the fervour for killing Catholics began to die down after this. This could be partly ascribed to the - mistaken - belief that all those who had plotted against the king (according to Oates and Tonge) had been dealt with, and that the danger to his royal person, and the kingdom, was passed, and partly, too, to accusation after accusation being made, each madder and more far-fetched than the last. Oates remained as zealous as ever, trying to extend the conspiracy he had created into Yorkshire, but the English were by now tired of his unfounded allegations, and many believed that some of those who had been accused and executed were in fact good and innocent men. It began to look more and more like one man's evil quest for personal revenge, which was what it was, of course. As trials collapsed all over the place, and the king was finally able to step forward and pronounce the witch-hunt for what it was, Oates rather stupidly accused the king himself of plotting with Catholics, and was arrested and thrown into prison.

When Charles died and was succeeded by James, the new king - a Catholic, remember - had Oates tried for perjury, probably the best he could do. Found guilty, it was unfortunately impossible to sentence Oates to death for such a crime, so he was ordered to be whipped through the streets, pilloried every year and imprisoned for life. He was eventually released in 1689 when William of Orange became king, but by then everyone had forgotten about him and he faded out of history, from hero to zero.

Meanwhile, back in Ireland...
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The usual rivalries had been going on since Cromwell's death and the collapse of the Commonwealth in Ireland, and they seized this and declared that, and fought among themselves, trying to establish the right of Charles in Ireland, even inviting him to invade the country, but the exiled king was more interested in regaining his father's throne first. On doing so, and being established as King of England, Charles was unanimously proclaimed King of Ireland and the commonwealth parliamentary union dissolved by the king. Initially he allowed religious toleration, however Catholics in general were not returned the land stolen from them and given to Protestant settlers under Cromwell; some were, but on balance only about twenty percent of the lands were returned to Catholic hands.

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The War of the Two Kings: (1688 - 1691)

The reign of James II did not last long. Three years after his accession on the death of his brother, he was deposed and England was once again a Protestant monarchy, and has remained so ever since. His dissolution of Parliament when they refused to pass new tolerance laws aimed at Catholics, and the birth of his own son, a Catholic and now heir to the English throne, barring his daughter Mary, a Protestant, from the succession, led to what is known to history as The Glorious Revolution. Mary ascended the throne as Mary II, ruling jointly with her husband, William of Orange. James, defeated in battle, his army scattered, fled to France.

He landed in Ireland in 1688 with French backing and attacked Ulster, where the majority of Protestants lived. Jacobite* commander Richard Hamilton secured eastern Ulster while a rising in Scotland helped James' cause, and while King William preferred to tackle the Irish invasion at its source - France - he was convinced to commit troops so as not to be seen to be abandoning the Irish Protestants in Ulster. The siege of Derry, which had been going on since April, was broken by William's forces in July, and the death of Viscount Dundee, who had raised the Jacobite forces in Scotland, further weakened James' position, as the war began to swing against him. The final blow that loosed the Jacobite hold on Ulster was the battle of Newtownbutler, where James' forces  failed to take Enniskillen.

Pushed back to Dundalk by the newly-arrived Duke of Schomberg, who took Carrickfergus at the end of August, James holed up there while the battle stalled for the winter. With little resources to rely upon in piss-poor Ireland, supplies had to be shipped in and this was not made any easier by the inexperience of Schomberg's agent, leaving his men virtually to starve after six thousand had died from disease, and leading John Stevens, an English Catholic serving in the Grand Prior Regiment to remark, on surveying the abandoned camp later  "besides the infinite number of graves a vast number of dead bodies was found there unburied, and not a few yet breathing but almost devoured with lice and other vermin. This spectacle not a little astonished such of our men as ventured in amongst them."

As the war entered its second year, the usual rivalries and differences surfaced in the Irish Parliament between the Old Irish, who wanted the lands back which had been confiscated from them by Cromwell, and those under Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell and Lord Deputy of Ireland, who were in the minority of those who had benefited from the land transfer. These latter, seeing the war dragging on and not turning in their favour, suggested a compromise with William, but the Old Irish, wanting Irish autonomy, were against this. The French, though willing to commit troops to James' cause, only supplied enough to allow him to fight the war, not win it, as keeping William busy meant that his eyes were diverted from France. In other words, as long as the English King was fighting the man who wanted to take (or re-take) his throne, he would not have time to consider invading or making war upon the old enemy.

Not that the French and Irish got on at all, despite both being fiercely Catholic and fiercely anti-English. No, indeed. The Irish hated the French, especially the suggestion of their envoy Jean-Antone de Mesmes, known as d'Avaux, that James retreat to the Shannon in County Clare and destroy everything in between as they went, including the capital of Dublin. For his part, d'Avaux had nothing but contempt for the Irish, confiding to his successor that they were  'a poor-spirited and cowardly people, whose soldiers never fight and whose officers will never obey orders." Oi! C-C-comeover heren' say tha', ye froggie bastad!

* Followers of James II were called Jacobites, don't ask me why.

The Battle of the Boyne (July 11 1690)
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Perhaps one of the most famous battles in Irish history, the Battle of the Boyne was the turning point of the war, at least as far as James personally was concerned, the defeat from which he never recovered. William's army of about 36,000 was made up of soldiers from many different nations, perhaps what might be called today a coalition, while James had about 23,000, mostly French and Irish, with some Scottish and a few English. William's troops, though his army had only been recently put together and so had seen little action, were better equipped and drilled than those of his enemy, possessing the newest flintlock muskets, and while James's Jacobite cavalry were a fine fighting force, his infantry was largely made up of Irish peasants, who had little to no fighting experience and often were armed with scythes and pitchforks.

William made his way from his victory at Carrickfergus south towards Dublin, but was stopped by James' forces about thirty miles from the capital, at the River Boyne. Control of the ford on the river would allow them access to the road to Dublin, so William sent a diversionary squad to cross the river at Roughgrange, little realising that there was a deep swampy ravine there, and when James' forces intercepted them, neither could get at the other and had to leave it to the artillery to fight. So move, countermove, volley, slash, attack, pincer blah blah blah and eventually William won the day. James legged it back to France, enraging the Irish who had fought for him, and continued to fight on in his presence. William rode triumphantly to Dublin, and issued the Declaration of Finglas, which offered amnesty to any ordinary Jacobite soldiers, as long as they surrendered by a given date, but excluded their leaders.
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The Twelfth

Ever since the founding of the Protestant Orange Order in 1752, William's victory at the Boyne has been celebrated and commemorated on July 12 in Ulster. As the route through which their commemoration march passes goes through Republican areas, tensions have flared and violence erupted historically as nationalists consider the Orangemen to be provoking them by crowing over their victory. The Twelfth was, for a long time, a nexus for unrest, protest and violence in Northern Ireland, especially during The Troubles.

James may have given up the fight, but the Irish still had much at stake and much reason to hate William (though they also now hated James, who they viewed as a despicable coward) and they continued to struggle against the armies of the victorious king of England. Having withdrawn to Limerick, the port which controlled access to Ireland from the south, the Jacobites (if you can call them such; no longer fighting for James but for themselves they probably should just be referred to as the Irish) awaited an assault on the city, knowing William would have to attempt to take it, as he did, in late July. More or less in charge was this fella.

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Patrick Sarsfield (1655 - 1693)

An Irish soldier who fought in the Franco-Dutch War and in the Rhineland, Sarsfield was, like all Catholics in England, banned from being in the military after the Popish Plot and the subsequent Test Act. When James came to power though his rights were re-established and he fought for him in the War of the Two Kings in Ireland. He must have been highly regarded, because even d'Avaux (remember him?) who had been so scathing in his comments on the Irish soldiery, remarked that though he was  "not...of noble birth [...], (he) has distinguished himself by his ability, and (his) reputation in this kingdom is greater than that of any man I know [...] He is brave, but above all has a sense of honour and integrity in all that he does". Oddly enough, the king disagreed, calling Sarsfield "brave, but very scantily supplied with brains."

When James returned to France after the Battle of the Boyne, leaving Tyrconnell in charge, the Earl wanted to sue for peace, heading the Peace Party, but Sarsfield, in opposition and flying the flag for Ireland as head of the War Party, vowed to fight on. Sarsfield attacked William's artillery at Ballyneety, breaking the Siege of Limerick, and holding Athlone, though losing Kinsale and Cork, two important ports. When Tyrconnell went to France Sarsfield took advantage of his absence to arrest several of the members of his Peace Party, and went over James's head to ask King Louis XIV of France for aid against William. He also requested Tyrconnell's removal, making himself commander of the Irish forces.

His nemesis returned from France bearing letters making Sarsfield Earl of Lucan, and a large French contingent arrived soon afterwards (though whether this was due to his request of the king or Tyrconnell's representations in person I don't know) though most of these - over 7,000 - would die at the decisive battle of the war, The Battle of Aughrim, in July. He sued for peace soon after, Tyrconnelll dying of a stroke, and was allowed, under the terms of the Treaty of Limerick, to leave for France along with about 14,000 other soldiers, to serve in the French military.

The Battle of Aughrim (July 22 1691)
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(Don't these guys all look the same? This is actually Godert de Ginkel, though to be honest he could be yer man Sarsfield above, couldn't he?)

Seeking to bring an end to the three-year war, and establish once and for all the dominion of King William and smash Catholic power forever in Ireland- and, more importantly to him, deny the French a base from which to launch attacks both at England and Holland - Godert de Ginkel, William's commanding officer in Ireland, defeated the French Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe, in charge of the Irish forces, at Athlone and pushed him back towards Limerick. At Aughrim in County Galway Saint-Ruhe decided to make his stand.

The Frenchman used the terrain very much to his advantage, placing his armies where they were protected by bogs on either side, woodland and hills, all of which helped the Jacobites to make significant gains in the battle, as the Williamites struggled in waist-deep water and got stuck - and many drowned - in the bogs. Rather hilariously - or is it tragically? No, definitely hilariously - the Jacobite defence collapsed as Saint-Ruhe, overjoyed by the seeming route of the Williamites, charged across the battlefield roaring "They are running! We will chase them back to the gates of Dublin!" and promptly had his head knocked off by a cannonball! Ah, the whims and chances of war, eh?

With their commander no longer possessing a head, the demoralised Irish were soon defeated though Sarsfield tried to engage in a rearguard action. Pushed by the Williamites up the hill of Killcommandan, the Irish infantry were slaughtered in their thousands, stark evidence of how the loss of a commander can turn the tide of battle quickly. The Jacobites lost thousands of men, including some of their best commanders, and the resistance against William was broken and defeated forever. An observer with the victorious army, with the curiously appropriate name of George Story, had this to say afterwards: "from the top of the Hill where [the Jacobite] Camp had been," the bodies "looked like a great Flock of Sheep, scattered up and down the Countrey for almost four Miles round."

The English dead were buried, but the Irish were left where they fell, their bones scattered across the battlefield, to remain there for years to come. They were left to ravens and wild dogs, some of which of the latter became so fierce that they constituted a hazard to people passing that way. A rather touchingly tragic story is told by the English author John Dunton, of a greyhound who, his master slain at the battle, remained with his corpse, guarding it until shot by a passing soldier the next January.

The Siege of Limerick and the End of the War: The Wild Geese Fly

Sarsfield retreated to Limerick after losing the Battle of Aughrim, and while Galway surrendered soon after the battle, Limerick held out for a while longer. When Irish troops defending the Bridge at Thomond were pushed back by Ginkel's forces towards Limerick city, the French, displaying the enmity they had harboured for the Irish all along, refused to open the gates and let them be slaughtered outside. Furious at this treatment of Irishmen, Sarsfield took over command of the city from the French and began negotiations for peace. Under the Treaty of Limerick he was allowed to leave for France, along with about 19,000 others, in an exodus that became known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Other assurances, particularly with regard to tolerance for Catholics and the possession of their lands, were overturned, or just ignored by the Protestant Irish Parliament, ensuring Catholics remained second-class citizens in English-occupied Ireland for another two centuries.

The Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing Other Oaths, passed in 1691, prevented Catholics from holding any office, as it demanded that they deny transubstantiation, the Catholic belief in the Holy Host actually becoming the Body of Christ during Mass. This being one of the principle tenets of Catholicism, but not held by Protestantism, meant no Catholic would swear such an oath, and so was unable to, for instance, practice law or take a seat in parliament. The Disarming Act of 1695 went further, banning Catholics from owning a weapon or a horse (worth more than five pounds) while a second bill, passed that same year, refused Catholics permission to have their children educated abroad. Exempted from these Acts and bills were those who were covered by the Treaty, though of course by now they had all fled to France, so the matter was somewhat redundant.

The victory of William of Orange, now William III of England, Ireland and Scotland, ensured the domination of the Protestant Ascendancy for the next two hundred years, and the virtual enslavement of Catholics, reduced to all but serfs on the lands of English nobles and subjected to progressively harsher Penal Laws as time went on.

So here we end the seventeenth century, almost, as we did the sixteenth,  ground down by the English once again, our island occupied, our religion banned and our lives regarded as nothing.

Is it any wonder we hate the English?

Chapter IX: Under the English Heel, Part III: Settling Old Scores -
Catholics, Celts and the Crown


This Land is (no longer) your land: the Continuing Disenfranchisement of Ireland's Catholics

Timeline: 1701-1741
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Orwell once wrote, if you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on an upturned face forever, and in some ways this must have been how it felt to be Irish - or at least, native and Catholic Irish - for centuries. The over-arching title of this section has been "Under the English Heel", and indeed that's how it was. Apart from sporadic risings, rebellions and joining occasional forces with England's enemies in the hope of kicking His or Her Majesty's troops and settlers off our island, we remained under English, later British control, rule and law until well into the twentieth century, and like most occupiers, the English were not soft and pleasant masters. Burning enmity between the two schisms of the Christian Church - for which we cannot only blame Luther, as all his accusations were mostly based on truth, but a succession of power-hungry popes too, and a Vatican that seemed more interested in shoring up its power and filling up its coffers than tending to the needs of its flock - meant that whoever was in power would ensure to put down and repress the other, and for hundreds of years, even under the odd Catholic monarch, or at least those nominally tolerant of Catholicism, we Irish were seen as lower life forms, heretics and peasants, an underclass to be kept down almost in the same way a failed painter from Vienna would one day see the Jews.

Not that I'm attempting to equate Irish occupation with the Holocaust, of course. Many, many Irish may have died in the various uprisings, wars, and under the oppressive regimes that characterised successive occupants of the English throne, but at least there was no mass genocide practiced on the Irish people. Well, unless you count the famines, which we will come to in due course. The point though I'm trying to make here is that for the Irish, life under an English king or queen was never going to be easy, never going to be profitable and never going to be tolerant, which is why full independence was the only way Erin's sons would ever get out from under the boot of the British. It would, however, take another two hundred years before this would finally be accomplished, and we could, in theory - in the South at least - wave a not-so-fond farewell to the agents of the Crown.

But at the beginning of the eighteenth century, as noted in the closing lines of the previous chapter, we were still well and truly all but slaves. The Plantation of Ulster had ensured that power lay in the hands of Protestants, and with the Flight of the Wild Geese in 1691, nobody was left to fight for the Catholic cause, nobody would raise the flag for Ireland, except vaguely in exile, most of which attempts would come to nothing.
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The Art of (Reneging on) the Deal

Nobody, least of all myself, would venture to suggest that all Irish - or even any Irish - were fine, upstanding citizens, to whom the mere suggestion of breaking their word was anathema. Nobody is a paragon. Everyone lies, everyone cheats, everyone breaks promises. This is doubly applicable to politics, and not unknown to kings either. However the duplicity of the English Crown after the Battle of Limerick was, to put it mildly, appalling. Having promised, in the Treaty of Limerick, certain concessions to the Irish Catholics, the Protestant-controlled Parliament threw almost all of these undertakings out, and set about making Irish Catholics the worst treated creatures in their native country, hoping, in the end, to destroy and eliminate once and for all the religion they saw as heretical, and opposed to the Crown.

With the ordination of bishops prohibited, no new priests could be installed to replace those killed or who had fled during the pogroms following the burst of anti-Catholic sentiment resulting from the Great Fire in 1666. No new clergy were allowed enter the country from abroad, and as Catholics were banned from attending school, either in Ireland or abroad, the future looked bleak for Irish Catholicism. More stringent and harsher Penal Laws passed in England led to the eventual direct rule from Westminster of Ireland, meaning the King and his Parliament could, if they wished and if it was expedient or profited them, overrule any laws passed by its counterpart in Ireland.

Meanwhile, the conquered island became the breadbasket of England, or perhaps it might be more accurate to say it became its supply depot, as the land was stripped of its lush forests to supply His Majesty's Navy with timber, its food produce - pork, butter, cheese, beef etc - going to feed the sailors and also supply the rest of England as well as its colonies in the West Indies, all of which would inevitably lead to the first, but sadly not the last,  Great Famine in Ireland. There would be, of course, little to no sympathy across the water for the starving millions in Ireland, as the Catholics were universally despised and reviled by the English, and no help would ever be forthcoming from those who had much (mostly due to the hard and badly-paid work of the poor Irish Catholics) for those who had little, or indeed nothing. To some degree, whether it's true or not, you would have to wonder how many tears might have been shed had the entire Catholic population of Ireland starved to death? Not many, I would venture to suggest.

Of course, had the grinding, stamping boot been on the other foot, there's no doubt that the result would have been the same. If somehow the positions had been reversed and it had been England suffering from starvation and want, I somehow doubt that my ancestors would have been piling food into boats to send to them. No, more as a matter of circumstance than anything else, these two factions hated and loathed each other, and the one would have been happy to have seen the other disappear from the face of the earth, enemies to the end of time it would appear. Talk about Arabs and Israelis! They ain't got nothing on the hatred between the Irish and the English.

Some Catholic landowners did convert to Protestantism, if only to avoid losing their lands, but would always been looked on (and down) as mere "converts" and sneered at by the Ascendancy, who would never consider them part of its august assembly. Most though clung to their religion and thereby lost their lands, their rights to own property, their and their children's right to an education, and the right to worship, though how strongly reprisals against masses and so forth were prosecuted I don't know. In Cromwell's time, yes; after him, not so sure they wanted to waste the energy, and anyway, they had a ready-made slave labour class here, so why try to change it?

Intermission: Catholic England? The Trouser Serpent Enters Eden
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Here I'd like to diverge slightly away from the timeline, and look back to see how things could have been different, for Ireland and for England. What I'll propose here will of course be simplistic and I'm sure there are plenty of valid reasons for the hatreds between our two countries, but it can't be denied that the biggest bone of contention - even when England left a remnant of its eight-hundred-year occupation behind it to stagger through almost into the twenty-first century - between us has been religion.

So, the question becomes: what if England had remained Catholic?

It's not as crazy a question, I think, as it seems. England had been, after all, staunchly Catholic for thousands of years, if only because up to then there was only Catholicism in Christianity. It was the early fifteenth century that saw the rise of Martin  Luther and what would become known as Protestantism, which slowly spread across Europe, but England resisted it, even to the point of its then king, Henry VIII, writing in vigorous defence of Catholicism and denouncing Luther, earning him the title Fidei Defensor, or Defender of the Faith, bestowed upon him by a grateful Pope Leo X. Remember, at this point England was a world power, and the pope would have been concerned had its king turned against him. Of course, later that's exactly what he did (though not specifically against the Pope himself, but against his allies) but that's history and here we're considering an alternate timeline.

Henry's problem with Catholicism - or more properly, the Pope - was that the Bishop of Rome refused to annul or make invalid his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to allow him marry Anne Boleyn. There were of course many reasons for this, not least among them being that Catherine was the aunt of Charles V of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor and an important ally of the then pope, Clement VII, the sanctity of marriage (the moreso between a king and his wife) within the Catholic Church, and the possibility of disinheriting and effectively bastardising Catherine's daughter Mary, who would be next in line to the throne.

So Henry decided, after trying to cajole, force or trick the pope into annulling the marriage, he didn't need him. He would do it himself, and so, like a child annoyed at the rules of the game and making his own game, taking his ball and going home, Henry VIII of England set himself up as head of his own religion, his own breakaway faction from the Church, following (mostly, or as far as it benefited him to do so) the precepts of the fledgling Protestant movement being taught and disseminated by Martin Luther, thereby creating the Church of England and making England a Protestant country.

But consider: what if the pope had allowed the annulment? Yes, the historical ramifications would have been huge - Queen Mary, known to history as "Bloody Mary" for her persecution of Protestants when she came to power - would never have ruled, and her sister, Elizabeth, would have ascended the throne unopposed, rather than, as she was, seen throughout her reign by Catholics - the pope especially - as a bastard and a Protestant usurper. Plots to dethrone or assassinate her would not have been hatched, and in all likelihood, England might have been stronger against its enemies, being a cohesive, truly united kingdom.

Apart from the Scots, of course. Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!

Meanwhile, Ireland might not have been such a prize, or, if it was, might have acceded more readily to a king who followed the same religion as them. Much of the opposition to England's invasion and occupation and rule of Ireland was that it was performed under the banner of Protestantism, the Anglican Protestantism taught by and compulsorily required by the Church of England. Irish Catholics feared the erosion, even destruction of their faith, and so fought with everything they had against this foreign oppressor. But had Henry got what he wanted from the pope, it's highly unlikely England would have changed religions. Up until the time of the "king's great matter" as they referred to his pending demand for divorce or annulment of his marriage to Catherine, Protestants and Lutherans in England were seen as heretics, and imprisoned, tortured and burned with the full approval and knowledge of the king. It was only when Henry began to see - or be shown, by men like Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer, who had much to gain by swaying His Majesty's allegiances their way, including of course not to have to do a good impersonation of a candle - that allowing, even embracing and finally insisting on Luther's new anti-Rome religion could help him to get what he needed that he broke with Rome.

Though there were plenty of Protestants in England at the time, and many at Henry's court, before the "great matter" (or before the king met Anne Boleyn) none of them would have admitted it, for to be branded a follower of Luther was to repudiate the Catholic Church, seen at the time as the only Church, and Luther's ideas as heretical and nothing more than the ramblings of a sect or cult leader, and that was punishable by death, usually very painful death. Henry's about-turn in accepting Protestantism was motivated purely by his own lust and his desire to get his own way, and set in motion by the refusal of the pope to grant this.

So had Henry either been able to keep it in his pants, or convince the pope that kicking Catherine to the kerb was the best policy, England might now still be a Catholic country, and everything from the Famine to the Rising and right up to the Troubles need never have happened.

The first and only time I have heard of in history where a man set up an entire religion and his people were later persecuted, imprisoned, burned and hanged because the king wanted to get his end away. Well, technically he could do that anyway, but since Durex would not be invented for about another four hundred years, he wanted to make sure any sprogs his new bit of totty dropped were legitimate heirs, especially if he hit the jackpot and got a son.

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Fragmentation of Faith: Schisms within the Schism

However, he did and so we end up with the situation we now have, which makes it necessary, even important that we look into the basics of Luther's rebellion against Rome, which we have already detailed, but more importantly, how the divisions and cracks appeared in the alternative to Catholicism, and how, obviously, they affected Ireland.

See, this is what I find so stupid about religion. Invent a new one and you can be guaranteed that of those who join up, some at least will have an issue with something within your religion. It might be a minor sticking point, or it might be a fundamental basic tenet, but nobody is going to agree with everything your religion stands for. And as invariably happens in such cases, the chances are they'll start their own version, probably taking what they like from yours and leaving behind the things they don't agree with.

Thus it was with Protestantism, originally called Lutheranism. It quickly split into... right. Hmmm.
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It is indeed like a minefield out there. Ask about the divisions in Protestantism and you can get everything from Baptists and Quakers to Wesleyans and Methodists. But a lot of them are American-based, and as we're only concerned here with Ireland and England - and to some lesser extent, Scotland, I'm going to try to concentrate on the branches that refer to or impact on them.

Lutheranism, is of course the granddaddy of them all, named for the man who started it, Martin Luther. Now the word Protestant of course refers to someone who protests against something, in this case the Church of Rome and the Pope, so I think it's possible (though I'm open to being corrected) that you can equate the two. When Henry VIII decided to embrace Protestantism (Lutheran teachings) for his own political and personal benefits, and made himself head of the Church of England, the state religion was Anglican Protestantism (I assume that refers to its being English). From what I read - and my recent watching of the series The Tudors, which of course may be rife with historical inaccuracies but I think gets the religion part right - Anglicanism was basically a sort of "poor man's Catholicism", retaining many of the trappings, including mass, hymns, statues and recognition of the sacraments, while flatly and outright denying any authority from Rome over its church (the whole point, after all, of setting the damn thing up in the first place).
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John Calvin, father of Calvinism

In Scotland you had Presbyterianism, from presbyter, or elder, which was and is the state church of the country. I'm unsure about the differences between it and Anglicanism, so I'm just going to drop this direct quote from Wiki in here, which may or may not clarify it. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ. Right. All nice and clear then. What about other offshoots from, as it were, the main tree? Well there's also Calvinism, named for John Calvin, who started the whole thing off north of the border. Calvinism appears to be... the wellspring of Presbyterianism. D'oh! Now I'm totally confused.

Let's see if we can sort this out. Basically Anglican Protestants - the Church of England - had (and presumably still have) fundamental differences of belief with the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Protestants, founded and based on Calvinism. Maybe it would be easier - if entirely simplistic, but I'm drownin' here - to say that English Protestants (Anglicans) didn't like and certainly did not concur with the beliefs of Scottish Protestants (Presbyterians). To return to our dilemma in Ulster then, the Scottish settlers there, all or mostly Presbyterians, would have been shunned and ridiculed by the ruling English Anglicans, and while not censured as harshly as the Catholics, would still have had their share of oppression from the English.

Something that does seem to have been a major sticking point between the two - Anglican Protestantism and Presbyterian Protestantism (try saying that after six pints!) - is fealty to the King of England. As Henry had established himself as the head of the Church of England, he demanded all "proper" Protestants recognise that. Scotland did not do this, of course, being a separate kingdom, and probably also disputing that any mortal could speak for God, be he King or Pope. I'm not entirely sure what or who Presbyterians saw as the supreme head of their church, but I think it may have been nobody less than God.

This refusal to accept Henry led to Calvinists, Presbyterians and others being labelled "dissenters", for obvious reasons, and while they weren't as persecuted or hated as Catholics, they were no friend to the Anglican Church, and no friend to Henry. So far as I know, even Lutherans - the original Protestants - were not welcome in England, and may even have been burned even after the establishment of the Church of England. With Henry VIII, as with English kings down through history, it was his way or no way.

Okay, well that as I say is putting it in puppets and diagrams style, simplifying it to the nth degree, and probably also wildly inaccurate, but it does at least explain why this happened.
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Ulster Says No: Presbyterianism in the North

One fact was not in dispute, and that was that Presbyterians were descended mostly from Scottish settlers who came to Ulster, and to be honest, if there's one thing an Englishman hates almost as much as an Irishman or a Frenchman it's a Scot. So the descendants of Scots in Ulster were also hit by the draconian Penal Laws passed in the early seventeenth century. Not as hard as the Catholics, mind - they could sit in Parliament but could not hold office - but they too were banned from occupations such as the legal profession, the judiciary and the army, and while Ulster, once the holdout kingdom, would remain more or less fiercely loyal to the Crown following the Plantation, its inhabitants were nevertheless looked upon by the ruling Ascendancy as inferior.
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Catholic as Charged: The Penal Laws (1607-1678/93 (technically 1829)

Penal of course means of the penis... no really, it refers to punishment and that is exactly what the Penal Laws passed over (some might say, and with good cause, pissed over) Ireland during the eighteenth century were supposed to be. They specifically set out to disenfranchise, punish and impoverish, both financially and intellectually as well as spiritually and morally, the hated Catholics of Ireland who had so long resisted English rule, and who were seen by the Crown as heretics and heathens. More to the point though, they were couched in such a way as to afford the best deals possible for the Protestant Ascendancy, the settlers from England and Scotland who had come over at the invitation of the English government to take lands from Irish chieftains and lords and colonise the country.

Although initially reluctant to damage their support base among English Catholics, particularly the old English landowners, the ascension to the throne of the fiercely Protestant James I and final victory over the Irish in the Nine Years War in 1603, and the  events such as the Gunpowder Plot two years later, coupled with the Flight of the Earls in 1607 provided impetus for harsher treatment of Catholics, and Irish in general, and the first of the Penal Laws was passed in 1607, banning Catholics from holding public office or joining the army. Much worse was of course to come, and some of the laws have been discussed in the previous chapter, but other, tougher ones had yet to be passed.

After ruling that Catholics could not educate themselves or their children (or send the latter abroad to be educated), priests and bishops to be exiled and land confiscated from Irish Catholics in favour of Protestant settlers, the Popery Act of 1703 sought to change how Catholics could inherit land on the death of their father. Unlike English (Protestant) law, this Act ruled that the land must be divided up amongst all the sons of the late landowner. However, if the eldest son was to convert to the "true religion" he could then inherit the land for himself. Daughters, of course, had no rights either way, so if a man died with only female offspring, well, I don't know what happened in those cases.

The Popery Act also forbade Catholics to hold public office, as mentioned above, and anyone holding public or military office other than Catholics had to swear an oath of denying transubstantiation, which as already mentioned is the process by which, according to Catholic belief, the wine and the host are changed into the literal body and blood of Our Lord at the mass.  No Catholic was likely to deny the most sacred tenet of his religion, which effectively excluded him then from public office. Under the Popery Act, Catholic landholding, already at a minimal level of 25%, shrunk by a further 20% over the next seventy-five years.

This Act also attacked Presbyterians and other "nonconformist" Protestants, who were similarly commanded to make the declaration and, if they could not, had to step down from the post they held. This resulted in the resignation of hundreds of Presbyterians and Calvinists from their positions, thus leaving the jobs for loyal Anglicans to fill.

Note: this should not be confused with an earlier, identically-named Act passed in 1698 (that one by the English Parliament, the above by the Irish) in which a bounty was placed on the head of all priests in England, people encouraged to spy on and betray, hunt and turn in any priest seen or suspected of "popish behaviour", such as saying mass (or trying to), offering the  sacrament or praying publicly, contrary to English law. Similar to the later Act passed in Ireland, Catholics were prohibited from being educated and owning land or holding public office.

Further note: Neither of the above should be confused with the Papist Act, passed in 1778, which we will come to in due course, and which was in fact a relaxing and relenting of the harsh and draconian laws levied on Catholics, seen as one of the first of what were known as Roman Catholic Relief Laws. Ironically, perhaps, this single Act would lead to unrest and riot in England, as the Catholics were seen to be getting treated with too much lenience. Oh, you English, you!

The other big one was the Disenfranchisement Act, passed in 1728, which did exactly what it said on the tin, disenfranchised Catholics by making it illegal for them to vote. In a chilling foreshadowing perhaps of the Third Reich two hundred years later, an Act was also passed forbidding the intermarriage of Catholics and Protestants, while Presbyterian marriages were not recognised by the state. Some of the laws were all but inhuman, such as the one which forbade Catholic families adopting orphans (I'm not sure if that only applied to Catholic orphans, though I would doubt it, because why would the English care?) and a particularly cruel one ruling that, should priests or other illegal persons be discovered in a village or town, and not reported by the inhabitants of that town, the reward given for capturing the fugitive would be levied on the people there. It sounds a little confusing, doesn't it, so here's the transcript from the Big W.

Any and all rewards not paid by the crown for alerting authorities of offences to be levied upon the Catholic populace within parish and county.
Teaching even in private homes of Catholics was also forbidden, leading to the famous idea of the "hedge school", where usually priests and nuns would undertake to attempt to educate children out in the fields, perhaps as a way to defeat the spirit of the law by sticking to the letter of the law.

As for the king's subjects, they had better not even think of converting (can't imagine why any would of course) as there were very stiff penalties for such, including losing the king's protection - essentially I guess leaving you in a "Purge"-like situation where anyone could do anything to you and the king's law would not punish them, forfeiture of all lands and inheritance and imprisonment for a period of time to be decided by the king.

You can surely see the metaphor here of someone (English Crown and Parliament) using a long stick to push and hit the Irish Catholics, shoving them further and further back across an imaginary line marked "extinction". The problem with that is the very stick you're beating and pushing your opponent with can become your own undoing, when they grab it and hit you with it. After eight centuries of this treatment, while the Penal Laws would not prove the final straw that broke His Majesty's back, he would find that stick turned on him, though it would be another two hundred years before he would have to take his lumps.
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Outlaws, Robbers and Politicians: The Rise of the Tories

Anyone who hates the Conservatives will be grinning when I tell you that the word does indeed come from the old Irish for robber or outlaw, the word, tóraí, coming from the slightly shorter word tóir, meaning "pursuit", as outlaws and robbers were chased or pursued men. Having its origins in the English Civil War, the Tory Party supported the then king Charles I, and opposed the attempts by Parliament to reduce him to a figurehead without any real power. Their efforts were thwarted however by the coup by Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army, and they had to wait for the Restoration of 1660 when Charles II returned from exile in triumph to re-establish the monarchy. Ranged against them were the Whigs, Protestant agitators (many of whom had been part of Cromwell's army) who began to accuse the king of endeavouring to undo the work of Henry VIII and return England to the Catholic faith. In this they were helped by the fact that the king's brother, James Duke of York (who would succeed to the throne as James II on the death of his brother in 1685, though only for three years before being deposed and replaced by the Protestant William of Orange) was a Catholic.

Unable to politically attack the king directly, as to do so was an act of treason, The Whigs tried to implicate the top Tory, Count Redmond O'Hanlon in a supposed plot with the Earl of Ormonde, James FitzThomas Butler, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to murder famous liar and forger Titus Oates (remember him?) but to no avail. Used as a derogatory term from 1681, the opponents to the Whigs were called Tories, and a leading nonconformist minister called Oliver Heywood likened the two factions to the old Roundheads (supporters of Cromwell and Parliament) and Cavaliers (those who took the side of the king) prevalent leading up to and during the English Civil War. It should not however be misconstrued that the Tories were any friend to the Catholics, as they supported the Church of England and approved of and advocated the continued suppression of both Catholics and nonconformist Protestants. Well, of course they did.

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Yo Trollheart you numbnuts! Isn't this supposed to be the story of Ireland? What's with all the English history dude?
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I hear ya. I do. But here's the thing. Whether we like it or not (and we don't, as a rule) the history of our country is inextricably tied up with that of England, Britain, or the United Kingdom - whatever you decide to call it. After all, were it not for the English, we would most likely have been left in peace to carry on with our lives. We're not - never have been, never will be - a conquering race; we barely have an army, and what there is of it is usually on loan to the United Nations on peacekeeping duty in some godawful place, so we don't exactly sit around maps of Europe, or anywhere else, greedily licking our lips and trying to figure out how we can get control of their resources, economy, politics or all three.

But first the Romans, then the Vikings, and finally the English pushed us to take up arms, so because the English have had such a huge impact on how our country developed (after all, we're probably one of the only nations who doesn't use their own national language) I feel it's important that we keep abreast of the developments across the pond in parallel with Irish history. So who was on the throne at any given time, what their religious proclivities were (almost all of them were and continue to be Protestant Anglicans, but some were more tolerant towards Catholicism than others) and how they viewed Ireland is something we need to deal with. Some of the time, events not actually taking place in Ireland had a huge impact on our history, such as, as already related, the Great Fire of London, which pushed anti-Catholic sentiment to even higher levels, and the French Revolution of 1789.

So from time to time I will seem to veer off into something that could be mistaken for the History of England. It's not. It's just that our history did not take place in a vacuum, and events around the world, from Rome to, obviously, London, had a profound effect on our development as a nation. So bear with me as we say hi to the newest arse on the English throne, though after five years of her reign that behind would be sitting on the throne of the newly-designated Great Britain.

Queen Anne (1665 - 1714)

Born, as you can see, one year before the aforementioned Great Fire, Anne was the daughter of James, Duke of York, brother of Charles II, who, as we already discussed, was a secret-though-not-so-secret Catholic, and as he was next in line for the throne, the English nobility feared he would return their country to the worship of Catholicism. Therefore, Charles instructed that his two nieces (the other being Mary, who married William of Orange and reigned jointly with him as Mary II, not to be confused with Bloody Mary) should be raised in the Anglican faith. Not entirely sure what say their father had in this, but it was the king's will and so it was done. I suppose he couldn't have really opposed his brother's wishes, at least not in public, as he was trying to keep his Catholic leanings low-key, and would not want to add any truth to fears that his two daughters might also end up as Catholic monarchs.

At any rate, on the death of Mary William reigned alone after the Glorious Revolution in which his wife's father was deposed and sent packing, and on his death, Anne succeeded her cousin to the English throne. To allay any fears, Anne had married Prince George of Denmark and Norway, a Lutheran, so there was little chance she was going to have any Catholic sympathies, and nineteen years after her marriage George became the royal consort, given the title Duke of Cumberland, and if anyone feared he might be an ambitious man, endeavour to control England from behind Anne's throne, this statement he made would have put the issue to rest:  God send me, he wrote, a quiet life somewhere, for I shall not be long able to bear this perpetual motion.

It was far from an idyllic marriage though. Blessed(!) with seventeen(!) children, Anne was to see none of them survive, as early in her marriage George caught smallpox (which she had already had, and which had prevented her attending the coronation of her sister) and became very sick, while their two young daughters died of the disease. Another child was stillborn, and this would continue to be the pattern through Anne's life - children either died at birth, were miscarriages or lived barely long enough to be acknowledged as such. Twelve were stillborn, four died before the age of two years, with the final surviving child, Prince William of Gloucester, a potential heir to the throne, lasting eleven years, but still not old enough to claim his birthright. Historians and medical experts disagree on what he died from, but smallpox is one of the favoured theories, and given that Anne's children had died of this disease, she had had it herself and so had George, it seems fair to assume that was the cause. In any case, it deprived England of its heir, leaving Anne childless at the age of thirty-five, an age thought beyond childbearing in those days. Indeed, she only lasted another fourteen years on the Earth after William's passing. Severe gout, which caused her to gain weight and grow "corpulent", necessitating her having to be carried or wheeled everywhere, coupled no doubt with the terrible stresses of so many pregnancies and losses, told against her and she died in 1714.

She had been, however, a popular monarch, despite being the daughter of the much-hated James, and on her coronation had this to say: "As I know my heart to be entirely English, I can very sincerely assure you there is not anything you can expect or desire from me which I shall not be ready to do for the happiness and prosperity of England." Already afflicted with the gout which was to so trouble her and possibly shorten her life, she had to be carried to her coronation in a sedan chair. Less than two weeks after her accession to the throne, England became entangled in the War of Spanish Succession, which so far as I can see has no direct bearing on Irish history so will not be covered here. She was a patron of Handel and Newton, and greatly interested in the arts, theatre and music as well as poetry.
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See you Jimmy! The Act of Union (1707)

Anne was the first English monarch to preside over four nations, when the Act of Union formally bound England, Ireland, Wales and the recalcitrant Scotland as the Kingdom of Great Britain, later the United Kingdom, giving her the quirk of reigning over England until 1707 and then all of Britain until her death in 1714.

And to understand this, I'm afraid we have to take yet another detour, this time to the north.

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If there was a kingdom more staunchly opposed to English rule than Ireland, it was of course Scotland, and anyone who's seen Braveheart knows the contempt the English kings held the northern savages in, and how the brave Scots refused to bow down. So why, after all that man did, after the hideous death he endured to try to ensure the independence of his nation, did Scotland bend the knee?

I'll be damned if I know, and I've wondered, but I just bet you it has to do with coins clinking into hands. Let's see if it was money that made the merger possible.

Highland Warriors: A Brief History of an Independent Scotland

There's always been a very strong bond between the Irish and the Scots. We both originate from Celtic tribes, Gaels from Northern Europe who settled here around the time of the Roman Empire, and we retain many similarities both in our language and our culture. Scots call a nice thing braw, whereas we say brea, we call the English na sasenaigh, their name for them is sassenachs, and most of our names hinge on the paternal - son of; Mc or Mac (Mach, for son) or O, as in of - so MacDermott, O'Neill and so on. But if there's one thing that's common to both of us more than any other factor it's our dislike of the English. Even now, call a Scotsman or woman English and you're looking for a Glasgow kiss! You don't want to know what that is, if you don't already know.

Scotland, called in the time of the Romans, Caledonia, was originally inhabited by ancient tribes called the picti, or picts, but unlike the original Irish, whom the Celts defeated and supplanted in Ireland, the reverse seems to have occurred in Scotland, as the Picts attacked and destroyed the scotia town of Dal Riada. Converted first to Celtic Christianity by Irish missionaries and later to Roman Christianity by the mission mounted  in the sixth century by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons, the picts nevertheless became known as scoti, or scots, to the English, and their land forever named Scotland. The invasions by the Vikings though at the end of the eighth century forced the remaining Scoti (Gaels) to ally with the Picts to resist the Norsemen, and the Kingdom of Scotland was established.

That was in the ninth century, and as you might expect, the Scots spent the next three hundred years knocking seven shades of shite out of each other in struggles for the Scottish throne, till England's Edward I decided he rather looked the like of it, and decided to pinch it for himself. Into the story of Scotland then of course strides William Wallace, portrayed by Mel Gibson (rather unrealistically and historically inaccurately, so I'm told) on the big screen, to fight for Scotland's independence. It wouldn't be the first or last fight the northern kingdom would engage in with its larger southern neighbour.
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The Wars of Scottish Independence (note the usage of the plural there; the Scots didn't admit defeat easily!)

Timeline: 1296 - 1357
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As ever, blame the kids. Or rather, lack of them. When King Alexander III died he left only one heir, strictly speaking an heiress, his granddaughter Margaret, herself the scion of a mere fifteen year old king, Eric II of Norway. Being the daughter of Alexander's daughter (also called Margaret - not very imaginative, these people!) and as the line of succession in Norway proceeded along strictly male lines, she was to inherit the Scottish throne if Margaret (the mother) did not produce any male heirs for Alexander. Margaret (for the sake of clarity and my sanity, we'll refer to the young Margaret as she was known, the Maid of Norway, or for us, just the Maid) was the sister of Edward I, so there were some pretty strong ties to England there already.

When Margaret died in 1258, Alexander, having no male heir, thought to take a new wife, and settled on Yolanda of Dreux. To give him due credit, he waited ten years before marrying again. However a year later he was killed, breaking his neck. I don't know under what circumstances, whether or not foul play was involved. What I do know is that his death threw the whole question of succession into turmoil, as Yolanda was by then pregnant, and six regents were chosen, called "the Guardians of Scotland" to hold the throne for whomever ended up being its rightful occupant. As it went, Yolanda's child was stillborn, which left the Maid as the only legitimate claimant for the monarchy.

And so in due course King Eric's envoy arrived in Scotland to claim the throne on behalf of the three-year old Maid, but ran into opposition when Robert Bruce (not Robert the Bruce; he was later) raised a rebellion against the decision. He was defeated though, but the situation was deemed too dangerous by Eric to send his daughter there, and he instead asked his father-in-law to arbitrate. Edward was only too happy to exert his power and influence over the choosing as to who would rule Scotland, and to nobody's surprise ruled in favour of his grandniece. As he also retained the right to choose her husband, the Maid was promised to King Edward's son, also called Edward, now to be King of Scotland, and with the signing of the Treaty of Salisbury in 1289 Margaret, Maid of Norway was agreed to be and confirmed as the heir to the throne of Scotland, while the Treaty of Birgham the following year enshrined Scotland's independence as a separate kingdom from England.

Eric accordingly sent his granddaughter, now seven years old, to claim her right, but by the time she arrived in Orkney Island she was sick and soon died, her body being returned to Bergen for burial. No definite reason is given for her death, but hey, back then people seemed to die at the drop of a horned helmet, so could have been anything. Maybe someone poisoned her? Either way, all the work Edward and his ministers had done, all the wrangling and coming to a decision and the Treaty of Salisbury all came to nothing.

And then, all hell broke loose.

With no further legal claimants on the throne, no less than thirteen candidates stepped forward to duke it out, including one pretender who was burned at the stake for her pains. We'll look at them all now, including her.

Unlucky for some? The Scramble for the Scottish Throne

Not much time to mourn the never-coronated new queen, as news of her death inspired an undignified power grab by anyone who believed they had a claim to the kingship of Scotland. They were:

With at least a legitimate claim

John Balliol: Descended almost directly in a bloodline from King William the Lion, Scotland's longest-reigning monarch prior to the rule of James VI (who would later become James I of England - not the same James, Duke of York,  who was brother to King Charles II), Balliol was the son of John, 5th Baron of Balliol and Dervorguilla of Galloway, granddaughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, himself brother to William the Lion. As claims go, his was definitely the strongest.

Robert Bruce (de Bruis): He was also related to the great king's brother David, through his mother Isobel of Huntingdon, making him David's grandson. Bruce served as Regent of Scotland before King Alexander could take his place on the throne, and was the closest surviving male relative to the king. Named heir presumptive, he lost out on his chance when Alexander's wife brought forth three children, seeing his last chance vanish when Margaret, Maid of Norway was brought over to take the throne, having been confirmed by Edward I as the legitimate heir. When Margaret died though, Bruce saw his chance and put his claim forward.

John Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings: The first claimant who was not Scottish but English, he was also a Welsh noble, but seems to have based his claim to the Scottish crown on his being a grandson of the daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon.

Floris V, Count of Holland. He too claimed right to the throne through his great-grandmother Ada, daughter of David of Huntingdon.

John Comyn II of Badenoch: called "The Black", he was one of the six regents of Scotland chosen to hold the throne for its rightful heir (which turned out to be the Maid of Norway and then on her untimely death descended into chaos). He claimed right through being descended from another Scottish King, Donald II, but his claim was sort of half-hearted, as he knew and expected his brother-in-law, John Baliol would be chosen.

Eric II of Norway: As father of the Maid, he certainly had a claim, but had neither the support nor the force of arms to push such a cause. It's unlikely he really wanted it anyway, mourning for the death of his daughter, and he would die a mere nine years later anyway.

That takes care of the legitimate, or at least credible applicants. But of course, there will always be pretenders, chances, people-who-know-people and think that gives them the right and so on, so let's check out the less likely claimants.

Less than a snowball's chance

Nicholas de Soules: he claimed right to the throne on the basis of being the grandson of Marjorie of Scotland, illegitimate daughter to King Alexander II. He was also brother to one of the Guardians of Scotland.

Patrick Galithly: His claim was considerably more dubious, in that it relied on his being the grandson of a supposed illegitimate son of William the Lion. Yeah, that was never going to fly.

William de Ros: Nor was his claim, being based on his being the great-grandson of an alleged illegitimate daughter of William the Lion.

William de Vesci, Baron de Vesci: Relations to a bastard were also behind his claim, this to another illegitimate daughter of William the Lion, Margaret (yes, another one)  whom he claimed to be his grandmother. He's the only one with any Irish connection I can see, in that he founded the abbey in Kildare in 1260 for the Franciscans. Didn't help his claim for the throne though.

Patrick Dunbar, Earl of Dunbar: Also claimed the right due to being a great-grandson of Ada, King William the Lion's bastard daughter.

Richard de Mandeville: He claimed he was a great-great-grandson of yet another bastard daughter of William, this time Aufrica.

Sir Roger de Pinkeney, Baron de Pinkeney: His claim came from being a great-grandson of Marjorie of Scotland, like de Soules only a generation removed.

Norway is that going to work! The False Margaret

Technically, not a claimant for the Scottish throne, though I suppose she could have been seen as a late entry, had anyone fallen for it. Some did, but nobody of real consequence. Her name is Margaret, or at least that's how history remembers her, her real name lost to time, and she is, as noted above, referred to as the False Margaret. Why? Well you remember Margaret, the Maid of Norway, and how she was supposed to have died on the way to claim her birthright at seven years old? Right, well, this one apparently appeared in Bergen 1301, eleven years after the Maid was supposed to have snuffed it, and coincidentally (or not really) two years after her dad, King Eric II of Norway, had followed her into the afterlife.

Claiming to be, wait for it, the Maid, not half as dead as people thought, she declared that she had been taken prisoner and sent to Germany where she had lived in secret. Now she was back, and she claimed her throne. While as I say some people fell for this, most remembered a rather important point - two, actually: the first being that the old king had personally identified the body of his daughter when it had been returned to Bergen, and while it might be true that many fathers don't really know their daughters as well as they think, it's a pretty safe bet that any of them could identify the corpse of their little darling, which is what a heartbroken Eric did.

The other point - perhaps more damning and making this attempt more laughable than your next-door neighbour casually confiding to you that he is in fact the risen Christ, and not a waster whose wife left him for the milkman six years ago - was her age. If the Maid had in fact survived, and not died in 1290, then by 1301 she would have been coming up to her seventeenth birthday, and while some women are lucky and don't look their age (or are told they don't), this Margaret was well in her forties. So unless the Maid had slipped through some sort of temporal wormhole and had been living a quiet existence in Narnia or Middle Earth for nigh on thirty years, there was no way this woman could be who she claimed to be.

The king thought so, too. Haakon V, brother to Eric, dismissed her claims - which included accusations of treason by some of his court - and had her burned at the stake. Her husband, who had plotted with her, literally lost his head, though some accounts say he was burned alongside her. Rumours that she may have been used in a plot by Audun Hugleiksson, right hand to two different kings (though neither  Eric nor Haakon), led to his execution a year later. He had already been imprisoned before the False Margaret landed in Norway, and it's possible that had she been accepted as queen he would have expected to have been released. As it was, he was hanged.

Those who did believe Margaret was the Maid formed a martyr cult around her, and a church was built on the spot where she was burned, but later it was demolished.


The Great Cause

As often, almost always happens when there is more than one claimant to a throne, Darwin's principles come into play and the fittest, or indeed fastest or most cunning or richest survive. Alliances are made, promises are given, inducements handed over, positions promised, and whoever has the biggest army can take the throne by force. This of course often does not go down well with the other hopefuls, and war, often civil war, can break out, and usually does.

And so it would have, as the claimant with the best chance of securing the throne, John Bailiol, drew powerful nobles, including the English Bishop of Durham, Antony Bek, who was Edward I's representative in Scotland, and declared he was the king. "We'll just see abou' tha'!" shouted Robert Bruce, angrily, as he enlisted both the Earl of Mar and the Earl of Atholl to his cause, the two forces facing off against each other.

And of course, England, which has always been the peacemaker in such disputes, stepped in.

Well, not quite.

Fearing civil war, the Guardians of Scotland turned to Edward I to arbitrate. Everyone would have to listen to the king and abide by his decision, as most if not all retained substantial lands south of the border. Edward had long been annoyed that Scotland refused to acknowledge him as its overall king (even though he and his predecessors still styled themselves as "king/queen of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland" - words are cheap) and demanded that before he agree to mediate the dispute and help choose a king, the country must swear fealty to him. "Och awa' wi' ye!" they all said, or something similar, but a compromise was reached and Edward consented to sort the mess out. I suppose he thought that whichever king he chose, they would owe him gratitude for taking his side, gratitude he could capitalise on later if needed.

In the end it came down to four: John Bailiol, who was seen to have the strongest claim by the ancient right of primogeniture, Robert Bruce as the nearest blood kin, John Hastings who, though a descendant of David I, was an Englishman and therefore hardly eligible, even though he tried to argue Scotland was not a real kingdom (an odd stance to take, I would have thought, if you're planning to rule the place!) and Floris V, who had some spurious claim that David I had ceded the right to rule as king to his brother William, but this was throne (sorry I mean thrown) out for lack of evidence. Edward chose Bailiol and made sure all the other claimants and the Guardians supported and agreed with his decision, and the Great Cause was settled.

Scotland had her new king.

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Invasion!

It's probably fair to say that nobody in Scotland actually trusted Edward, and that war with England could not have been too far from anyone's mind, especially when the king, after having chosen the new ruler of his troublesome northern neighbour, started throwing his weight around: demanding cases be heard in England and not Scotland, summoning the king himself, John Bailiol, to court (he refused to go, sending his envoy instead, which must have spoken volumes). But Baliol, though a weak and ineffectual king (and possibly chosen by Edward for that very reason, where the fiery Bruce, who had nearly as strong a claim, might have made a more formidable opponent for him) knew Scotland could not hope to oppose the might of England alone, and so sought help.

Turning to England's old enemy (no, not Ireland: what use would we have been to the Scots?) Balioli sent emissaries to King Phillipe IV of France, seeking a treaty, which was duly signed as the Treaty of Paris in 1296. Suffice to say, Edward was not amused and sent his armies to attack Scotland, mustering on the borders of Newcastle. They were met by a Scottish army headed by John Comyn (not the same one who had contested the crown, but his cousin) who took and burned Carlisle, but without siege engines had to leg it back across the border. Edward's armies then crossed into Scotland and took Berwick, and the two armies finally met for battle at Dunbar in April 1296.

It was over in a matter of months. Roundly defeated at the so-called Battle of Dunbar, the Scots retreated and Edward advanced, taking Edinburgh and Stirling Castle (the latter of which had been abandoned), and by July John Bailiol had surrendered. Edward stripped him of his crown and had him and his nobles sent back to London to the Tower, Scotland completely under his heel now. He forced all the nobles and clergy to swear loyalty to him, and to reinforce the point that Scotland's independence was at an end, took the famous Stone of Scone, which had been the location used for the coronation of the Scottish kings since the ninth century,  back to Westminster, along with the other trappings of Scotland's monarchy, the Black Rood of St. Margaret - said to have been a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified - and the Scottish Crown.

Invasion! - the Rematch: Brave Hearts and Broken Bones

Defeated but ready to rise again, Scotland simmered with anger at the treatment meted out to it by the English king, and as the country rose in open revolt against its English occupiers, two famous names were to be written in the annals of Scottish history. One we all know, the other perhaps not so much.

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Andrew de Moray (died c. 1297)

The Moray dynasty was no stranger to independence; they even resisted joining the Scottish nation until the 12th century, when the Flemish noble, Freskin, to whom Andrew's family traced their lineage, led an uprising on behalf of the king, David I, and took Moray for him. However resistance continued through the reign of successive kings, and it would not be until Alexander II brought events to a final - and fatal - excuse the pun, head. This was accomplished by having his soldiers take the infant heir to the throne of Moray and smash her head against the market-cross. Proof that Scottish kings could be just as brutal as English ones.

During the first Scottish War of Independence, Andrew rode with his father against Robert Bruce in Carlisle, in the army raised by John Comyn, wreaking havoc across the countryside when they could not get into the castle, killing and burning and pillaging, and all the sort of things you do when you can't get into a castle and do all your killing there. But when the Scots were quickly defeated by the army of Edward I, Andrew's father was taken prisoner and died in the Tower of London two years later, while he himself was held at the lower-security Chester Castle.

After defeating the Scots Edward was not exactly magnanimous in victory, imposing heavy taxes on the people, seizing castles and installing English lords to run the place. His plan to force Scottish men - including nobles - to fight in his armies in Flanders did not go down well, and resentment, already simmering, began to boil over. At the beginning of 1207 Andrew Moray escaped from Chester Castle and made his way back to Scotland, just as another rebel raised his flag against the English. You may have heard of him.

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William Wallace (c. 1270 - 1305)

If Scotland was polytheistic instead of Christian, it's pretty certain that WIlliam Wallace would rank high among its pantheon. As it is, he is known as one of Scotland's greatest and most legendary heroes, and even if the movie Braveheart has taken some liberties with history and the truth, Wallace is certainly remembered as one of the country's finest and most noble and loyal sons. Described as "a tall man with the body of a giant ... with lengthy flanks ... broad in the hips, with strong arms and legs ... with all his limbs very strong and firm" and though historians differ on various aspects of his story, it is known that his first act of rebellion took place as Andrew Moray was making his escape from English captivity, the murder of the High Sherrif of Lanark, William de Heselrig, after which he joined William the Hardy, Lord of Douglas, to carry out the Raid of Scone, where they put the Justice of Scotland (appointed of course by Edward) William de Ormesby, to flight, and then set up base on Etthick Forest, in a sort of Scottish echo, perhaps, of another famous outlaw.

Wallace's greatest triumph though undoubtedly was the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where he and the forces of Andrew Moray, who had joined up earlier, dealt the English a crippling blow.
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The Battle of Stirling Bridge (September 11 1297)

Playing for time, the Earl of Surrey, who held Stirling Castle for Edward, sent emissaries, including two Dominican friars to negotiate with Wallace and Moray. He was concerned about the long narrow passage from the castle across the river which would put him at a disadvantage, facing a superior number of his enemies, and no doubt hoped for reinforcements. Wallace was unimpressed:  "We are not here to make peace but to do battle to defend ourselves and liberate our kingdom. Let them come on and we shall prove this to their very beards."

Can't get much plainer spoken than that! Opting, for some reason, for a direct attack from across the bridge, rather than trying to outflank the Scots further upriver, as had been suggested to him, the Earl led as many of his men onto the bridge as would fit at once, but the Scots poured down from the hills onto the bridge and slaughtered them, cutting off any chance of reinforcements from the rear. Losing his nerve completely, the Earl ordered the bridge destroyed, and retreated, leaving Wallace and Moray victorious, though Moray had been mortally wounded and would die soon after.

Stirling Bridge nevertheless ranks as a huge achievement for the Scots, the first time their armies had taken on the English and not only won, but routed them utterly, and on their home soil. Wallace went on to lead an large scale invasion of England, through Northumbria and Cumberland, and Edward prepared to reciprocate.

Wallace, however, was no fool, and knew that despite his victories he could not hope to take on the full might of the English army, so his men avoided Edward's troops, shadowing them and relying on falling morale to send the English back home as food supplies began to run out. Partially, this did work, as Edward had to put down a mutiny by his own men, mostly Welsh adventurers, but then received intelligence that Wallace was camped at Falkirk, waiting to harass his forces (but not expecting a full-on battle) and he rode to meet them. This time, things didn't go so well for Braveheart.

The Battle of Falkirk (July 22 1298)

The terrain was not on the Scots' side now, a flanking strategy preferred by Edward's commanders who picked off the cavalry ranged behind their formations of schilltrons - tightly packed formations of men with spears and pikes - but could not make any further progress against the spear walls. However with their own archers picked off by the English, this left the schilltrons unprotected, with nowhere to run once the English arrows began falling, and as the lines of spearmen began to fall in numbers, opening gaps in the wall, the English cavalry charged in, wreaking havoc. Backed up by the infantry, it wasn't long before they had slaughtered or routed all the Scots, and the day was Edward's.

The problem appeared to be twofold: first, the Scottish had not been prepared for or expecting a battle, unlike at Stirling, where they had controlled everything, and second, the main military genius behind that previous victory is believed to have been Moray, who was dead by the time Falkirk was fought. Wallace, though an able commander when performing hit and run, guerilla-style raids, turned out not to be a strategically-minded man, and basically led his forces into a trap against overwhelming odd and with no real plan.

After Falkirk Wallace renounced the Guardianship of Scotland, conferred upon him when he had been made a knight of the realm after Stirling, and is believed to have travelled to France to look for assistance from the other old enemy of the English, with a possibility of also going to Rome, though this is not confirmed. He returned to Scotland in 1304, where he fought against the English for another year before finally being betrayed and delivered to the English king. Tried for high treason, he sneered that "I could never be a traitor to Edward as I was never his subject." The king was not impressed, and ordered him to be hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield. In case anyone for some reason doesn't know that that entails (haven't you seen Braveheart? They more or less got it spot on) here are all the gory details.
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When hanging was too good for them - the awful price of treason

Reserved, so far as I know, for the capital offence of treason alone, hanging, drawing and quartering was perhaps the most gruesome, humiliating and painful death ever devised by man. Well, maybe crucifixion, but still - it gets you out in the fresh air, doesn't it? Treason was probably the very worst crime a subject of the king or queen could commit, and so it was proportionately punished, both to ensure the miscreant died the worst death possible and to serve as a dire and stark warning to others who might be considering doing the same.

It all began (after, presumably, days of torture, whether for information, confession or just revenge is probably unimportant) with the criminal being dragged - sometimes on a board, sometimes just on a rope or chain - through the streets behind a horse to the place of execution. Obviously hardly the least comfortable of ways to travel, the prisoner would already be in pretty poor shape by the time he arrived at the gallows, at which point he would be strung up, hanged, but not in the traditional way. There would be no drop, no quick breaking of the neck, oh no. This was not hanging to kill - not yet - merely to hurt, cause panic, humiliate, terrify. And it was far from the worst of the punishment.

After a few minutes being choked on the end of a rope (as the audience cheered, spat, threw things and cursed at the criminal) he would be laid flat on the platform, his chest bared. A none too gentle incision would be made in his chest, something I guess like they do in a Caesarian section, except rather than draw forth a baby the executioner would draw forth the innards and guts of the man, which would be pulled out and burned before his - supposedly still alive and able to see - eyes, his,um, tackle cut off and burned too, his head then removed and his heart torn from his chest (not sure if that happened before or after the beheading, but given that he was supposed to witness the burning of his other organs, and that removal of the heart causes instant death, I'd say after). Finally, quite dead now, his body could be quartered.

This entailed chopping the body up into four parts, most often centring on the two legs and two arms, these often sent to places in the country where the criminal had been supported, lived, fought or which for some other reason had connection to him. His head would usually be placed on a spike atop London Bridge or the Tower of London, as a clear and visible and enduring (until it eventually fell apart or was picked clean by birds) warning of the terrible price to be paid by those who raised their hand against the monarch.

Back to King Edward and those pesky Scots though. While he had scored a major victory in defeating and breaking the armies of both Moray and Wallace, and having the latter pay the ultimate price for what he saw as treason, Edward's campaign in Scotland did not go to plan, and in the end the Pope commanded him to withdraw, and he did. For now. But he was back in 1301, this time with his son. Again, he failed to conquer the country and sodded off back to England, declaring a nine-month truce as the following year began.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/King_Robert_I_of_Scotland.jpg/440px-King_Robert_I_of_Scotland.jpg)
Robert (the) Bruce (1274 - 1329)

The next Scottish patriot to rise against the king was arguably the most well-known, other than perhaps Rob Roy, and in no small part as he also features in the movie Braveheart. After Wallace resigned the Guardianship of Scotland following his defeat at Falkirk, Bruce held it jointly with John Comyn, though the two men did not see eye to eye. Descended in an unbroken line from the Scottish King David I, Bruce had been (as already related) one of the claimants for the crown on the death of the Maid of Norway, which led to Scotland's Great Cause, but though his claim had been one of the strongest he was passed over in favour of John Bailiol. He then initially fought on the side of King Edward, holding Carlisle Castle when John Comyn and his men attacked it just prior to Edward's first invasion of Scotland. When Scotland rose up in the face of the harsh treatment and lack of respect the king paid them, Bruce switched sides and rode against Edward.

At Irvine he had his men drawn up for battle against Henry de Percy, grandson of the Warden of Scotland appointed by Edward, but dissension and in-fighting among the Scots led to their capitulation, and while William Wallace was busy raiding Scone, his supposed ally Bruce was swearing fealty once again to Edward. But while Bruce was at the English court word came to the king that John Bailiol had made a deal with him to abdicate the throne of Scotland in Bruce's favour, and he ordered Bruce be arrested. Bruce, however, forewarned, hauled ass back to Scotland, where he prepared for war against his old master.

When Bruce found out that Comyn had reneged on the deal, that it was in fact he who had spilled the beans to Edward, he confronted him in the Abbey of Greyfriars and stabbed him. Some accounts say his supporters finished the king off, others that knights loyal to Bruce returned to the chapel, Comyn only having been wounded, and "made sure". Either way, the king was dead, long live the king, and Bruce claimed the throne he believed he should have had in the first place. For breaking the sanctity of the church and spilling blood in the holy place, Bruce was excommunicated.

King Robert Bruce - Heavy Hangs the Head

The new king's reign did not start off on the best footing. He had to be crowned twice, as the wife of John Comyn (not the one Bruce murdered, another one - between that many Andrews and Roberts and Johns, you'd wonder how any Scot ever knew who was being addressed!) claimed the right to crown Robert for her young brother, the Earl of Fife, who was a prisoner of the English. Yeah I know: I don't get it either. But even though he ended up having two coronations, Robert couldn't have missed the very glaring fact that he would have been the first Scottish king not to be able to sit on the Stone of Scone as the crown was placed on his head, Edward having half-inched it and trotted off merrily back to England where it was kept under, presumably, lock and key.
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Chivalry is dead - and so are you: The Battle of Methven

He lost his first battle against the English king, at the Battle of Methven when he faced the new Lord Lieutenant of Scotland, the Earl of Pembroke, Aymer de Valance. His boss, fed up with the annoying Scots resisting his power, gave the earl orders to spare nobody, take no prisoners, show no mercy. Unaware of this order, I guess, Robert the Bruce offered to meet de Valance in single combat, but the earl shouted back "can't manage it today, old bean. Bit too late for me. Let me check my diary: oh yes, indeed, splendid. I can fit you in the morning, how's that?" I suppose the exact dialogue went somewhat differently, but you get the picture. "Fair doos," responded the new Scottish king, agreeing. "I'll see ye in the morn then ye sassenach!"

Little did he know though that de Valance cared little about his chivalric behaviour, and when the Bruce and his men bedded down for the night, they had a nasty visit from the English, who fell upon them in their jammies, possibly, and soon put the Bruce and any of his men who could manage to get away to flight, the rest I suppose killed, as per the orders from the king. Worse was to follow for the harried king though, as his hated enemy - or at least, an ally of same - was waiting for him as he made his escape. What took place could very well have ended the reign of Robert the Bruce, and nearly did.
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The Battle of Dalrigh: Caught between a loch and a hard place

Alexander MacDougall, head of the MacDougall clan and descended from Somerled, the First King of the Isles and Lord of the Hebrides, was related by marriage to John Bailiol, the deposed king of Scotland chosen by Edward I, and his cousin, John Comyn. Having naturally taken the side of Bailiol and Comyn, the MacDougalls lost everything when the former was killed by Robert the Bruce and he, Bruce, was crowned king. MacDougall, therefore, was only waiting for his chance to avenge himself on the man he saw as the usurper, and that chance came directly after the Battle of Methven, as the remnants of Bruce's army - said to number no more than 500, including women and older people who were hardly in a condition to fight - ran into an ambush led by his son John (oh yes god damn it, another one!) which he had laid with his over 1000 men.

Battle was joined but very one-sided, the king reported at one point to be personally fighting alone almost literally between a rock and a hard place - stuck in a narrow passage between a loch (lake) and a hill, and there was a very good chance he could have fallen, which would have changed Scottish history considerably. Against a superior force, unprepared and unable to use his trick of making the terrain work for him, as MacDougall knew it as well as he did, he was quickly routed. He did survive, but as a fighting force his army was over and done with.

Some short time later members of Bruce's family were captured, and other than the women, all killed. Some respite was on the horizon for the outlaw Scottish king though, as in July of 1307 Edward finally died, though his campaign was carried on by his son, Prince Edward, now Edward II. Another link with Ireland suggests the possibility that Bruce went into hiding here, as he waited for a chance to strike back at the king, though there are other places it's agreed he could also have taken shelter.

In spring Bruce returned to Scotland, now mostly under English control or held by nobles hostile to him, and scored a minor victory when, at the Battle of Glen Trool, he had his men loosen boulders at the top of a hill and, Wiley Coyote-like, rain them down on the approaching English soldiers, killing most of them. It was his old adversary, Aymer de Valence, who led them, and he was to meet him again in battle when they clashed at Loudon Hill. Unlike his contemporary Wallace, and like Andrew Moray, Bruce had learned an important lesson waging his guerilla war against the English, and that was that he who knew and could use the terrain to his best advantage was more likely to win, even if the numbers were against him. De Valence had not known about the loose boulders at the top of Glen Trool, and this had been his undoing. His lack of knowledge about Loudon Hill, and the digging by Bruce of three large trenches to focus the earl into approaching his enemy in single file was another way of turning his familiarity with the land to his advantage, and again he won the day, though de Valence escaped.
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It's a Scottish thing - ye wouldnae unnerstan' - The Defeat of John Comyn (another one)

When Edward II had to return across the border to deal with domestic issues at home, Bruce rampaged through Scotland, scoring some victories, but his main aim was to end the feud between his family and that of the Comyns. He had no intention though of burying the hatchet, anywhere other than in Comyn's head, that is. You'll remember that Bruce killed another John Comyn in the Greyfriars Chapel, an action for which he was excommunicated. Since then, not surprisingly, the Comyns and the Bruces, and the allies of each, had been at war within the Scottish kingdom, and finally one of the cousins of the slain ex-king and the now-fugitive king met at Inverurie to settle the matter once and for all.

The Battle of Inverurie

A strange one, this. It seems that all that harrying, dodging, sneaking, attacking and retreating had taken its toll on poor King Robert the Bruce, and he got very sick. It doesn't say what he suffered from, but maybe nervous exhaustion? Who knows? But the point is that at the time of this battle he was being ferried around by his men on a kind of litter, unable to walk or ride a horse. The news of this had spread, and had given Comyn's men heart, so when the king struggled out of bed and onto a horse in order to face his old enemy, it seems Comyn's army just, well, got scared and all ran off. Seems odd I know, but that's what the account says. Comyn escaped but had to flee to England, where he died later that year, removing the power of the Comyns from Scotland and providing Robert the Bruce with a powerful and telling victory.
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Scotland's Shame: The Harrying of Buchan

In the wake of Comyn's defeat he flew to his stronghold, Fyvie Castle, but it was well defended and Bruce did not intend to waste time and men laying siege to it. However there is nothing quite so dangerous as a vengeful king, other than a woman who has been told that her bum does indeed look big in that, and so Bruce took his anger at Comyn out on his people, burning villages, killing cattle and livestock, slaughtering men, women and children and basically giving the people of Buchan a taste of what Oliver Cromwell would dish out in Drogheda three hundred years later.

Technically, of course, he didn't do it: he was too sick, despite his show of bravery at the battle, but he ordered his brother Edward (again, not too much in the way of originality about the choosing of names here -at one point, Edward could have been said to have been fighting against the combined forces of Edward and Edward!) to carry out his wishes, and so he did. For months the countryside was laid waste to, people harassed and harried, presumably a lot of the old rape and pillage taking place, and castles were "reduced", whatever that means. Reduced to rubble? Reduced in size? Reduced to having to swear fealty to Robert? Reduced in power? Who knows? One thing is certain though: it was not good for those who held those castles.

The flight of Comyn and the resultant destruction of his lands by the raging king's brother served to rob Bruce's ex-rival of any loyalty he had in the area. It took thirty years before John Comyn's successor, Henry Beaumont, stuck his nose into the area and he withdrew it again pretty quickly when he was attacked, legging it to England where he popped his clogs, no doubt lamenting the loss of Buchan to the Bruces, in 1340. His own son, John (yeah, yet another one!) had the good sense to back away, hands raised and say "Nah, nah, you're all right there mate. Don't want it thanks all the same" when offered the earldom. Nobody of the Comyn line wanted Buchan, and Buchan did not want them. A century of Comyn rule was over.

Bruce now turned his vengeance on the MacDougalls, allies of his hated enemy.

Hell's coming five paces behind me: The Battle of the Pass of Brander

Having destroyed the power of the Comyns in Scotland forever, Bruce started mopping up their supporters, and first on his list was the MacDougall clan. He had not forgotten what he must surely have seen as the shameful attack on a tiny force composed of old men and women, at the Battle of Dalrigh - and more importantly, perhaps, his own ignominious flight from there into hiding, and he meant to pay them back in spades, or whatever phrase Scots use instead of spades. This time he was an unstoppable force, not only marching with legions of soldiers but also commanding galleys which sailed up Loch Linne, and though his old adversary was too sick to fight at this time, Alexander MacDougall's son, John, who had dealt Robert such a crippling blow at Dalrigh, stood ready to take him on.

They were hopelessly outnumbered though, and demoralised by the size of the force facing them, and when Sir James Douglas (known as Black Douglas), one of Bruce's chief commanders and most loyal supporters led a force of archers high up onto Ben Cruachan, the highest mountain in Argyll, the MacDougalls' cause was doomed. John escaped in a galley while Alexander had no alternative but to swear loyalty to Bruce, though he later fled to England, where he died in 1310.

With the defeat of the MacDougalls Bruce's power in Scotland was uncontested, all his enemies slain, fled or forced to pledge their fealty to him. In a quite amazing feat of military prowess, Robert the Bruce had, in two short years, gone from being a fugitive outlaw king in name only to making himself the undisputed ruler of Scotland, the most powerful man in the country.

But England awaited...

Invasion! III - Like Father, Like Son

By 1314 Robert the Bruce had achieved what no previous Scottish king in recent memory had, by uniting - or forcing to bend the knee - all of Scotland under his rule. In a triumphant echo of the victory - only victory really - of William Wallace some years earlier, he besieged Stirling Castle. This fortress was important not only for tradition, having been the site of the first and really only major defeat of the English army, but strategically too, as it controlled access to Scotland from over the border. Outnumbered, the garrison there were told that if they were not relieved by midsummer they must surrender. This was of course a direct provocation to the new king, son of Edward I, and accordingly Edward II began mustering troops for yet another invasion, the largest Scotland had ever seen.

On the face of it, Bruce was facing disaster. Although a weaker king than his father, Edward had learned the hard lesson that the Scottish leaders, from Moray and Wallace to Bruce himself, had, which was that the land determined the fighting strategy. As King Henry V had shown the French at Agincourt, not much point having heavily armoured mounted men trying to charge across boggy, marshy ground. So Edward knew that the Scots would make use of the bogs in the north around Stirling, and briefed his men accordingly. The army heading north, although smaller than the king would have liked (many promised infantry had not turned up, no reason given) was still about twice as large as the combined forces of Robert the Bruce.
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Sins of the Father: The Battle of Bannockburn (1314)

The two armies clashed at a point which has been named Bannockburn, but may be somewhere else (the trouble with these medieval battles, apparently, is separating the truth from the propaganda and determining the facts, which is not always possible) and Robert the Bruce faced off in single combat with Henry de Bruhan, nephew of one of the two commanders of the force, the Earl of Hereford. As they rushed at each other on horseback, Bruce swung out his axe and split the head of his enemy. Shocked at this unexpected and high-value loss, the English scattered when the Scots attacked.

The second English force was led by Henry de Beaumont (remember him?) and the 1st Baron of Clifford, and was attacked by the Earl of Moray, Thomas Randolph. No doubt wishing to avenge himself on Bruce for his having lost his ancestral lands in Buchan, de Beaumont tried to lure Moray in, but a hot-headed youngster in his ranks, spurred to action, did a Leroy Jenkins and charged into the thick of the Scots, killing his horse on their pikes and getting himself captured, while the rest of the army was routed by Moray.

And so ended day one of the battle.

During the night the English had crossed over the Bannockburn, but were betrayed by a Scottish knight who had been fighting on the English side. He encouraged Bruce to attack, that English morale was low. "If it's tha' low," Bruce reportedly did not say, "it will wait till the mornin'. Ah'm fer bed." But as true as his word, the next morning the king led his forces against the English, who were already, indeed, very depressed, so much so that they were fighting among each other, the Earl of Hereford accusing the Earl of Gloucester of cowardice for his suggestion the battle might be postponed. "I'll show you who's a coward!" snorted the Earl (of Gloucester) and so he did, riding right into the thick of the Scots. Unfortunately, his men seemed to agree with Shakespeare about the better part of valour and stayed behind, and the Earl was surrounded and killed.

Morale wasn't going to improve much after that.

Bruce's men advanced with their schilltrons, Edward's archers were asked if they would mind awfully if they could stop shooting, as their arrows were killing their own men. They soon had worse things to worry about, as five hundred Scottish cavalry descended upon them, and as the English were pushed back to the Bannockburn, Aymer de Valence (yes him again) and another knight called D'Argentan (sounds suspiciously like D'Artagnan doesn't he?) led the king to safety. Our man D'Argentan however decided death was better than dishonour and once the king was safe he headed back to the battle, where he quickly found out he was wrong. De Valence, by contrast, lived to a ripe old age, finally dropping dead in France ten years later.

Once the army saw their king running, the retreat became a rout and as they went on their way they were even attacked by ordinary folk, who no doubt sensed victory in the air for their king. Estimates of Edward's losses vary, but it's agreed very few of his troops made it home, and Bruce's army sustained extremely low losses. It was, without question, the greatest victory Scotland had ever managed over the hated English, and it established Robert the Bruce forever as a legend and a hero in Scotland. Nobody, not even the English king, could now doubt or bring into question or challenge his right to rule Scotland.

But for this tough Scottish king, one kingdom would not be enough.

Invasion! IV - You'll Never Beat the Irish

So much for solidarity among Celts, then. So much for that scene in Braveheart where the Irish soldiers brought to Scotland with Edward I refuse to fight for the English king and instead join up with William Wallace! Hollywood hokum, eh?

Well, let's not be too hasty.

As I said way back at the beginning of this section, when we diverged from the history of Ireland into that of Scotland, the two have been strongly linked for centuries, and each feels a kinship to the other. I'm sure there was the usual enmity between Scots and Irish that you get with all red-blooded warrior races, but other than those who might have fought on the side of other countries - even England - against Ireland, I don't see evidence for any dislike between the two, or any real reason to make war upon, or try to conquer one another. The Irish didn't covet Scotland (or anywhere; happy to stay at home, we were, once we were left alone) nor did the Scottish yearn to possess Ireland.

So why did Robert the Bruce decide to invade our island?

For the answer, or one or two possible ones, it's necessary to remember that we're talking about an Ireland occupied by the English here, basically an outpost of the kingdom of England. Robert would have considered invading Ireland a way of making himself a further thorn in the side of Edward II and maybe drawing him out. He would also have seen it as a way of cutting off part of the king's powerbase, by denying him Ireland as a staging point, training ground or supply point for his troops. Cutting off the revenue stream from Ireland for King Edward too, through taxation of the Irish, would help to weaken the English cause. Forcing Edward to fight him on two fronts would not be something the English king would want, and would strengthen Robert's hand.

Added to this was the vision of a grand Gaelic alliance, possibly to even include the Welsh, fellow Celts who had no love for the English, with the King of Tyrone, Domnall mac Brian Ó Néill  asking Robert for aid against the Normans plaguing his kingdom, and Robert agreeing on the condition that Ó Néill recognise him as King of Ireland.

Though ordered by Robert, it was in fact his brother Edward (oh god damn these unoriginal parents and their naming their sons after themselves!) who led the invasion on his behalf. He landed in Larne (Northern Ireland/Ulster) in May 1315 and gave battle with the Earl of Ulster, but under Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, they were victorious and took the town of Carrickfergus. In June  Ó Néill and ten other Irish lords met Edward and pronounced him King of Ireland, swearing their loyalty to him. Though two of them quickly reneged, trying to ambush him at the Moiry Pass, the gateway to the south, but they were both defeated and Edward marched on to take Dundalk.

Sadly County Louth bore witness to a massacre, as it would again in three centuries when Cromwell would annihilate the town of Drogheda. Here, Edward's men indiscriminately killed everyone in Dundalk, whether they were Irish or English. Although made aware of the seriousness of the situation as Bruce marched further south, taking all in his path and defeating English lord after English lord, Edward II dithered and really did nothing, probably not too bothered about Ireland when he had other things to occupy his attention. Burning, pillaging and killing as they went, Bruce's army tore through Ireland, but when they looked to Rome for support the Pope was not interested - he was staying well out of it!

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Fail of the Century - The Great Famine (1315 - 1317)

It really must have sucked living in the first half of the fourteenth century in Europe. Not just because of the conditions, the poverty and the really poor wifi signal, but from halfway through the second decade up to more than halfway through the century famine and plague ravaged the land. As already related, the horror of the Black Death swept through Europe like, well, a plague from about 1347 to nearly 1352, wiping out over 200 million people, and this on the back of an already weakened Europe which had succumbed to a series of famines that raged from 1315 onwards. It's amazing anyone survived.

Not that famines were new or unknown. France suffered from three separate ones before "the big one", and a staggering six after it, some of them occurring during, and after, the time of the Black Death, while in England - yes, famine in England! - there were three. Life expectancy in Europe had dropped by 1345 to a mere seventeen years (though admittedly that was at the height of the Plague) from a relative high in 1276 of thirty-five. A spate of unseasonably cold and wet weather, coupled with poor harvests and climbing food prices, to say nothing of an explosion in population and the poor being confined to working on land that was hardly arable, all the best land kept for the nobility, pushed Europe along a steadily-descending spiral into almost constant and perpetual hunger. Nobody had enough to eat, and those who did did not care about those who had nothing. No social welfare, no land reclamation projects, no mechanical assistance to farming, and no mercy from the vagaries of fate.

It all led, in 1315, to what became known as The Great Famine, which was to last for two years and cover all of Europe. Heavy rain in the spring and summer of that year led to bad or in some cases no harvests, no fodder for livestock, and, market forces doing what market forces do, the scarcity of food pushed the price of any that was available beyond the reach of the ordinary worker. In fact, in France, the price of a simple loaf rose so steeply (increasing by, wait for it, three hundred and twenty percent!) that bread could not be purchased, in a stark future echo of events that would lead to revolution there four hundred and fifty years later. England didn't fare any better, with reports from Bristol in 1315 speaking with horror of people being so hungry they ate their children, and new arrivals in the local gaol being fallen upon and devoured by the starving prisoners already there. Don't believe me? Don't blame you. But here.

(From the Bristol Annal: Bristol Archives)
there was: 'a great Famine of Dearth with such mortality that the living coud scarce suffice to Bury the dead, horse flesh and Dogs flesh was accounted good meat, and some eat their own Children. The Thieves that were in Prison did pluck and tear in pieces, such as were newly put into Prison and devoured them half alive.

See? Even Edward II found it hard to find bread, and you know there's a problem when the royal bakery is empty! The year dragged wearily by, but its successor brought no relief, as the rain continued to fall, harvests continued to fail, and some families, unable to sustain their own children, turned them loose to fend for themselves. The horrid word was whispered throughout the continent, though who can say if cannibalism was actually practiced? Then again, who can say it wasn't? If you're hungry and desperate enough...

And on it persisted, with 1317 as wet as the two previous years, though finally in the summer the rain stopped, but by then most of the damage had been done. It would take another eight years before things would begin to stabilise, and another ten after that the rats would arrive. Ironically, in some ways the famine could be seen as a necessary tool that reduced the overpopulation of Europe and allowed the meagre food supply eventually to stretch further, having to feed fewer people. An anonymous poem penned in 1321 probably said it best:

When God saw that the world was so over proud,
He sent a dearth on earth, and made it full hard.
A bushel of wheat was at four shillings or more,
Of which men might have had a quarter before...
And then they turned pale who had laughed so loud,
And they became all docile who before were so proud.
A man's heart might bleed for to hear the cry
Of poor men who called out, "Alas! For hunger I die ...!"

Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II, Anon.

The Great Famine and, later, the Black Death, served to weaken the power of the Catholic Church for, although in the latter (and presumably the former too) the plagues were blamed on man's sins and pride, the Church was unable to deliver its flock from the wrath of God, and so became something of a clay idol; people had before placed all their trust in the priests, the Pope and his ministers, expecting to be saved if they only repented. But in the face of famine and the Black Death the Church was as powerless as the lowest commoner, and Popes died as easily as paupers, and people began to see the Church was not, after all, the all-powerful, indefatigable entity it claimed to be.

The arrival of the Great Famine began to turn the tide against Edward, as his troops began to succumb to the disease and food ran out, and his own general impatience for battle would lead to his and his brother's defeat and death in the Battle of Faughart. Sadly there is no real account of what should have been one of the most important battles of Bruce's career and of the Scottish Wars of Independence, but it seems that Edward took on a much larger force than he could cope with - reckoned around 20,000 - without waiting for reinforcements to arrive from Scotland, and perhaps like the Grand Old Duke of York in the song, he marched them up to the top of the hill at Faughart but did not get a chance to march them down again, as he was slain with most of his men by the English. In possibly an ironic twist, the battle took place close to the town which had been the site of one of the greatest massacres by the Scots, Dundalk.

Despite the defeat of his armies and the death of his brother, Robert the Bruce did manage one victory - two if you include outliving not only Edward I but his son too - in having the Pope formally recognise the independence of Scotland (even if England did no such thing) in 1324 and affirming Robert as King of Scots. Edward II died in 1327 and was replaced by his son Edward III. Robert continued invading and harrying England, and in 1328 the two kings met for the battle which would decide the first War of Scottish Independence.

The Battle of Stanhope Park
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The power behind the throne: waiting in the shadows

Edward II's marriage was not good. His wife, Isabella, known as the She-Wolf of France, had had enough of the king and taken a lover, the exiled Roger Mortimer, who had risen against him. While on a diplomatic mission to her native France it is believed Isabella hooked up with Mortimer and the two began to plot the downfall of her husband. Returning to England with a small army, and threatening to disinherit his son Edward III, then only thirteen, Isabella and Mortimer forced Edward II to abdicate, later, according to some accounts, having him murdered, and then taking the crown for themselves, nominally naming the young prince as the new king.

In June 1327 a large Scottish force led by Thomas Earl of Moray, Black Douglas and the Earl of Mar raided across the border into England, and Mortimer along with the young prince raised a large army to meet them. Typical disagreements arose within the English ranks, especially with some mercenaries from the country of Hainault (modern France/Belgium border) which depleted the English ranks as they fought among each other. Having sorted out their differences, Mortimer moved to intercept the Scots.

Except, he didn't.

The Scottish army would not be pinned down; like ravaging ghosts they plundered and burned and pillaged the countryside, their passage marked by towering plumes of smoke that rose into the summer sky, but they never engaged the English force and wherever Mortimer went, there the Scots were not. As a result of this somewhat retreading of William Wallace's original guerilla war supplies began to run low in the English camp and the mood soured. Finally an English scout was captured by the Scots, and sent back with a message to Mortimer that they were ready to do battle. After all the uncrowned king of England had done to try to take his enemy by surprise and catch them at a disadvantage, it was now the Scots who were dictating the terms of the battle, and they met him as directed on the banks of the Wear river, near Stanhope Park.

Apparently all of what follows is true!

The Scots had occupied the high ground, and therefore had the advantage over their enemy. The English sent longbowmen up the river to try to ford it and attack Bruce's men but they were scattered by cavalry. The English next asked the Scots if they didn't agree that it really wasn't cricket, you know, their having the advantage of the higher ground, and wouldn't they be terrific chaps and just come on down onto the plains where everyone would be equal, and the armies could battle it out, man to man? Unsurprisingly, the Scots yelled back "Nae thanks son, we're braw here lad!" And stayed where they were.

Unbelievable.

I can imagine the Tommie at the Somme shouting over to the Germans in their machine-gun nests: "Now look chaps, this really isn't fair is it? Why not climb out of those trenches and we'll duke it out here in No-Man's Land to see who deserves to be the masters of Europe?" Or Osama being told he was being a really bad sport, hiding up there in the mountains where the Americans couldn't catch him, and would he not just do the decent thing and come out and take what was coming to him like a man? Oh, the hilarity of these chivalrous English!

Anyway, unprepared to maintain the traditional stiff upper lip and charge into a hopeless cause in a blaze of very brief glory, the English remained where they were, the Scots remained where they were, and nobody attacked anyone for three days. Bor-ing! I thought they told me when I joined up that it would be non-stop fighting, burning, attacking, cheering, with maybe the odd spot of raping thrown in! Anyone want a game of cards? What do you mean, you didn't bring cards? Now I'm really depressed! When are we going to see some action?

Well, kind of never, lad. The king did get something of a surprise - nearly died of terror really (well he was only a teenager, and barely that) when the Scots slipped down in the night and - wait for it! - cut the guy ropes of his tent, collapsing it, then sodded off back up the mountain! While the English then slept in full body armour, expecting an attack, the Scots buggered off back across the border, negotiating bogs the English had thought impassable, and when they woke up in the morning the English army was alone. D'oh! The discomfort of tossing and turning in armour all night, for nothing! I need to scratch so bad!

The strangest battle I ever read of, I must say. You can't say not a shot was fired or that nobody died (consider the luckless archers of Edward III) but in general there was a three-day do-nothing, where the Scots grinned down at the English and the English glared up at the Scots, and then the Scots went home. And yet, this battle - or, to be fair, the combined effect of the Bruce rampaging throughout northern England - was the final nail in the coffin of Edward's resistance to the idea of Scottish independence. All but bankrupted by the war and the constant invasions, hardly able to pay even the mercenaries mentioned above, and humiliated and smarting from his treatment, he, or rather, Mortimer and Isabella, had no option but to accept King Robert's terms and the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton was ratified in 1328, making Scotland an independent and sovereign kingdom and Robert its rightful king. This drew to a close 32 years of fighting, invasion, counter-invasion and pillage which constituted the First Scottish War of Independence, and a year later King Robert died, leaving Scotland in the hands of his young son, David.

But Edward had never agreed with the terms of the treaty (he had been excluded from the negotiations and from the signing by Mortimer and Isabella) and by the time he had grown to his majority and properly established his royal power he had Mortimer arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London and later executed without trial, being hanged at Tyburn.

Two years later, the Second War of Scottish Independence began. This would last another quarter of a century.

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The Second War of Scottish Independence (1332 - 1357)

Old Grievances: Bailol II

Originally chosen by Edward I as King of the Scots, John Bailiol had been forced to abdicate and now his son wanted revenge. He pressed Edward III, newly established as the actual power in England following the arrest of Mortimer, to restore to him his ancestral lands. Edward duly sent a request to the new king of Scotland, David II, the late Robert the Bruce's son, but no reply came, so Edward said to Edward (yeah they were both Edwards - bloody English. And Scots!) "get in there and fill yer boots, son," and Bailiol was not slow to accept the offer, marching into Scotland in 1332 where he met the forces of Donald, Earl of Mar. Well, when I say met...

See, our man Edward Balioil had gone to Scotland with a pretty piddling small army - about 1,500 - in the mistaken belief that he would be hailed as a saviour by the Scots and they would all flock to his banner. This failed to happen, and he even miscalculated by somehow offering Mar the chance to join him. The Earl, with about ten times as many men as the would-be usurper (or perhaps that should be re-usurper, since his dad was king originally?) descended on them as they tried to get off their boats, fighting them, as a famous statesman would note six hundred years later, on the beaches. Nevertheless, despite the negligent size of their force, Bailiol fought Mar off, and the Scots legged it to Perth. Perth in Scotland that is, not Perth in Australia.

Also with Bailiol was the heir of the deposed Earl of Buchan, Henry Beaumont. Having helped themselves to weapons from a burgled Scottish armoury, they too proceeded to Perth where they faced off against the much larger Scottish force. Bad enough that it was - by some estimates - more than thirty times their size (though more likely ten, still a huge disparity), but that was only Mar's lot. The lads commanded by the Earl of March (note that "ch" - not the same guy!) were already on their way, no doubt had they mobile phones they would have been texting Mar to "save sum 4 us!" So Bailiol and Beaumont knew they were in a pretty hopeless cause. The hoped-for Scottish support had not materialised, and here they were, standing against an army far larger than they had expected.

The Scots were so confident that they began to dance and get drunk, even before battle had been joined, but the English snuck into their camp that night and did for them. Sadly for Bailiol and his men, it was just a minor camp they had attacked, and when they saw in the morning that the main force of Mar's army was still ready to engage them, they were, not to put too fine a point on it, more than a little upset. However it was, as it seems to have been down through history more often than not, disagreements among their commanders which undone the Scots.

Robert Bruce - another one; this one a bastard son of the dead king - saw the English crossing the river and immediately accused Mar of being in league with them. He had no doubt been aware of the overtures Bailiol had made to the earl with a view to joining him, and although Mar had declined the English commander's kind invitation, Bruce was up in arms about it. Mar, for his part, told Bruce that far from being a traitor, he would prove how loyal he was by being the first to strike a blow against the enemy. Two can play at that game, thought Bruce, and, not to be outdone, charged his own schilltron at the English.

It was something of a mistake.

You see, what somebody should have told the young bastard is that if you ride too fast for everyone else to keep up with you, well, everyone can't keep up with you. Consequently, his rather rash charge led to him leaving a  lot of his men behind in the Scottish dust, which levelled the playing field a little between him and the English. However the Scots seem to have scorned wearing helmets, or at least visors, which was not a good idea when you're facing a bunch of archers! Exposing their flank to the English as they charged, Bruce's men, blinded by the arrows, began to veer closer together. Mar, of course, was not so hasty.

Um.

Well actually he did the same thing, coming up behind Bruce's men and actually crashing into them in his haste. The English must have been rolling on the floor laughing, seven hundred years before the internet. The Scots, who had vastly outnumbered them at the outset, were doing their work for them! This extract from Wiki explains it all: The struggle continued from a little past dawn until after noon. In the centre of the Scottish mass the result was literally suffocating; men were pressed too tightly together to be able to breathe and any who lost their footing were trampled to death. Contemporary accounts speak of more than a thousand Scots being smothered without coming into contact with the English. One claimed that "more were slain by the Scots themselves than by the English. For ... every one fallen there fell a second, and then a third fell, and those who were behind pressing forward and hastening to the fight, the whole army became a heap of the slain."

But an Englishman does not stand idly by and watch the enemy destroy himself, so in they waded, adding to the confusion, and it's said they had to climb over heaps of dead Scots to get at the living ones. By evening it was all over. Bruce and Mar had both fallen, and the hugely superior army had been routed and had fled, leaving Bailiol and Beaumont to take Perth and fortify it as their base. Never in the field of human conflict had so few triumphed over so many with such hilarious results, maybe.

Despite having far fewer men, the English are reported to have lost less than a hundred while the number of deaths on the Scottish side vary in different accounts from two or three thousand to fifteen, though it can probably be accepted that that last one is an exaggeration. Nonetheless, the only surviving high-ranking Scot was the Earl of Fife, who was captured and changed his tune (sorry), going over to the English side. Guess he realised which side his haggis was buttered on. Sorry again.

Late for battle, the Earl of March turned up a week later, but by then the city of Perth was under Bailiol's control and impregnable. Edward Bailiol was crowned King of Scotland on September 24 1332, but he would not have time to get comfortable on the throne, deposed by David II six months later. For the next four years he could arguably be called the yo-yo king, as he was on and off the throne more times than a man with chronic diarrhea. Edward III would finally take a personal hand in trying to subdue Scotland, and the second war for the country's freedom would go on for another twenty-five years.

To some degree, what Bailiol had hoped for did come to pass, though kind of in retrospect, as with the defeat and death of Bruce and the Earl of Mar, many Scottish nobles did in fact swear their loyalty to him, as the new crowned king. Among these were Archibold Douglas, half-brother to the famous Black Douglas who had kept the high ground at Stanhope Park against Mortimer, and who was now Guardian of Scotland. Feeling he could let his guard down, now that this powerful former enemy was on his side, and perhaps rather foolishly, the new king dismissed most of his men, sent letters to Edward III proclaiming his subservience to him and Scotland's to England (makes you wonder why they wanted an independent country in the first place if all they were going to do was stick their tongues down the back of Edward's breeches, but however), promising to support him in his future wars.

Soon after, Douglas attacked. In concert with the Earl of Moray, Simon Fraser and, um, Robert II - who was King David's nephew and next in line to the throne they took him so completely by surprise that the greater part of his men were wiped out and, in another slice of what I'm going to be calling hilarious history, Edward had to escape through a hole in the wall and ride to Carlisle buck naked! His brother Henry was killed, and so ended the Bailiol line of succession in Scotland, not that that would stop Edward making frequent visits to try on the crown a few times more.
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Invasion! V - The Return of the return of the kings: Edward, Edward and the Siege of Berwick

Long seen as the gateway to and from Scotland, Berwick had undergone major fortifications since it had been sacked in 1296, and was now in good shape to withstand a long siege, which was just as well, as that's exactly what happened. Crossing over the border with Bailiol and other disgruntled Scottish nobles, Edward marched to cut Berwick off by land, as his navy had already done by sea. With him he brought people to build siege engines, and operated a scorched-earth policy to ensure that even if the siege were broken temporarily, no food would be available to the defenders. In his army was a man who had defended Berwick against the English, been captured and agreed to work for them; his knowledge of the castle and the town proved invaluable.

Catapults and trebuchets were used to great effect, and historians believe that Berwick had the dubious honour of being the first British town to be shelled by cannon fire. Hilarious history rears its humorous head again, as we learn that the defenders, hoping to burn the ships in the harbour blockading them, set alight driftwood soaked in tar, but instead managed to burn down most of the town! Oops!

The siege began at the start of May, by June the defenders had requested a temporary truce which, under perhaps the odd rules of chivalry, was granted, on the condition that Berwick had one month in which to be relieved, and if not they agreed to surrender. I suppose everyone needed a well-earned break. Meanwhile Douglas tried diversionary tactics, striking into England and taking the town of Tweedmouth, declaring to Edward III that if he did not withdraw his forces from Berwick he, Douglas, would devastate England. "Oh yeah?" the king probably didn't reply, though he literally could have, "You and what army?" To which of course Douglas would have said "This one!"

But enough humour; war is a serious thing, and this siege was about to get even more serious.

In order to ensure the compliance of the Scots in the truce Edward had taken twelve hostages, including Thomas Seton, son of Sir Alexander, Governor of Berwick. When the Scots claimed they did not have to surrender, even though the named date had now passed, as Douglas was relieving them (though not exactly charging at Edward's forces, it must be said) the king snapped back that no, that wasn't how it was at all. Relief had to come from Scotland, from that side of the border, and Douglas had marched from England, so no deal. To reinforce his point, he had a gallows set up outside the gates of the town and hanged Thomas, promising that he would hang two more hostages every day until Berwick surrendered.

New and more specific terms for a potential surrender - with attendant promises of safe conduct for the defenders - were hammered out between the two parties, the defence of the town and the governorship having now passed to Sir William Keith. This time, however, only a four-day window was allowed.

I find it odd, I must say, when I read that the Scottish army under Douglas outnumbered the English by two-to-one that he didn't attack them directly. Instead, he marched to Bamburgh, where the queen was staying, and laid siege to it, hoping to goad Edward into abandoning his position to save his damsel in distress. Not going to happen though. "She's a big girl, and can take care of herself," thought the king, and stayed where he was. Unable to take the town by force, Douglas realised he could no longer avoid battle (why was he trying to?) and headed off to meet Edward's forces.

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The Battle of Halidon Hill

One thing Scots did not apparently like was not being able to choose the battleground; it seems in most of the battles in which they were defeated the enemy had either forced or tricked them there, or had the advantage when they arrived. There was also the time issue. Whereas before, if conditions were not favourable the Scottish could often postpone or delay battle (witness the shouting and drinking at Stanhope Park) but here there was the town of Berwick to consider. Keith's new treaty with the king specified that the town would be surrendered if relief did not arrive by July 19, and this was... July 19. So basically D-Day. No delaying, no talking or negotiating, no trickery or retreating or regrouping. It was put up or shut up.

Coming down one slope, across marshy ground and then climbing up Halidon Hill, Douglas's forces were again beset by those pesky arrows, and blindness and panic was the order of the day. Apparently they had still to learn about helmets or visors. All that awaited those who did not fall down or off the mountain was a cohort of spear wielders, and the Scots were broken and defeated quickly, Douglas falling on the field. All survivors were executed on the orders of Edward III, including those taken prisoner. The king was no longer a boy, and he wasn't fucking around with these rebels!

Believing his work done here, Edward headed back to London while Bailiol was crowned for the second time, though that wouldn't last long. Granting back all the lands Bruce had taken from the disinherited lords, he opened new wounds and ensured that conflict against his rule would rage across Scotland for years.

With friends like these... Wolves in the throne room: Edward Bailiol is deposed for the second time

It would seem that, in common with much of humanity, when there was no common enemy to fight the Scots fell to bickering and quarrelling among themselves, and it wasn't long before the new/restored King Edward was facing opposing factions within his own power structure. Much of this centred on three nobles, former allies of his - Richard Talbot, husband to one of the deposed Comyns, Henry de Beaumont, heir to the territory of Buchan,  and the unfortunately-named David III Strathbogie, another of the Comyn line. Sounds like a supersonic jet fighter with a bad cold. Anyhow, these three took exception to a decision their king made vis a vis some land that rightfully belonged to the nieces of Alexander de Mowbray, and they decided to do something about it.

That something was rarely try to talk to the king or send a strongly-worded letter, of course, and so these three went over to the side of David II. It didn't do them much good, as Bailiol defeated them, but aware that his fragile and tenuous grip on the throne of Scotland was slipping he called for help from his patron, and Edward III duly answered the call, though neither could have been prepared for what happened next.
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Just what we need: more Frenchmen! Philip steps in

King of France, Philip VI had given shelter to the deposed King David II, and was prepared to honour the terms laid down by Philip IV when the Scots signed a treaty with him against Edward I. He sent his ambassador, the Bishop of Avalanches, sorry Avranche, to demand an explanation from Edward as to why he was harassing the poor Scots. Edward invited the bishop to go talk to them, and see what a surly lot they were, impossible to negotiate with, and perhaps sample some of that foul-tasting haggis they were all so fond of, and see if he personally did not want to invade and conquer them. The bishop demurred on that point, but did go to talk to Edward Bailiol, encountering the usual factions and jockeying for position and intrigue and backstabbing and disloyalty that must have made him feel right at home, pining for the court of France, or even for the Holy City.

Meanwhile, Edward massed his armies, waiting for the truce the bishop finally worked out to run out, and for him to bugger off back to France, which he did, in July 1335. The Scots, knowing King Edward (the English one) well, had been expecting his attack and mustered their own forces, ready to meet him.

Invasion! VI - The return, this time, of just the one king: Edward strikes back

With his largest army yet assembled - about 13,000 men - and with the help of King Edward Bailiol, the English king had little trouble defeating the Scots and took Perth, where he settled for a time. Back in France, King Philip VI was unimpressed with the news brought back to him by his bishop (it seemed failure was an option) and gathered his own fleet to sail to bonny Scotland and help out the braw wee lads his pre-pre-pre-something-decessor had sworn to in the Treaty of Paris. Before sending the men on their way (about 6,000) he gave Edward III one last chance: if he would allow France and the Pope to arbitrate the independence of Scotland, he would keep his men at home. Edward told him to stick it, do his worst, come at me bro, and Philip came at him.
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The Bogie man cometh - the Battle of Culblean

Back in Scotland, with the departure of King Edward, Bailiol's men set about settling some scores, with David Strathbogie attempting to wipe out all the freeholders who had been awarded land in the time of William Wallace, and who formed the nucleus of the supporters of David II, Robert the Bruce's son and Bailiol's rival claimant for the throne. He went a little far though when he attacked the castle of the wife of the Guardian of Scotland, Andrew Murray, who rushed to its defence.

Although Murray had about a third as many men as Strathbogie, he also had superior knowledge of the terrain and, one would assume, the safety of his lady in question (although accounts seem to note he was more interested in preserving the castle for its strategic importance: charming!), he prevailed and Strathbogie was defeated, killed in battle, as was one of the few remaining Comyns.

Edward, meanwhile, receiving intelligence of the progress of King Philip VI, and fearing that his old enemy would attempt to make Scotland a base from which he could launch an attack on England, set off to secure the town of Aberdeen, the most likely place where the French might land. In terms of invasion forces, this one was much smaller than those Edward had previously mounted, a mere 800 men, but with most of the resistance to his rule eliminated and Edward Bailiol still on the throne, if barely hanging on there, there wasn't too much in the way of organised opposition for the English king to worry about, and he burned Aberdeen to the ground. It was a wasted effort. Philip's privateers had already attacked the town of Orford, on the Suffolk Coast, in the south of England, and when he received news of the attack Edward quickly made his way there, abandoning Scotland for now.

Too late to do anything though by the time he got the word, Edward headed back over the border and wintered at Clyde, carrying on his campaign against the Scots there, determined that Philip should have no base in Scotland. He was, in fact, laying plans to invade France in the spring. Back to England he went to lay his plans, while the Scots wreaked more mischief in his absence, putting Edward Bailiol on an even shakier footing than he had occupied before; with no English king to come to his rescue, and his allies rapidly deserting his cause in their droves, to say nothing of the French taking an interest (surely with a view to restoring David to the throne) it couldn't be long before he was on his way out again.

As is almost always the case in such wars, the ordinary citizen suffered the most, and indeed, at the hands of his own people, as Andrew Murray, in an attempt to smash Bailiol's power forever, laid waste to all around him, seemingly without a care as to what people were to do to feed themselves, find shelter or live. However in 1338 the people were granted some respite when Murray died, though William Douglas continued the fight.

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Goliath vs David: The return of yet another king

Aided by the French king, David II returned to Scotland in 1341, having reached the majority age of eighteen, and everything was roses as all the Scots accepted him. Well, not quite. Not even close actually. Almost on his arrival he ran into opposition, and even those who were ready to support him turned out to be just as ready to oppose him if they didn't get what they wanted. Eager to impose his authority, the young king made a few decisions that didn't go down too well, and would help Edward III by causing trouble for David without his having to take a hand in things. He had in fact been busy fighting Philip's forces, and had won a major victory, so major in fact that the French king feared an English invasion, and asked David to instead invade England, to draw Edward's attention and forces away from him. David duly obliged.

Invasion! VII - Done up like a kipper

Despite all the infighting and doubt within his people, the Scottish king was able to gather together a pretty massive force of 12,000 men and headed south. Delays in preparation though allowed the English time to muster and they were ready for him when he attacked. They met in what would be David's first battle with the English king, and also turned out to be his first defeat.
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The Battle of Neville's Cross

With the bulk of Edward's forces fighting in Normandy, Philip VI advised David that he would have an easy time of it, catching the English both unawares and under-manned, calling England at the time a "defencess void". This would, however, not turn out to be the case. The main problem here was that the English were expecting this; the Scots themselves had said they would break the truce (which none of the three nations honoured in any way and was more or less just words on a page if anything) as soon as France told them to, so it was a matter of when rather than if. Relying on the (faulty) intelligence from the French court, David marched south and was more than surprised when William Douglas almost literally stumbled over the army assembled by the Archbishop of York, in the process losing more than half his men. Reporting to David at the monastery they were in the process of sacking, Douglas gave him the news and David rode to meet the English.

The Archbishop's force had been swelled by a further 3,000 men from Yorkshire, now numbering about 7,000 in all, and Lord Ralph Neville took command of the whole army. David took the higher ground, as the kings and leaders before him had always done, and relied on his schilltrons, with axemen and even cavalry officers in front of them. His cause was not helped by the sudden and cowardly desertion of two of his commanders, Robert Stewart, the illegitimate son of the Bruce, and the Earl of March, Patrick Dunbar, leaving David's flank very much exposed and no doubt plunging Scottish morale into the depths of despair.

Perhaps because of terrain not being in their favour, perhaps because the battle had been thrust upon them rather than their being able to prepare for it, or perhaps even due to David's being, after all, a young man, untested in battle-hardened conditions - and certainly no thanks to the desertion of the two commanders - despite their (originally) superior numbers the Scots were routed, and David himself badly wounded and captured by the English.

Most of the Scottish military hierarchy and nobles were either killed or captured, and the Battle of Neville's Cross was a serious blot on the new king's copybook; his first chance to show his people what he could do, and it resulted in what can only be termed a massacre, decimating the Scottish nobility and leading to the imprisonment of their king.

Fail.

Epic fail.

Some noteworthy points before we go on. How true some of this is I don't know, but accounts say that King David hid after the battle, taking refuge under a bridge, and was only discovered when his reflection was seen in the water flowing under the bridge. He subsequently did at least have enough fight in him to knock the teeth out of one of his captors. During the battle he took arrows in the face, and though removed, parts of them remained and gave him headaches for the rest of his life, as well as, presumably, being a constant reminder of his abject failure as a leader.

Although nobles were traditionally ransomed, Edward wanted to break the Scottish monarchy and so refused to allow many of the more high-profile prisoners be ransomed, keeping them captive instead. Much of this did not go down well with his own people, for if there is one thing that trumps loyalty to the king it is loyalty to the pocket, and take money out of that pocket and you may very well be storing up trouble for yourself. Many lower-value prisoners were executed out of hand, but Edward had a special hatred for the Earl of Menteith, John Graham, who had previously sworn fealty to the English king. Seeing this as treason, Edward had Menteith tried and condemned as a traitor, then drawn, hanged, beheaded and quartered.

The Holy Rood of St. Margaret, originally taken by Edward I and brought to England, later restored to Scotland, was again taken from David and given to Durham Cathedral.
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War is over, if you want it - The end of the Second War of Scottish Independence

With the imprisonment of David went the last real hope of Scotland's achieving independence from England. Edward Bailiol popped up again like a bad penny, but Edward III didn't really have much time for him, trying instead to convince the captive David to nominate one of his own sons as his heir, which would have solidified England's hold over Scotland. David himself, at a mere eighteen years old, had no children, but refused constantly to allow this. He must have wished he had stayed in France! Mind you, the French were not doing so well either, as Edward beat them back on their native soil. That's not really relevant though to the history here, so we won't be going into that (don't want to stray too far off the beaten track, and we've wandered a long way already).

Perhaps oddly, considering they ran from battle (though probably few survived to tell the tale, and those who did, with their king defeated and a prisoner of the English, probably knew to keep their mouths shut) the Scottish then rallied behind Robert Stewart and Patrick Dunbar, while Edward tried unsuccessfully to get David to see sense and give him Scotland. Not sure why he thought the king would do this, given how hard he and his predecessors had fought to keep their country free of English influence, but he seems to have made a good fist of it, even adding a ransom demand into the bargain, all of which were turned down. David was even allowed leave England to supposedly ratify a treaty whereby Scotland would become a fief, or dependent kingdom, of England, but the parliament decided against it, literally ruling that the freedom of their king was less important than the freedom of the nation, and sent him back with a thanks but no thanks message.

Invasion! VIII - The Final Countdown

While Edward was again away dealing with those pesky French, Stewart and Dunbar, with French support and encouragement, launched another invasion of England, which was again poorly-defended, most of its army having joined their king in the battle against France. They took the town of Berwick, and when Edward heard what had happened he returned to England as soon as he could, invaded Scotland again, retook the castle and kicked the Scots out. He then went on something of a rampage, destroying Edinburgh and burning most of Lothian. But in the end he realised he wasn't really going to subdue Scotland, and would have to settle for a treaty instead.

The end of the second war of Scottish independence reads to me not so much of triumph but of exhausted acceptance, on both sides. For over seventy years, the two nations had fought, made war, invaded each other, and now, finally, at the end, with victory against the French seeming more in his grasp than ever and Scotland divided with the capture of their king, Edward realised it was time to draw a line under this long conflict. In a treaty which probably satisfied nobody, but did the job, and bringing it all back to where it both started and eventually ended, the Treaty of Berwick was signed in 1357. David was released to go home to Scotland, Edward had now only to fight a war on one front, and Edward Bailiol, the eternal fly in the ointment of the Scottish monarchy, was old and ill, and would die ten years later, childless and mostly forgotten.

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So why did we get so distracted with the history of Scotland, you ask? You may remember (or you may not; it's been some time now as I went through this) that I was trying to show how the Scottish had as much reason to hate the English as we do. They too fought for their independence, but were thwarted by their southern neighbours at every turn. They were occupied, oppressed, in some cases almost ethnically cleansed by successive English kings, but I suppose at least they weren't persecuted along religious lines in the way we were. Nevertheless, it's clear now, or it should be, why, given a choice between supporting the people who shared the landmass they were on or those of an entirely separate island to the west, Scotland would always consider Ireland to be allies, comrades in arms, fellows in suffering under the English tyrannical boot.

Which brings us back to here.
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Skeletons in the Field: Ireland's Forgotten Famine 1740 - 1741

When we think of famine in Ireland, when we recall the hardships that forced hundreds of thousands of our forebears to abandon our native country and seek sanctuary in America, when we talk of coffin ships and bodies piling up in the streets and the inhumanity of the English landowners, we do something of a disservice to those who died in the previous famine, which took place almost a century before the Great Famine, but was, in many ways, worse.

While there had been, as already related, widespread famine across Europe in the earlier centuries, no single country was hit as hard in the eighteenth century than Ireland. This was due to many factors, some of them to do with nature, but more to do with humanity, or rather, the lack of it. The baser parts of humanity - greed, lack of compassion, inequality, brutality, thoughtlessness and prejudice - all helped contribute to one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in Irish history, though sadly not the last. By the time it was finished, it would have wiped out almost twenty percent of the population of Ireland, almost half a million people, making it even more devastating, in ratio, to the Great Famine of 1845-1852.

The principle cause of the famine was the weather, and a reliance by the Irish upon crops that formed the basis of their diet. Grain and potatoes were the staple of Irish families, sometimes (though not by any means always) supplemented by fish or duck, but usually only in coastal areas where such game could be found. After relatively mild winters over the previous decade something called The Great Frost hit Europe. Nobody knows what caused it exactly, though links have been suggested with volcanic activity. Wherever it came from, it froze the land, freezing over rivers like the Shannon, Liffey and Boyne, and even inside it was freezing, indoor temperatures (though few records survive from the time) stated to be -12 Celsius (10 Fahrenheit) while the single outdoor reading spoke of "thirty-two degrees of frost." All across Europe lakes, waterfalls, rivers froze, fish died and howling winter winds battered the continent.
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People tried to keep warm but it wasn't easy. There were no coal deliveries for months due to both the coal factories in Cumbria and South Wales freezing, and the quays to which they would have been taken also in the grip of the relentless ice, and when deliveries did resume, perhaps not surprisingly, coal prices had skyrocketed. People desperately salvaged any wood they could find to burn, stripping hedges, ornamental trees and nurseries. Not only that, but had there been any wheat it could not have been milled into bread to feed the hungry populace, as the mill wheels had frozen in place.

To be fair to them and give credit where it's due, the Protestant landowners did not stand idly by, providing coal and meal to the poor, and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Devonshire, issued an order prohibiting the export of grain outside of Ireland, other than to England. To be cynical about it, these measures were likely not taken out of the goodness of the gentry's hearts; they needed these people to work in their factories, mills and fields, and probably feared that too many deaths would impact upon their business, and therefore their pocket. Still, they did a hell of a lot more than their successors would a century later.

Things went from bad to worse as the potato crop failed, all potatoes destroyed by the frost, and this was followed in the spring by a drought, as the expected rain did not make an appearance, and in addition corn and wheat crops failed, leading to the elimination of virtually the entire food supply in Ireland. The harsh drought, coupled with the ferocious winter winds, which continued into the spring, also killed off much cattle, many sheep and other animals, and rural dwellers had no recourse but to descend on the cities, begging on the streets and leading, eventually and rather inevitably, to conflict.
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The trouble was that, for some reason, the country folk had not considered that their urban counterparts might be just as hungry and helpless as they were. Hungry they were, helpless, not quite. In mid-April a band descended on the docks at Drogheda and damaged a ship loaded with oatmeal which was bound for Scotland. Exports were quickly stopped after that. What didn't stop was the unrest, anger and indignation at the authorities, with stories going around of food being hoarded, provided to the more well-off. Food riots broke out, first in Dublin and then all over the country. Many people were shot in an attempt to control these outbreaks.

Some respite seemed finally at hand in Autumn, as the cold decreased and cattle began to recover, but they were weak and few gave milk or birth, then in October a huge blizzard hit the country, and the expected rains finally arrived - no longer welcome  - leading to large-scale flooding. These were backed up by freezing temperatures which turned the rain to ice and clogged up the rivers, proving a hazard to shipping. With the weather so unpredictable and harsh, those who had food to sell knocked its price way up, or hoarded what they had for fear they might not be able to get any more. Food riots again exploded. The country was on the edge of famine.

From the Caledonian Mercury, 1740

Dublin, Jan. 11. The Frost still continues here very severe. Numbers are in Want, the Hardness of the Season not permitting them to work ; and Letters from all Parts of the Country give most melancholy Accounts of its Effects, the Mills being stopt they cannot get their Corn grinded, and the Poor whose chief Support is Potatoes are in extreme Want, they being mostly spoiled in the Ground. All the Rivers in and about Cork in Ireland are so frozen up, that People frequently walk 3 Miles upon the Ice. There are Tables and Forms on the Liffey, at Dublin., for selling Liquors . It was also intended to roaft an Ox upon it: And the Thermometer was many Degrees of Cold more than ever known.

Poet William Dunkin put it in more flowery, but no less deadly language in 1742, in his poem The Frosty Winter of Ireland, in the Year 1739--1740
:
...Beneath the glassy gulph
Fishes benumb'd, and lazy sea-calves freeze
In crystal coalition with the deep.
...The long resounding waves
Of naval ocean, whitening into foam
Boil from the nether bottom, and uprol
Successive, fluid mountains to the stars.
Not sandy shores at other times expos'd
More shatter'd prows, or billow-broken keels:
But if the waves had haply roll'd to land
Some, warm with vital motion, and a-broach
With oozy brine, they stiffen at the breath
Of Boreas, marrow-piercing, and adhere
In senseless union, to the frozy rocks.

Apart from those dying of cold or pure starvation, there were many deaths due to other associated diseases, such as typhus and dysentery, as related in  The Newcastle Courant which reported
...an uncommon Mortality among the poor People by Fevers and Fluxes, owing no doubt in a great Measure to their poor Living, the Price of Corn being risen to an excessive Rate...

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, along with the Chief Justices and the Lord Chancellor, passed legislation to reduce the price of corn, and Archbishop Boulter, one of the aforementioned Chief Justices, used his own money to arrange to feed the poor. Those found to be hoarding private stocks of grain were induced to share it among the hungry poor, and Kathleen Connolly, the widow of the Speaker William Connolly, already having made efforts to feed the poor on her own initiative, provided work for those who had none. Another Chief Justice, Henry Singleton, also put his hand in his pocket to help the needy.

A curate in County Monaghan, Patrick Skelton, described the scene of the famine: "Whole parishes are almost desolate, and the dead have been eaten in the fields by dogs for want of people to bury them. Whole thousands in a barony have perished, some of hunger and others of disorders occasioned by an unnatural, putrid and unwholesome diet."

The weather finally began to turn near the latter half of 1741, and though the harvest was not exactly great, at least there was one. Life began slowly to return to some semblance of normality; the dead could be buried, losses counted and arrangements put in place to ensure something like this, an event which was called "The Year of Slaughter", or in Irish, bliain an áir, never happened again.

Except, of course, it did.

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Chapter X: Under the English Heel, Part V:
A Time to Stand - Rebellion, Retribution and Revenge

Timeline: 1760 - 1800

Secret Societies: Ireland Goes Underground


There have of course been secret organisations since antiquity, probably dating back to the Egyptians or farther, but they don't seem to have surfaced in Ireland till the eighteenth century, and seem to have come about as a sort of response to the piss-poor treatment Irish Catholics were getting from their Protestant landlords. Part vigilante force, part protest and part almost mafia in makeup, they began to spring up after the Irish Famine and following the harshest of the Penal Laws. Like I said earlier, you could push a man just so far before he would eventually push back, and right or wrong, these bands of individuals - who might, perhaps, be seen as the forerunners of the Irish gangs who fought over control of areas like New York and Boston in the next century - were ready to push back, and hard.
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The Whiteboys

Not to be confused with the present-day Proud Boys, or indeed any white supremacist gang, their name derived from the white smocks they wore on their nightly raids. White doesn't seem the perfect choice for night raids, but what do I know? Maybe they were demonstrating their contempt for the landlords, maybe they just couldn't get black ones. An unfortunate name to choose, certainly: makes them sound like the Irish chapter of the KKK, though of course they predate those racist fucks, so technically they'd have been the original... you know what? Let's just cut off that dangerous and pointless line of thought right there before it goes any further.

Anyway, the tactics employed by the Whiteboys included levelling ditches, knocking down fences, threatening behaviour including but not limited to (gasp!) writing letters, and later more direct action such as wounding or killing cattle owned by the landlord and the acquisition of firearms. They were not political in any way, not were they sectarian, welcoming all religions to their ranks. They had a problem only with landlords (though these were invariably English and Protestant) who were forcing, or endeavouring to force, poor farmers and tenants off their lands so that they could be used for grazing cattle and so inflate the landlords' already healthy pocket books.

The first real instance of the Whiteboys arriving on the scene is around 1761 in Limerick, and indeed most of these societies practiced their art in the south, with chapters in Tipperary, Cork and as far east as Waterford. As they grew in power and became emboldened, the Whiteboys seem to have developed into an almost paramilitary force, marching in parades to old Jacobite tunes and shouldering rifles. They threatened landlords, and also those who had gained land taken from those who had been evicted, advising them to move, or they would become targets too. Those who did not accede to the Whiteboys' demands - for instance, putting a light in their house and having horses saddled and ready for their escape if needed - also faced the society's wrath.

It's probably fair to say that while they may have been popular with some citizens, notably any whose lands they reclaimed from the (usually absentee) landlords, the Whiteboys were feared and hated by more, so when the Crown struck back and Charles, Marquess of Drogheda, arrested over 150 Whiteboys, including a priest who had been helping them, there wasn't exactly outrage from the Irish citizenry, even when the priest, tried and convicted of being an accessory to murder by helping the bandits, was hanged. The Whiteboys' somewhat indiscriminatory tactics won them few friends among the people they were supposed to be helping, and they weren't exactly looked upon as Robin Hood figures.

So much of a problem were they seen as being by the authorities that several Whiteboy Acts were passed by Parliament, the first, the original named one, in 1765, with four more up to 1831.

Hearts of Oak

Somewhat in contrast, the Hearts of Oak (also called Oakboys and Greenboys - just get the Orange boys in there now and we'd have the tricolour!) rose in the north, in County Antrim, and were more worried about paying taxes and mending roads than landlords using their land. In Ulster, every man was required to give six days' service and six days of horse work every year building and maintaining roads, mostly for the convenience and comfort of the contribute-nothing gentry. They also resented paying tithes, taxes payable to a Church they did not support, the Church of England. They were mostly farmers and weavers, and their name came from their habit of wearing a piece of oak leaf in their hats (why not then Hats of Oak? Probably didn't sound as hard and cool I guess).

Their protest movement quickly spread to five other counties of Ulster, and they didn't seem to be fans of turnpike toll roads either, which you can understand; if they were responsible for maintaining the roads, why then should they also have to pay to travel them? Then there was the matter of "small dues", where the Church would demand a payment from Catholics or Presbyterians who got married, held funerals or had a child baptised, whether or not it took place in an Anglican church. The Hearts of Oak seem to have had two ways of inducing people to join, one being to force or intimidate them and the other being to attract them via the lavish parades and marches they put on, an almost carnival-like atmosphere that differed radically from their southern counterparts' militaristic displays.

They seem to have been less overtly violent, relying on threats and warnings rather than causing actual harm; they forced landowners, gentry and clergy to sign their petitions, turning up in force outside their houses and bringing along a handy gallows which the homeowner was left in no doubt they would use if he refused, and their power grew to the level that their demands were met, and those who did not comply were often run out of the town by them. Like the Whiteboys, they were eventually routed by the military, but unlike their compatriots, who had, as mentioned, actual Parliamentary Acts passed about them, the Oakboys received a general pardon and by 1763 had more or less disbanded.
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Peep o' Day Boys

While the above two groups were a mix of religions - mostly Presbyterian and Catholics - the Peep o' Day Boys (nothing to do with lost sheep) were exclusively Protestant, and they too rose in Armagh, though about twenty years after the Oakboys. In contrast with most of Ulster, Armagh was in fact more or less about equal in its population of Catholics and Protestants, and the relaxing of some of the Penal Laws - specifically those allowing Catholics to vote and purchase land - irked the Protestants, who believed the heretics were getting off too lightly. Neither did they take kindly to being outbid on land plots by mere Catholics! Tensions were simmering and would soon reach a boiling point, though for the record most of the rest of Ireland was relatively at peace.

Not in Armagh though! Gangs began to be formed, like the Presbyterian Nappach Fleet Gang, the Protestant Bawn and the Catholic Bunker Hill Defenders, usually just shortened to Defenders. Each prepared for battle with the others, and in a scene reminiscent of Scorsese's Gangs of New York, agreed to meet on Whit Monday 1785 and duke it out. When the battle was called off, the gangs dispersed but the Nappach Fleet turned to raiding Catholic homes and renamed themselves the Peep o' Day Boys, the name being a local colloquialism for break of  day, to tie in with their dawn raids. These raids were ostensibly to deprive Catholics of weapons, which under the Penal Laws they were forbidden to carry or own (though this law was rarely if ever observed and never enforced), but really it was just a pretext to beat up Catholics, whom they feared were getting too strong and close to being equal with them, which would never do.

As the Catholics armed themselves in defence against these attacks, battle lines were drawn and things were coming to a head.

The Defenders

Originally formed as the Bunker Hill Defenders, this Catholic organisation came into being in direct response to the raids made by the Protestant Peep o' Day Boys. It should have come as no surprise to anyone; Ulster was Protestant-dominated (despite the distribution of populace in Armagh, Penal Laws and local prejudices kept Catholics out of most positions of power, so the authorities were almost exclusively Protestant) and while they did not exactly turn a blind eye to the attacks on Catholic homes, they didn't exactly go after the perpetrators in any real way either, unlike the Whiteboys. There's no evidence to suggest such, but you'd have to think that on some level they might even have tacitly supported or encouraged them. Left with nobody to speak for or protect their people, the Catholics naturally formed their own society.

Perhaps oddly for Catholics, their oath included a promise of loyalty to King George III; they took to patrolling at night, on the lookout for the Peep o' Day Boys, at first buying arms from a Protestant shop but later raiding the homes of the gentry to get their weapons. The Defenders would be the most long-lived of the secret societies in Ireland, later linking up with the Ribbonmen and the United Irishmen as Ireland began to fight back in a serious way. The two gangs regularly fought it out, meeting often at markets and fairs, laying waste to all around them and causing much bodily harm, even occasionally death, and terrorising the towns. These periods of gang warfare were known, in a typically understated Irish way (after all, we called over thirty years of sectarian violence "The Troubles" and for us World War II was "The Emergency"!) as "The Armagh Disturbances".

There we'll leave them for now, but the Defenders have a bigger part to play in the attempt to liberate their country, as we'll see later.
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Hearts of Steel

Like the Hearts of Oak, they were a Protestant organisation, but unlike their almost-namesakes they concentrated more on rent and evictions. In that way, they could perhaps be said to be a hybrid organisation, taking elements from the Whiteboys and the Hearts of Oak. They too operated in Antrim, which certainly seemed to be a hotbed of conflict in an otherwise peaceful Ireland in the middle of the eighteenth century. They arose later than the Hearts of Oak, possibly considered their successors, in 1769, as a direct rebuff to the middlemen, speculators who bought land from absentee landlords and rented it at twice or three times the price they had paid, to poor (presumably Protestant) tenants, thereby profiteering.

Incensed by the capture and imprisonment of a tenant who had been forced off his land by a greedy landlord who sold it to a middleman, the tenant charged with maiming the landlord's cattle, the Hearts of Steel surrounded his house and threatened to burn it down if the man was not released. Though charged by the army, the Hearts of Steel carried through on their threat, and rather than see further destruction, the mayor agreed to release the prisoner. High rents and a poor harvest led to deprivation for the poor, and the Hearts of Steel took up this cause and fought for it.

They maimed cattle ("houghing"), demanded land be leased at a fair rate, and forced farmers to sell food at affordable prices. In March 1772 a huge force of about 2000 Steelboys descended on Gifford Castle, scene of the taking of their leaders a few days earlier, and engaged in a pitched battle with the owner of the castle, Richard Johnston, forcing him to flee. He returned however with military support and drove them off, later pursuing and hunting them down so that they could stand trial in Dublin, where, for some reason, none were found guilty.

Nevertheless, the end was near for the Hearts of Steel, as the Irish government, fed up with the Armagh disturbances, sent in the army and brutally repressed the protests.

Although Irishmen had fought against English occupation for hundreds of years, almost always this was along sectarian lines. Catholics, dispossessed and disenfranchised, and under some English monarchs tortured and killed in great numbers, wished really only to be equal with the Protestant settlers who had been forced upon them. Truth to tell, many probably wanted the Ascendancy out of Ireland, but at the same time nobody really envisioned or fought for an independent Ireland, so far as I can see, unlike the Scots who battled bravely for their right to self-governance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

To some degree, I imagine, the protection of the English king or queen, rather than their wrath, would have been preferred by the Irish, and while they struggled to replace Protestant monarchs on the English throne with more sympathetic Catholic ones, it doesn't seem as if any Irish tried to bring down the actual monarchy. Even the Gunpowder Plot, orchestrated by Catholics, did not see the government of England disappearing, only replaced by one they wanted. In theory, it's likely that, had the monarch of any era granted Catholics in Ireland the same rights as Protestants, the Irish would have been happy to have continued to be subservient to the English Crown.

So it would appear that the first real efforts at true independence for Ireland came in the middle of the eighteenth century, and his was one of the first, if not the first, attempt at releasing Ireland from its forced union with Great Britain.

What's more, he achieved his aim.

Kind of.

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Henry Grattan (1746  - 1820)

One of the greatest advocates on Ireland's side during the latter half of the eighteenth century, Grattan, though a Protestant, supported Ireland's right to self-governance, though he still believed it should always pay homage to the English king. Under Poynings Law (1494) no legislation could be passed in Ireland until it had gained the approval of the English Privy Council, and in fact laws could be passed pertaining to Ireland by the English government without any involvement of the Irish Parliament, making it entirely dependent on, and subservient to, the Crown. Grattan intended to have this ancient law abolished, so that Irish matters could be decided by Irishmen, or at least, Anglo-Irish, as Catholics - what you would have to call the true Irish - were still banned from holding any public office by the Penal Laws still in force, and that most definitely included sitting in Parliament. Grattan was a patriot, born in Dublin and having studied at Trinity College, and quickly rising to the leadership of the Irish Patriot Party, which stood in strong opposition to what was known as the Castle Party, those hardline Protestants who wished England to retain total control over Irish legislation and fought any efforts to the contrary.

Grattan took his seat in the Irish Parliament in 1775. A year later, England was having serious trouble with another, younger colony, and events in Ireland began to take something of a back seat, less important now than bringing the upstart America to heel. Partly as a response to this, and also using the absence of British troops as a springboard to further their own political agenda, the Volunteers were formed.
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The Volunteers

When British troops were sent to the colony to fight in what would become the American War of Independence, wealthy landowners feared for their own safety and that of their property, worrying about who and what would fill the power vacuum which opened up. I guess it's easiest to equate the Volunteers with the British Home Guard that ostensibly protected Britain from Nazi invasion during the Second World War. They were held in contempt by the regular army, who deemed them as barely fit for service and ensured they were given the crappiest and most menial jobs they could be given; their commitment was questioned, as was their courage. They were basically militias of Protestant (obviously: at this point the Penal Laws still forbade Catholics to carry arms, and while the secret societies already discussed may have got around that, there could be no official sanction for arming Catholics) who feared Spanish or French invasion of Ireland, believing that England's traditional enemies might take advantage of the bulk of His Majesty's forces being abroad. There were however some Catholics and Presbyterians admitted after the Catholic Relief Act of 1778.

With the British victory over the Spanish in 1780 the fears of invasion dissipated, and the Volunteers turned to political aims, intending to gain concessions for Ireland, such as free trade with Britain, and with their power growing the British government acceded to their demands. The chapters in Ulster seem to have been the most militant, calling for Irish legislative independence (while of course remaining loyal to the king) and between pressure from them and Grattan (no I haven't forgotten who I'm writing about) what was known as the Constitution of 1782 came to be, and the largely autonomous parliament that ruled - for a few short years - was known as Grattan's Parliament.

Grattan's Parliament

While it would take another 150 years before Ireland would gain her total independence, the Constitution of 1782 was the first major step in freeing her from the bondage of the English Crown. Since Norman times the Irish Parliament had acted only under the sufferance of the monarch, effectively an arm of the English government. Therefore no laws could be passed there without the approval of the king or queen, which meant of course no laws the English government did not agree with. Grattan was, however, loyal to the Crown and wished to preserve the connection with England, just not be at its whim. He was also for Catholic emancipation, which as you can imagine did not go down well across the water. Or indeed in Ireland, at least with the landed classes, who had made their money off the backs of poor Catholics, either as servants (virtual slaves with few if any rights) or by possessing their land for themselves. Equal rights for Catholics was most assuredly not on the Protestant agenda!

Nevertheless, when the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 was passed in the British Parliament, Grattan managed to get an Irish version passed only two years later, which eased pressure on Irish Catholics, allowing them into some public offices and to be educated, but the king's stubborn refusal to even countenance the freedom of his Catholic subjects would explode in violence and uproar seven years later.

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Rebellion! Ireland fights back

Having seen the success the French had had in 1789, Irish Catholics banded together with Presbyterians from Ulster to form a society they called the United Irishmen, to try to force reform and fair treatment for all. The recent American War of Independence, and the triumph of George Washington's fledgling colony over the might of the British Empire, was also fresh in their minds. Having sent a declaration to the French people on the second anniversary of the taking of the Bastille which read "As Irishmen, We too have a country, and we hold it very dear—so dear... that we wish all Civil and Religious Intolerance annihilated in this land," the Irish were honoured in turn by the Revolution on Bastille Day the following year with the French National Assembly hailing the soldiers of the new republic as "the advance guard of the world".

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William Drennan (1754 - 1820)

The man who proposed the United Irishmen was a physician, a poet and a radical democrat. Born a Presbyterian in Belfast, he moved to Dublin in 1789 and got involved first with the Volunteers, and then helped create the United Irishmen, seeing Britain's embarrassing defeat by the Americans as the perfect time to force Ireland's agenda. He suggested the society as a "benevolent conspiracy, a plot for the people" and contended its true aim would be "Real independence to Ireland and Republicanism." The United Irishmen would push for total emancipation for Catholics and proper representation for all peoples in the Parliament.

When he was arrested in May 1793 however, accused of sedition and consorting with French spies, though acquitted and having called all Irish men to stand to arms, he seems to have been abandoned by his fellows, and moved to Scotland, and while there worried that the course the French Revolution was taking, as Catholicism - indeed, all religions - were being trodden on and denounced by the Assembly, might turn Irish people (especially Catholics, known to be always devout to their religion) from these possible allies. The bloody and often indiscriminate violence that followed the coup d'etat didn't seem to give him such a problem.

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Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763 - 1798)

Known forever after in Irish history only as Wolfe Tone, he would go on to be one of the great heroes of, and martyrs to Irish independence. Although a Protestant (and an Anglican at that) he was forward-thinking enough and had enough patriotic fervour to reach across the sectarian divide and suggest that all Irish people, of all faiths and religions work together for the true independence of Ireland. He abhorred Grattan's acceptance of the Constitution of 1782, believing it was a compromise, and his insistence on Ireland remaining tied to the Crown. Wolfe Tone proposed full and free autonomy for his native land, and to this end helped create the United Irishmen with William Drennan.

Despairing, however, of any chance of acceptance by the Irish Parliament, which was still controlled by Protestants, Tone set his sights on France, and when the Reverend William Jackson, an Irish priest who had been exiled to France, arrived to scope out Ireland as a possible invasion target from which to harry the English, Tone received him enthusiastically, telling him Ireland was ripe for revolution. Unfortunately, the bishop was betrayed and, having been arrested for treason, killed himself by taking poison and collapsing during his trial. Before fleeing to America, Tone met with other United Irishmen and together they swore "never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence." Tone spent only a year in America, thoroughly disenchanted with the place before making his way to France, where he requested a French invasion of Ireland. There too he recorded his philosophy of independence for his native country, words which would later appear on his tomb: "Our independence must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property"

The invasion was agreed, and he accompanied an expedition at the close of 1796 which was sent to support the coming Irish revolution, but weather off Bantry Bay made it impossible for the French vessels to land, and they were forced to return home. He tried again - with both the French and the Dutch (Batavia) - and finally managed to land in Ireland in September of 1798, but his fleet was defeated by the British, he was taken prisoner, put on trial, and committed suicide rather than wait for an answer to his request that he be shot.

The bloody massacres in Paris of 1792 added fuel to a panicky fire among Protestants that should Catholics gain power they would act in a similar manner, savagely taking retribution on their oppressors. However the French Republic's move away from the respect for and authority of the Pope alienated them from the Irish Catholics, who deplored the capture of Pius VI under Napoleon, his imprisonment and later death. On the one hand, you'd have to imagine that George III, traditionally an enemy of Rome since Henry VIII's time, might have welcomed the news of the old pope's death, but on the other, he certainly didn't like the idea of the new French Republic extending their revolution to Italy and claiming it, too, a republic. So the last thing he wanted was an Irish revolution to go with it.

But that's exactly what he got.

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Prelude to the Rising: The Battle of the Diamond and the formation of the Orange Order

With tensions between Protestants and Catholics as high as ever, feelings running high at the rise of the United Irishmen and their potential threat to the Ascendancy power, the two secret societies, the Peep o' Day Boys and the Defenders arranged to meet at the Diamond, a small crossroads halfway between Loughgall and Portadown in Armagh. Despite the efforts of four Protestant landowners and three Catholic priests to broker a truce or peace treaty, the two factions met on September 21 1795 and prepared for battle. It appears from contemporary accounts that in fact the peace deal had been struck, but that it was Defenders not from Armagh but from Tyrone, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth, who had come for the fight and were disappointed to see there would be none, who kicked it all off.

The Peep o' Day Boys, heading home, were accosted by a force of about 300 Defenders and turned to engage them. Though outnumbered, the Protestants had the high ground, and were better skilled with weapons, resulting in their taking no casualties in the short brutal battle while accounts vary of the losses taken by the Catholics, from thirty to forty-eight. Clearly, the Peep o' Day Boys won the Battle of the Diamond decisively. After the battle, glorying in their victory, the Peep o' Day Boys founded the Orange Order, with the declaration of defending "the king and his heirs so long as he or they support the Protestant Ascendancy." Pretty much immediately afterwards they took their revenge on Catholics, burning houses, attacking homes and perpetrating what have gone down in history as "the Armagh outrages".

This was part of a concerted effort on the part of the Orangemen to drive "from this quarter of the country the entire (sic) of its Roman Catholics population", from where the oft-used phrase originated, that appeared on signposts around the county and warned Catholics they had two choices: "To Hell or Connaught" (Connaught or Connacht being one of the other provinces of Ireland, part of what is now the Republic, where the likes of Galway and other western towns are) - essentially kicking them out of Ulster and over the border. Their intimidatory tactics worked, and within a month over 7,000 Catholics had been forced to leave Armagh. The Governor,  Lord Gosford remarked of what was pretty little less than a pogrom: "It is no secret that a persecution is now raging in this country ... the only crime is ... profession of the Roman Catholic faith. Lawless banditti have constituted themselves judges ... and the sentence they have denounced ... is nothing less than a confiscation of all property, and an immediate banishment."

This process would, you may be surprised to hear, be repeated almost two hundred years later, when in the 1970s Catholics would be forced from Ulster in the face of growing Protestant oppression and would seek refuge here in the south.
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Maith an Chailin!* A Woman's place is in the fight - the women also rise

(*Literally, good girl!)

Nobody would venture to suggest that Ireland was ever a hotbed of suffrage, and it's hard to name one Irish advocate for women's rights, but then that does come with the proviso that up until 1923 we were not a sovereign nation and would have to go along with what was decided in Britain. Nevertheless, like the women of France during the French Revolution, and despite attempts by revisionist historians to write them out and ignore them, women did fight in and support the rebellion of 1798. Not all of them physically fought, but many offered shelter or encouragement or whatever they could to the rebels, and here I'd like to look at some of those names which have triumphed above the efforts of male chroniclers to pretend all an Irish woman was good for was making babies or homes, or as it was disparagingly put at the time, that they could only be "maids or madonnas." Yeah.
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Mary Ann McCracken (1770 - 1866)

Sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the founders of the United Irishmen, she provided shelter for her brother and his comrades after their defeat at the Battle of Antrim (SPOILER ALERT! Now come on: you didn't really think the rebellion was going to succeed, did you? What about 1916?) and brought them food and supplies as they hid in the hills. She was preparing their escape by sea when her brother was recognised by soldiers, and he and his compatriots arrested. After his execution, she took care of his illegitimate daughter, as nobody else in the family would recognise her.

She was a reformer, social campaigner and later an abolitionist, working to better the lives of Belfast's children, setting up schools and orphanages and engaging teachers to educate the children. She helped form, and was chair of, the Ladies Committee of the Belfast Charitable Society from 1832 - 1855, inspecting homes to which children from the orphanage and poorhouse had been sent to ensure their safety and suitability. She led the Womens Abolition Committee in Belfast, tirelessly campaigning for an end to slavery, and was aghast when the cause was so quickly dropped after the rebellion, but even at the ripe of age of 88 she haunted the Belfast docks, handing out anti-slavery pamphlets to those boarding ships headed to America.

Mary Shackleton Leadbetter* (1728 - 1826)

In contrast to Bridget Dolan, of whom we will hear soon, she was a total pacifist, involved with the Society of Friends, a Quaker organisation, which was her faith, but she experienced first-hand the brutality of the English forces after the defeat of the rebels in 1798. She was a diarist, and writes of yeomanry "from whose bosom pity seems banished" and soldiers who occupied her village of Ballitore, torturing and flogging the people, till a force of 300 rebels took the town, taking revenge on the oppressors before being themselves routed by a returning English force. Mary herself was almost killed by a soldier, and saw the town doctor, a man who she "believed had never raised his hand to injure any one" be killed "unarmed and alone". When the village was burned, Mary fled with the rest of the survivors.

* May be Leadbeater, as this is how it's spelled in some accounts

Elizabeth Pim

Another Quaker, she did not take part in the rebellion and seems to be one of the few who did not take sides, seeing the brutality of it from both factions. On May 24 she watched the rebels approach the town and battle with the British, and when the latter were withdrawn the next day it seems to have been a shock to the villagers, many of whom accompanied them as they left, presumably for protection. Two days later, as the rebels took the town, she saw the garrison which had been left behind surrender but be butchered by the Irishmen, priests and teachers among them.

By May 28 the British forces had retaken the village, having been only dissuaded from levelling it with cannon by the discovery that there were Quakers living there, with whom they had no quarrel. Showing there was after all little difference between the two sides, the British soldiers then began to plunder the village and celebrate their victory.

Elizabeth Richards

On the other side of the fence you have this lady, a devout Anglican, a wealthy landowner (or I should say, married to one, as women did not have the right to own property at this time, no matter their faith or standing, and depended entirely on their husbands in that regard, and in the eyes of the law) and a staunch supporter of the Crown, who hated the United Irishmen and their cause, and worried what would happen to her should their rebellion succeed. A very brave woman, she refused to follow the example of her contemporaries in converting, even though she was of the very clear conviction that it might cost her her life.

Assured by a Catholic priest that no massacre was intended (though as we have seen, slaughter on a smaller scale, village by village or town by town did occur; whether that was planned or just the result of frustrations, long-pent-up hatred and the euphoria of victory is uncertain) she nevertheless referred to the Catholics as "savages" and had full confidence in the power of the Protestant soldiers to defeat them. Perhaps naive in her arrogance, she refused to countenance rumours - which were true - of Orangemen killing and raping as they came; maybe this description would not or could not fit into her overall view of her countrymen as saviours and patriots. She wore, under duress and only to preserve her life, the Irish colours but trampled on them when she had a chance, tried to convince rebels to give up their struggle and submit to the authority of the Crown, but for all that, she made no move against the rebels, fuming instead in impotent anger as she waited to be delivered.

Mary Moore (1776 or 1777 - 1844)

But here was one woman who was a true patriot. Both she and her father were United Irishmen, and she would courier messages from Lord Edward Fitzgerald to other rebels by the ruse of pretending to be injured and having to go to the doctor, even going so far as have her arm bandaged up and her clothes bloody. When the rebellion failed, Lord Edward was staying with Mary, masquerading as her French tutor, and when news came to them that the house was to be raided she managed to move Lord Edward to the house of another trusted rebel, Francis Magan.

Well... not quite. Magan turned out to be yet another informer, and sold her out, pretending he knew nothing about it the next day when he called to ask why Lord Edward had not arrived. The previous night, as she had tried to move him to Magan's, they had been intercepted by Major Sirr (no, really) but His Lordship had legged it and Mary had him hidden at the house of another sympathiser. When their own house was raided later that day Mary ran to tell the rebels, who were meeting nearby, to be on their guard, and as she returned she was attacked by a British soldier, who cut her with his bayonet. He was shot by an Irish sniper for his troubles.

In the evening the house of Thomas Murphy was raided and Lord Edward taken prisoner. He died in June, succumbing in prison to the wounds he had sustained during his arrest. Mary's father was arrested the next month, imprisoned for a year and looked likely to be transported, until Mary bribed the prison doctor to rule he was insane, and he was released. Interviewed in 1842, Mary averred that Magan had to be the informer, as he was the only other one who knew where they had been going: even Lord Edward was kept in the dark. Mary died of an unspecified illness in 1844, remembered as a true Irish patriot.
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Elizabeth  "Betsy" Gray ( c. 1778 - 1798)

Remembered in song and poem, little is actually known of the life of one of the true Irish heroines of the rebellion, but it is known that she was a Presbyterian, fought riding a horse alongside her brother and lover, holding the (or an) Irish flag, and was killed at the Battle of Ballynahinch shortly after the two men were cut down, pleading for the life of their sister with British soldiers (the hated Yeomen, who seem to equate to the Black-and-Tans of the early twentieth century) who had no intention of sparing her because she was a woman. Perhaps surprisingly (or perhaps because it was not opportune for them to do so) they did not rape Betsy - who was said to be beautiful - but cut off her sword hand and then shot her through the head.

Later the wife of one of the "Yeos" was seen wearing her earrings and her green petticoat, which ostracised them from the Catholics in their divided community.

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Red, White and... Green? The influence of the French Revolution and the American War of Independence on the Irish Rising

I noted elsewhere in this article that had Catholics been granted the same rights as Protestants in Ireland, there would have been little appetite for any sort of rebellion. Overall, Irish people didn't seem to have a problem with being ruled by an English king, just one who oppressed them on the grounds of their religion. So up until about now, the mid to late eighteenth century, I see no moves towards gaining independence for Ireland. But with the French Revolution seeming, on the face of it, so successful, and with the breaking away of the American colonies from the iron and unfair grip of the king, to say nothing of the Polish Constitution passed in 1791, it must have looked to the United Irishmen as if Ireland had a chance. England had been weakened by its war with America (both in manpower and, more importantly, in its reputation as one of the superpowers of the eighteenth century) and the French, initially at least, were fellow Catholics.

I'm sure it wasn't that glib or simple that the Irish just thought, sure why not, let's give it a go, but the time must have seemed opportune to press their cause. In other ways, it might have been the worst possible time. Fuming at his defeat in America, worried over the expanding reach of the new French Republic, which had just taken Rome and captured the Pope, King George III might have been in no mood to take shit from a load of piss-poor Catholics and assorted what he would have considered traitors. While it's unlikely he was spoiling for a fight, you could make the argument that he might have relished the chance to bolster back up his reputation, take out his frustration at being kicked out of America, and ready too to show the French they weren't going to have it all their own way, that Britain was still, despite what they might have heard, a force to be reckoned with.

Of course, I could equally be talking complete bollocks. I'm no historian and these conclusions or guesses are not based on anything other than my own reading of the situation, which may be way off. Maybe the Irish just decided they'd had enough with being ruled by kings and queens. They'd tried unsuccessfully for centuries to sponsor the rise of a Catholic monarch to the English throne, and even when their prayers were answered, he was still a bastard to them. So it's possible they said, Catholic or Protestant king? You know what? We'll have none of the above. And decided it was time to be their own masters.

His Majesty, of course, had other ideas on that score.

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Land of Spies and Snitches: Turncoats and Traitors of the Rising

Not every Irishman was dedicated to the overthrow of British rule over Ireland, it would seem, and as in so many instances down through our history, there was a line of people willing to sell out their comrades for either amnesty, money or both; people who betrayed Ireland at a time when, had it not been for their cowardice and treachery, we might have had a chance of winning our independence, something we would now have to wait a further 150 years for.

According to Brendan O' Cathaoir, writing in The Irish Times in 2004, Irishmen were not the best at keeping secrets in the first place, and while there were plenty ready to sell them out, some of their own talk may have sealed the fate of many. The idea of a quiet Irishman in a pub - particularly a fired-up, oppressed, English-hating would-be rebel, is hard to imagine, if such a creature existed. So some of the secret plans of the United Irishmen were doubtless loudly proclaimed in drinking establishments, boasted of, used as threats and forecasts of things to come, and surely reached the ears of those who should not have heard of such things.

All of that notwithstanding though, let's look at some of the people who were instrumental in thwarting the first real attempt by Ireland to throw off her shackles and free her people.

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Leonard McNally (1752 - 1820)

Probably not fair to call him a supergrass, as that referred more to a turncoat, someone captured for committing crime (usually of a paramilitary kind) and who turned informer for money. Supergrass was an expansion on the term grass, which has two proposed origins, one being that it comes from grasshopper, which is said to be Cockney rhyming slang for copper (though I've never heard of anyone using that term) and the other refers to the traditional snake in the grass, denoting a traitor. Whichever story is true, while McNally may not have been a supergrass he certainly was a grass, a spy who worked for the British government and betrayed his comrades in the United Irishmen.

A barrister by trade, McNally took it one step further, collaborating with the prosecution while ostensibly conducting the prisoner's defence, to ensure a conviction. It does appear though that he didn't join the United Irishmen intending to betray them (from all accounts and as far as I can gather) but was spooked by the betrayal of Reverend Jackson as he and Wolfe Tone discussed a French invasion of Ireland. He obviously found it profitable then to use his position in the organisation, of which he was a founder member, to pass secrets back to the British and ensure the coming rebellion failed. There's no record of his having been pressured or threatened to do this, so whether he had intended to become a spy or it just happened, he's still a bastard and his name reviled here in Ireland.

Seems he was never caught, either. His treachery (or patriotism I guess, depending on which side of the conflict you're on) only came to light after his death.

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Edward John Newell (1771 - 1798)

Possibly the worst and most prolific informer who did more to turn in rebels during and after the rebellion, Newell started out of course as a member of the United Irishmen, though originally he had tried to hold down various jobs, the longest being as a painter and glazier, his naturally fractious nature leading to his parting with his employer after two years. He did spend nearly a year at sea, but in the eighteenth century that could be almost just one voyage, so it's no great indication that he took to the life of a sailor.

It's not clear whether he joined the United Irishmen in order to inform on them, whether he felt pushed into it by circumstances or whether he just changed loyalties, but he became an invaluable spy for Dublin Castle. His preferred method seemed to be to accompany a squad of soldiers through villages and towns (suitably disguised) and point out rebels, who would later be arrested. He boasted in his autobiography, rather provocatively titled The Life and Confessions of Newell, the Informer, that he had sent 227 men into the tender mercies of the British government, for which he says he was paid £2,000.

Unlike McNally though he did not survive the rebellion, being assassinated (it is said, and only expected too) by the United Irishmen as he made plans to escape by sea to America. Bones found on the beach at Ballyholme in Bangor, Co, Down in 1828 were said to be his, indicating he may have drowned - or more likely, been drowned or thrown into the sea there.

There were even female traitors and spies...

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Bridget Dolan (1777 - )

Perhaps the quintessential Irish tomboy, Bridget mixed with boys and learned to ride, a skill which would stand her in good stead when it came to taking part in the rebellion, which she did, riding on raiding trips and possibly reconnaissance ones too. In the rebellion, women were used as couriers, nurses, to carry supplies and carry messages and information to the men. Bridget was different. At Kilballyowen she took part in the ambush of a military supply convoy, setting the baggage car on fire. She later turned traitor though, selling out her comrades to the English and bearing witness against them in their trials after the rebellion was crushed (what? I told you that already).
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Samuel Turner (1765 - 1807)

Appropriately named indeed! With aliases such as "Richardson" and "Fumes" he betrayed the United Irishmen, having been captured as part of their executive just prior to the rising, and was paid afterwards a pension from the British government. He it was who passed the information to the British that Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor were meeting in Hamburg to secure support for the rebellion.  It's said he died in a duel in the Isle of Man. He is however another one whose treachery was never uncovered while he lived, and he enjoyed the reputation of an Irish patriot, even sharing the company of later freedom fighter Daniel O'Connell.
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Francis Higgins

One of four editors of supposedly nationalist newspapers and journals which paid obeisance to Dublin Castle and in addition informed on the Irish rebels, Higgins ran the so-called Freeman's Journal, and was in fact a kind of handler or spymaster, controlling, among others, Francis Magan, who as we saw betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald. He was known as "the sham squire", due to his actions in securing a bride through the agency of forged documents which portrayed him falsely as a wealthy landowner, his wife fleeing in the wake of the discovery of his treachery, and her father taking an action against him which landed him in jail. After a further fraud returned him behind bars Higgins fell in with the owner of a pub and gambling den, Charles Reilly,  from whom he assumed ownership of both it and Reilly's wife until her death, after which he turned the pub into a brothel.

In perhaps an attempt to go a bit more legitimate (and in so doing increase his rather low standing in Irish society) Higgins next got into the clothing trade, then became a barrister and finally had a chance to buy a share in, and then buy outright the newspaper mentioned above, The Freeman's Journal. He made most of his profit from contracts received from the British government, and was happy to work for them, employing a network of spies which grew to a complement of seven at its height. In 1801 he received an annual pension from the government of £300 a year but died a year later.

Thomas Reynolds (1771 - )

Born a Catholic, he originally support the Catholic Convention of 1792, but later became more cautious and converted to Protestantism. He married a sister of Theobald Wolfe Tone's wife, and joined the United Irishmen, ironically at the invitation of the man he was to betray, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, becoming its treasurer and given the rank of colonel. According to his own statement, when he realised how violent the rebellion was to be, he turned against them and informed Dublin Castle where the ruling council known as the Directory (surely as a nod to the same assemblage in France) could be found, leading to their arrest.

Having retired to his castle in Kilkea, he was more than surprised, as a government agent, to find it attacked and destroyed by British forces. In his biography Life of Thomas Reynolds, 1839, his son recounts the destruction of the castle: "It has been my father's lot since then to witness the ravages of war in the peninsula, where Spanish, French, Portuguese and English, with their German auxiliaries, men trained to rapine, alternately plundered and devastated the country; but in all that disorder of which he was an eye-witness for six years, he has frequently assured me that he never saw such cold-blooded, wanton, useless destruction as was committed [by the King's troops] at Kilkea and the surrounding country."

After repeated attempts to kill him, he eventually sought the protection of Dublin Castle, declaring himself firmly on the side of the British, was given lodging there and gave evidence against his former comrades. He later left Ireland and went to Lisbon, Iceland and eventually died in Paris in 1836 at the age of 65.

Are you ready, Lord Edward? Uh-huh. Thomas? Yeah! Oliver? Okay.

Well all right, fellas.... LET'S GO!!!!

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The Irish Rebellion, 1798

"England had its luckiest escape since the Spanish Armada" - Theobald Wolfe Tone, The Writing of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1763-1798 Volume II: America, France and Bantry Bay: August 1795 to December 1796 (December 26 1796)

With the failure of the French invasion of 1796 and his own return to exile, Wolfe Tone attempted to persuade the French general, Napoleon Bonaparte (who had yet to rise to the throne of France as its emperor) to invade Ireland, but he really wasn't that interested. Napoleon, a product of the Revolution, cared little for the sectarian politics of Ireland and knew less about the country itself (though the idea of sticking it to England surely must have tickled him). Although born and baptised as a Catholic in Italy, he had no time for religion, other than using it to increase his power, and until the Concordat between France and Pope Pius VII in 1801 France technically had no state religion, Indeed, ten years after the signing Napoleon would invade Italy and take the pope hostage. In a chilling both reverse and future echo, French children at the time were taught to love not the Church but Napoleon (Henry VIII may not have gone quite this far but the implication was clear - that he was the Church and the Church was him, and Hitler of course ensured all members of the Nazi party swore a personal oath to him, not to Germany, though this wasn't exactly a religious one), and later emancipated all faiths during his reign.

Despite that fact that it had been a failed effort, when reports came to the British government of Wolfe Tone's approach to Napoleon it caused unease, and the rising tensions in Ireland only added to that, as magistrates in several counties were attacked. Ireland seemed to be heading for an uprising, and was not about to wait for French assistance that might not arrive. The Viceroy of Ireland, Lord Camden, was pressured to take action and arrest the leaders of the unrest, by hardline Irish MPs who had no idea what the strength of feeling was back in Ireland. Camden feared provoking the would-be rebels, but when it became clear the size of the force assembling he had no choice and moved to arrest some of the leaders. As expected and feared, this only whetted the appetite of the United Irishmen for rebellion, especially as their main leader had escaped.

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Lord Edward Fitzgerald (1763 - 1798)

Son of the first Duke of Leinster, Fitzgerald was a British Army officer who distinguished himself against the Americans in the War of Independence, but after spending time in France during the Revolution - where he publicly renounced his own title -  he became enamoured of the Irish cause for freedom. Elected to the parliament in 1790 he sided with Grattan's Patriot Party, and in 1796 travelled to Hamburg with Arthur O'Connor to try to open a dialogue with the French and gain their support for the planned uprising, much as Wolfe Tone was doing at the same time. The Duke of York warned his wife that Fitzgerald's plans were known to them, and he had better step back, but he ignored such advice, leading to the abortive attempt at invasion at the end of the year.

Fitzgerald was betrayed on multiple fronts, first by Samuel Turner, who advised London of his dealings in Hamburg, and later by Leonard McNally, treachery that led to his almost being captured, and finally by Francis Magan, which did lead to his being arrested. His fellow Protestants however were willing to save him, allow him to escape to England and avoid the fate of a traitor, (most likely to spare the Ascendancy's blushes at one of their own having thrown in his lot with the Irishmen) but Fitzgerald refused to abandon his comrades, and accordingly was taken, as related in the stories above of both McNallly and Mary Moore.

Although apparently he was entreated to go quietly, having been taken sick in bed (out of which he leaped  when he heard the soldiers at the door) he attacked the men who came to arrest him, and was only subdued when Major Sirr shot him in the shoulder. As his wound does not seem to have been treated during his incarceration it worsened and eventually he died of his wounds on June 4 1798, at the height of the rebellion.

After his death, his sister made this eulogy of her brother: "Irishmen, Countrymen, it is Edward FitzGerald's sister who addresses you: it is a woman but that woman is his sister: she would therefore die for you as he did. I don't mean to remind you of what he did for you. 'Twas no more than his duty. Without ambition he resigned every blessing this world could afford to be of use to you, to his Countrymen whom he loved better than himself, but in this he did no more than his duty; he was a Paddy and no more; he desired no other title than this."

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Arthur O'Connor (1763 - 1852)
(Yes, another of history's little quirks: two major leaders of the rebellion, born in the same year)

Born into a family of divided loyalties, O'Connor, a Protestant, had five brothers, three of which shared his republican sentiments (fuelled, again, by the French Revolution) while the other two were fiercely Unionist. His sister, Anne, forbidden by the family to marry the Catholic man she loved, killed herself. A Member of Parliament from 1790, he joined the United Irishmen in 1796 and with Fitzgerald sought French support for an invasion of Ireland. He later served as a general in Napoleon's army, and retired to France, having been banished from Ireland.

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Thomas Addis Emmet (1764 - 1827)

A lawyer by trade, Emmet joined the United Irishmen in 1795, becoming its secretary that year and being raised to the Executive two years later. Unlike Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who believed the rising should press on with or without them, Emmet favoured waiting for French aid  but was taken by the British around the same time as His Lordship. You'd have to believe one of the main reasons for the failure of the rising must have been a dearth of leaders and commanders; they all seem to have been arrested before the damn thing got going!

Emmet was imprisoned until 1801 when he was visited by his brother Robert, who also tried to get the French to invade, but his efforts too were futile. Thomas Emmet emigrated to the USA where he became a successful lawyer, eventually rising to the position of Attorney General for the state of New York.

Oliver Bond (1760 - 1798)

The son of a dissenting minister, Bond was born in Donegal and from early in his career added his voice to those loudly demanding parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and when this road was blocked by the intransigence of the British Crown, he joined the United Irishmen. In defiance of the House of Lords, he continued to promote Irish independence and opposition to a new war with revolutionary France in which England was engaging, and for his pains was imprisoned for six months. A member of the executive of the United Irishmen, meetings usually took place in his house and it was there that the famous declaration was made and signed by all members: "We will pay no attention to any measure which the Parliament of this kingdom may adopt, to divert the public mind from the grand object we have in view; as nothing short of the entire and complete regeneration of our country can satisfy us."

He was with the fourteen other members of the council when the house was raided on the morning of March 12 and taken prisoner. Four months later, with the rising over and put down, he was convicted and sentenced to hang, this sentence commuted through the intercession of the remaining members of the United Irishmen, but it was all in vain: he died in prison less than five weeks later.
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William James McNeven (1763 - 1841)

A physician and chemist, he too was part of the Catholic Convention but unlike Thomas Reynolds he did not withdraw, taking the harder line and joining the United Irishmen and became a contemporary of Wolfe Tone, Fitzgerald and O'Connor, helping to lay the groundwork for the proposed French invasion of Ireland. When that, and the subsequent rebellion failed, he was taken with the other leaders and imprisoned, first in Ireland and later in Scotland. Released in 1802, he joined Wolfe Tone in Paris, fighting for the French, but seeing there was to be no possibility of an invasion he left to go to America, where he held many important academic posts and is affectionately known as "the father of American chemistry". He died in 1841 in New York.

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Samuel Neilson (1761 - 1803)

Originally a member of the Ulster Volunteers, it seems the idea behind the United Irishmen came from Neilson, who suggested it to Henry Joy McCracken, and so he is seen as one of the founders. Though the newspaper he launched, the mouthpiece of the organisation, the Northern Star, took all his money and made him a target for libel (for which he was imprisoned twice) he did not give up and pressed for rebellion once released from prison. He was not on the side of those who wished to wait for the French to step into the fray, and was one of only two (the other being Lord Edward) who avoided arrest the morning Thomas Reynolds turned the leadership in.

Deciding he couldn't do it on his own, Neilson set out to spring Lord Edward but unfortunately his time at Newgate told against him, as he was recognised by one of the jailer as he cased the joint, dragged in and imprisoned himself. After sharing the same fate as McNevin in the wake of the failure of the rising - imprisoned in Kilmainham and then Scotland - he made his way to the Netherlands but then also followed in  McNevin's footsteps to the USA, where he died of yellow fever in 1803.

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Henry Joy McCracken (1767 - 1798)

Founder member of the United Irishmen, we've already heard about the efforts of his sister Mary Ann during the rebellion, and that of six children they were the only two to have Irish/Catholic sympathies. Born into a relatively wealthy Presbyterian family (his father was a shipowner and the family made their fortune in linen, also founding the Belfast News Letter, which is still in publication today) he worked with Presbyterian tenant farmers, tradesmen and labourers, and carried messages and information between Belfast and Dublin. Arrested in 1796 he was freed a year later due to serious illness.

He attempted to lead a rising in the north, but ran into apathy, fear and resistance, and a dogged determination not to go ahead without French support. His attempt to seize Antrim Town with a force of 4,000 - 6,000 men failed miserably and he went on the run with about fifty other survivors, but was captured at Carrickfergus as he waited to board a ship, and incarcerated in the jail there. Refusing to turn in his comrades he was hanged on July 17 1798, his body was released into the care of his sister Mary Ann. His last words were that he had done his duty. Perhaps the best eulogy to him was written years later by his friend James "Jemmy" Hope, in his memoir, United Irishman: The Autobiography of James Hope:  "When all our leaders deserted us, Henry Joy McCracken stood alone faithful to the last. He led the forlorn hope of the cause ..."

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Thomas Palliser Russell (1767 - 1803)
(Yep, here we go again: born in the same year as McCracken, though he outlived him by a few years)

Another founding member of the United Irishmen, Russell was an Anglican and actually spent time in the British Army in India when younger, distinguishing himself by rescuing his commanding officer, but a meeting with Wolfe Tone (who described it as "the most fortunate of my life") led to the setting up of the United Irishmen, and after spending some time as a magistrate in Dungannon, appalled by the attitudes against Catholics, he resigned and committed himself to the cause for Irish independence and Catholic emancipation. He was no admirer of Henry Grattan, believing him weak and ineffectual, and denouncing him as "declaiming, and grinning, and chattering at the abuses of that ministry, which but for him would not now exist".

In June 1795 he was among the gathering at Cave Hill where, prior to Wolfe Tone's enforced exile, the United Irishmen made their pledge to the cause of Irish freedom, and the next year published A Letter to the People of Ireland, in which he took to task the inequalities of class in Ireland, the greedy aristocracy, and the urgent need for change in the country. He believed in a fairer, more equal government and the rights of the ordinary man and woman - he was a great supporter of suffrage for women - and was so opposed to slavery that he would refuse to even take sugar until the practice of slavery was abolished in the West Indies. He travelled widely throughout the North, recruiting for the United Irishmen, and became known to the government and their spies both there and back in Dublin.

Arrested in September of 1796 while in Belfast, he was in prison when the rising took place (and failed) and having served four years, when released he plotted with Robert Emmet, younger brother of Thomas, the details of a further rising, which also failed. Almost seven years to the day, he was again captured after the failure of the second rebellion, but this time there would be no escape for him. As he listened to the verdict being read against him for the crime of high treason, he expressed surprise "to see gentlemen on the jury (looking at the grand jury box) who had often expressed and advocated political opinions similar to those on which he acted, and for which he had forfeited his life, for the sentiments publicly delivered by them, had assisted to influence his conduct". Found guilty, he was hanged and beheaded.

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James "Jemmy" Hope (1764 - 1847)

A Presbyterian, Hope was greatly influenced by the Hearts of Steel while living in Antrim, and joined the Volunteers, where he met both Henry Joy McCracken and Samuel Neilson. He lamented the secret nature of the United Irishmen, even though he later joined them, believing that the organisation should be upfront and overt about its opposition to the ruling government, prophesying that "oaths will never bind rogues". Of course he was right, as we've seen from the long list of traitors above. Nevertheless he was elected to the executive in Ulster and organised the northern branch of the society, counting only Thomas Emmet, Thomas Russell, Neilson and McCracken as those who truly understood the causes of social disorder and conflict. He said of Belfast that it relied on a system built on three types: those whose industry produced the necessaries of life, those who circulated them, and those whose subsistence depended on fictitious claims and capital, and lived and acted as if men and cattle were created solely for their use and benefit.

In the spring of 1796 Neilson sent him south to organise the workers in Dublin, which he did, returning to Ulster to whip up support for the coming rising. In one week he travelled 700 miles, a hell of a distance in those times of non-mechanised transport and poor roads. During the Armagh Disturbances he attempted to reconcile the Peep o' Day Boys with the Defenders, but when the rising came he fought well, later refusing amnesty as he believed to have done so would have been "not only a recantation of one's principles but a tacit acquiescence in the justice of the punishment which had been inflicted on thousands of my unfortunate associates".

He again answered the call in 1803, when Robert Emmet tried another rising, which was equally brutally put down, and was one of the few to survive not only the 1798 rising but also the 1803 one, dying at the age of 83 in Belfast in 1847.

Thomas McCabe (1739 - 1820)

An industrialist and rabid abolitionist, McCabe was born a Presbyterian in Belfast and vehemently opposed the setting up of a Belfast-based slave trading company, thundering "May God eternally damn the soul of the man who subscribes the first guinea!" He also prevented  a slave-owner setting up his shipping business in the city. Wolfe Tone was impressed, and named him "the Irish Slave". Having read the man's pamphlet Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, McCabe invited Wolfe Tone to Belfast, where he set up the northern branch of the United Irishmen.

Though he was too old to fight in the rising, at 59 years old, the meeting to attack Antrim was held in Thomas's house, and his son, William, acted as the bodyguard for Lord Edward Fitzgerald before the rebel peer was arrested, later escaping to France. Having taken no provable active part in the rebellion, Thomas was not arrested and he died at age 80. Two of his five children were named after rebel leaders, Henry Joy McCabe and Robert Emmet McCabe.

William Putnam McCabe (1776 - 1821)

Third son of Thomas, he joined the United Irishmen and helped Jemmy Hope rally support for the coming rebellion. He was a master of disguise, at one point fooling a judge into believing he was a British Army officer and releasing convicted Defenders into his custody. This talent for disguise came in handy when, with Lord Edward Fitzgerald when he was arrested, he was able to mimic a Scottish accent and plead innocence, thus being set free. He went on to fight in Kildare and Mayo, before fleeing the country in the wake of the failure of the rising. First he settled in Wales (where he married) and later France, where he established a cotton mill which served as a gathering place for Irish rebels preparing for Robert Emmet's 1803 rising.

With the failure of this rebellion too, and the decisive victory by Nelson at Trafalgar ending any hope of French help, McCabe accepted that there would be no more risings and sued for clemency with the British government. He was allowed entry to England and Scotland, but not his homeland. His end is a little pathetic, as it all seems to hinge on payment of a debt to, of all people, Arthur O'Connor. In an attempt to service this debt, McCabe returned to Ireland - illegally - and was seized and re-deported, this time to Portugal. He tried again, this time he was arrested and imprisoned, which weakened his health. Commenting on the excuse the Irishman pled for breaking his banishment, the Home Secretary remarked '"It might be true that Mr McCabe never went to any part of England or Ireland except upon business of his own; but it was very extraordinary that, in whatever part of the king's dominions his own business brought him, some public disturbance was sure to take place".

Whether McCabe actually came back to Ireland to try to get his money back from O'Connor, or whether it was subterfuge, cover for other, more rebellious purposes, was never proven. William Putnam McCabe died in Paris, one year after his father's passing, half his age.

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Ulster Rises First: Sectarian Slaughter and the Dragooning of Ulster

While the British leadership in Dublin had feared declaring martial law initially, the commander of the forces in Ulster had no such problem.
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General Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake (1744 - 1808)

Originally Governor of Limerick, Lake was promoted to command of the forces in Ulster, where he set about brutally dealing with the nascent rising there. He believed in his own maxim - "Nothing but terror will keep them in order" - and made good on his boast, ordering that anyone not in the service of the Crown relinquish any weapons they had, and had the leadership of the Belfast United Irishmen arrested and executed. He let loose the feared and hated Yeomanry - the "Yeos" - who burned houses, raped and tortured, flogged and hanged people, often without trial, or without evidence at a trial. Only Catholic and other dissenters were targeted, and some of the Yeos were in fact of the Orange Order.

His savagery knew no bounds, and was "untroubled by legal restraints or by his troops' actions" as he essentially harrowed the north, in a wave of violence and repression which became known to history as "the dragooning of Ulster". One particular punishment his men used was called "pitch-capping", a process by which a thick piece of paper soaked in pitch (tar) was stuck to someone's forehead and set alight. They also practiced "shearing", in which a victim's earlobes were cut off, for some reason.

General Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was appointed to command of Ireland, tried to restore order, horrified at the butchery his predecessor had wrought on the country, but found himself blocked by Dublin Castle, who were still shaken by the almost-invasion by France which had only been prevented due to the Irish weather, and they gave their tacit approval and endorsement to Lake's inhuman methods. Abercromby, disgusted, returned to England, leaving Lake to it. Rather ironically, and extremely unfortunately for the Irish, Lake was chosen as his replacement. He now had complete control over the island, and lost no time in bringing his barbaric methods of suppression south.

Critics warned that his brutal treatment of the Irish would force their hand into rebellion, not stay it. They were right.

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Éirí Amach! The 1798 Irish Rebellion: Rise up fellow Irishmen!

We've seen, mostly through the stories of the lives of the men and women who led or were influential in the coming rebellion, how things came to a head, and with the imposition of martial law on Ireland in March, following the arrest of most of the leadership of the United Irishmen, the rising began. It was of course doomed from the start. Much has been made of the inexperience and even the courage of some of the officers leading regiments, and while Ireland had never had as such any sort of proper army and still suffered from internal divisions within the society - some, like Emmet and McNevin wishing to wait for the faint hope of French help - the British had been putting down rebellions and uprisings for centuries. They were superbly trained for it, had an innate dislike of the Catholic Irish, and spared no effort to brutally suppress what they saw as treason against their monarch.

As in so much of history, Ireland was fucked from the beginning.

On the face of it, for an Irish rising the plan was not too bad. It was, as usual, scumbag traitors who ballsed the whole thing up. The original idea was to, unsurprisingly, take Dublin and hold it, with the counties around rising in support and thereby blocking any chance of the capital being relieved from outside. In one way, it made sense: go for the centre of power right away and essentially decapitate the snake. Osama had the same idea, only he nearly succeeded whereas the Irish were betrayed. And the one major flaw with the plan was that if you attack the centre of power and fail to take it, you're then facing the might of the enemy, on his "home" turf, as it were, like trying to take a castle and finding yourself surrounded by its defenders. Dublin hit back hard at the rebels, sending overwhelming forces to the intended assembly points, arresting the leaders before they even had a chance to lead, and putting the fear of God into the Irish, so that those who could quickly dispersed, even throwing their weapons in the rivers so as not to be arrested.

In essence, the rising was over before it got a chance to start.

Or was it?
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Dublin rose as planned, and fighting was fierce, spreading quickly throughout Leinster, with the heaviest fighting (and losses) taking place in Kildare, Meath and Carlow. One of the major turning points of the short-lived rising though was southeast of Dublin, in the county of Wexford. For whatever reason, this smaller county had not been seen as significant by the British, and so they were more than surprised when not only did it rise, but produced the most successful battles of the rebellion, one of which has gone down in Irish folklore.

After the capture and torture of Anthony Perry, a senior United Irishman, other leaders were arrested and executed. With this news, and the intelligence of further atrocities committed in nearby Wicklow, the United Irishmen attacked, their first major engagement something less than a battle, as forty rebels faced twenty militia at the village of The Harrow, killing their commanding officer and putting the rest to flight. The official report:

"On arrival in Ferns, Lieut. Smith and a party was ordered towards Scarawalsh, where the murders were committed, to see if this information was true, and Lieut. Bookey with another Party rode towards the Harrow, where he met a large party of Insurgents armed with Pikes and some Arms. The Lieut. rode before the Party, and ordered the rebels to surrender, and deliver up their Arms, on which they discharged a volley at the Party, accompanied with a shower of stones, some of which brought Lieut. Bookey from his horse, as also John Donovan, a private in the Corps. The party after firing a few shots, finding themselves overpowered by the Rebels, retreated to Ferns, where they remained 'till day break, melancholy spectators of the devastation committed by the Rebels. The information of the Murders at Scarawalsh found to be true."

The next major engagement was at Oulart Hill, where this time the odds were very firmly again on the side of the Irish, but much more so: about 110 militia faced over 4,000 angry Irishmen. There could only be one outcome. Finding the massive force of their enemy occupying the high ground and, perhaps proving the English had learned little since the days of Andrew Moray and William Wallace, they advanced to meet them and were cut down almost to the last man. News of the great victory spread throughout the county, and soon rebel forces controlled Enniscorthy, Gorey and Wexford Town itself. Finding his troops penned in at Wexford, the commander of the fort at Duncannon, General Fawcett, led 200 men to bolster the garrison there. Heavy artillery was to follow.

Duped into thinking the road ahead was safe, the slower force bringing the big guns was attacked in an ambush at the Three Rocks, in Forth Mountain, and all but wiped out. Their guns were seized, now in the hands of the rebels, and the survivors left to rendezvous with Fawcett, who realised his guns were now likely to be used against him, and headed back to the fort, leaving Wexford's commander, General Maxwell, to come out hunting for him, and also run into an ambush from which he barely escaped. Finally realising how desperate his situation had become, Maxwell sued for peace while in reality using the sending of the envoys as a chance to have his men slip away quietly, and like true English bastards they took thier revenge on the locals, burning, raping and murdering as they made their way to Duncannon.

However, the rebels had achieved an astonishing victory, much more than those in the capital had managed, and the county of Wexford was almost entirely in rebel hands.

Firmly established now, the Irish set up a French-inspired Committee of Public Safety, and divided their forces, half to head to Dublin and half to New Ross. The latter encountered stiff resistance and were soundly defeated at the Battle of New Ross, despite outnumbering the English about five to one. But they had cannon, and the Irish were mostly just armed with pikes, not to mention that the attack had been anticipated and prepared for, the defences around the city strengthened and ready to withstand any attack. Despite the attempts of the Irish leader, Bagenal Harvey, to negotiate the town's surrender, his emissary was shot down under a flag of truce, and the enraged Irish charged. Perhaps this was intended, a ruse to make them lose their heads and throw caution to the wind. If so, it worked.

In true Irish fashion, the rebels drove a herd of cattle through the gates, and when the British cavalry charged they were driven back. Fierce and savage street-fighting ensued, in which the rebels took heavy losses but managed to secure most of the town. Unfortunately, their lack of ammunition proved their undoing, and when reinforcements arrived they had nothing to face them with other than pikes. After a pitched battle they were finally driven out of New Ross and the British re-assumed control of it.

And then the massacres began.

I'm of course Irish, so will generally side with my historic countrymen, and lord knows the English had a reputation, well deserved, for brutality and inhuman treatment of prisoners, but it would be unfair and revisionist to ignore the part played by the Irish in the slaughter that followed. I'm not going to attempt to excuse or explain it, as I don't think there's every any excuse for what is without question cold-blooded murder (well, hot-blooded, but you know what I mean). I think the belief that one side is always a) right and b) honourable in any war or conflict is a fallacy; we all have it in us to be brutal, or to quote Nick Cave, people ain't no good. Perhaps to take that further, the wisdom of those merry minstrels, Slipknot, might suffice: people=shit. Everyone likes to think they would never do that, never could do that, but for every Nazi prisoner tortured or every American soldier mistreated by the Japanese you can bet there are equal atrocities committed on the other side. Nobody is immune to the madness of war, and good guys do not necessarily wear white, or indeed, black.

Or in this case, green.

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In the town of New Ross, days of murder ensued, with both captured and trapped rebels and ordinary citizens - some of whom were Protestant - killed. Many burned alive. In fact it was said that more rebels were killed after the battle than during it.  In retaliation, Scullabogue happened.

A small farm and outbuilding outside of the town, Scullabogue had been used by the rebels as a staging post, and all those believed to be enemies or potential spies rounded up and locked in a barn there. These included women, and indeed children. When news of the defeat at New Ross was brought by those escaping the battle, passions were inflamed, and thoughts of revenge bubbled over into violence. Although the guards drove the rebels back twice (Irishmen fighting Irishmen, how odd :rolleyes:) they eventually bowed to pressure and allowed some of the prisoners to be shot, however that wasn't enough and the barn was torched, those trying to flee shot, stabbed, beaten to death or forced back into the flames. All but two of the prisoners perished. The event horrified General Thomas Cloney, who reported "The wretches who burned Scullabogue Barn did not at least profane the sacred name of justice by alleging that they were offering her a propitiatory sacrifice. The highly criminal and atrocious immolation of the victims at Scullabogue was, by no means, premeditated by the guard left in charge of the prisoners; it was excited and promoted by the cowardly ruffians who ran away from the Ross battle, and conveyed the intelligence (which was too true) that several wounded men had been burned in a house in Ross by the military."

With New Ross now again in English hands, General John Moore marched to meet the rebels who had escaped, with a force of about 1,500 men, intending to join up with the maniacal Lake and his contingent and trap the Irish in a pincer movement. Lake was delayed though and so Moore took on the rebel force at Foulkesmill by himself. Though facing nearly four times his own number, and though the Irish had the high ground, Moore rallied his men as they attempted to break in panic, and, reformed and resolute, they charged the Irish positions, raining cannon fire down on them and driving them off. This action served to reopen the road to Wexford, which had been in rebel hands since the city had fallen.

Spectacularly bad luck and poor planning attended the Battle of Bunclody, where rebels forced their way with captured artillery into the small garrison town, forcing the retreat of the British, leaving some few Yeos trapped there. As the Irish celebrated, the garrison turned back around and launched a surprise attack against the town, which the rebels had failed to fortify (probably too drunk) and thus they were driven out and the battle lost.

The Battle of Arklow followed, as the Irish tried to spread the rebellion beyond Wexford, but were repulsed by Francis Needham, 1st Earl of Kilmorey, though they did manage to destroy one of the British cannon with captured guns. Their exultation was short-lived though, as Needham's artillery replied forcefully, and the rebels fell back. Attempts to pursue and kill them largely failed though, and by the time they melted away into the night they were unaware that Needham's garrison were almost out of ammunition, as were they.

The end was looming for the rebels, but before they were defeated they again took loyalist prisoners, this time bringing them to Wexford Bridge where they were piked to death, and their bodies thrown into the river. A massive force of nearly 18,000 British soldiers poured into Wexford under the command of the dreaded General Lake, and the United Irishmen gathered to meet them and make their last stand at Vinegar Hill. It was indeed to leave a sour taste in Irish mouths, as it was the turning point, and the end, of the rebellion in Wexford.

With few firearms and most only bearing pikes, and with women and children sheltering with them, the Irishmen had no chance against the well-drilled, efficient and deadly British Army, furnished with all the latest weapons and the know-how to use them, as well as artillery which could bombard the Irish from a distance. Each time they were hit the Irish would retreat into an ever-tightening circle as the British moved their artillery closer and continued to shell them. Things were desperate. Meanwhile, in Enniscorthy, just down the road, the defenders were doing much better, pushing back General Johnson's light infantry division and holding the town. However when Johnson brought in heavy cavalry they could not stand, and were eventually driven out, though they managed to hold the strategically important Slaney Bridge.

As the rebels on Vinegar Hill were routed, more atrocities ensued, wounded being burned to death, women raped, the usual horror brought about by the victors in any battle if they're fired up enough and there's sufficient hatred for the enemy. Driven out of Wexford, the survivors spread beyond the county to carry on what remained of the rising in guerilla raids.

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And over the border...

Although Ulster's fighting capabilities had been hobbled, even decapitated by Lake's marauding forces prior to the start of the rising, Henry Joy McCracken and Jemmy Hope remained at large and Antrim, focus of all the unrest even when the majority of the country had been at peace, exploded as a centre of the rebellion. Having taken control of the United Irishmen as their Ulster leaders dithered, waiting for help from France, McCracken led the rising, intending to take the government outposts in the county and then move on Antrim Town itself. Then, using artillery captured from Antrim Town, he would lead the rebels in a march to Belfast, in conjunction with the rebels from County Down.

Things went to plan initially, with Larne, Ballymena, Portadown and Randalstown all captured, but on the march to Antrim Town old enmities resurfaced between the Presbyterians and the Catholic Defenders, and many deserted, leaving McCracken with a much smaller force than he had envisaged taking the town with. The resultant delay gave the garrison time to request reinforcements from Belfast, and though again they were outnumbered (only about 200) they also possessed the artillery which eventually proved the rebels' undoing. Overall they did quite well, and were pushing the British back, but the arrival of a barrage of shells from the newly-arrived reinforcements from Belfast took them by surprise and demoralised them, causing many more to desert and flee. In the face of now overwhelming odds, McCracken and Hope had no choice but to follow them.

In County Down, meanwhile, a force of 1,000 rebels attacked the house of the McKee family, known to be British informers and sympathisers, burned the place to the ground and killed everyone. In response the British sent a somewhat inadequate force of about 300 men to meet them, straight into an ambush. Rather interestingly, where the rudimentary weapons of the rebels had proved a hindrance to them in previous battles, at the Battle of Saintfield, as this skirmish was known, the British (at least, these ones) seemed unfamiliar with the pike, and were not trained to fight against such weapons, being more comfortable shooting muskets and firing artillery, and using swords. Though the artillery was used, to decent effect, all it managed to do was buy the British time to escape.

The next battle though would be a real one, and crucial.
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The Battle of Ballynahinch was doomed from the outset. Commanded by a man who had no military training at all, Henry Munro, who had only taken over control of the rebels when their true leader was arrested, and who refused to attack under cover of night because he believed it dishonourable (!), the United Irishmen were pounded into submission by British artillery - those who didn't slink off at the naivete of their commander, that is. The next morning, Munro's reticence proved fatal as the British attacked again, this time driving the Irish into full retreat, which they happily turned into a slaughter.

Betsy Gray, of whom we have spoken already, was killed at the Battle of Ballynahinch, and Munro, having trusted - and paid - a local farmer to hide him, was betrayed and then for good effect hanged outside his own house.
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For the first and only time in Irish history Catholics and other dissenters had banded together against a common enemy, but the failure of the rebellion, coupled with lingering distrust on both sides which could not be banished, and fanned by the atrocities committed on both sides, meant it would be the last. From here on, Catholics would ply their own path against the repressive British Protestant government, and would receive no further help from Presbyterians or other dissenters.
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LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, UNION, After several unsuccessful attempts, behold at last Frenchmen arrived amongst you... Union, Liberty, the Irish Republic! Such is our shout. Let us march. Our hearts are devoted to you; our glory is in your happiness. - General Jean Humbert, August 1978, on landing in Killala.

As Lake was replaced by Lord Cornwallis as commander of Ireland, the long-awaited French help finally arrived. Way too late. Landing at Killala Bay in County Mayo, General Humbert, who had also commanded the ill-fated 1796 attempt at landing in Bantry Bay, brought 3,000 men ashore and was met by Lake, who engaged them at the Battle of Castlebar (not surprisingly, at Castlebar). News of the French landing had given hope to the mostly-beaten United Irishmen, and those who could made their way to Mayo to support the invasion, hoping for a resurgence of the crushed rising. As Humbert and his Irish allies marched towards the town of Castlebar, the British, believing the invaders had only one way to approach, trained their guns on the main Ballina Road. But locals had advised Humbert of an alternative route, and though the British believed it impassable, the rebel force negotiated it and took them by surprise with their guns facing the other way.

The British forces, many of them Yeomanry, used to fighting ill-disciplined and untrained Irish rebels with little idea of tactics or strategy, were outmanoeuvred and unnerved by the French, who knew how to fight a campaign and how to take a town. When Humbert launched a ferocious bayonet charge the gunners panicked and ran, some of the British even defecting to the joint Irish/French side and fighting alongside them. The British are said to have run so fast and so far - although hardly even pursued - that the event became known in Ireland as "The Castlebar Races". Having thoroughly routed the foe, the Irish rebels declared the Republic of Connaught, a self-contained client state of the French Republic, but like the Republic of Wexford, it would not last long.

Twelve days, in fact. On September 8, a huge force of 10,000 under Cornwallis met Humbert at Ballinamuck (no, really) and this time the superior numbers told. Cornwallis had about 26,000 men to the combined Irish and French strength of just over 2,000, and having crossed the Shannon in the hopes of joining up with rumoured pockets of resistance having sprung up again in Westmeath and Longford - these minor rebellions quickly crushed - Humbert decided to make his stand at Ballinamuck. Lake was closing in behind him, and he knew he was in a desperate situation.

Though there was a force of 3,000 waiting at sea to land once he had achieved his objective, Humbert had come to Ireland on the strength of intelligence that said the country was in revolt, and that the Irish would join him in freeing the country. By the time he had arrived of course, the rising was all but over, and the Irish defeated and on the run, so he was more or less fighting a rearguard action instead of spearheading an invasion. Realising his cause was now doomed, Humbert surrendered after a short fight, and the proposed invasion by France of Ireland, like the Irish rising, was over.

Before I close out what has turned out to be a much longer article than expected, there is one further aspect of the 1798 rising I want to investigate. I think it may very well be a unique one.
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Holy Warriors: Ireland's Rebel Battle Priests

I know English lords were often made bishops and archbishops and led armies, and of course the Pope and his various cardinals too, but more back in the early part of the millennium; however I have never, up to this, heard of bog (almost literally) standard priests not only fighting but leading men into battle, and yet when I look at the list of commanders of the rebels it's littered with Father this and Father that. So I'd like now to look at these, and see what led to such men of the cloth taking up arms and standing up for their country, actually fighting alongside the men of their flock rather than just praying for them. Most, of course, would also die in Ireland's cause for freedom.

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Father John Murphy (1753 - 1798)

Perhaps the most famous of the "rebel priests", his name preserved in the old Irish ballad "Boolavogue", Fr. Murphy was a native of Ferns parish in Wexford, where almost all of the priests who took part in the rebellion would come from. Like all Catholic priests at the time, he was subject to the Penal Laws holding sway in Ireland, which forbade priests studying or being trained there, seminaries outlawed, and so he had completed his education in Spain.
Returning to Ireland in 1785 he was given the curacy of Kilcomuc, more usually known as Boolavogue, under the parish priesthood of Fr. Patrick Cogley. Fr. Murphy's family was already involved with the United Irishmen, two of his brothers being in the society, but his bishop, James Caulfield, was a supporter of the Crown and against the idea of rebellion. Nonetheless, Murphy preached from the pulpit to his congregation that they were "better to die courageously in the fields than be butchered in their houses." He was not exaggerating, as General Lake's Yeomen swept through Leinster, killing, raping and burning as they went.

As Catholics, and not just Catholics but the leaders of the religion, the priests had a double dilemma on their hands. First, the obvious one: a priest was expected to be peaceful and promote the cause of peace and brotherhood and harmony (though this is hard to do when the enemy is slaughtering and burning all around you, and seems determined to wipe you out) and not supposed to take part in any sort of armed conflict. Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly for them, the Irish rebellion was founded on the notion, hope or promise of support from France. Since the Revolution, the leaders of France's new republic were staunchly anti-religion, especially anti-Catholic, so if the French were to invade and "save" Ireland, where would the role of the priests be? Might not even those who had fought for the very freedom they would now have attained find themselves exiled, or worse - guests of Madame la Guillotine?

Nevertheless, they fought, and while he wavered between loyalty, both to his bishop and the English king, news of the massacre at Dunlavin and the insistence of his parishioners that he protect them and fight for Ireland made Fr. Murphy's mind up, and he led an attack at the Harrow, killing two British officers and routing the small force. This led to the burning of many houses in his parish, including his own church at Boolavogue. Murphy's small victory and subsequent success at Oulart Hill are immortalised in the ballad of the same name:

Then Father Murphy, from old Kilcormack,
Spurred up the rocks with a warning cry;
"Arm! Arm!" he cried, "For I've come to lead you,
For Ireland's freedom we fight or die."
He led us on against the coming soldiers,
And the cowardly Yeomen we put to flight;
'Twas at the Harrow the boys of Wexford
Showed Booky's Regiment how men could fight."

(Booky refers to Lieutenant Thomas Bookey, one of the two officers of the Camolin Cavalry killed at The Harrow)

Fr. Murphy's defeat and death at Vinegar Hill is also commemorated in the song.
 
"At Vinegar Hill, o'er the pleasant Slaney,
Our heroes vainly stood back to back,
And the Yeos at Tullow took Father Murphy
And burned his body upon the rack.
God grant you glory, brave Father Murphy
And open heaven to all your men;
The cause that called you may call tomorro
In another fight for the Green again."

Murphy did indeed win a major victory at Oulart Hill, as already described, all but wiping out Lieutenant Foote's command. As they marched to take Enniscorthy, Murphy's regiment was reinforced by one led by another priest, and indeed another Murphy, Father Michael. They forced the retreat of the garrison there, and marched in triumph on to Wexford town, which they also took, but as we have seen, were unable to keep, Here they were joined by another priest, Father Mogue Kearns as they later marched to Vinegar Hill, preparatory to attacking Gorey. This was, of course, to be their last stand.

On the run from the defeat at Vinegar Hill and the later Battle of Kilcumey Hill, Fr. Murphy and his friend and bodyguard James Gallagher were captured by British forces and taken to Tullow in County Carlow, where they were tried, found guilty of treason and executed. Their deaths were not quick and they were not merciful. Both men were stripped, flogged, half-hanged several times (Gallagher first, as he was exhorted to identify the priest with whom he travelled, but refused, dying on the gallows) and Father Murphy, as both a Catholic priest and therefore mortal enemy of the British, and a rebel, was decapitated after hanging, his body put into a barrel of tar and burned and his head stuck on a spike.
 
Father Philip Roche

Another priest from the Boolavogue parish, his brother was involved in the attack at The Harrow, and seems to have been less (or more) than the traditional image of a priest; big and burly, given to great tempers and able to fight with ferocity, and given to drinking, he seems - despite his vocation - to have been the kind of man who would respond quickly and eagerly to the call to defend Ireland, and indeed it appears that he joined the United Irishmen before the rebellion began, again much to the disgust and disapproval of his bishop. He seems to have had the equivalent of a problem holding down a job, being moved from Gorey to Bantry, finally ending up in Poulpeasty in Wexford. As soon as the rising began he deserted his post and joined in the fighting.

He took part in the battle for Enniscorthy and was at Vinegar Hill, and secured safe passage for one "Mrs. M", declaring that her house and that of her neighbour were not to be touched, by his order. He used the power of faith to motivate his troops, giving them religious scapulars and telling the men that they would be under God's protection by wearing them. He was given command of the rebels after the Battle of New Ross when Bagenal Harvey, the previous commander, resigned, apparently in disgust at the atrocities perpetrated by rebels at Scullabogue. Father Roche was given the rank of general. This did not go down well with the Protestants who had joined the rebels, unsurprisingly.

Father (now General) Roche sent word to the parish of Horeswood that if their parish priest there, one Father James Doyle, did not join them then Roche's forces would attack the town. He appears to have been something of an uncompromising leader, and you have to wonder if he had missed his calling. Doyle had no choice but to comply, but kept the letter which he used in his trial later to attain acquittal for himself and his men. Roche, meanwhile, despite the misgivings of Thomas Clooney and other Protestants in the ranks, proved to be more than an able commander, proved in fact to be something of a military genius, holding off the British forces by a kind of Beau Geste subterfuge while his men escaped, and later, after the defeat at Vinegar Hill, as the other leaders considered suing for terms to surrender Wexford Town, Roche would have no part of it.

His error though was to believe that General Lake would afford him favourable terms, or deal with him at all, and while Father John Murphy declared they should fight to the last - and every man agreed and stood with him - Roche travelled alone to Wexford. He was quickly disabused of his notions of a noble surrender and thoroughly abused as, entering the town he was recognised and pulled from his horse, kicked and beaten, dragged through the streets and finally imprisoned. When visited there by General Sir John Moore, he advised his adversary that his estimate of the numbers of the rebels was way off - Moore estimated about 5,000 to 6,000 but Roche told him there was three times that number, which there were.

Roche gained for himself in his lifetime as a rebel a reputation not only for battle cunning and planning but for mercy, often saving Protestants from the more vocal and violent factions of his own forces. This unfortunately did him no good when, after being tried and found guilty (duh) of treason, he, along with nine other rebels, was hanged at, and from, Wexford Bridge.

A strange dilemma shows itself in the above clemency shown by Father Roche, illustrated best in the example of the brothers Robinson who, taken by the rebels from their parish of Kilgeny for no other reason than that they were Protestants, and also both quite old and therefore both harmless and mostly unable to defend themselves, were rescued by Roche and given letters guaranteeing their safety. Sent home with these, they were later accused of collusion and treachery by the British for having accepted the pardon of the rebel general. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Father Michael Murphy (1767 - 1798)

So far as I can make out, he was no relation to the previous Father John Murphy (although he had a brother named John) - Murphy has always been a very common name in Ireland, perhaps as common as Smith in England. Sent to complete his education in Bordeaux in France, Father Michael was trapped when the French Revolution broke out, and imprisoned until he and his fellow students could be repatriated to Ireland, all Catholic priests under an order of expulsion by the new republican government. Perhaps oddly, though treated with disdain by the French (and the president of his college having been guillotined) Murphy nevertheless espoused the revolutionary ideas of his erstwhile captors on his return to Ireland, and while lodging in a house owned by a member of the United Irishmen, became enamoured of their cause and joined up himself.

Although he does not appear to have been present at the incident at The Harrow, he did meet up with Father John Murphy and the rest of the rebels that morning and marched with them to Oulart and then on to Gorey after their success there, leaving his namesake to head to Vinegar Hill. He later found that the house of his old landlord, John Kenny, had been burned, along with others in the village, by the Yeos, and Kenny himself shot. He encountered the forces of Colonel Walpole at Carraig Rua (Red Rock) and dealt them a terrific defeat, leading to the death of the colonel himself. After taking Gorey Town, Father Michael was among those who were - every one - opposed to Father Philip Roche's intention to seek surrender terms from Lake in Wexford Town. Well, we've read how that turned out, haven't we?

Father Murphy then launched an attack on Arklow, and was killed while leading the charge. After his forces had been utterly defeated, his body was thrown headless into a burning house, General Lord Norris remarking caustically that his body might as well go where his soul had already gone. His intact head and the remains of his body were later recovered by his sister and interred in the family plot.

Father Mogue Kearns (d. 1798)

One thing that seems common to all these "rebel priests" or "warrior priests" or "battle priests", or whatever you want to call them - and it's hardly surprising - is that they were all big, bluff strong men. Makes sense really: the kind of man, even priest, likely to take up arms in defence of his country was hardly going to be a local weed. Fighting men, strong men, men quick to anger and essentially it appears all men who could be described as "bears", but obviously intelligent too (stupid men did not make it through basic training in the Church), and with a strong sense of pride and loyalty to Ireland.

Kearns was also sent to France for his education and got caught up in the French Revolution - literally in his case. Attacked by supporters of Robespierre he was actually hanged from a lamppost, but the story goes that his body was so big, heavy and powerful that it actually bent the lamppost, making it sag towards the ground and so placing his feet back on the ground. When an Irish physician saw what had happened, he had him cut down and resuscitated.

So Mogue Kearns had already had a brush with death in the cause of a revolution, albeit on the wrong side of the conflict, before he returned to Ireland and joined the United Irishmen.

While serving as a curate in the parish of Balyna, he attempted to rouse the people and have them take to the field in defence of Ireland, but his parish priest dissuaded them, had Kearns dismissed and he returned to Wexford, where he took up residence in Enniscorthy. Another trait common among some, but not all, of the rebel priests, Mogue Kearns was a hard drinker and got into many fights. After Enniscorthy was captured by the rebels he sat on the committee alongside Fathers Philip Roche and John Murphy, presiding over some of the meetings. He was renowned for his bravery, going into battle often armed only with a heavy riding whip, however this hot-headedness and impulsive behaviour was to have tragic consequences for him.

During the Battle of Bunclody he rejected advice from one of his commanders, who believed they should send a detachment to secure the Carlow Road and so cut off a possible retreat by the garrison holding the town, sneering "Tell all those you have any control over to fear nothing as long as they see this whip in my hand!" As his subordinate had warned, the garrison, retreating from the attack, ran into another force coming to strengthen them, and the two then turned to face the surprised rebels, driving them out of the town. They lost over a hundred men in the rout, in addition to losing the town. Morale took a dive.

While Father John Murphy took his men to Vinegar Hill and eventual defeat, Kearns went to Enniscorthy, where, when the commander was wounded he had to take over, but receiving a severe arm wound was forced to withdraw, carried by his men as they made their way back towards Wexford. Left to recuperate at the house of a friend he returned three weeks later, though his arm had far from healed, leading a contingent of men. Saying he would rather die on his feet with a weapon in his hand than be taken cowering in a house, he rejoined the fight, and after taking part in many skirmishes he was apprehended in Edenderry and hanged.

Father Thomas Clinch

A man with rebellion in his bloodline, Father Thomas's grandfather had fought at the Battle of the Boyne, so the hatred of the English was strong there, as if their repression of Catholics had not been enough. Yet another boisterous drunkard, Father Thomas was pretty much a priest in name only, having been dismissed from his pastoral duties by the bishop after serving in several different towns. He joined the rising and, like many of the other priests who fought with the rebels, he had brothers in the United Irishmen too, though whether they were also priests I don't know. He certainly distinguished himself in battle, stories of his riding a large white horse and leading troops into battle common.

He too seemed to have some sympathy for Protestant civilians, and guaranteed safe harbour for Mrs. Heydon, who took refuge in the house of the postmaster of Enniscorthy, Henry Gill. She was the wife of the Reverend Heydon, the harmless Protestant vicar who was killed by rebels as already discussed, and the Catholics did not trust her, but his brother having  been a tenant of the late Reverend's wife, Father Thomas vouched for her and demanded she be treated kindly. He was another who died at Vinegar Hill, or slightly beyond it, having been keeping a rearguard action so as to secure the escape of as many of the routed rebels as possible.

He engaged in a duel with Lord Roden, commander of the troop known as the "Foxhunters". Roden had spotted his conspicuous white horse and his massive figure - both of which were hard to miss - and rode after him, receiving a wound in his neck but being saved by one of his own men who came up from behind and shot Father Thomas, who fell from his horse. His men carried him away but he died on the way to Enniscorthy.

Father John Redmond

His story was markedly different to his brother priests, in that the parish of which he was curate was overseen by a man who was generally seen as one of the most liberal of landlords, the Earl of Mount Norris, who was so tolerant of Catholics that he even dined with the priests, and assured the Lord Viceroy of Wexford's peaceful nature. Like the earl, Father John was completely at odds with the other rebel priests, even going so far as to refuse the sacrament of Holy Communion to anyone in the United Irishmen, or hear their Confession. Given that he lived under such an agreeable landlord, you can understand that. Again, unlike the other priests, whom we've seen were almost all rowdy, prone to fighting and fond of drink - and usually censured by the bishop - there was nothing but praise for Father John, a model priest.

So how did he become a rebel? Let's find out.

Universally despised by the other priests who had joined the rebellion, he was, due to his devotion to Mount Norris, seen as a loyalist, and was in fact called "the Orange Priest", surely the greatest slur you could aim at a Catholic priest (and not a very nice thing any Orangeman would like to hear either!) and he was constantly in fear of his life during the rising, seen as a traitor by his own people. When the house at Camolin Park was raided for weapons by the rebels, he pleaded with them not to destroy it, and managed to convince them to leave it standing. All for nothing though. When the earl heard word that Father Redmond had been present at the raid he concluded that the priest was in on it, and ordered him to report to him in Gorey to explain himself. When Redmond obeyed, he was seized as he entered the town, kicked and punched and dragged along the ground, and thrown in jail. He must have wished he had rebelled like all the other priests!

While he was languishing in prison, a troop of Yeos who had been in the defeat at Ballyellis rushed the jail, dragged him out, held a quick mock trial and sentenced him to be hanged as a traitor, which was carried out summarily. His one-time benefactor, Mount Norris, believing (without a shred of evidence, but who needed that?) that he faced a traitor, shot Redmond as he hung on the gibbet. Perhaps, in the aftermath of the rising, it might have seemed to the earl prudent to distance himself from these Catholics of whom he had once been such a friend, lest he be seen as a traitor himself.

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Epilogue: One nation, indivisible, under an English God - The Act of Union

The rising of 1798 probably marks the only time Catholics and Protestants would join common cause; after its failure Protestants would look to not only the atrocities perpetrated by the "papists" (ignoring of course those carried out on their own side, and vice versa) and see the often treacherous behaviour of Catholics as proving they could not be trusted. From here on in, the word sectarian would be forever engraved into the long and bloody history of Ireland, culminating in the rather bland-sounding Troubles, which would last well into the second half of the twentieth century and ensure Ireland was, and remains to this day, deeply divided along lines of religion and belief.

In the wake of the Rebellion, and with support growing for Catholic emancipation, to say nothing of the renewed fear of further invasion from France, William Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, decided that military suppression alone was never going to quell the tensions in Ireland, and to that effect he proposed the Act of Union, which would unite the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, and merge the Irish Parliament with the British one. This measure met, not surprisingly, with stiff resistance from the Irish Parliament (almost all of whom were, after all, Protestants and had no interest in equal rights for Catholics and worried their own power would diminish) but a combination of bribes, coercion and promises allowed the Act to scrape through on a 158 - 115 vote when brought before the House again in 1800. On January 1 1801 it became law, and the Irish Parliament was abolished.

What this meant for Ireland we will see in the next chapter, but one thing was certain: while the cause of Irish independence may have been defeated it was not dead, and would rise again only a few years into the new century to threaten the British establishment again, even though it would take another century and more before we would finally be free. Before that, Ireland would be devastated by a harrowing famine that would rob her of the flower of her youth, either to death or emigration, an even greater divide would develop between north and south - a divide which would never really be healed - and, against all expectations, Irishmen would serve the king as the entire world burned under the threat of a new horror: not just a war, but a world war.

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Chapter XI: Under the English Heel II:
Rising and Falling: Emancipation, Starvation and Emigration

Just a quick note, in case anyone wonders why the subtitle for this, and subsequent chapters? Well, up to now it's certainly been a case of Ireland having been under the English heel for over seven hundred years, but for all that, nominally we remained a free country, or at least a separate country. The first king to proclaim himself King of Ireland as well as England was Henry VIII, this claim ratified by the Crown of Ireland Act passed by the Irish Parliament in 1541, but prior to that the monarch had always been in control of the Lordship of Ireland. Even when incorporated as the Kingdom of Ireland, we had our own laws, our own Parliament, our own identity. From the start of the nineteenth century till well into the twentieth, we were part of the United Kingdom, subservient to the King or Queen of England, and so it must have felt like that boot was pressing down even harder on our necks. This, therefore, would be seen as the second, and closer phase of that oppression, thus the title.
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Anyway, on we go. One of the things known now around the world which only came into being after the 1801 Act of Union was the recognised symbol of the British empire, the Union Jack (or to be more precise, Union Flag: it's technically only known as the Union Jack when flown at sea, though this seems to have been ignored or forgotten, or done away with altogether) as the crosses of England (St. George), Scotland (St. Andrew) and now Ireland (St. Patrick) were intermingled in the flag of the new United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, usually known as just the United Kingdom. I would personally question why a red X was chosen as being representative of the Irish, as we have always been associated with the colour green, but then, the English were hardly going to have what would be seen as a Catholic nationalist symbol on their precious flag, now were they?

Under the provisions of the Act of Union, several major changes were instigated, the most far-reaching of course being the dissolution of the Irish Parliament. Whereas members previously reported to Dublin Castle, now they were summoned to Westminster to sit in the joint UK Parliament. As well as this, the Irish Army was absorbed into the British Army and the Church of Ireland was merged with the Church of England (though perhaps oddly, the Church of Scotland was allowed to remain as it was, perhaps because it was already a strongly Protestant nation).

The Prime Minister at the time, William Pitt the Younger, had managed to get the Act passed on the basis of, among other inducements, the promise of Catholic emancipation, where Catholics would be again allowed to sit in Parliament, but the king, George III, was against this, believing such a concession would violate the oath he had taken at his coronation, and so in protest at being blocked by the Crown Pitt had to resign. Therefore only months after he had pushed the Act through, Pitt was gone and a new Prime Minister led the government. The chances of Catholics being looked on fairly was lost.

And yet, even with this loss, Catholics in Ireland were broadly in favour of union. Seems odd today, but I guess when you remember that they had no say in the politics of their own country, that it was their "own" (Protestant) Parliament in Dublin which had levelled the cruel Penal Laws at them, that the whole institution of Dublin Castle was seen as corrupt and self-serving, and that joining with England might afford them some measure of royal protection, maybe not so odd. In the end, it mattered little, as it often does, to the ordinary man, who got oppressed just as much by the new government as he had by the old, and still had to struggle to make his living. There was no improvement in his working or living conditions, he still had basically no rights, and to quote Roger Daltrey, it really was a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

I personally find it odd to discover that many Protestants were against Union. I would have thought the idea of being joined to the land of their forefathers would have appealed, but no. It seems Protestants believed that London would go easier on Catholics than had Dublin, and they were right. Of course, their real fears were rooted in the need to give up their power; decisions that had been up to now made by the Protestant Parliament in Dublin would henceforth be made in London, leaving them with little actual say in the running of the country. One Protestant who was very much in favour of, and doggedly determined to realise the passing of the Act of Union was the Earl of Clare.
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John Fitzgibbon, 1st Earl of Clare (1748 - 1802)

His father had been born a Catholic but like some Irishmen had taken the oath to the king and converted to Anglicanism, principally to be able to pursue a career as a lawyer (and presumably to assure his son of a decent life in society) and like many lawyers he scraped a living and barely got by. Like hell. He made a pile, as would his son, who was appointed Attorney General in 1783 and then Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1789, moving through the ranks of the peerage until he attained the earldom of Clare in 1795. A fierce rival of Henry Grattan, he utterly opposed any rights for Catholics and only supported the 1793 Irish Catholic Relief Act because as a member of the government he was expected to, and did not fancy going against the party line. However he strongly supported the Act of Union, essentially breaking with the hardline Protestants with whom he had been in line up to then, and made an impassioned speech almost a year before the Act was passed into law:

"I hope and feel as becomes a true Irishman, for the dignity and independence of my country, and therefore I would elevate her to her proper station, in the rank of civilised nations. I wish to advance her from the degraded post of mercenary province, to the proud station of an integral and governing member of the greatest empire in the world."

Fitzgibbons's contention was that without the Act of Union, Irish Catholics would rise up and overthrow their masters. Why this was believed I don't know, as he was speaking only a few short years after it had been quite clearly proven the Irish, while they might mostly have the stomach and heart for such a rebellion, had no real means of achieving it. Perhaps the Protestants, remembering the victories the United Irishmen had won, and the atrocities committed by them, or even thinking back to the time of Cromwell, looked at each other in fear and doubt and asked, what if? So a combination really of scaremongering (not hard to achieve with the dread spectre of 1798 hovering over them) and bullying, along with the old standard, enlightened self-interest, convinced the Protestants that union was the way to go.

It seems to have been Fitzgibbon who put the idea in the king's head that granting any sort of relief or concessions to Catholics would violate his oath. King George III was not known to be an astute or clever man - he did, after all, suffer mental illness later in his life - but once an idea was planted in his head he stuck to it, without questioning its merit. So it was with the purported breaking of his oath. He would not be convinced otherwise by Pitt, which led to the resignation of the Prime Minister and the passing of the Act without any concessions to Catholics.

In this respect it could probably argued that, were his name better known and recognised in history, the Earl of Clare might indeed have gone down in Irish history as a man deserving of almost as much hatred as Oliver Cromwell, being the one who almost single-handedly prevented the relaxation of laws against Catholics and allowed them to be pulled into union with Britain under circumstances they had not expected. In other words, he was the broker of the reneging on the promise of Catholic emancipation, even if it was the word of His Majesty that stopped it in its tracks. As we would say here, a real fucking cunt.

The Rising Redux - Ireland Tries Again

A mere two years after Ireland had been forcibly joined to England to form the United Kingdom, Irish nationalists were again trying to secure its freedom. No doubt seeing the failure of the 1798 rising as something to build on and improve rather than something to discourage them from further attempts, the Irish would again seek the aid of the French in their bid to overthrow their oppressors, and again this aid would fail to come through. Realising the fears of Protestants, and allowing eerie truth to ring in the stentorian warnings of John Fitzgibbon prior to unification, Catholic Irish freedom fighters would show the Ascendancy that they were not in any way giving up the struggle, and this would continue to be the case through the next two centuries. Ironically, freedom for Ireland would eventually be won not through force of arms but by negotiation and a sense of inevitability, with the backdrop of the horror of the war to end all wars giving new perspective, but it would still take over another hundred years.

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Robert Emmet (1778 - 1803)

The architect of the first rising of the nineteenth century would be Robert Emmet, brother to Thomas, who had fought in the 1798 rebellion, and a contemporary of Theobald Wolfe Tone, one of the martyrs of the rising. Robert and Thomas's family were Protestants, members of the Ascendancy, and very financially comfortable, their father the physician to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He though became interested in the cause of American independence, and from there that of Irish freedom, and his sons carried his beliefs into - eventually tragic but historical - action, both fighting for their country and against their religion and king. The founder of the United Irishmen, William Drennan, also visited the Emmet house, so it must have been seen as a hotbed of Catholic revolt.

With the defeat of the 1798 rising, and the exile of his elder brother, Robert and William Putnam McCabe set about re-establishing the United Irishmen, this time under a strictly military footing, whereas before it had been a secret political society. Mere months after the end of the rising McCabe set out for France, to try to convince Napoleon to come to the aid of the Irish against the English, and Emmet joined him there in 1802. However they chose their time badly. France had already given aid to Ireland in the abortive 1798 rising, to its cost, and Napoleon was busy with other matters, like the wars which came to bear his name. So he said "Non, merci" and sent the Irish on their way.

One thing Emmet and McCabe did here, which I haven't seen any reference to being attempted in the previous rising, was to reach out to English Jacobins, left-wing radicals who followed and espoused the principles of the French Revolution, and in particular the United Britons. It seems odd to me that the United Irishmen did not, as surely gaining support in the lair of the enemy would have helped their cause. And we know they travelled, to France anyway, in the hopes of securing allies there, so why not call in to see if they could rally the support of the United Britons? Were they around at that time?

Hmm. Quite strange. Seems they were formed around 1796 so should have been in some sort of shape for the rising, but maybe the rebels didn't want to appeal to Englishmen for help? Or maybe they didn't know of them. Whatever the reason, Robert Emmet and William McCabe did, and they tried to enlist their help. Unfortunately, as I've said before and will be chagrined but right to say again and again and again, Irish risings were always doomed. Robert Emmet's is a particular case of poor planning, cowardice, misunderstandings, bad timing and bad luck, and really, in another world it would have been quite funny. Almost.

The first problem Emmet and McCabe ran into was with their intended allies in the United Britons (sometimes also called United Englishmen). As usual, there was a traitor in the camp, this time a man called Thomas Wright, but what his role, if indeed any, in the thwarting of the rebellion was I have no idea, nor whether he communicated information to London about the United Britons. Either way though, the Englishmen were arrested and Edward Despard, who had travelled to make the alliance, executed. This afforded Emmet a much frostier reception when he arrived in 1803 to lay plans and talk strategy. It seemed his enemies were either dispersed or no longer interested in fighting for Ireland.

Before we go any further, let's look into this Despard character.

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Edward Despard (1751 - 1803)

As I research the history of Irish opposition to the English occupation of our shores, it's been surprising to me how many of the most rebellious and hardline fighters have come from the Protestant class. Far from being just disgruntled Catholics trying to gain their rights and those of their countrymen, important figures in the first rising came from, as we saw, the aristocracy and the Ascendancy, Lord Edward Fitzgerald being the most prominent, but here too we find Robert and Thomas Emmet's father, as well as both his sons, coming from a Protestant (and wealthy) background, yet taking up the cause for Irish independence. Another such was Edward Despard, born into wealth and privilege in County Laois and who in fact served in the American War of Independence, fighting alongside the legendary Admiral Nelson (not yet an admiral of course at that time), and was a member of the British Army for over twenty years. Not only was he a Protestant but also descended from Huguenots, and so you would think would have had reason to hate Catholics, at least historically, given their persecution and exile by Louis XIV.

The very opposite of a racist, he ensured land he oversaw in the Bay of Honduras in 1789 was equally available to black or white, rich or poor, man or woman. His even-handedness upset the local Baymen - loggers who kept slaves - whose protests were instrumental in having Despard recalled to London in 1790, dire warnings of a revolt among the slaves and recently-freed men convincing the British government that Despard was better back home than making waves abroad. Despard brought with him his black wife, to the scandal of London, though his position ensured it was not discussed openly or condemned. Perhaps strangely, perhaps not, it was in fact his own family who later denied the marriage, refusing to accept that Catherine had been married to their son. This may have had something to do with his fall from grace, in allying himself to the Irish cause, or it might have been an attempt to clean up, as they saw it, and as far as could be done, the family name.

Despard's troubles followed him home, not only in the shape of the general - if restrained - disapproval of his marriage, but in lawsuits lodged by the Baymen against him for "unfair practices". These landed him in a debtor's prison for two years, where he passed the time reading. For those who have never read Dickens, a debtors' prison, though certainly a prison, was not as harsh in terms of punishment as the likes of Newgate; though nothing was provided, unlike regular prisons, all could be purchased and if you had enough money you could be quite comfortable there. There was no treadmill, no rule prohibiting conversation among prisoners, no chains etc. What caught Despard's interest most was Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, and it set him thinking about the injustices across the water, in Ireland.

On his release he had to take refuge in revolutionary France, where his ideas about freedom hardened, and when he got back to Britain he joined the London Corresponding Society, a debating club, of all things, which was dedicated to reforming the British Parliament. The Seditious Meetings Act and the Treasons Act (1795) both made gatherings discussing or contemplating "seditious behaviour" a crime, one of treason, and Despard was arrested after a riot in Charing Cross, though later released. His luck ran out when he met Fr. James Coigly, arrived from Manchester. Coigly was a prominent figure in the United Irishmen, and had come to try to rally support for the uprising the next year. With Coigly he was arrested on the way back from France; Coigly was hanged and Despard was imprisoned for three years.

On his release, Despard again teamed up with agitators and United Irishmen in preparation for another rising, and an alleged plot to kill the king. He was arrested and tried for high treason in 1802. It was little more than a show trial, with hardly any evidence produced but the inevitable guilty verdict reached. Despite pleas for mercy from his wife and even from such a heroic figure as Nelson, and due to the fear that Britain was on the verge of its own rebellion, Despard and his compatriots were executed on February 21 1803.

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Back we go to Robert Emmet then. Unlike some of his contemporaries a few years earlier, he is said not to have relied upon French assistance for the rising, but it all went to hell in a handbasket anyway. Honestly, if it wasn't so serious it would be hilarious, and one thing it certainly was, was typically Irish.

The rising - which hardly deserves the name, lasting less than a day - was beset by problems from the very start. To be fair to Emmet, he and his people do seem to have learned from 1798, and in addition to the standard pikes (some of which could fold up to be concealed under cloaks) he had grenades, rockets and exploding wooden beams. He had no artillery, of course, but at least, weapons-wise, he was a little better prepared than his brother's crew five years previous. Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong, did.

An accidental explosion at one of his concealed arms depots led to the date of the rising being brought forward before the caches could be discovered, and so on July 23 1803 the rising was to begin. Quite cleverly, or at least astutely, Emmet had proclaimed that the coming rising was not a sectarian one: "We are not against property – we war against no religious sect – we war not against past opinions or prejudices – we war against English dominion."

In this he hoped to show this was not a case of Catholics rising against and fighting Protestants, but Irishmen resisting the occupying English overlords. He gave assurances that there would be no revenge reprisals against loyalists, no outrages or attacks. It was a canny thing to say, and should have helped secure if not support at least no resistance from sides which up to now had always been opposed and which lived in mutual distrust and fear of each other. In effect, what he was saying was "look lads, all that burning down houses, killing Protestants, atrocities - it's all so eighteenth century. This is a new age, and we don't hold with that kind of stuff. If you're not with us, that's cool, that's cool. Just don't be against us, and there'll be no trouble. You want to join us, magic, very welcome. Just don't get in our way. Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone, deal?"

Fine words, and fine sentiments. Probably might have even worked. But again, the twin spectres of bad planning and the demon drink scuppered any chance Emmet's rising had of being successful.

A large contingent of men, led by a former leader of the 1798 rising, Michael Quigly, arrived at Emmet's weapons depots with what has variously been reported as hundreds or even thousands of men, eager to take up arms and fight for their country. The problem was that Emmet had not counted on such a large number turning up, and he hadn't nearly enough weapons to supply them all. Shrugging, disgruntled and probably disparaging his lack of quartermaster skills, the Kildare men turned and headed home. Later that evening they would put into effect a half-hearted attempt at supporting the rising on their own, but this would flounder on the news that Dublin had failed to come through, and they quickly surrendered.

The plan, as before, had been to take Dublin Castle, the seat of power of the British government in Ireland. Being in the heart of the capital, this was only lightly defended, and Emmet planned to take it by stealth, using fine carriages to present the illusion of gentlemen on their way to a meeting to gain entry. The carriages though never arrived, due to a dispute between the commander and the local garrison, in which a soldier was shot. With no way into the Castle now, and a mere eighty men when he should have had about two thousand, Emmet now learned that his rockets and grenades were useless - some mix-up with the fuses, technical bods, you know how it is - and thought it best to try to call things off.

Unfortunately by now the thing had a life of its own, given impetus by the sight of his men completely pissed and reeling through the streets, firing at anything that moved, or indeed didn't. Lamp posts were shot at, and we all know what a threat to Irish independence they were! Trying to make the best of what was rapidly becoming the least impressive rising in the less than impressive history of Ireland's attempts to break her chains, Emmet drew his sword, turned to his - by now almost completely drunk - men and shouted "Now is your time for liberty!" He might as well have shouted "Time, gentlemen, please!" for all the notice they took of him.

To darken the comedy a little, and bring things back to reality, let's not forget that people did die in this truly ineffectual attempt at rebellion, which you have to imagine might only have succeeded due to the British being too helpless with laughter at the incompetence of the drunken Catholics to do anything. The Lord Chief Justice, Arthur Wolfe, Viscount Kilwarden, had the bad luck to ride down the street as the intoxicated Irishmen rampaged through Dublin, looking for a target. He was dragged from his carriage and hacked to death, while a single soldier was also pulled off his horse and met a similar end. Drunken soldiers then tried to force passers-by at Ballsbridge to fight for their country, but everyone ignored them.

By midnight, the military had finally got their shit together and hauled themselves out onto the street, where the rebels were easily dispersed, probably heading for any late-night drinking establishment that would let them in. Dejected, Emmet returned home to a brow-beating from his housekeeper for his failure and for abandoning his men (not that you could blame him really. It had all gone spectacularly tits-up).

In Antrim, hotbed of resistance in 1797/1798 and scene of the "Dragooning of Ulster", nobody gave a shit. It was, in the end, way way too soon. The lessons of 1798 had been learned and were still raw wounds; nobody expected a rising to succeed, and nobody cared. One of the organisers of the attempted northern resistance, Thomas Russel, saw the grand total of three people turn out to hear him speak, and one opined that being subservient to the French would be as bad as being under the English boot. Nowhere in the country, with the small exception of some lacklustre action, as already mentioned, in Kildare, did the nationalist fervour catch. People were, in general, probably tired or risings that went nowhere, and also fearful of the dreadful reprisals for which the British had become infamous. You're all right, they said: we're grand thanks. In that fatalistic attitude typical of the Irish, they probably said "English occupation? Ah, sure, it will do."

Perhaps strangely (certainly strange to me), given that the rising had failed so utterly and so comically, Emmet still seemed to think that the French would be interested, and sent one of his commanders off to see if Napoleon fancied popping over and saving them from the English? It's recorded that the emperor's laughter could be heard as far as... well, no, it isn't, but suffice to say Napoleon had enough trouble on his hands without taking on Ireland too. Had the Irish managed to take Ireland for him, defeat the English and give him a base he could use, well, there could be merit in that. But send an invasion force into a country still completely controlled by his enemies? Step into the lion's den naked and weaponless? Sacre bleu! Formidable! Or something.

Emmet was, of course, quickly captured, though he did himself no favours by switching his hiding place in order to get his leg over, visiting his girlfriend, Sarah Curran. Our old friend Leonard McNally, (remember him? Renowned traitor who helped do for the 1798 rising?) got involved in the trial and sealed the young leader's fate. Sentenced to hang, Emmet made his last speech from the dock, one that, despite the almost bumbling ineptitude of his attempted rising, has gone down in Irish republican history.

"Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance, asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain un-inscribed, and my memory in oblivion, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done."

And so ended the second major attempt at an uprising in Ireland. Well, not quite. I mean, you couldn't call this a rising could you? It achieved nothing - other than the, no doubt unintended and certainly impossible to capitalise upon, death of the Lord Chief Justice (who had, paradoxically, been instrumental in saving the life of Wolfe Tone after the 1798 rebellion) - and was if anything further evidence, if any were needed, of the lack of organisation, commitment and discipline of the Irish Catholics, and even later champion of Catholic emancipation, Daniel O'Connell, denounced Emmet as "an instigator of bloodshed, undeserving of any compassion." Padraig Pearse, calling Ireland to arms over a hundred years later in the final Rising, would have a different take. He would describe Emmet's paltry rising as being "not a failure, but a triumph for that deathless thing we call Irish nationality." Right.

Really oddly, the news of the rising penetrated as far away as New South Wales, where the exiled Irish heard about it a year after it had failed (though were probably unaware of the result) and tried to sail home to join up and fight for the country of their birth. Needless to say, they never made it out of Australia.

Dublin Castle was quick to hush the whole incident up. After all, they had had no idea at all of the plot being hatched in their back garden, so to speak, and had the carriages actually turned up as planned, the centre of British power in Ireland could, theoretically, have been taken. Eighty men (some possible sober) could easily hold such a fortified building (it is a castle, after all) so maybe they realised, red-faced, not only how close they had come to being actually overrun but also how easy it had been for the scheme to unfold without their knowledge or any intelligence of it whatever making it back to them. You kind of have to wonder, though, what happened to the network of traitors and spies spoken of in the chapter on the 1798 rebellion? This was only five years later, and as we've seen, McNally at least was still alive and squealing. How is it that this so-called network was unable to infiltrate Emmet's United Irishmen and get word back to the Brits? Maybe Emmet, aware of or at least suspicious of the spies, made sure none of them got near him. I suppose we have to remember that many of these spies' identities were only uncovered after the rising.

Even so, it was a catastrophic failure of intelligence on behalf of the English. I mean, imagine for instance a bunch of ISIS terrorists discussing taking the White House or the Capitol Building while based in an apartment block just off Pennsylvania Avenue. Not likely, right? And it should not have been likely here either, which led impetus to the British government to cover up the whole thing and hope it went away. It also gave them licence, however, to turn the spotlight back on the "unruly Catholics", ignoring the fact of course that Emmet was a Protestant, as was Russell, and Jemmy Hope, another organiser in the north, was a Presbyterian.

I suppose you can at least say that Emmet's heart was in the right place, and luckily for him, remained so. Although said to have been sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering, any account I can turn up speaks of his being hanged and then beheaded, which means then that he avoided that most humiliating, terrifying and agonising of deaths traditionally reserved by the Crown for traitors, the ultimate deterrent, and also the ultimate ugly spectator draw. Who wants to watch a man hang when you can see him go through so much more? Perhaps by now the meaning of hanging, drawing and quartering had taken on a different meaning, perhaps the accounts I read were wrong, or perhaps the method of his death was commuted at the last, maybe in fear of unnecessarily stoking new hatreds among the Catholics. Anyway, it seems Robert Emmet was buried in an unmarked grave, until some years later when his remains were spirited to the family plot.

Personal Thoughts on Robert Emmet

Look, I'm not going to denigrate a patriot and an Irish hero - I even spoke to one of his descendants on another forum - but let's be brutally honest: we're dealing with a well-intentioned gobshite here, aren't we? Someone whose heart may have been in the fight but whose brain certainly could not have been. Firstly, why did he have to organise the so-called rising for when he did? I get he was pushed by the explosion at the armoury but even so, why did it have to be 1803, a mere five years after the Irish had been thrashed into submission with very little effort on behalf of the British? How could he have believed the country was again spoiling for a fight (without copious amounts of alcohol)? How could be not have understood that those who died in 1798 did so more or less in vain; that they achieved nothing at the time and failed utterly to rouse the country into rebellion, the only real bastion of the rising being Wexford? Why did he think the time was now? Why did he go looking for help from the French, and then, finding his requests turned down, go ahead anyway?

Even allowing for the fact that, against all the signs, he decided to proceed, how did he so badly miscalculate the ratio of guns to men? Could he really have interested that many more people than he had expected, and so had no weapons for them? And if he did, how could he not see that going ahead with the plan, left with less than a hundred of the two thousand men he had expected, was suicide and pointless? Even allowing all that, why couldn't he keep his men - the few he had - out of the fucking pub? Everyone knows the worst place you can bring an Irishman is the local, and don't expect to get any work out of him if he finds his way in there. Even given all of that, finding his men virtually drunk off their asses, why did he not call the whole damn thing off? But no. He had to go ahead didn't he, making his crazy, all but suicidal and certainly symbolic gesture, and he paid for it with his life.

What has remained of Robert Emmet is a legend, built upon by successive attempts by Irish leaders to throw off the chains of oppression, and pointed to as a perfect example of the ultimate sacrifice, when in my opinion what it should be pointed to as a perfect example of is ho0w not to start an uprising! But Ireland loves her tragic heroes, and our history, and even our legend, is hardly replete with victories against our enemies, so we take refuge in the "nobility of sacrifice" and the "struggle for independence", and so Emmet has become a folk hero, perhaps undeservedly. It's sort of odd that he sounds like someone who was being used as a pawn, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Napoleon could not have given le merde single, the other leaders of the United Irishmen desperately advised him to call off the rising that morning but he would have none of it. So nobody seems to have been pulling his strings, leading him into a hopeless act of pointless rebellion. He walked into the fire himself, and burned in it.

His ineptitude and naivete has not stopped him becoming a hero though of course. Shelley was one of his biggest supporters, and one of the ones who helped create the myth that today surrounds him, and there are statues of him in Dublin, Washington and San Francisco. He has been depicted in story, song, on stage and screen, and has towns, counties, schools and parks named after him. He's of course gone down in Irish history as one of the men whose sacrifice and refusal to bow down (or lay proper plans) led eventually to the freedom of Ireland, and I wouldn't dream of trying to take that from him. At least he gave it a go, which in his place I can't say I would have done.

There's an Irish saying: God loves a trier, and Emmet certainly was one of those. Unfortunately, trying by itself isn't enough. You also need to have a strategy, and in fairness he had, but he didn't seem then to have any sort of contingency plan for what to do if one part of his - at the time - relatively well-thought-out plan fell apart. Essentially, it was like an engine which, no matter how well-made it may be, fails as soon as one part stops working. Section by section and module by module his plan began to fall apart, but rather than take note of that and try to readjust and adapt his strategy, he continued on with a bastardised version of the original plan, and so he was doomed to fail.

Ironically, though it would take another century and more before Ireland finally was free, the long-awaited and prayed for emancipation of Catholics was less than a quarter of a century down the road, and would be achieved, in the main, without the need to resort to risings, rebellions or violent struggle of any kind.

The Rights of (Catholic Irish) Man: Moves Towards Acceptance and Recognition

We've heard how much of an underclass Irish Catholics had become from the time Henry VIII established the Church of England and became an implacable enemy of the Pope, and more specifically from James II's plantation of Ulster with Protestants, and the rise of the Ascendancy. For almost three hundred years now, Catholics had struggled to gain recognition and representation, rights and standing in their own country, and had been more or less laughed at and reviled. Taking up arms had not forced the British government to capitulate, and in fact they had little to no intention of doing so, as their own population looked to them to keep the "papist menace" at bay, none more so than the ruling classes of Ulster, who, though in power, felt like a man on a rickety raft in the ocean as the sharks swarm around him, closing in. Ulster Protestants were more than aware that they still made up the minority in  Ireland, and beyond the border to the south was teeming with Catholics, all just itching to do them in while they slept. They must be kept down, brutalised, deprived of their rights, and given no chance to assert any sort of authority or raise their voices in government circles. It was their paramount mission.

To the northeast, though, too, another arch-enemy of the papacy watched developments with disbelieving and angry eyes, as the first Catholic Relief Act, called the Papists Act,  was passed in 1778. Scotland had occasionally been an ally with Ireland against England, and, too, had sided with France against the auld enemy, but Scotland was very much a Protestant country. It was here that John Calvin had begun preaching his version of Protestantism, very much opposed to the idea of Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, deposing Queen Elizabeth, a Protestant monarch. Presbyterianism was big here too, and there were few Catholics. But for all that, even more than Northern Ireland today, Scotland rang with the cry of "No Popery!"
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So when the Papists Act allowed, under certain conditions, Catholics to join the army and own land, Scottish jaws slavered with rage, Scottish eyes bulged with hatred, and Scottish people rose in unison against this betrayal of their religious tenets. The fear was that although the Act applied at the time only to England, it was expected to be visited on Scotland too, and they weren't having that! In response, a minor riot broke out on October 18 1778 in Glasgow, where the house of a family of Catholics who were celebrating mass was attacked, the windows smashed, the occupants chased out and the house taken over. Hey, sounds like those "Old Firm" matches between Celtic and Rangers to me!  It wasn't exactly a Scottish kristallnacht, but it was telling that no law enforcement intervened, and the riot was only broken up when the rioters got bored and staggered off home. It was the first such riot, and really more a small display of the prevailing public feeling than an actual riot.

But a real one was on the horizon.
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The Protestant Association

Created to combat the spread of the Catholic menace, the Protestant Association was basically a group of religious figures and politicians who fanned the flames of resentment against the papists, and scare-mongered for all they were worth. The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SPCK)  lobbied for the repeal of the Act, and tried to pressure the influential synod of Lothian and Tweedale, but Principal Robertson of Edinburgh University, where the synod was held, refused to be pushed, declaring that the SPOCK, sorry, SPCK was not going to force them to "deprive any person of his inheritance or subject them to civil penalties for conscience's sake". Frustrated, and afraid they would miss their chance to lobby parliament, which was soon to reconvene, the SPCK pulled in the support of the Committee for the Protestant Interest, also known as the Society of Friends of the Protestant Interest, to increase pressure on the synods, and later these two organisations merged to become the new Protestant Association.

With much distribution of inflammatory (and mostly inaccurate where not plain untrue) pamphlets, meetings and plenty of screaming and warnings, the Protestant Association quickly succeeded in its aim of turning the people of Scotland against the native Catholics, painting them as heretics and traitors who did not deserve any sort of tolerance, much less that shown in the Papist Acts. It was all but a call to holy war, and it spread like wildfire across Scotland. Town and borough councils quickly fell into line, petitions were organised and garnered thousands of signatures, and very soon a deep, entrenched resistance to any relief for Catholics rose right across the country. Some of the newspaper columns and pamphlets read disturbingly like something you might expect to see in a German newspaper around 1936.

"Have no dealings with them [Catholics]; neither buy from them nor sell them anything; neither borrow nor lend with them; give them no visits, nor receive any from them."

"Let them [those against Popery] make lists of those within their bounds, containing their names, callings and places of abode, and publish it, that all men may know them."

"Let each parish make a solemn resolution to drop all intercourse with papists, particularly bearing in mind that they will not in the future employ papists in any business whatsoever."

"And that whosoever within their bounds acts contrary to this resolution shall be reputed a papist, and dealt with accordingly."

Well, that's nice and clear isn't it? Sieg Heil, Jimmy, pass the jackboots! If you think senators and congressmen being intimidated by Qanon and Trump supporters is new, then listen to this extract from the account by Principal Robertson, denouncing the Protestant Association in the General Church of Scotland: "I have been held out to an enraged mob, as the victim who next deserves to be sacrificed. My family has been disquieted; my house has been attacked; I have been threatened with pistols and daggers. I have been warned that I was watched in my going out and my coming home; the time has been set beyond which I was not to live, and for several weeks not a day passed on which I did not receive incendiary letters."

One assumes that's a metaphor, not that he was receiving actual bombs, but hey, put nothing past these guys. They were pissed, pissed as only those who hate and despise any dissenting voice can be pissed. They believed Robertson a Catholic-lover, and were more than likely ready to surround his house chanting "Hang Robertson! Hang Robertson!"

Yet for all the unrest and hateful rhetoric coming out of Glasgow, it was Scotland's capital city that provided the first real spark for a full scale riot. Accusations of a house newly built being used as a Catholic chapel in defiance of the law in 1777 led to a fever of anti-papist sentiment which started as vague and random intimidation of Catholics on the streets of Edinburgh and which exploded into a full out attack on the home at the heart of their (imaginary) grievance, that of Father Hay, on January 30. Windows were broken and assistance refused from the Lord Provost, who even turned back offers of help from other quarters, giving tacit approval to the attacks.

And that was all the crowd, who swiftly became a mob of rioters, wanted to see.

February 2 saw the wholesale destruction of Catholic properties, their owners forced to flee, the authorities nowhere to be seen. The rioters returned the next day, declaring their intention to "compleat (sic) the destruction of every Catholic in the place, and of all others who had in any respect appeared favourable to their Bill." Finally realising they could delay no longer, the city magistrates called in the army, and the enraged mob, trying to burn the home of their hated enemy Robertson, were turned back by an armed presence. With soldiers on the streets, the rioters drifted away, but they had achieved their objective. On February 6 it was announced that "the fears that had prompted such devastation had been justified" and the Relief Act was now "totally laid aside." There would be no tolerance for Catholics, and the Protestants had won the day.

That was it for Edinburgh, as it was fun to terrorise unarmed Catholics (remember, the original Penal Laws forbade them owning or carrying weapons), scaring women and children, but the rioters were not about to go up against their own military, and while some, or many, of these men's sympathies may have lain with the agitators, unlike today, they had sworn an oath to the King and would do their duty, regardless of personal opinion or affiliation. If not, they would likely have been court-martialled. But down the road in Glasgow...

Robert Bagnall was the most prosperous Catholic in the city, so naturally became the target for the anger of the mob that stormed through Glasgow on February 9. His crime, apparently, had been that he had "not been very moderate in his language or behaviour", and his shop and house were burned while he and his family fled, sheltered by sympathetic Protestant friends. Once again, the authorities turned a very blind eye and nobody was prosecuted or arrested for the attacks. The government was humiliated to have been forced by the pressure of rowdy mobs and special interest groups to have to repeal the Papists Act, and voices within Parliament warned that what had happened in Scotland, and with no retribution whatever, in fact total success, could and most probably would be replicated over the border in England.

They were right.

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Lord George Gordon (1751 - 1793)

Even now, over two hundred years later, the jury remains out as to whether he was actually insane, though many believe he was. What is not in doubt, however, is that he was the face of Scottish anti-Papism that met the equally ugly face of English bigotry, and, carrying the riots of Edinburgh and Glasgow to their natural conclusion, was almost single-handedly responsible for the worst anti-Catholic protests and violence in England since the Great Fire of London.

A vehement and vocal opponent of the American War of Independence, he resigned his commission in the navy before he had to serve in that conflict, his views not helping his parliamentary career when he took his seat as MP for Ludgershall in Wiltshire. In 1779 he became president of the Protestant Association and began lobbying hard against the Catholic Relief Act, and in addition to the by now usual threats and predictions as to how the Catholics would drag all of England into a state of "popery", invite the French to invade and presumably roast and eat Protestant children, he warned that England was in danger of returning from a constitutional monarchy back to the days of absolute rulers, one of whom, Louis XVII, would a decade later be deposed and executed as the French Revolution roared into almost unstoppable life.

Gordon had had great success stirring up people's fears and prejudices in Scotland, as described above, and now believed he could replicate that success here in England. The king, though, was not interested. He entertained him till he got bored, then refused to grant him any further audiences. On May 27 1780, Gordon decided to forget trying to gain royal assent for his policies, even taking the rather dangerous step of denouncing the King as an agent of popery,  and on June 2 instead convened a large contingent of his followers, who descended on the House of Commons, in an effort to force them to reject and repeal the Papist Act.

Unlike in Scotland, where pure hatred and distrust of Catholics was the driving force for the riots, here multiple other issues contributed, including the increasingly unsuccessful efforts by the empire to subdue the American colonies, the cost of living, lack of faith or trust in the government and unemployment and low wages. In essence, not only Catholics were attacked when the riots broke out, but anyone seen as profiting from the current situation, anyone rich (or deemed to be), anyone prosperous, anyone who disagreed with the rioters or, frequently, anyone who got in their way or looked funny at them.
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With a crowd - quickly becoming a mob - of an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 behind him, and more joining as they marched, Gordon tried to force entry into the House but was stopped, only he himself allowed in as a member of Parliament. Outside, as the impatient mob waited for a result, violence erupted. Ministers leaving were attacked, their coaches overturned, the small contingent of guards present at the House unequal to the task of controlling such a huge gathering. Eventually the army was sent in and restored order, driving the protesters away, while inside the House Gordon's petition was all but unanimously voted down.

Things got worse that night.

Huge crowds organised and gathered to attack Catholic churches and dwellings, and the large Irish settlement of Moorfields came in for particular attention. Again, no appreciable police or military presence was seen on the streets, and Newgate and other prisons were attacked, burned and prisoners freed. The house of the Lord Chief Justice also became a target. Violence continued into the night and the next morning the Bank of England was assaulted, but the army were able to throw the rioters back, although sustaining heavy casualties. Nevertheless, it still took four more days before the army would begin to respond in any real numbers to the violence, making it hard to believe that the rioting was not at best supported, at worst tolerated by the government.

June 7 saw reprisals, finally, as the army took back the streets, killing over 280 rioters and arresting over 400, including their ringleader, Lord George Gordon. An excellent depiction of the events can be read in Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, which centres around the Gordon Riots. Of the 450 or so arrested, only twenty to thirty of the rioters faced execution, and Gordon, though tried for high treason, was acquitted. For some reason he converted to Judaism, and, as vehement and radical as he had been as a Protestant, he became one of the most hardline Jews, sticking rigidly to scripture and abhorring and avoiding those who did not.

He later found himself in the very prison his supporters had destroyed - rebuilt now - as libel suits gained him five years behind Newgate's bars. Nine months after completing his sentence he died of typhoid fever, an epidemic of which had been raging through the completely unsanitary prison. 

Light at the End of the Tunnel: Catholic Emancipation

But despite the best efforts of militant Protestants, rights for Catholics could not be denied or held back forever, and the day was fast approaching when the "papists" would enjoy the same privileges, mostly, as their Anglican and Calvinist brothers and sisters. It had been pretty conclusively proven that this could not be achieved by force of arms (while the opposition had proven beyond doubt that this was the very means by which it could be denied) and, like many great and important questions, this would finally take thinkers, philosophers, men willing to compromise and sit down and talk the whole thing out, for the good of both countries.

The man who would bring this about would be known in Ireland as the Great Liberator.

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Daniel O'Connell (1775 - 1847)

A native of County Kerry, Daniel O'Connell was born into a Catholic family which had somehow managed to retain their land, mostly through Protestant trustees and their connections. When he was just sixteen Daniel and his brother were sent to France to continue their education. This was a bad move, as the year 1791 saw some of the worst excesses of the French Revolution, and the brothers had to flee the country's anti-religion sentiment. The experience soured Daniel on using violence as a means to an end, and he swore later that "liberty is not worth the shedding of a single drop of blood." He and his brother escaped to London, and returned to Ireland in 1795.

Four days before the 1798 rising, Daniel was called to the bar, and having no faith in, and giving no support to the rebellion, remained at home in Kerry while the British forces of Viscount Lake crushed the rebels. As we've seen above, he was equally critical of the pseudo-rising attempted by young Robert Emmet, deploring the Irishman's use of violence. In contrast to his time in France, he found many like-minded people in London, such as Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham and William Godwin, and helped pass the Slavery Abolition Act as well as the Act of Reform. He believed passionately that Church and State should be kept separate. He also fought hard against the idea that Catholic bishops should allow their appointment to be subject to the favour of the Crown, arguing that if this were to happen, the bishops would be nothing more than mouthpieces for the Anglican church.

Not only that, but the Crown and Westminster recognised worriedly the part the Catholic priests had played in 1798, and knew that if there was one institution that the papists would and could rally around, it was that of their clergy. Draw them in under the control of the Crown, and that threat could be effectively nullified. If bishops could be appointed they could be dismissed too, if His Majesty felt or was advised they were overstepping their bounds. O'Connell knew this too, and made sure there was no English veto on the appointment of bishops.
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The Catholic Association

Perhaps as a response to, perhaps despite Lord Gordon's Protestant Association, Daniel O'Connell set up the Catholic Association, in, um, association with the Irish Catholic church, to lobby for the cause of emancipation for Catholics. Unlike its Protestant equivalent though, this one was not open only to academics, politicians, industrialists and the like. For a tiny fee (the "Catholic rent") of one penny a month anyone could join, which meant the Catholic Association became the first mass-member organisation in the entire world. Not only did this allow its membership to swell to unheard-of numbers, it also effectively removed the class barriers that had characterised such organisations in the past, both Protestant and Catholic. The whole idea, of course, apart from a certain type of "silent terrorism by numbers", was to involve as many ordinary Catholics in the struggle as possible, and show them they had a voice, a way to make their opinions heard, a way to fight back (though being O'Connell's creation violence was not used as a coercive method).

The Catholic rent was clever, as it served three purposes. One, as outlined above, the most obvious, was to get people to join, the more the better. Another was to swell the coffers of the Association: a penny a month is not much, but a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand or more pennies a month adds up to a sizeable sum to go into a war chest. Thirdly, the incredibly low and affordable price all but forced every single Catholic to join: after all, if they did not, others would ask why not? Don't you want repeal? You can't say you can't afford a penny every month. Not that I imagine any Catholic would not want to join, but this would remove an excuse, were any looking for one, and lend suspicion to their reticence to join.

The money could be used to lobby parliament, help Catholic tenants evicted by Protestant landlords or any other good, Catholic causes the Association wished to show support to. Almost at one stroke, it pulled all the disparate elements of Catholic dissatisfaction and grievance together, and allowed them to shout their protest with one, very loud and powerful voice, a voice nobody could ignore.
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The Home Secretary (later Prime Minister) Robert Peel was so worried about its power that he equated it with his own government, and the Duke of Wellington foresaw Irish civil war if the Catholic Association was allowed to continue unchecked. The fact that the Association remained loyal to the Crown, though, was a mitigating factor, and made them seem that little bit less radical and less of a threat, giving them more bargaining power. Of course, it already had the considerable backing of the Catholic Church, and priests would regularly collect the contributions for the Catholic Association after Sunday mass, perhaps again another reason why no God-fearing and loyal Catholic would want to be singled out as not being a member.

With a General Election and a new Prime Minister in 1826, the Association began to support those MPs in the House who looked favourably upon the idea of Catholic emancipation, while in 1828 the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, which had previously banned "dissenters" from holding public office left Catholics as the only ones now being penalised (literally, thanks to the remaining Penal Laws) and they believed surely the way was opening up towards their political and religious freedoms being recognised and enshrined in law too.

Catholic power, as it were, was shown to great effect at the contentious Waterford elections, when the sitting candidate, Lord Thomas Beresford, smugly confident that his poor tenants would not dare vote against him, had a nasty shock and perhaps too late realised the true impact of O'Connell's Catholic Association when he was defeated as his tenants defied him, and tradition, and voted for a liberal landlord.

This was only the first in a series of upsets for the comfortable and complacent Tory landlords. The tide was beginning to turn. In May, O'Connell himself sat for the seat for County Clare vacated by the retirement of William Huskinson and his replacement as  the President of the Board of Trade by William Vesey-Fitzgerald. O'Connell knew the Penal Laws prevented him from taking a seat in Westminster as a Catholic, but somewhat in the same way as a hundred years later, Gerry Adams of the republican Sinn Fein party would stand for and win a seat, but be unable to take it, O'Connell knew that if he won the seat the clamour over his being barred from sitting at Westminster would rile up the Irish Catholics.

The Catholic clergy mobilised as only they could do, whipping up the people into a fervour of support for the Liberator, one of them declaring "Let every renegade to his God and his country follow Vesey-Fitzgerald, and every true Catholic Irishman follow me!" O'Connell garnered twice as many votes as his opponent, winning the seat easily. Now the British government had a problem. The cause of Catholic repression had never been so publicly front and centre in favour of the position of the oppressed. Fearing a total revolution in Ireland, and unprepared for such an event, Peel and Wellington pushed through the long-fought-for Catholic Relief Act of 1829. Daniel O'Connell had done what Robert Emmet and the men of 1798 had spectacularly failed to do, and had finally won emancipation for his people.

His people. Yes. Let's look at that. Daniel O'Connell surely deserves the title of the Great Liberator that he has earned, however it's also important not to be blinkered about his success. As Richard Killeen points out in A Brief History of Ireland, O'Connell marshalled and mobilised the poor, the ordinary people via the penny-a-month membership fee to the Catholic Association, but he was not above throwing them to the wolves if and when it suited his purposes. This is borne out in his surprise support for a bill authored by Sir Francis Burdett, which had within its text two important provisos, one being the state payment of Catholic clergy, and the other, more important one being the intention to restrict reforms to the rich classes. In other words, the bill provided for the disenfranchisement of those Catholic landowners who paid less than forty shillings for their land, i.e. all the poorer ones.

In the end, it made no difference as once again the House of Lords, final arbiters in any law or Act being passed, voted the Burdett bill down. But here it does seem that O'Connell had played his hand and shown that if he could achieve his aims by throwing the "little people" under the carriage, he was more than ready to do so. And to be fair, the "little people", as Killeen so archly notes, did "much of the heavy lifting for him."

Although Ireland had been traditionally and originally a Catholic nation, Ulster still simmered and seethed with Protestant fervour, fury at the granting of equal rights (except to the poor) to their ancient enemies, and surely trembled a little now too, that they suddenly faced being a complete minority and no longer in control. A minority when taken as a percentage of the whole of the island, certainly, but still very much a majority power in Ulster, where O'Connell rather overconfidently directed his next efforts.

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Ulster Says No (again): The Repealer Repulsed

Surely O'Connell should have expected nothing less than a hostile reception once he crossed the border, but maybe he was too flushed with success to think about that, or maybe he just wanted to "free his Catholic brethren from the bondage of the Ascendancy"? Either way, he decided to tour there, to try to gain support from and speak to the Catholics of Ulster. Unsurprisingly, the Orangemen were having none of that, and turned out in great numbers in the town of Ballybray, Co, Monaghan, where they turned him back. The event was celebrated by Protestants across the province as the day the repealer was repulsed. It was quite clear that, despite or even in defiance of  their new legal status, Catholics would never get an easy ride in Ulster, and the battle lines - for now, only political but later to spill out into over thirty years of bloodshed, violence and terror -  were being drawn, with Ulster unionists determined to hold and defend that line, as Ian Paisley would later growl, and give "not one inch."

The poor tenants would as always get a raw deal, as one of the provisions in the Catholic Relief Act was for landlords to raise the minimal rent payable on land from forty shillings to ten pounds, an increase of I think five hundred percent. Who could afford that? Not the poor farmers, who, despite now being part of the Catholic Relief Act, surely did not feel either relieved or indeed liberated by the Great Liberator. As for him, he was a celebrity all over Europe, having seemed to have accomplished the impossible, and he had many ardent admirers. He took his seat, finally, with the restrictions removed for Catholics to sit in Parliament, in February 1830, but for a while it was more a symbolic victory, as he had few allies and in the early days of repeal there was a dearth of Catholics in Westminster. Later, when the government changed, he was able to make some alliances, the most significant of which was the eventual removal of the hated tithes in 1830.

But first, there would be a war.
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The Tithe War (1830 - 1836)

Technically speaking, this wasn't a war, not in the way 1798 or even Emmet's abortive rebellion could be - generously - described as such, and certainly nothing like the later 1916 Rising. Mostly, it was a time of protests, the majority of them non-violent, but like any protests there were those which went beyond harsh words and heated language. But what were the tithes, and why did Ireland feel so strongly about them? Well, first of all let's get the pronunciation right: tithe is pronounced with a soft "th", the same way scythe and blythe are. Tithe literally means ten percent, and was a levy pushed on Catholic Irish ostensibly for not attending "proper" mass, i.e. Anglican, but in reality as a stealth tax enabling the Church of Ireland to finance itself. People were expected to contribute a tenth of their earnings, land, cattle, produce, to the Anglican Church in Ireland, and this tax fell heaviest, as they always do, on the poor.

Pasture land was exempted from the tithes, and as this was generally only owned by the richer Protestants, land ownership being, until the final passage of the Catholic Relief Act, restricted to them alone, it was the poor Catholics, desperately trying to scratch a living on poor land who had to pay the most. The reality of this was that the Church of Ireland, which no Catholic wanted anything to do with, received about two-thirds of its annual income from people who were not allowed through its doors unless they converted, and which stood as a permanent symbol of their  continuing oppression; whose priests would loudly declaim on Sundays the heresies of the "papists", and swear they were all bound for Hell, while still taking their money. Rather ironically, the percentage of Protestants to Catholics in Ireland was about ten percent too.

Tithes were a slap in the face for Catholic Ireland. They were a way of the Protestants saying "we know you hate us but you're going to pay for us to continue to be here". Although sporadic protests and some violence had broken about against the practice, from about 1760 onwards, there was really nothing anyone could do until 1829, when the rights they had been robbed of for hundreds of years were finally restored to Catholics, and they could muster as an effective force, both political and spiritual, to face the injustice forced upon them.

The first to really grasp the nettle was a farmer called Patrick "Patt" Lalor, who, though he refused to resist any attempt to take his goods in payment for tithes, declared that he knew his friends and neighbours would support him and the Catholic cause by refusing to buy any of the cattle taken from him, which were put up for auction. He was right; though he stood peacefully by when the Irish Police took his cattle for non-payment, the auction to sell them was tumbleweed city. And this was only the beginning.

As ever, the Catholic clergy were deeply enmeshed and involved in what would become known as "the tithe war", which began March 3 1831 when the cattle of Fr. Martin Doyle were taken in lieu of money for the tithes at Graiguenamanagh in Co. Kilkenny. A few months later more serious clashes took place at Bunclody in Co. Wexford, where this time the resistance was met with gunfire, and twelve people were killed by the Irish Police, while in retaliation near the end of the year twelve constables were killed at the aptly-named town of Carrickshock, Co. Kilkenny, when a crowd ambushed forty of them as they arrived to destrain (take in place of) cattle, and when the men responsible for this were put on trial, an estimated 200,000 Irishmen turned out in protest. Speaking on behalf of the accused was one Daniel O'Connell, and his presence there ensured the demise of the tithe system.

But there were further confrontations, the largest and indeed last being at Rathcormac, Co. Cork (long known, and still known as "the rebel county") where in a small village called Bartlemy in the parish of Gortroe, about 100 armed British fired upon stone-throwing Irish who supported the widow Johanna Ryan who refused - or could not afford - to pay her tithes. As the party had approached with the Archdeacon to collect the - wait for it - forty shillings due, they were pelted by rocks and stones, then the defenders withdrew behind barricades set up on Widow Ryan's property and continued the assault on the unwelcome soldiers. Their commander ordered them to fire, and up to twenty Irish were killed, estimates ranging from twelve upwards.

At the outbreak of gunfire the defenders scattered, and the widow was left with no choice but to pay her tithe. Nevertheless, condemnation of the "massacre" from O'Connell as well as Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor and Henry Grattan led to charges against the army, which were later dropped. The incident did however serve as the final battle in the tithe war. In 1838 the tithes were camouflaged; cut by a quarter, they were now charged to the landlords and passed on as rent, under the Tithe Rentcharge (Ireland) Act, and finally abolished entirely thirty years later with the Irish Church Act, which completely disestablished the Church of Ireland.
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Teach Your Children: The Establishment of the Irish Educational System

One thing that dooms any people is ignorance. Charles Dickens noted this when he had his Ghost of Christmas Present warn Ebenezer Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol, to beware two emaciated waifs he showed him. "The boy is ignorance," he told the terrified miser, "the girl is want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware the boy, for on his brow I see written that which is doom unless the writing be erased."

The legendary writer was using Scrooge's indifference to, almost ignorance of the poor and the needy to illustrate a very valid point. The British government took this warning and twisted its intent, using it to attempt to erase the Irish Catholic by forbidding his education. As Hitler or Stalin would no doubt have told us, the most dangerous enemy is an educated man or woman. For people to be kept down and enslaved to your will they need to be kept ignorant, and if Catholics could not be educated they would grow up unaware that there was anything beyond the lives they lived of drudgery and compliance.

With Catholics banned from sending their children abroad to be educated, schools began to spring up all over Ireland, usually under the aegis of the Catholic Church and run by nuns or priests, starting a nightmare scenario that would terrify and cause resentment among Irish schoolchildren for centuries. You would think the male-dominated and run Christian Brothers would have been the most feared, but that only shows that you never had to endure the teachings of a nun! The Christian Brothers was set up by a former missionary, Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762 - 1844), who had been about to go abroad to preach when he was convinced to stay in Ireland and devote himself to the well-being and education of Irish youth. Not all that many of us would thank him for changing his mind!
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Rice set up a school in a converted stable (echoes of Bethlehem, eh?) in Waterford, and though a trying time, he managed to recruit other priests who took on teaching duties, his school soon expanding to a second one, whereafter he formed the order of Presentation Brothers and later the Christian Brothers, tasked with the education of young male children, particularly those from poor families. Eventually his schools spread even further, crossing over the channel where he set establishments up in England.

For girls, there was the horror of the nuns. What a great idea: to put women who were avowedly celibate (and mostly older and more bitter) in a position of power and authority over younger, pretty and impressionable girls! I mean, boys mostly laughed at the "Brothers", and took little to no notice of them, at least in my time, but even when I were a lad a nun could freeze you with a single disapproving look, and somehow you just never fought back. Beneath it all was probably the twin realisations that this was, technically anyway, a woman, and more to the point was a Bride of Christ, who, at ages eight to ten maybe, you did not want to be pissing off! And nuns knew it too, and used their power to its utmost. I remember my sister being sent home in tears because a horrible nun had told her my parents were going to Hell because they had separated. Fucking religion. My mother soon set her straight.

But though nuns could teach boys, they were usually assigned to girls' schools, and there were three orders set up in the nineteenth century that concerned themselves with educating young female minds. The first was the Presentation Sisters (which Rice copied obviously), founded as far back as 1776,  then the Sisters of Charity in 1815 and finally the Sisters of Mercy (NOT the goth band!) who were formed in 1831. It always amuses me that they chose these names, when mostly they had neither any concept of charity nor certainly mercy, if my sisters' and my own experiences are anything to go by.

Of course, having the Catholic school system, as it was then, controlled and run by the Church made it able to tighten its grip on the emerging new generation of Irish children, and one subject that was compulsory even when I went to school was religious education, sometimes called catechism or religious knowledge. It amounted to the same thing though: spiritual brainwashing as you were told all about God, Jesus and the Church and given no option but to profess your belief in it all. R.E. teachers prepared their young charges for such momentous events in their spiritual development as First Holy Communion and First Confirmation, with dreary dress rehearsals for both the norm, at least in my time.

In 1831 the government (British of course) created a national school act which provided millions of schoolchildren with an education, and though these schools, unlike those of the Christian Brothers or the nuns, were of mixed denomination and did not place so much emphasis on religious instruction, this would change towards the end of the century, as churches segregated their children along lines of faith and creed, with Catholic, Presbyterian and Protestant schools admitting only children from families of that belief. The largest university at the time, Trinity College, was steadfastly Protestant, established in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, but in 1854  Catholics wanted their own institution, even given that the long ban on their children entering Trinity had expired under the Catholic Relief Act. Catholic University was built, later taking the name University College Dublin, now Ireland's largest institution for third-level education.

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Train a-comin' - The Iron Horse Arrives in Ireland

As Catholics began to get educated in a way they had been prohibited and prevented from doing before the passing of the Act, the transport system was also beginning to catch up, as trains arrived in Ireland from 1834. Prior to this, transport had consisted of coaches - mostly those carrying mail - and canal boats, a slow progress to be had either way. A remarkably short time behind England, Ireland's first railway was opened in 1834 as the Dublin & Kingstown Railways (D&KR) which connected Dublin to the suburb of Dun Laoghaire, called at the time Kingstown, in honour of the visit of King George IV. Point of note: the only reason His Majesty was there was that he was too drunk to get off the ship he arrived in, historically  the first time an English  monarch had visited Ireland for peaceful purposes, and had to be taken ashore at Howth instead.

The D&KR was the first railway not only in Europe, but the world, to be exclusively dedicated to commuter travel. Early railways in America and other parts of Europe had been used primarily to convey freight or cattle, or were for specific uses but not open to the public. Ireland was also the first nation to construct her own locomotives. Of course, initially railways were confined to the larger cities such as Dublin and Limerick, where investors could be attracted and where profits could be made. The man who oversaw the building and laying of most of these early railways, and who is credited with the title of "father of the Irish railways" is this guy.
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William Dargan (1799 - 1867)

"Since I was ten years old, I have been hearing that we are unable to do anything .... for our own prosperity ... that we must have English capital, English judgment, English enterprise. English everything. Why I bring this forward is with the knowledge that there is one great interest in which that doctrine is disproved."

Literally a local boy done good, Dargan was the son of a poor tenant farmer who worked on the Earl of Portarlington's estate. Being a Catholic, opportunities were few for him but he managed, through dint of hard work and a head for numbers, to secure a place in a surveyor's office in his home town. Impressed by his progress there, a local MP and other prominent businessmen helped him to meet Thomas Telford, one of Scotland's primary engineers, who put him to work on the Holyhead-London Road. He also worked on English canals and the Howth Road in Dublin. When the Irish Parliament gave the go-ahead for the first Irish railway he worked tirelessly to promote it, lobbying and giving his own time for free until the thing was finally built in 1834. He later worked on the Ulster Canal, and then other railways, such as the Dublin and Drogheda, the Great Southern and Western and the Midland Great Western.

Unlike unscrupulous railroad barons in America, who earned reputations for being double-handed, unfair and corrupt, and who paid a pittance to their workers, Dargan was known to be more than a fair man; in fact, he paid the highest wages in the sector and was one of the few employers who paid not only in hard cash rather than "in kind", as many workers were, but also paid better wages for those who worked harder and whose work was of a sufficient quality to merit higher pay. The unions, of course, had a problem with this initially but eventually such conditions were accepted; in a time when the worker was being royally ripped off, they really couldn't afford to block such an enterprise, and besides, the incentive to work harder and better for more wages would become a model for future employers, and continues today. It was good for Ireland, good for the Irish worker, and good for Dargan. It also helped that he was so well-liked and trusted, some of this possibly due to his fervent nationalism.

Offered a knighthood he declined, and again when Queen Victoria herself visited him and offered him this time a baronetcy. This visit was on the occasion of Her Majesty attending the Dublin Exhibition, which had come about again thanks to the railway man. Impressed by the British Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, Dargan proposed a similar event be staged in Ireland, to showcase her relatively rapid advances in technology and show the world that the country was more than just backwards farmers working in fields. He ended up having to fund the whole thing, to the tune of £80,000 (about seven million today) and, though he lost over a quarter of that sum on the project was able, thanks to contributions and subscriptions to what was set up as the Dargan Fund in his honour, to open the National Art Gallery.
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Dargan was known to be a dedicated man, living in a mobile office and following the tracks as they were laid. He was not one to sit back in a comfortable city residence and be brought details of the progress of his railways; he was out inspecting them and making comments and suggestions as they went down. With no real access to any sort of industrial machinery at the time - Ireland being well behind Britain and the rest of Europe as the Industrial Revolution unfolded, being mostly a country based on farming and agriculture, and moreover, held very much down by the British occupier - most of the work was done manually, with hard sweat and graft.

Dargan was also one of the few Catholics who worked on a project in Ulster, taking over the laying of the Belfast to Lisburn line, and extending it into Portadown and later Armagh, and even excavating an island at Belfast harbour for his later shipping concerns to allow it to become a major port for the first time, where today the great shipyards of Harland and Wolff stand. During the Great Famine, when it seemed all of Ireland was dying of starvation, Dargan performed many humanitarian works, including paying men a week's wages and then sending them home to regain their strength, everyone too weak to work. It's estimated he saved thousands of lives this way, people who would otherwise have died of hunger, and gained himself even more of a place in the hearts of Irish Catholics.

He was responsible for developing the outlying town of Bray, Co. Wicklow into a popular holiday and amusement resort - I remember when a child our big day out being to go to the amusements at Bray, and the best part of it was the train journey there, as we really had no need to go on the train otherwise, though where we lived there was a railway bridge right at the top of the road, and you could hear and see the trains thunder past on their way out of the city or back into it, day and night. But looking at the trains was one thing; for kids in Ireland in the 1970s, getting to actually travel on one was a treat. My mother used also to take us on what the train company called "the Mystery Train" at the weekend, which was exactly what it sounds like: you were not told where the train was going, so it was a surprise when you ended up in Enniskillen or Navan or Portmarnock or Leixlip, or wherever it was going.
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Dargan's efforts almost single-handedly helped to revitalise the falling Irish economy, the much more so when you consider how much of his own money he put into projects (of the £18 million invested in Irish railways the British government only contributed a paltry £3 million) and it might not be too much of a stretch to call him Ireland's saviour. Certainly, when he died of complications following a fall from his horse in 1863 his funeral was attended by a 700-strong honour guard of railway workers, and comprised 250 cortege carriages, his remains laid to rest beside the other Great Emancipator, Daniel O'Connell, in Glasnevin. A statue of him now stands outside the National Gallery.

Perhaps ironically, given the state of Ireland and the distrust of Catholics at the time, one of his greatest tributes comes from Prince Albert, who stated "Mr Dargan is the man of the people. He is a simple, unobtrusive, retiring man, a thorough Irishman, not always quite sober of an evening, industrious, kind to his workmen, but the only man who has by his own determination & courage put a stop to every strike or combination of workmen, of which the Irish are so fond. All he has done has been done on the field of Industry & not of politics or Religion, without the Priest or factious conspiracy, without the promise of distant extraordinary advantages but with immediate apparent benefit. The Exhibition, which must be pronounced to be very successful, has done wonders in this respect. A private undertaking, unaided by Govt, or any Commission with Royal Authority, made and erected at the sole expense of a single Individual, & this an Irish Road contractor, not long ago a common labourer himself, who had raised himself solely by his own industry & energy, - it deserves the greatest credit & is looked upon by the Irish with infinite self-satisfaction as an emblem of national hope"

By the end of his life Dargan is said to have laid thousands of miles of railway tracks, and contributed hugely to linking the largely disparate country up. As every railway built in the world did, the Irish rail system helped bring people closer together, not only by making commerce and travel to once-distant towns and cities possible, but by allowing the rapid distribution of newspapers, thus disseminating news across the country in a far more timely manner than it had ever been before. It also encouraged people to travel, to take holidays, to visit other places, something that had not been envisaged prior to the advent of the railway, journeys by canal or carriage slow and often very uncomfortable, and usually available only to the more well-to-do. A railway network turned Ireland from a scattering of independent and isolated counties and towns into a well-connected, interdependent and linked single country.

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Speak for Yourself: The Decline of the Irish Language

Countries tend to pride themselves on their national heritage, and this is inextricably linked to their language. German people prized their language, and this is still the dominant one there, reinforced, you might say, by the Nazi Party's rejection of all other languages and cultures as "impure", and held onto as a matter of historical pride. Spain still speaks Spanish, French is the language you have to have at least a grasp of if you expect to communicate with the locals, and you won't get far either in Italy without knowing Italian. Most countries, then, retain their national tongue, even if, of necessity, for tourist and business purposes, English must also be learned. But come to Ireland and the only people you'll find speaking Irish (or Gaelic, as it's sometimes known), other than young (or old) men who have had too much to drink, will be in the less-developed and more rural areas of the west. Everyone else speaks English; it's our common tongue. Why?

Some of the reason for the decline of our national language can of course be traced to our biggest humanitarian disaster ever, the Great Famine, of which more shortly. With so many Irish people emigrating, thousands of native Irish speakers were taken out of the population. In order to survive and hopefully thrive abroad, these people would have had to learn English, most if not all of them bound for America. Their descendants (assuming their parents or grandparents survived the trip, which many did not), should they at some point return to Ireland, would then speak English as their first, possibly only language, and if they settled here again their children would be brought up speaking English too.

Another reason was the gradual change in Ireland, from an isolated agrarian society to a more cosmopolitan industrialised one. When the backers for your factories or mills or engines are invariably English, you need to be able to talk to them in their own language, and workers coming from abroad would not understand Irish either. Then we're back to Daniel O'Connell again. Although one of Ireland's greatest heroes and saviours, he was able to put the once-sacred Irish language to one side; where it had been a matter of fierce nationalist pride to speak in your native tongue, and not adopt the "heathen" language of the English, O'Connell was pragmatic enough to realise that English was where it was at, if Ireland wanted to drag itself out of the seventeenth century and take its place among the respected countries of Europe. Irish was a look backwards to the past, a thing that marked its people as poor, uneducated, and engendered varying degrees of scorn, pity and misunderstanding. O'Connell remarked in 1833 that "the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual disuse of Irish."

In other words, he recognised that, nice as it was to be able to speak and understand Gaelic, it was of little to no use in the real world. While many a cultured man or woman might speak French, or even Spanish or Italian - these skills seen as evidence of their higher education, as well as, to a lesser and also less practical degree, Greek and Latin - nobody outside of Ireland spoke Irish. The Welsh spoke an entirely different language, though fellow Celts, and the Scots, though their language shares some similarities with ours, would be as unlikely to be able to understand Irish as we would Scottish. And beyond the "Celtic countries" there was no room for Irish. It just simply was becoming a dead language, and more, as Catholic relief was finally granted, no longer the language of resistance to the English. There just was no point in it.

Although Irish continued to be taught in Irish schools during my time - and may still be - and there is a special sort of "summer school" in Galway called The Gaeltacht, where only Irish is allowed to be spoken, and though some areas, mostly, again, in the West and mostly close to the area wherein stands The Gaeltacht, keep it alive, even in its native land Irish is effectively dead now. I can speak a little Irish, learned in school, but could not understand a fluent Irish speaker nor write much of a coherent sentence in Irish without referring to Google. Certain words and phrases stick with you - all Irish people my age know the phrase "An bhfuil cead agam dul amach go dti an leithreas?" (May I go out to the toilet?), which you had to ask during Irish lessons - and a few other phrases, mostly from mass and so on, but few can speak the language with any sort of confidence. Few want to, except maybe to impress a foreign girl or disguise some remark to an Irish mate. I recall an instance when two of my bosses, incensed that their Japanese business contacts began jabbering away in their own language, began talking to each other in Irish, drawing very surprised and blank looks from the Asian gentlemen!

Ireland makes valiant attempts to keep Irish alive, if only for the sake of national identity and history. We have (though few people listen to or watch them) an Irish radio station and an Irish TV station, and our news bulletins in the evening are always followed by one in Irish. Various events are organised to encourage people to keep their language alive, and you'll still see Gaelic translations of streets and buildings on name plates all over the country. There are even Irish cartoons and Irish rap! But for the majority of us, the language that once defined us as a nation is gone, and good riddance. It might seem a harsh thing to say, but then, I'll guarantee none of  you lived through the excruciating Irish classes where the teacher would constantly answer your questions in English with a snappish "As Gaeilge! As Gaeilge!" (In Irish! In Irish!) I mean, if you don't understand the fucking language, how can you ask your question in that language? But that's Irish schools for you.

RIP Irish language: nobody misses you, sorry not sorry.
(https://www.irishcentral.com/uploads/article/4143/cropped_GettyImages-3066470_workhouse_ireland_famine_1846___getty.jpg?t=1627732651)
The Poor Law: The Legacy of Abuse Begins

Just as it had decreed in its own country, England moved to enact a version of the Poor Law in Ireland, setting up what were known as Union Houses to take care of the elderly, children under age fifteen and the poor. After the Royal Commission on the Poorer Classes of Ireland made its report in 1833, four years after the Catholic Relief Act, the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838 recommended that Ireland be divided into Unions, loosely based around towns, and administered by three poor law commissioners, whose staff would run the poorhouses to be built, and distribute aid to the poor. Like those in England, the poorhouses were houses of horror, where living conditions were set at a bare minimum and many abuses took place, the residents having little or no rights.

In fact, poorhouses had been in existence in Ireland since the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the oldest, St. James', established in 1703. This was later changed to the Foundling Hospital and Workhouse of Dublin City in 1727. Immediately the pejorative term "pauper" was applied to all residents, as per the Articles, of which there were over fifty. Among them, and first indeed among them, the conditions under which one might be admitted. Makes you wonder why they thought it was a privilege to get a bed here, though I suppose it really could be a case of something was better than nothing, and horrible and miserable a place as these poorhouses (or houses of industry, as they were rather grandiosely called in the eighteenth century) might be, they did at least provide food (of a sort) and a bed, which might not be available otherwise.

Note: These were copied from an actual scanned reproduction of the rules for Union Houses in Ireland, and whoever scanned it folded over the pages, so that some words were lost or blurred, particularly at the edges, so if corrections are seen to be needed, I've made them. Otherwise they're verbatim, a copy-and-paste job, with my comments below. Warning: there are over forty articles.

Article 1.—Every pauper who shall be admitted into the workhouse, either upon his first or any subsequent admission, shall be admitted in one of the following modes only, that is to say ; — V 1. By a written or printed order of the Board of Guardians, signed by their clerk or presiding chairman. 2. By the master of the workhouse (or, during his absence or inability to act, by the matron), without any such order, in case of any sadden (sudden, surely?) and urgent necessity, or in of his receiving a written recommendation from a warden to admit, provisionally, any person or persons mentioned by name therein, whom the master shall, on due examination of the circumstances oi the case, believe to be destitute, and deem to he a proper object for admission to the workhouse.

I expect this meant that a large percentage of people turned up outside the poorhouse, desperate for somewhere to stay and for food, and were turned away for various reasons. Such incidents were common in England, as portrayed by Jack London in his People of the Abyss, in which the famed writer goes undercover as a pauper, to explore and report back on how the system of workhouses is broken and not fit for purpose, corrupt, unfair and damaging to the prospects of the poor.

Article 2 then states that —-No pauper shall be admitted under any written or printed order as mentioned in Article 1 , if the same bear date more than three days before the pauper duly presents it at the workhouse.

I take this to mean that if a pauper is given a written order to present at a particular poorhouse and does not arrive there within three days, that order is considered to be rescinded. Depending on where the order was issued, how soon the pauper was furnished with it and how immediately he or she could set out, that could be very little time, especially given the lack of public transport and, oh yeah, these people were poor as church mice and could not afford to travel in carriages and omnibuses, if such were available. And as if that wasn't enough:

Article 3.—If a pauper be admitted in any other than the first of the two modes mentioned in Article 1 , the admission of such pauper shall be brought before the Board of Guardians at their next meeting, who shall decide on the propriety of the pauper's continuing in the workhouse or otherwise, and make an order accordingly.

So your place could not be guaranteed, even if you had secured it, until or unless a governor or board member confirmed it. Article 9 went on to classify the various types of paupers, at least as the poor commission saw them:

Article 9. The paupers, so far as the workhouse admits thereof, shall be classed as follows : — 1. Males above the age of 16 years.
2. Boys above the age of 2 years, and under that of 16 years.
3. Females above the age of 16 years.
4. Girls above the age of 2 years, and under that of 15 years.
5. Children under 2 years of age.

Article 11 provides for the segregation of said paupers:

Article 11.—Each class, or subdivision of a class, shall respectively remain in the apartment assigned to them, without communication with any other class or subdivision of a class; subject, nevertheless, to such arrangements as exist with reference to the probationary wards and infirmary, and also to the following five exceptions ; —

Exception 1. —Any paupers of the third class, and any paupere of a proper age in the fourth class, may be employed, constantly or occasionally, as assistants to the nurses in any of the sick wards, or in the care of infants, or as assistants in the household work ; provided that ^ the said paupers, when employed in the household work, be so employed without communication with the paupers of the first and second classes.

Exception 2.—Any aged pauper of the third class, whom the master may deem fit to perform any of the duties of a nurse or assistant to the matron, may be so employed in the sick wards, or those of the second, third, fourth , or fifth classes; and any pauper of the first class, who may he deemed fit, may be placed in the ward of the second class, to aid in in management, and superintend the behaviour, of the paupers of such class.

Exception 3. —The boys and girls under 15 years of age may be permitted to meet in the same school, for the purposes of instruction, subject to the consent and approval of the Poor Law Commissioners, having been obtained.

Exception 4.—All paupers of class 5, whose mothers are inmates of the workhouse, shall be allowed to remain with their mothers, if they so desire ; and all paupers of classes 3 and 4, who are between two and seven years, shall, when not attending school, be placed in some apartment specially provided for them; and the mothers children shall be permitted to have access to them at all reasonable times.

Exception 5.—The master of the workhouse (subject to be made by the Board of Guardians and approved by the Poor Law Commissioners) shall allow the father or mother of any child in the workhouse, who may be desirous of seeing such child, to have an interview with such child at some time in each day, in some room in the workhouse appointed for that purpose.

So essentially, wading through all that legalise guff, it seems the children would be separated from those believed adults (over sixteen), separated by sex, and the two only allowed to (possibly) intermix during schooling (presumably to save the workhouse and the Poor Law Commission the expense of having two schools, one for boys and one for girls). Children of "class 5", in other words, less than two years of age, would be allowed to stay with their mothers (though nothing is said of fathers) and children over this age were to be put in apartments when not at school, the mothers allowed to visit these. A father (this time they're mentioned) or mother who wished to see his or her child would be allowed to at the behest of the Board.

I'm a little unclear on this. Does this refer to children who may not have been in the poorhouse, but whose parents were? Or the other way around, though unlikely I would have thought. Or does it simply mean that parents living in one area of the poorhouse could visit their children in the other? But if so, is that not already specified in Exception 4?

At any rate, what these articles do make clear is that the paupers become all but the property of the poorhouse, the staff of which could put them to work (surely unpaid?), throw them out if they didn't follow the rules and could also visit different types of punishment upon them. The next articles go into some detail about this, and between them are a handy guide to what daily life must have been like in these places.

Article 13 —All the paupers in the workhouse, except those disabled by sickness or infirmity, persons of unsound mind, and children, shall rise, be set to work, leave off work, and go to bed at such times, and shall be allowed such intervals for their meals as the Board of Guardians shall, by any regulation approved by the Poor Law Commissioners, direct ; and these several times shall be notified by the ringing of a bell.

Article 14.—Half an hour after the bell shall have been rung for rising, the names of the paupers shall be called over by the master, schoolmaster, matron, and schoolmistress respectively, in the several wards, when every pauper belonging to each ward must be present to answer to his name and to be inspected.

Article 15.—The meals shall be taken by all the paupers (except those disabled by sickness or infirmity, persons of unsound mind, and children) in the dining hall, and in no other place whatever; and during the time of meals order and decorum shall be maintained ; and no pauper (except those disabled by sickness or infirmity, persons of unsound mind, and children) shall go to or remain in his sleeping room, either in the time appointed for work or in the intervals allowed for meals, except by permission of the master or matron.

Article 16.—The master and matron of the workhouse shall (subject to the directions of the Board of Guardians) fix the hours of rising and going to bed for the sick, the infirm, and the young children, and determine the occupation and employment of which such inmates may be capable ; and the meals for such inmates shall be provided at such times and in such manner as the Board of Guardians may direct.

Article 17.—The paupers of the respective sexes shall be dieted as set forth in the dietary-table which may be prescribed for the use of the workhouse, and in no other manner.

Article 18. ---Provided that the medical officer may direct in writing such diet for any individual pauper in the sick or lunatic wards as he shall deem necessary.
2dly.—That if the. medical officer shall at any time certify that he deems a temporary change in the diet essential to the health of the paupers in the workhouse, or of any class or classes thereof, the guardians shall cause a copy of such certificate to be entered on the minutes of their proceedings, and shall be empowered forthwith to order, by a resolution, the said diet to be temporarily changed according to the recommendation of the medical officer, and shall forthwith transmit a copy of such certificate and resolution to the Poor Law Commissioners.
3dly —That the medical officer shall be specially consulted by the matron as to the nature of the food of the infants, and the time at which such infants should be weaned.

Article 19.—No pauper shall have or consume any tobacco, or any spirituous or fermented liquor, or food nor provision other than is allowed in the said dietary table, unless by the direction in writing of the medical officer, as provided for in Article 17.

Article 20. —The clothing to be worn by the paupers in the workhouse shall be made of such materials as the Board of Guardians may determine.

Article 21.—The paupers of the several classes shall be kept employed according to their capacity and ability ; but no pauper shall work on his own account, or on account of any party other than the Board of Guardians ; and no pauper shall receive any compensation for his labour.

Article 22. —The boys and girls who are inmates of the workhouse shall, for fee of the working hours at least every day, be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, and the principles of the Christian religion; and such other instruction shall he imparted to them as shall fit them for service, and train them to habits of usefulness, industry, and virtue.

So we can see above that the paupers would certainly not be paid for their work, moreover they were not allowed to "sub in" for each other, i.e., no one pauper could undertake the work of another for any reason; initiative would certainly not be rewarded, might even be punished. Everything from the clothes they wore to what they ate, how they ate it and when they got up and went to bed was determined by the Poor Law Commissioners, and you can bet that those boys didn't stump up for proper grub. Let them eat gruel, huh?

You could leave the poorhouse but you had to make an appointment. This, again, is shown in London's People of the Abyss, where he notices that departure, despite what Article 23 tells us, was often delayed while inmates were forced to sit through a length Bible-bashing mass service, whether they wanted it or not. Such delays - often lasting hours - impacted upon the paupers making any possible interviews for work they might have had, and then getting back to the poorhouse, or another, in time before the gates shut.

Article 23.—Any pauper may quit the workhouse upon giving the master three hours' previous notice of his wish to do so ; but no such pauper shall carry with him any clothes or other articles belonging to the Board of Guardians, without the express permission of the master or matron.

Article 24.—No pauper having a family dependent on him shall so quit the workhouse without taking the whole of such family with him ; nor shall anv pauper, after so quitting the workhouse, be again received therein, except in one of the modes prescribed in Article 1 for the admission of paupers.

I guess Article 24 then makes it impossible for a father or mother to desert their family and leave them behind, or for children to abandon their parents. A real case of one out, all out. Or, you know, in. Article 26 seems to have allowed the "master" and higher-level staff of the poorhouse to use the inmates to run errands, perhaps?

Article 26.—The master of the workhouse may allow the paupers of each sex under the age of 16, subject to such restrictions as the Board of Guardians may impose, to quit the workhouse under the care and guidance of himself, or the matron, schoolmaster, schoolmistress, porter, or some one of the assistants and servants of the workhouse, for the purpose of exercise.

But no visitors, no reading (in other words, no attempt to educate themselves or be educated) and absolutely, under no circumstances, any fun, as Articles 27 - 29 make clear:

Article 27 .-No person shall visit any pauper in the workhouse, except by permission of the master, or (in his absence) of the matron, and subject to such conditions and restrictions as the Board of Guardians may prescribe ; such interview shall take place, except where a sick pauper is visited, in a room separate from the other inmates of the workhouse, in the presence of the master, matron, or porter.

Article 28.—No written or printed paper of an improper tendency shall be allowed to circulate, nor be read aloud among the inmates of the workhouse.

(I wonder if by "improper tendency" they mean Catholic, or Irish nationalist papers?)

Article 29.—No pauper shall play at cards, nor at any game of chance, in the workhouse ; and it shall be lawful for the master to take from any pauper, and to keep -until his departure from the workhouse, any cards, dice, or other articles relating to games of chance, which may be in his possession.

The iron-tight grip of Protestant religion makes itself clear in Articles 31 - 33

Article 31.—Any regular minister of the religious persuasion of any inmate of the workhouse who shall, at any time in the day, on the request of any inmate, enter the workhouse for the purpose of affording religious assistance to him, or for the purpose of instructing his child or children in the principles or his religion, : shall give such assistance or instruction so as not to interfere with the good order and discipline of the other inmates of the workhouse; and such Religious Assistance or instruction shall be strictly confined to inmates who are of the religious persuasion of such minister, and to the children of such inmates.

Article 32. —If any inmate of the age of 15 years and upwards, of sound mind, shall desire to be registered as of a different religious denomination different from that which is entered in the register as his religious denomination, or if the parents or surviving parent of any child under the age of 15 shall desire,  in like manner, to have the register amended in respect of the religious denomination such child; in either of such cases, if the guardians shall, after due inquiry and personal examination, of the party expressing such desire that the present religious persuasion of any inmate is wrongly described in the register, they shall cause the register to be amended accordingly.

And

Article 33.—If any inmate, being of sound mind, shall desire to be visited by a minister of any religious denomination different from that which is in the register as the religious denomination of such inmate, the request shall  be made to the master of the workhouse, who shall report such to the Board of Guardians at their next meeting; and the guardians shall give directions thereon as may appear to them fitting and. expedient; provided that in any case of urgency affecting the life of an inmate, the master shall, of his own discretion, permit such inmate to be visited at once, and communicate such request to such minister accordingly.

Meaning that if you wanted to see a priest not of your own faith (or the faith "entered in the register", which could I suppose easily be "mistakenly" entered as Protestant) you would have to have your request submitted to the master, who would submit it to the Board, who would consider it at their next board meeting - whenever that was - then get back to the master who would in his own good time no doubt get back to you. One can only assume that if the minister in question was a Catholic, the request would get bogged down in delays, or be refused outright.

Hey, at least Article 34 gave them Christmas Day off!

Article 34.—No work, except the necessary household work and cooking shall be performed by the paupers on Sunday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day,

Plenty of room for God though...

Article 35.—Prayers shall be read before breakfast and after supper every day, and divine service shall be performed every Sunday in the workhouse (unless the guardians, with the consent of the Poor Law Commissioners, shall otherwise direct) ; at which prayers and service all the paupers shall attend, except the sick, persons of unsound mind, the young children, and such. as are too infirm to do so ; provided that those paupers who may object so to attend on account of their religious principles shall also be exempt from such attendance.

Article 37 lays out the rules, breakage of which carry various punishments.

Punishments for Misbehaviour of Paupers.

Article 36.—Any pauper who shall neglect to observe such of the regulations herein contained as are applicable to and binding on him ;
Or who shall make any noise when silence is ordered to be kept ;
Or who shall use obscene or profane language ; Or shall by word or deed insult or revile any person j •
Or shall threaten to strike or to assault any person ;
Or shall not duly cleanse his person ;
Or shall refuse or neglect to work, after having been required to do so;
Or shall pretend sickness;
Or shall play at cards or other game of chance ;
Or shall enter, or attempt to enter, without permission, the ward or yard appropriated to any class of paupers, other than that to which he belongs ;
Or shall misbehave at public worship, or at prayers ;
Or shall not return after the appointed time of absence, when allowed to quit the workhouse temporarily ; Or shall wilfully disobey any lawful order of any officer of the workhouse ; ., 1 . shall be deemed Disorderly.

Article 37.—Any pauper who shall, within seven days, repeat any one or commit more than one of the offences specified in Article 36, or who shall by word or deed insult or revile the master or matron, or any other officer of the workhouse, or any of the guardians ;
Or shall wilfully disobey any lawful order of the master or matron after such order shall have been repeated ;
Or shall attempt to introduce any fermented or spirituous liquors or tobacco, without lawful authority;
Or shall unlawfully strike or otherwise unlawfully assault any person ;
Or shall wilfully or mischievously damage or soil any property whatsoever belonging to the guardians ;
 Or shall wilfully waste or spoil any provisions, stock, tools, or materials for work, belonging to the guardians ;
Or shall be drunk ;
Or shall commit any act of indecency ;
Or shall wilfully disturb the other inmates during prayers or divine worship;
Or shall climb over any wall or fence, or attempt to quit the workhouse premises in any irregular mode;
Or shall attempt to convey out of the workhouse any clothes or other articles belonging to the Board of Guardians ; shall be deemed refractory

Article 38 then laid out the punishments

Article 38.—It shall be lawful for the master of the workhouse, with or Without the directions of the Board of Guardians, to punish any disorderly pauper, by requiring such pauper, for a time not exceeding two days, to perform one hour's extra work in each day, and by withholding all milk or buttermilk which such pauper would otherwise receive with his meals.

Article 39.—It shall be lawful for the Board of Guardians, by a special direction to be entered on their minutes, to order any refractory pauper, to be punished by confinement in a separate room, with or without an increase in the time of work and an alteration of diet, similar in kind and duration to that prescribed in Article 38 for disorderly paupers; but no pauper shall be so confined for a longer period than 24 hours ; or, if it be deemed right that such pauper shall be- carried before a Justice of the Peace, and if such period of 24 hours should be insufficient for that purpose, then for such further time as may be necessary for such purpose.

Article 40.—It shall be lawful for the Board of Guardians, by any special or general order, to direct that a dress different from that of the other inmates shall be worn by disorderly or refractory paupers, during a period of not more than 48 .hours, jointly with or in lieu of the alteration of diet to which any such pauper might be subjected by the regulations herein contained; but it shall not be lawful for the Board of Guardians to cause any penal dress, or distinguishing mark of disgrace, to be worn by any adult pauper, or class of adult paupers, unless such pauper or paupers shall be disorderly or refractory within the meaning of Articles 36 or 37 of this Order.

Article 41.—If any offence, whereby a pauper becomes refractory under Articles 36 or 37, be accompanied, by any of the following circumstances of aggravation ; that is to say, if such pauper Persist in using violence against any person ;
Or persist in creating a noise or disturbance, so as to annoy a considerable number of the other inmates ;
Or endeavour to excite other paupers to acts of insubordination ;
Or persist in acting indecently or obscenely in the presence of any other inmate;
Or persist in mischievously breaking or damaging any goods or properly of the guardians ; it shall be lawful for the master, without any direction of the Board of Guardians, immediately to place such refractory pauper in confinement for any time not exceeding 13 hours ; which confinement shall, however, be reckoned as part of any punishment afterwards imposed by the Board of Guardians for the same offence. But it shall not be lawful for the master to confine any adult pauper without the direction of the Board of Guardians in that behalf, except in one of the cases specified in this Article.

Article 42.—Every refractory pauper shall be deemed to be also disorderly/, and may be punished as such ; but no pauper who may have been punished for any offence as disorderly shall afterwards be punished for the same offence as refractory ; and no pauper who may have been punished for any offence as refractory shall afterwards be punished for the same offence as disorderly.

Article 43.—No pauper who may have. been under medical care, or who may have been entered in the weekly medical return as sick or infirm, at any time in the course of the seven days next preceding the day of the commission of the offence, or who may be reasonably supposed to be under 12 or above 60 years of age, or who may be pronounced by the medical officer of the workhouse lo be pregnant, or who may be suckling a child, shall be punished by alteration of diet, or by confinement, unless the medical officer shall have previously certified in writing that no injury to the health of such pauper is reasonably to be apprehended from the proposed punishment ; and any modification diminishing such punishment which the medical officer of the workhouse may suggest, shall be adopted by the master.

Article 44:—No pauper shall be confined between eight o'clock in the evening and six o'clock in the morning, without being furnished with a bed and bedding suitable to the season, and with the other proper conveniences.

Article 45.—No child under 12 years of age shall be confined in a dark room, or during the night.

Article 46.—No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child .except by the schoolmaster or master of the workhouse.

Article 47.—No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any female child.

Article 48.—No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child, except with a rod or other instrument, such as shall be seen and approved by the Board of Guardians or the visiting committee.

Article 49.—No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child until six hours shall have elapsed from the commission of the offence for such punishment is inflicted. .

Article 50.—Whenever any male child is punished by corporal correction, the master and schoolmaster shall (if possible) be both present.

I could go on, but this is getting ridiculous. There are a total of 71 Articles, and it's clear that few were followed to the letter. After all, who was going to check on them and report them? Most of the masters of these poorhouses, I imagine, would have looked upon these rules as more guidelines or suggestions, and there's absolutely no doubt that the conditions governing punishment of inmates were routinely broken. Who would take the word of a pauper, even if he or she were to gather the courage to speak up? Most of the men running these institutions would have been highly regarded, men of breeding and status, men whose solemn word would be taken - not even required, in such cases, but assumed to be the truth - were they to be accused of breaking these rules.

What is quite clear from that rather long-winded diversion into the rules and regulations of the Irish poorhouses quite clearly is that they were not fun places to be, nor were they meant to be. They functioned as a source of cheap (slave) labour, as a way of drilling into the poor what their place was, and no doubt allowed many a sadistic "master" to vent his spleen on people about whom nobody cared, to whom nobody listened, and who had no rights. They were, after all, part of one great amorphous, forgotten and neglected mass going under the umbrella term of the poor, or, which is somehow worse, paupers.

A quick count of the poorhouses listed in that document gives me approximately 120 operating in Ireland from south to north and east to west. That was bad enough; the Brits did that to us. But all too soon we would perpetrate one of our own making, to our country's eternal shame.

First, though, we would have somewhat bigger problems to occupy us.

Time to step back a little in history again, to explore an event which changed Irish history, and the perception of Ireland so radically and fundamentally that we would never again be the same. In fact, it almost made sure we became nothing more than a memory, a footnote in history, and might in time pass into legend as a race who may, or may not, have existed.

(https://i.postimg.cc/26D3z4rK/overview-Great-Famine-Ireland.webp)
Bitter Harvest: Blight on the Landscape
The Great Famine (1845 - 1849)

"The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." - John Mitchell

While famine is always a big issue, and should always be taken seriously, and if we can, we should do all we can to help avert or end it, overall I think it's fair to say that the days of Live Aid are gone, and in these times of, well, more important things on our mind, we can watch news footage of famines in Africa and Central America and other places and just shrug. It's not that we don't care, but without Geldof to poke and prod us and snarl "Give us your fucking money!" while providing us world-class music entertainment in the hope of prising that fiver or tenner (hey, this was 1985, remember! I'd barely left school!) from our pocket, you might say the conscience that drove our revulsion at famine, and the need to do something about it, has gone.

Not that I'm for a moment proposing that nobody cares. You probably give to good causes and hope they will funnel the money to those who need it, those who have nothing to eat, rather than self-styled warlords living in opulence off the backs of the people they purport to be freeing, or to have freed, from oppression. Or even corrupt governments who divert the funds into slush accounts and personal nest eggs. Our faith in our charitable institutions has without doubt taken a serious knock over the last say ten years or so, and I know that I, personally, maybe like a lot of you, only give out of guilt. To some degree, I only half-expect my small contribution to go where it's supposed to go, but what can you do?

Famines are of course not new to the twentieth century, nor the twenty-first, and back hundreds of years ago they were more common across Europe than they are today in the poorer, developing countries (not socially acceptable to call them third world countries now - always wondered what qualified a country as a second world one?), mostly because of, well, the same reasons really. A huge gulf between the classes, with the super-rich not giving a curse about the super-poor, wars constantly raging across the continent (most, but to be fair, not all, driven by England, who always seemed to be at war with someone, and were that restless when they weren't that they had to fight among themselves) and rising prices and mass unemployment making it harder to make ends meet. Market forces, as ever, drove supply and demand, and those who could afford to bought all they could at the lowest price they could, and then sold it to those who could not afford it at the highest price they could. Never changes.
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But while Europe had its famines, and they were many, none seemed as devastating and none are remembered with such horror by history as the one that gripped Ireland in the tail-end of the nineteenth century. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing across Europe, and especially in Britain, Ireland still lived in a kind of hundred-year reverse, where peasants toiled the land with crude tools, there were few if any factories, crops had to be dug out of the soil by the sweat of your brow, and wealthy landowners kept all the best and most arable land to themselves. An underclass of Irish Catholics worked as tenant farmers on the worst and least cultivable land, where the only thing that would grow in such hardy soil was that old Irish staple, the potato.

But before we get too wrapped up in crops and harvests and blights and the inevitable road to starvation and emigration, we should of course examine the years leading up to what became known in Ireland as Gorta Mór, which literally means "the great hurt", but which would be remembered by generations of Irish people as The Great Famine.

The Devon Commission

Appointed in 1843 and reporting the year the Great Famine begun, the Devon Commission was a royal commission undertaken by the Crown to enquire into the state of Irish tenant labourers and farmers in Ireland. It was headed by the Earl of Devon (hence the name)  and identified many facts which were well-known to the Irish - and, most likely the English, though the latter would prefer they remained unknown - the principle one being that the distribution of land in Ireland was unfairly weighted on the side of wealthy Protestant landowners. Its recommendations were strenuously objected to by Irish (read, English/Protestant) landowners and landlords, mostly because they had no intention of putting their hands in their pockets, and so watched impassively and with absolutely no sympathy or sense of responsibility for the horrible famine that swept across the country.

Evidence is given here by a land agent as to how all but impossible a task it was to get Irish landowners to even engage with the few improvements that might have saved lives, had the commission reported sooner (though two years is actually quite rapid for a report, even now) and/or its recommendations been implemented with all haste. The emphasis in the following extract has been added by me.

Robert O'Brien, esq., land proprietor, and agent to properties in the counties of Clare and Limerick.

6. A farming society, professing to be for the counties of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary, has been in existence for the last few years, and has certainly produced some good in inducing cattle breeders to take more pains about their stock than they would otherwise do; but every effort to extend its application to the small farmers has been attended with failure from want of co-operation, arising from its sphere of action being too extended. When I was manager, in 1841, I endeavoured to establish branches in every barony, for the benefit of small farmers, making the condition that £10 should be contributed to the parent society out of that barony. Though three baronies were qualified, no application for the premium was made from anyone. In 1842, I endeavoured to get up a ploughing-match, and though I advertised for land could get none. I also, that year, had the prizes placed at our disposal by the Royal Agricultural Society offered for competition in the Limerick district alone; and though I circulated the papers largely, no claim for competition was made. Again, in 1843, I applied to the local society, and obtained a grant of money for premiums, in addition to what was given by the Royal Agricultural Society, to be offered for competition in each poor-law union in the counties of Clare and Limerick. The union of Ennistimon was the first on the list, and though I sent the premium sheets to every resident gentleman and clergyman, yet hardly any notice was given to the small farmers to prepare themselves, and only a few competitors appeared; nor had it the effect which was intended, of inducting residents in the union to attempt to form a local society. One of the reasons that a farming society, whose object is the improvement of tillage, has not succeeded here is that the gentry generally hold rich lands, which are kept for pasture, and do not, as a class, feel so direct a sympathy with those who occupy the waste and poor lands. It is, therefore, only a few landlords who, taking an interest in the improvement of the tenantry, would be willing to support such a society; but they, finding no general interest in the subject, confine their exertions to their own estates, on which several are engaged in extensive improvements.

Extract from notes by David J. Wilson, landowner in County Clare:

The small piece of land attached to it (three and a half statue acres) is the greater part of it very poor land, at the foot of a mountain, and with a very thin surface...


The Great Emancipator himself had little faith in the impartiality of the Commission, nor its intent to help the poor farmers, being made up as it was exclusively of landowners: " You might as well consult butchers about keeping Lent as consult these men about the rights of farmers!" he snarled. Perhaps he would have eaten his words - to use a terribly inappropriate metaphor - had he seen the report of the commission, but it came, as I say, too late, and though its recommendations would later be put into practice, those whom it was supposed to help would by then either be in America, dead at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean or dead or dying in the grey, mucky, empty fields of Ireland.

Laws were of course weighted heavily, almost entirely on the side of the landowner, and a tenant who was unable to pay his rent could have goods to that value - including his crops - seized, (we've come across this practice before, called distraining; the English used it in the tithe wars) meaning that as these were his sole means of income, he had no chance at all of making good on the debt. The landlord was, in effect, robbing him and leaving him with no way to make good on that deficit. Then of course he could just be ejected, or evicted from the land, a process that was made easier for the landlords and which was often chosen by them as their preferred method of dealing with a tenant in arrears. Conacre was another practice in wide use in Ireland. This was the idea of letting a small plot of land for the growth of one or two crops, barely enough for the tenant to feed himself and his family on. The idea of class - closer to ancient serfdom or even slavery really - was never more potent than in Ireland, especially the south, what became known as the Republic, under the English. The feelings of many British MPs were summed up almost in one sentence by the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland: 'Esquimaux* [sic] and New Zealanders are more thrifty and industrious than these people who deserve to be left to their fate instead of the hardworking people of England being taxed for their support."


Why was this? Why the lack of empathy, pity or even a sense of inclusion into what was now the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland? The reality was that the Union had been more or less forced on Ireland; at no time had she requested it, and though the likes of Daniel O'Connell had supported it, in the hope that it would bring more recognition for Ireland, and even the protection of the king most Irish people hated, this was of course not the case. It was merely a way for the British government and the Crown to tighten their hold over the troublesome country, dismiss its parliament and rule from Westminster. It was, I suppose you would have to say, a way of showing the Irish who was boss. But like marginal members of society suddenly pulled into, and in most cases forced upon that society - think maybe itinerant/gypsy/pikies being given houses in a housing estate, or maybe immigrant refugees - it was made clear that the Irish were still "poor cousins" (emphasis heavily on the poor) and were neither accepted nor wanted. Like children being told they have to play nice with those of neighbours they didn't like, the British people sulked and muttered but could do nothing about this new addition to their Union. But they didn't have to make them welcome, and they went out of their way to make sure they did not.

It's a matter of historical tragic irony that at the height of the Great Famine, Ireland was in fact exporting to Britain enough corn to feed two million people, twice as many as would die of hunger in Ireland during this awful period. Far from being able to grow only potatoes - and those useless once the blight hit - Irish farmers grew crops which were, however, not for local consumption but for export, literally sending out of the country food that could have prevented the Famine. There was no corresponding import of grains, this all due to the infamous Corn Laws, passed in order to keep the importation of corn prohibitively expensive and therefore allow domestic corn prices to remain competitive. In reality, what it did was give the Irish landowners a monopoly and the opportunity to raise their own prices, as corn could not be got from anywhere else unless you wished to break the bank. This all began in laws enacted back in 1815 by the British Government.
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The Corn Laws

It should be understood that "corn" was, in the legal sense of the Act, a catch-all word which covered all grains - wheat, barley, oats and of course corn - as the Tory Government sought to keep Britain competitive in the agricultural market. In the time of George III, prices for the importation of foreign corn had been set at a ceiling of 48 shillings per quarter. A quarter was equal to eight bushels, and though it's very complicated, basically it seems a bushel was in or around maybe 14 Kgs or about 30 pounds. With victory over Napoleon corn prices began to fall, and in order to remain competitive Britain passed the Corn Laws (An Act to amend the Laws now in force to regulate the importation of corn), raising the ceiling to 80 shillings. What this meant, in effect, was that as long as Britain (and Ireland) produced corn that cost no more than 80 shillings per quarter (around £1200 per tonne) no corn would be allowed to be imported to the country. Falling prices as noted above, due to peace finally being attained in Europe, ensured this ceiling would never be reached.

And then came an unexpected event.

* I assume he's talking about eskimos

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Winter is coming: the Year Without a Summer

In 1816, one single year after the Corn Laws had been signed into operation, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted. The volcano threw huge clouds of ash and smoke into the air, cutting off sunlight and plunging the world into deep cold. In fact, over the last eight years there had been no less than five massive volcanic eruptions around the world, a comparable one to Mount Tambora being the eruption two years previous of Mount Mayon in the Philippines, causing the world to undergo a catastrophic change in climate. The image above shows how cold it got in that year, compared to normal average temperatures. The whole planet was affected as crops failed everywhere. China found itself in the grip of a massive famine, torrential floods and snow in Taiwan, while India was battered by rain which exacerbated an outbreak of cholera across the country.

The newly-struggling independent colonies did not fare much better. Though there was no famine, and they were used to colder temperatures as the norm, seasons seemed reversed in areas of America such as Massachusetts, New York and Vermont, and crops again failed. William G. Atkins, in The  History of Hawley, West Massachusetts wrote "Severe frosts occurred every month; June 7th and 8th snow fell, and it was so cold that crops were cut down, even freezing the roots ... In the early Autumn when corn was in the milk it was so thoroughly frozen that it never ripened and was scarcely worth harvesting. Breadstuffs were scarce and prices high and the poorer class of people were often in straits for want of food. It must be remembered that the granaries of the great west had not then been opened to us by railroad communication, and people were obliged to rely upon their own resources or upon others in their immediate locality."

And in Europe, as rain pelted down and freezing frost killed the crops, starvation and disease spread all over the continent. Typhus claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, people roamed the streets begging for food, other people took the law into their own hands and rioted, demanding "bread or blood", while strange phenomena were recorded in Hungary, where brown snow (a result of the volcanic ash in the air) fell, and Italy, where it seemed to rain blood, though again this was snow tinged red by the eruption's ejecta. As in the time of the Black Death, people must have thought the end of days had come. For some, of course, this would prove to be true, and as always, the awful weather and failure of crops would disproportionately affect the poor.

I suppose at this point you couldn't really blame the British for not having lowered the ceiling to import corn - where were they going to import it from, after all? - but the real damage the Corn Laws would wreak would of course be seen in its legacy with regard to the Great Famine. There were some amendments made to the laws, but they were impractical, restricting the price of corn to be imported to the extent that it never had any chance of reaching that level, and things stayed as they were. Many British politicians and industrialists, though, had had enough.

The Anti-Corn Laws League

In 1838 a confederation of these men got together and formed the Anti-Corn Laws League (well, it had been formed two years earlier, but only gained nationwide appeal in this year) in an attempt to force the repeal of the unpopular laws, which, they said, strangled Britain's trade and were unfair and biased. It's probably likely that not one of these people considered the Irish in their speeches and the pamphlets they wrote, or mentioned them at the many meetings held; these men were all about protecting British interests, though eventually repeal of the Corn Laws would have a positive effect on Ireland.
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Richard Cobden (1804 - 1865)

(All right, is there not something ironically funny about a guy whose name contains the word "cob" opposing the Corn Laws? No, you're right: this is no place for jokes. Over there, that's the place...)

One of the leaders of the League, Cobden was a Liberal, a Radical and would later be instrumental in securing free trade with France, in the 1860 Cobden-Chevalier Treaty. The son of a poor farmer, his sympathies of course then came to lie with the tenant farmers, but he was determined to better himself and not live as his father had done. A man to whom nothing was handed on a plate, he worked in his uncle's business until that failed, while at the same time trying to improve on the meagre education his family had been able to afford for him, and eventually set up his own printing business, and soon got into politics, standing for the seat of Stockport in 1837, though he did not win it till four years later. He quickly established himself as an expert and authority on the Corn Laws, and in 1843 took Prime Minister Robert Peel so to task on the subject that he was accused of inciting to violence.

Peel. however, was changing his stance and, swayed partially at least by Cobden's passionate rhetoric, became a supporter of repeal and in 1846 accomplished this, finally removing the hated laws. Though he had wished to rest after his exertions, which had taken considerable reserves not only of his time and money but also his health, and travelled extensively in Europe, he soon found that his fame had preceded him, and he was something of a celebrity. Bowing to the inevitable, he declared "Well, I will, with God's assistance during the next twelve months, visit all the large states of Europe, see their potentates or statesmen, and endeavour to enforce those truths which have been irresistible at home. Why should I rust in inactivity? If the public spirit of my countrymen affords me the means of travelling as their missionary, I will be the first ambassador from the people of this country to the nations of the continent. I am impelled to this by an instinctive emotion such as has never deceived me. I feel that I could succeed in making out a stronger case for the prohibitive nations of Europe to compel them to adopt a freer system than I had here to overturn our protection policy."

A great ambassador for peace, Cobden argued that as "in the slave trade we [the British] had surpassed in guilt the world, so in foreign wars we have the most aggressive, quarelsome, warlike and bloody nation under the sun." He also thundered "you will find that we have been incomparably the most sanguinary nation on earth... in China, in Burma, in India, New Zealand, the Cape, Syria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc, there is hardly a country, however remote, in which we have not been waging war or dictating our terms at the point of a bayonet." Cobden believed the British, "the greatest blood-shedders of all"

This could not have made him popular back home. Nobody likes to be reminded of their mistakes, or what might be seen as the excesses of youth, in terms of empire, and the late Queen Victoria would most certainly not have been amused. He was proven correct however in his assessment of the seemingly insatiable British thirst for war, conquest and the need to "show other nations who was boss" when they declared war on Burma (now Myanmar) for the specious reason that they took exception to how the government there had treated two of their captains. Cobden wrote in disbelief:

"I blush for my country, and the very blood in my veins tingled with indignation at the wanton disregard of all justice and decency without our proceedings towards that country exhibited. The violence and wrongs perpetrated by Pizarro or Cortez were scarcely veiled in a more transparent pretence of right than our own."  The Burmese, Cobden continued, had "no more chance against our 64 pound red-hot shot and other infernal improvement in the art of war than they would in running a race on their roads against our railways... the day on which we commenced the war with a bombardment of shot, shell and rockets...that the natives must have thought it an onslaught of devils, was Easter Sunday!"

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John Bright (1811 - 1889)

The other leading light in the Anti-Corn Law League was a Lancashire man, the son of a miller and a Quaker by religion, and acknowledged as one of the great orators of his generation. He learned this through giving speeches for the local temperance association, and later, after meeting Richard Cobden, formed the League with him. When his wife died in 1841 it gave him a greater incentive to have the Corn Laws repealed, so that no other person need die of hunger or neglect or poverty, and feel the pain he did at the passing of his wife from tuberculosis. In 1843 Bright was elected to the seat at Durham, and so sat in the House of Commons with his friend, who had been there two years before him.

Bright was responsible for two famous phrases, the first being "flogging a dead horse", which he used as a way to illustrate how unwilling parliament was to pass the Reform Act of 1867, the other when he called England "The Mother of Parliaments". He went on to become MP for Birmingham, a position he held for thirty years. Originally a supporter of the Irish Tenant Right League and Irish land reform, Bright changed his stance when the sectarian divide began to grow, and refused to support Home Rule for Ireland, calling the Irish "disloyal". An odd phrase, I think, to use, considering we were never really willing subjects of the Crown, but there you go. This what what he had to say about an hour-long meeting he had with then-Prime Minister William Gladstone:

"He gave me a long memorandum, historical in character, on the past Irish story, which seemed to be somewhat one-sided, leaving out of view the important minority and the views and feelings of the Protestant and loyal portion of the people. He explained much of his policy as to a Dublin Parliament, and as to Land purchase. I objected to the Land policy as unnecessary—the Act of 1881 had done all that was reasonable for the tenants—why adopt the policy of the rebel party, and get rid of landholders, and thus evict the English garrison as the rebels call them? I denied the value of the security for repayment. Mr G. argued that his finance arrangements would be better than present system of purchase, and that we were bound in honour to succour the landlords, which I contested. Why not go to the help of other interests in Belfast and Dublin? As to Dublin Parliament, I argued that he was making a surrender all along the line—a Dublin Parliament would work with constant friction, and would press against any barrier he might create to keep up the unity of the three Kingdoms. What of a volunteer force, and what of import duties and protection as against British goods? ... I thought he placed far too much confidence in the leaders of the rebel party. I could place none in them, and the general feeling was and is that any terms made with them would not be kept, and that through them I could not hope for reconciliation with discontented and disloyal Ireland."

He was less than impressed when Gladstone signed the Home Rule Bill into law only two weeks later. Returning from the funeral of his brother-in-law, and in response to a request to visit the PM, he wrote: "I cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole Protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of the province of Ulster so far as its loyal and Protestant people are concerned. I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection of the Imperial Parliament. I would do much to clear the rebel party from Westminster, and do not sympathise with those who wish to retain them—but admit there is much force in the arguments on this point which are opposed to my views upon it. ... As to the Land Bill, if it comes to a second reading, I fear I must vote against it. It may be that my hostility to the rebel party, looking at their conduct since your Government was formed six years ago, disables me from taking an impartial view of this great question. If I could believe them honorable and truthful men, I could yield much—but I suspect that your policy of surrender to them will only place more power in their hands to war with greater effect against the unity of the 3 Kingdoms with no increase of good to the Irish people. ... Parliament is not ready for it, and the intelligence of the country is not ready for it. If it be possible, I should wish that no Division should be taken upon the Bill."

It's therefore clear to see that, though these two men fought for the working poor, it was the English working poor they championed, and that neither had the slightest interest in the plight of the Irish tenant farmer. In fact, as we can see above, Bright positively loathed the Irish south of the border. But what about the man at the top? No, not the king: any real power the monarchy had held disappeared with about six inches of King Charles I. England - Britain - was and is a constitutional monarchy, and the head of state is more a figurehead than anything else. He or she possesses no influence over the government, and exists mainly as a sort of rubber-stamp for parliament's policies. What the king thought of the Irish situation - if indeed he thought of it at all - I don't know, and it doesn't matter. English kings had been sympathetic - either covertly or brazenly - to the Irish cause (or at least the Catholic cause, which was not always by any means the same thing, but the two did sometimes dovetail) and it had been the ruin of them. Remember James II? No, I'm talking about the real power, the man who led the country, the man who had the mandate to get things done.

This guy.
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Sir Robert Peel, 2nd baronet (1788 - 1850)

Although his tenure as Prime Minister (the second time he held the post) would in fact end one year before the Great Famine began - and although he himself would die during the famine years, though obviously not of hunger) Peel was the man in whose hands the fate of Ireland lay, as he was the only one capable of repealing the hated Corn Laws. As we've read above, this would in fact happen far too late to save the millions that died or were forced to emigrate in the Great Famine, but throughout his term as Prime Minister he wrestled with the question, trying to keep his own people onside, and eventually more or less fudged the issue. More about that in due course, but for now, what about the man behind the title? Well, everyone will surely know he was responsible for setting up London's first proper police force, the Metropolitan Police, the precursor of today's modern police force, and which were known colloquially at the time as "Peelers", for obvious reasons. Also "bobbies", again due to his name.

Like John Bright, Peel was born in Lancashire, but there the similarities end. Peel came from a rich family, one of the richest in the country. His father was a textile magnate, and Robert was sent to Harrow Public School (always amazes me how the English system of exclusive, expensive education is called public rather than private - I think the "common" schools were - and may still be - called grammar schools?) where he hung out with the poet and writer Lord Byron. At the age of 21 he entered politics, sponsored for a "rotten borough" (read, controlled by the landowner, so who they wanted to get the seat got the seat) in Cashel, Co. Tipperary by the Duke of Wellington, who would become a great friend and ally of his.

Though he served as Chief Secretary of Ireland (a post previously held by the Duke) and laid the basis for the Royal Ulster Constabulary by bringing in some of his "peelers", he was no friend to Ireland, opposing Catholic emancipation and defeating Henry Grattan's bill in parliament. For a time, his anti-Catholic stance told against him, as, given the post of Home Secretary in 1822, he had to resign when the PM did, his successor an advocate of Catholic emancipation. He didn't last long in the post though, and when the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, Peel was made Home Secretary again in 1827, believed to be the Duke's right-hand man and second, as it were, in line to the throne.

As we've already seen, Peel's change of heart on the issue of Catholic emancipation was not due to any softening in his position, but to the unexpected and quite unwelcome election of Daniel O'Connell to the Clare seat, and the potential for civil war in Ireland should he not, as per the Penal Laws then in force, be allowed to take his seat. As a matter of pragmatism, then, and in order to avoid civil unrest or even outright war in Ireland, he pushed through the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, helped in the House of Lords by his mate the Duke of Wellington, who threatened to resign if the king did not sign it into law, despite furious opposition by his own party. Thus were the Penal Laws removed and Catholics a step closer to equality with their Protestant neighbours.

Peel of course also set up the Metropolitan Police Force, as I mentioned in his introduction. Originally a force of 1,000 constables, they were based out of Scotland Yard, and took over from the unpaid parish constables who had, until then, overseen law and order (and, it has to be said, with varying degrees of success and indeed interest - after all, if you're not being paid for your work, why throw yourself into the line of fire?) and supplementing the Bow Street Runners, the city's first detective force, created in 1753. The deployment of the Metropolitan Police (later, and even now, known as the Met) saw greater prosecution of crime, a more zealous sense of service to the community, and a more organised approach to fighting lawlessness in the streets.

His first term as Prime Minister in 1834/5 ended badly, all his policies frustrated by the opposition Whigs in collusion with Daniel O'Connell and his Radical Irish Party, and after 100 days Peel resigned. He returned to power in 1841, giving him the opportunity, which he took - and which brought down his government - to repeal the Corn Laws. Having previously noted that the scale of the problem was likely much less severe than reported: "There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports that delay in acting on them is always desirable" - he perhaps in hindsight worried that history might judge him as partially, or even fully responsible for the Great Famine (which he kind of was, as the Prime Minister who did nothing to help the starving Irish, though he was by no means alone) and so got the repeal through, with the help of his friend and ally in the House of Lords. It came, of course, too little too late, but he was probably more concerned with his place in the history books than how he could actually save lives.

His Irish Coercion Bill - a request for greater powers to suppress revolutionary elements (and this was taken mostly to mean in Ireland) - presented to the House on the same night, shows he was no friend to the Irish. The bill, however, was defeated and he resigned a few days later.

So much for the man at the top; we'll see soon enough what, if anything, he did to help stave off the Famine. For now though, let's return to people who did at least seem to have some sort of compassion for the Irish farmer, but whose voices were either shouted down or ignored altogether. Yeah, back to the Devon Commission we go. One of the observations made by the earl was the absolute naked poverty of the people, as he noted "It would be impossible adequately to describe the privations which they [the Irish labourer and his family] habitually and silently endure ... in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage water ... their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather ... a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury ... and nearly in all their pig and a manure heap constitute their only property."

The Commissioners pointed out that the Irish tenant farmers were working for basically their oppressors, the English. There was no loyalty and no real communication between the two. The one thought the other savage and almost subhuman, the other thought the landlord cruel and unfair, and between both stood the ever-present spectre of religion and sectarianism. It's fair to say that had these tenants been Protestants, they might have expected better treatment from their Anglican landlords. But to the English, the Irish Catholics were, to put it mildly, scum, who deserved no sympathy and who had to be kept beaten down. In the role of the occupier throughout history, the Ascendancy asserted its power and ensured its authority was unchallenged. England had suffered similarly under the Normans, hundreds of years in the past, but seemingly had not learned from the experience.

Not that the landlords were even there to see the deprivation of their tenants. Most visited Ireland maybe once or twice in their lives, perhaps like plantation owners who left it to the overseers to get things done, and worried only about profits, not caring about the welfare of the men and women who toiled to afford them the luxury in which they lived. Even at that, the profits from the farms went outside the country, over six million pounds being spent overseas in 1842 alone. The hated middlemen, who worked on behalf of the landlord, were cruel and vicious and uncaring, and only wanted to make as much money from the land as they could. They leased it from the landlord and then, like the equally hated slumlords, who would take a house and rent as many rooms as they could in that house to as many people as possible, cramming more and more bodies into a single room with no regard for health or safety, they  subdivided it into smaller and smaller parcels of land to maximise their profits. This of course meant that each tenant farmer had a smaller patch to work on, usually bad land too, making it harder to even exist and hold body and soul together, never mind make any money. Most labourers on farms worked for food to feed their families, and the work was often very sporadic and always very hard.

As if that wasn't bad enough, tenants had no rights. They could be thrown off the land at any time, at the whim of the landlord or middleman, and any improvements they might have made to their lands automatically became the property of the landlord when their lease expired or they were kicked out, so nobody bothered. So with such rotten land to grow anything on, and with so little of it, what choice had the farmers but to sow potatoes? It might seem like (mixed metaphor time) putting all your eggs in one basket, or hedging your bets on the one thing, but they really had no option. Potatoes would grow in hardy soil where other crops would not, and could basically be eaten out of the ground (oh yeah: some people did eat raw potatoes) or at least just peeled and thrown into a pot to make a meal. Cereals such as grain, wheat, corn, oats etc all had to be made into something - usually bread - that would take time. Potatoes were also fed to livestock, so really formed the lynchpin of the Irish diet, both for humans and animals.

Not that it was a reliable crop. The Great Famine was by no means the first time that a potato crop had failed. In fact, there had been multiples failures from as far back as 1728, though none of these were nationwide failures. But then, again, as I say, it's not like the farmers had any choice. It's not like they could say, well the potatoes have failed, let's try something else. Unless they wanted mud for dinner, potatoes was all they had. Which of course led up to the catastrophic potato crop failure due to blight, or Phytophthora infestans in 1845. To some degree, and stretching it a lot I know, but the arrival of the blight in Ireland must have been a little like Spanish Flu or SARS or Covid; it absolutely destroyed people's lives and livelihood, and was directly responsible for the deaths of over a million Irish. It wasn't confined to Ireland, but it was here that it hit hardest, for reasons already outlined.

Nobody is certain, even now, where the blight originated, though it's thought to have begun in Mexico, and then been introduced to Ireland via clipper ships carrying passengers from America to Ireland, in the potatoes used in the food those passengers were fed on board. Like all viruses and pathogens (unless there is an antidote or vaccine) once here it was here to stay. Kind of horribly ironic, I feel, that the people who abandoned Ireland in search of salvation in America were quite likely retracing the path the blight had taken to get here, though of course in reverse. A chronology, then, of the arrival of the blight shows the steps taken, or not, as the spectre of famine leered towards Irish shores.

Countdown to famine: how apathy and disinterest doomed Ireland

As we've already noted, Sir Robert Peel was the Prime Minister at the time, and so to him fell the opportunity to help, or to ignore. To be fair to him, he did try, just too little too late. His already-quoted statement about things being exaggerated helped to hammer nails into the coffins of a million people who need perhaps never had died. The response, in general, from the English was a shrug and a sort of who cares, it's only the Irish. Maybe that's being overly harsh, is it? Let's see.

1843: First reports of Phytophthora infestans around the ports of New York and Philadelphia.

1844: Panic in Belgium as the crop failed. In desperation - and surely exacerbating the problem - the Belgian government imported seed potatoes from America. Were they not already aware that the blight was there? Perhaps not: news would not have travelled as fast in the nineteenth century as it does now. Still: a year? Does this not strike you as similar to importing meat from China just as Covid broke out? Anyway, to the surprise of nobody in hindsight, the crop was rotted. The blight spread to France, and then England.

1845

August: Kent had a diseased potato harvest.

September: Blight reported in Ireland. Questions were asked but the British government adopted a "wait and see" approach until the harvest was completed.

October: Evidence began emerging of the scope of the disaster as the potato crop was dug, but the British again hummed and hawed and thought well it can't be that bad. When it was clear that yes, it was that bad, they hummed and hawed over the expense of providing humanitarian relief to the Irish, nobody wanting to put their hand in their own, or the British public's pocket. Peel tried to repeal the Corn Laws, which in the case of the approaching famine sounds to me like putting a sticking plaster on after your arm has been chopped off. He sent a scientific team to Ireland to investigate the reports. Tories who were furious with Peel for granting Catholic emancipation, and now his intention to repeal the Corn Laws, refused to allow meetings to even discuss Irish relief, and the whole thing assumed a somewhat Covid-like aura, where people - English of course, and wealthy English - claimed it was all a big hoax, built up to be more than it was, and blamed it on Irish - wait, what? Alligators? Oh no. Agitators. Well. Anyway.

November: A lot happened, but nothing happened really. Peel arranged for the purchase of £100,000 worth of Indian corn to be shipped to Ireland, while his scientific committee confirmed the devastation of the potato crop, this backed up by the Mansion House Committee. Nobody cared. Peel, unable to gain enough support to have the Corn Laws repealed, resigned. His resignation only lasted days though and he was back, leading the government into 1846, the first real year of the Famine.

1846
In March, as the first deaths occurred from the famine, Peel set up projects for public works and relief in Ireland, but three months later his government fell, and the new Prime Minister reversed all his policies, basically telling the Irish they could starve for all he cared. We'll have a look at Lord Russel later. If there had been any hope of staving off, or nipping the Famine in the bud before it grew to national proportions, they were destroyed by the rise to power of the Whigs, who certainly played their part in dooming Ireland. The Quakers (remember our friend John Bright, one of the founders of the Anti- Corn Law League, was a Quaker?) did what they could to plug the gap, and presumably embarrassed by being shown up by a bunch of peaceniks, the government grumpily reinstated the public works, but dragged its feet on the release of food, while they continued to authorise the export of grain, which could have saved so many lives, from Ireland, even as the Famine tightened its grip.

1847
As famine fever gripped the country, and things began to spiral out of control, the government passed the Temporary Relief Act, also known as the Soup Kitchen Act, which was exactly what it sounds like, cheap food for the poor and starving. It only lasted till September though, when surely the worst of winter was about to descend on the country. After that, the relief was to be financed by the local Poor Law rates, something that was unsustainable. People began to see there was no hope for them in Ireland, and if they were going to die they may as well do so making an attempt to get to a new country. Thus the legend of the coffin ships was born, where vessels bound for America dumped corpses regularly overboard as immigrants died on the way to the New World. Passage on these ships was cheap, but so was life. Little if any food or water was provided by the owners, and it was said that sharks followed the ships, aware of the amount of bodies being thrown overboard. I can't say of course, but I wonder how many of them were actually dead, and how many just dying of hunger or disease, and thrown over the side just the same? If so, a horrible way to end your journey. Rates are reported of up to thirty percent mortality on these ships, so if you survived to the destination you could consider yourself one of the lucky ones.

Lord Russel's reaction to the horror being played out just over the Irish Sea was to crack down on agitators by passing the Crime and Outrage Bill (Ireland), which allowed for police forces to be sent into Irish districts, the eternal solution of the British to any sort of unrest (see also, miners' strikes).

1848
After having peaked, the Famine returned and cholera spread across the island. Sympathetic as usual, the British landlords continued to evict anyone who could not pay their rent (what the fuck were they supposed to pay with, I ask you?) and famine relief at this time stood at 840,000 people. Confirming (hah) the Crown's contention that there might be a rebellion (really? You think? In a country where you bastards were doing nothing to help and everything to ensure the Irish were wiped out? Never!) a small force of Young Irelanders had finally had enough and staged a tiny uprising, but it was the only spot of trouble in the time of the Famine - everyone else were probably too busy dying or trying to survive another day - and quickly put down.

1849
Another bad harvest, more cholera. More of the same. Minus the uprising.

1850
The famine finally ended.

There's an old Irish saying (not really, it's a joke but we should adopt it): "Important" in Ireland means "what's yer hurry? There's time for another pint!" and as for "urgent", see under "important"! Although the circumstances under which this journal - and all my others - have been left languishing for next to a year are far from funny, in a way it fits. At any rate, time to head back to that dark time in Irish history when the only people who weren't dying of starvation were the rich and the English.

Welcome back, a chairde (friends) to the Great Famine.
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But first things first. Let's, then, before we go into the Great Famine in detail, as I promised we would, look into this guy who took over from Peel, and so was surely at least partially responsible for all the deaths in Ireland at the time.
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John Russel, 1st Earl Russell (1792 - 1878)

It will come as a surprise to nobody to read he was a rich bastard, born into one of the richest and most noble families in Britain, his ancestry stretching back to the seventeenth century, and despite - or perhaps due to - his father being Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he had no time for the Irish. Few British politicians did, all of them being Anglican Protestants and the hatred of both Catholics and, as the main exponent of that religion, Irish, almost hard-coded into their DNA by now. Like a lot of the young aristocracy, Russell's seat in the House of Commons was literally given to him by daddy, the Duke of Bedford instructing his cronies to return his son (never understood that phrase: someone who is standing for the first time for a seat can be returned - doesn't something have to be somewhere first before it can be returned?) despite his not even being of age to take the seat. Wasn't even interested in politics, and only entered due to a sense of duty. Fucking rich bastards. One law for etc.

But maybe I'm wrong here. Seems he authored the Sacramental Test Act, which sought to remove the restrictions on Catholics and Dissenters, allowing them to hold public office. Hmm. And the bill passed. He also argued against the  tithes in Ireland, suggesting that  a proportion of the funds should go to help educate the Irish poor. Yeah. Seems like  I have got him wrong. At least in the earlier days - this was around 1834 - he does look to have supported the Irish cause as much as would have been possible for him. He also got through the Marriages Act, which removed the requirements for Catholics to only marry in Anglican churches, and even helped reduce the amount of crimes punishable by death in Britain, paving the way for the almost-abolition of the death penalty for any crime but murder.

In opposition at the end of 1845 he supported Peel's attempt to overturn the Corn Laws, so it seems odd to me that, once in power, he refused to help the Irish during the Famine. Let's see. Came to power, as I said above, mid-1846, and seems to have made some efforts but realised they have failed (probably worried that the cost outstripped the political capital he would have to sacrifice in "siding with the Irish" maybe) and with a small majority barely keeping his government in power, and a financial crisis also to deal with, he just turned to other things. I'm sure a million Irish understood.
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Men at work: The Public Works

Although the idea behind creating a system of public works was to allow people to earn money to buy food, there were a lot of drawbacks to this idea. Firstly, we're talking here about people who could barely stand, never mind lift a shovel or pick, and not just the men:  wives and children also worked. Apart from the child labour laws being entirely non-existent at this time, the simple arithmetic of it was that the more people in your family who worked, the more you got paid, and so everyone worked. Apart from anything else, would you want to be starving at home while your parents dug ditches or built roads? But that was all well and good until one bright spark decided hey, I've got an idea! Instead of paying these Oirish louts a day's work for a day's pay, let's just pay them for the actual work they do. That will weed out the lazy and feckless among them, or Her Majesty isn't Empress of India!

Great. So now by definition the strong got to eat, while the weak, unable to work, or at least unable to work as well as the stronger ones, would be paid less, or even nothing. It has been said, and I can see why, that far from actually creating relief these public works were all but slave labour, working people to death, and a percentage of the mortalities in Ireland at this time can certainly be put down to those who literally dropped dead at their work. Even if you did earn enough for a few scraps of food, you still had to travel some distance - on foot of course - with your stomach grumbling, no guarantee you would even reach the store before you just collapsed, both of hunger and weakness.

The other point about the works is that they were largely pointless, projects devised and put into operation for no reason other than to afford work to people. While this is all very philanthropic on the very skimmed surface - it would have been more Christian, would it not, to have given out bread free, as was happening in Europe? - it left Ireland with a bunch of roads and ditches and harbours and stuff which she did not need. They were, as Liam Neeson notes in the wonderful two-part documentary The Hunger "roads to nowhere".

The Repealer tries to Repel: O'Connell's efforts to stave off the Famine

Leading a deputation including the Duke of Leinster, Lord Cloncurry and the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daniel O'Connell, who saw the Devon Commission as a pointless and one-sided endeavour, made up entirely of landowners with no representation from tenant farmers, went to the Lord Lieutenant in November 1845 with a petition and ideas, including opening up the ports to foreign corn, the end of the use of grain in distilleries and the prohibition of the export of foodstuffs. He also asked for the practice of "tenant right", in operation over the border in Ulster, which gave the tenant farmer the right to compensation for any improvements he had made to the land he worked, to be introduced in the South. But Lord Haytesbury shrugged and told him not to be worrying; things were not as bad as they seemed.

O'Connell also lobbied - perhaps over-ambitiously, to say the least - for the repeal of the Act of Union, as he maintained that an Irish parliament would have instigated his ideas, closing the ports to export and opening them to import, and providing relief and work for the starving people of his island. Needless to say, this was shut down, if not actually laughed at. The idea that the British would allow Ireland to leave the Union in a sort of nineteenth-century Eirxit, just to save a few million lives, was ludicrous in the extreme. Also that an reinstated Irish Parliament would have given a toss about Catholics - never had before. It's hard, under the evidence of such intransigence and apathy on behalf of the British, to challenge the words of  John Mitchell, Irish nationalist, poet and repeal advocate, quoted at the beginning of this piece. If the Great Famine was not a deliberate attempt at ethnic cleansing and genocide, it's difficult to defend the notion that the British used it to try to accomplish their goal of pacifying Ireland and reducing significantly the number of Catholics living there.

It's also a little hard to comprehend why the British government did not order the closure of the ports, as this had been British policy a hundred years ago, in 1782-83, and it worked. But showing the innate pig-headedness and casual cruelty and lack of compassion of the Whig government, the Gregory Clause of the Poor Law stated that - hold on here a moment. This is what I don't understand. I assumed this guy Gregory (William H.) after whom the Clause is named, was some ultra-hardline Protestant, but then I read that he was sympathetic to the Catholic cause AND a friend of Daniel O'Connell! So how then could he have authored a clause in the Act which prohibited relief to anyone with a farm of a quarter of an acre or more? That's approximately 10,000 square feet, or 1000 feet by 1000. Try to picture that. If your sitting room or bedroom is about maybe 15 feet (let's assume, for the sake of my poor maths, that it's ten) then push ten of them together and you have one side of the farm, another ten across and that's the size of the land you have to work on. That's not a farm; that's not even a plot. That's an allotment, and not usually even of good land.

So the idea of the Gregory Clause was that if you had this quarter-acre or more of land you worked, and it became necessary for you to seek relief because you couldn't grow anything on the land you rented from the fat bastard landlord as, you know, potatoes were being blighted and there was a famine on and all, you had to sell your land in order to qualify for the relief! It sounds to me like in order to get the money for food you had to sell your house. This ended up creating a phrase, "passing paupers through the workhouse": in effect, you went in a man and came out a pauper, with everything taken from you. And who knew what piddling amount they would condescend to give you in relief? Very little, surely. Not worth the land you had spent perhaps your life working on, which now went back to the callous landlord, who could rent it to someone else.

And then the government passed the Encumbered Estates Act, in 1849, which allowed for the sale of these lands at a knockdown price. The lands were of course then bought by speculators, who didn't want no stinking tenants fouling the place up and moaning about being poor and hungry: who wanted to hear that, even if they weren't actually there to hear it themselves? One must maintain some standards, don'tcha know? So the tenants were often evicted - and could be, without the slightest cause or reason, and with no recourse by the tenants to the law - so that the new owner could raise livestock or whatever they wanted to use the land for. Between 1849 and 1854 over 50,000 families were evicted. That's one-twentieth, or five percent of the lives lost in the Great Famine. I said it before, and I'll say it again: bastards. No wonder we hate them.

Still, before get too anti-British, let's consider the military response. Between 1846 and 1847 the Royal Navy transported supplies into Cork and other ports in Ireland, the government having realised by January that the idea of leaving the Irish to it was not working duh, and two days after Christmas 1846 Sir Charles Trevelyan, in charge of relief in Ireland, ordered all available ships to assist in the effort. Royal Navy surgeons were also despatched in February 1847 to assist in rendering medical aid and to ensure all burials were undertaken with proper health and sanitation procedures followed.

While the general perception has been that people starved as food was exported from the country - and it was - statistics now seem to back up the fact that less went out than came in, but that complications with financing the relief effort through the Poor Laws, and the need to feed cattle, resulted in there being less food for the starving families, making it necessary for food to be sold so as to enable landlords to pay the rates and thereby fund the workhouses. Father Nicholas McAvoy, Parish Priest of Kells, wrote in The Nation in October of 1845:

"On my most minute personal inspection of the potato crop in this most fertile potato-growing locale is founded my inexpressibly painful conviction that one family in twenty of the people will not have a single potato left on Christmas day next. Many are the fields I have examined and testimony the most solemn can I tender, that in the great bulk of those fields all the potatoes sizable enough to be sent to table are irreparably damaged, while for the remaining comparatively sounder fields very little hopes are entertained in consequence of the daily rapid development of the deplorable disease.
With starvation at our doors, grimly staring us, vessels laden with our sole hopes of existence, our provisions, are hourly wafted from our every port. From one milling establishment I have last night seen not less than fifty dray loads of meal moving on to Drogheda, thence to go to feed the foreigner, leaving starvation and death the sure and certain fate of the toil and sweat that raised this food.
For their respective inhabitants England, Holland, Scotland, Germany, are taking early the necessary precautions—getting provisions from every possible part of the globe; and I ask are Irishmen alone unworthy the sympathies of a paternal gentry or a paternal Government?
Let Irishmen themselves take heed before the provisions are gone. Let those, too, who have sheep, and oxen, and haggards. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. The right of the starving to try and sustain existence is a right far and away paramount to every right that property confers.
Infinitely more precious in the eyes of reason in the adorable eye of the Omnipotent Creator, is the life of the last and least of human beings than the whole united property of the entire universe. The appalling character of the crisis renders delicacy but criminal and imperatively calls for the timely and explicit notice of principles that will not fail to prove terrible arms in the hands of a neglected, abandoned starving people."

It is fair though to say that the Famine opened hearts, and wallets, and many charitable donations did give aid to the hungry. Perhaps surprisingly, English Protestants accounted for the highest amount of Irish famine relief outside of Ireland, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical which called on the entire Catholic world to help in the relief of their Catholic brothers and sisters in Ireland, and a rough figure for donations - including about a half million from Britain - totalled in the area of £850,000. I mean, in real terms, that's less than a pound per person who died in the Famine, but it does at least show that there was an appetite for aid and that Ireland did not stand entirely alone as the rest of the world looked on. And remember, too, that other areas of Europe - Belgium, France, even England - had suffered their own destruction of crops, though none of these hardships compared in any way to the Irish Famine, which is still seen as the greatest humanitarian disaster of the nineteenth century.

While most of the history of the Great Famine is steeped in tears, tragedy, pain and anger, death and disease, despair and emigration, and a burning need for justice - or if that wasn't possible, revenge would do - it is illuminating to just recount the many ways people across the world came to the aid of Ireland, many doing the little they could (which quite often means more than huge donations from banks and corporations and kings) and everyone trying to help a country that was really teetering on the edge of extinction. Irish-Americans of course dug deep, and even future President Abraham Lincoln, at the time a mere Congressman, donated ten dollars (doesn't seem much, but that's about three hundred in today's money, and that was a lot for a private individual to contribute to any cause) while the president at the time, Jame Polk, gave five times that much. Choctaw Indians, who had just been resettled, read, forced to leave their native lands on the horrible journey of despair which came to be known as "The Trail of Tears", gathered together a huge sum at the time, 170 dollars, which you can see yourself is more than three times what the President of the United States gave, almost five grand today.

Every country helped. Russia, Italy, Venezuela, South Africa, Mexico, Australia, while the British Relief Association, on foot of a letter from Queen Victoria urging donations to help the Irish poor, raised almost seventy percent of the total given by the British, over £390,000. It's also really heartening to see that in America, religious groups put aside their differences as Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episocopalians all banded together to help raise funds and send ships of food and goods to Ireland, and in South Carolina it was said that "The states ignored all their racial, religious, and political differences to support the cause for relief."

Let's be honest here: you can't see that happening today, can you? In fact, it doesn't. Other than going back to Bob and Live Aid as I mentioned at the start, we don't see such universal comings-together in the name of starving people. We have, unfortunately - and this very much includes we Irish, who should know better - got so used to famine in general and to seeing pictures of starving children on our television that we just ignore it; another humanitarian disaster, terrible, wish there was something we could do, poor kids, change the channel. Not only that, but sharp religious and political differences have never been so at the forefront of politics all over the world now that such setting aside of enmities and prejudices and old rivalries seems, and in fact is, impossible to envisage. You only have to look at the ongoing migrant crisis to see how a stream of human beings, dispossessed of their homes and fleeing war zones, elicits nothing more than lip service and a shake of the head. Times have most definitely changed, and not for the better.

There was, however, another, less noble and somewhat more sinister practice involved in some of the charity given, where certain groups used the offer of food as an inducement, or rather put a condition on it. This was called "souperism", from the practice of Protestant Bible schools setting up soup kitchens, to which anyone was admitted and would be fed, as long as they were prepared to learn the Protestant way of things. It amounted in effect to blackmail, a case of "if you want to eat worship our god", and became a bone of contention with Catholic families, who felt they were being asked to choose between their religion and their family, which they were. Those who accepted the deal were looked down upon by those who did not, their full belly no guarantee the Catholic Devil would not drag them all down to Hell for such betrayal. They were called "soupers", or "the ones who took the soup", and both became a real insult in Catholic Ireland, similar to "taking the King's shilling", i.e., adopting the English way.
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It is however important to understand that, like a lot of claims made about this or that by this or that injured party, and meaning to do my own countrymen no disservice, the practice of "souperism" is reported to have been quite minimal; many, in fact most schools, even many of those operated by Protestants, offered food and relief to people without any condition attached, though because of either the hyperbole of newspaper reporting, the inbuilt, deep-seated hatred and distrust of Catholics for Protestants, or to help special interest groups fan up that hatred and outrage, or a combination of all three, and maybe more, the word went around at the time that all Protestant schools were engaging in this form of spiritual blackmail, and as a consequence, even if the school in question was not, Catholics feared sending their children there in case they ended up being corrupted and forced into the wrong religion. As well as this, with or without riders, Protestant faith does not observe Good Friday, and so their schools would serve meat soup on Fridays, when Catholics were supposed to abstain from meat. This was another reason why they were shunned by the Irish, and why many children went hungry, the health of their everlasting soul deemed more important than that of their temporary body.

To some extent, you could say the term "souper", used not for those who provided the food under these restrictions, but for those who partook of it, became almost as much an insult as "collaborator." The idea was of course that those who gave in and accepted the charity - even if it was a case of their doing the reverse of above, and putting the health of their children - their very survival, their lives - ahead of religious matters were seen as giving in, as bowing down and all but accepting the Protestant faith. That wasn't true of course; these weren't, to my knowledge, boarding schools, and the children's parents could correct any erroneous notions put in their heads by the teachers by explaining they had to endure this in order to get food, but that what they learned in these schools was nonsense.

Nevertheless, the very act of crossing the threshold of a "souper" school made the parents responsible in the eyes of other Catholics, and traitors to their religion. They would be ostracised, in some cases British soldiers even having to be called in to protect them from their furious neighbours. How incredible, that even at death's door with hunger, people could still find reasons to fight over religion. If it had been me, and Satan had opened up a soup kitchen, I'd have had my kids down there. But the Catholic religion teaches that the body is nothing but a shell, and everyone should be more concerned about how their soul will fare after death. Only here for a short time, not a good time, could be a motto for the Catholic Church, and its priests joined in the condemnation, loudly lambasting known soupers from the pulpit. With full bellies, no doubt.

Nice as it is, and a change, in the midst of so much horror and death, to talk about charity and kindness shown to the victims of the Great Famine, it is sadly inevitable that we have to return to the darker, more prevalent side of the crisis, and specifically to the ones who, it could very well be said, precipitated and then exacerbated the misery by refusing to recognise, or care about, the depth of the poverty of the people they demanded rent from. All they cared about was their pockets, and yeah, you'll not be surprised to hear I'm talking about the landlords and the middlemen, the scourge and curse of the Irish poor, and almost the incarnation of evil with very little if anything to mediate their greed, lack of compassion or even humanity. Let's shuffle into the rogues' gallery to meet some of them.

Marcus Keane

Feared and hated by thousands as "the exterminator-in-chief", Keane was the son of a landowner whose family had come over to Ireland almost with King Henry II, and had been in Clare since the thirteenth century. He worked as an agent for some of the bigger landlords - the Conynghams, the Vandeleurs and the Westbys - but had by degrees built up his own landholdings until he owned about 4,500 acres. Consider that: if each tenant farmer, as noted earlier, had a quarter acre to farm (they didn't; many had larger, but not much. This would have been the average) then Keane's landholding would have supported - in the loosest possible sense - over 18,000 families. He got married the year the Great Famine struck, 1847, no doubt a lavish wedding feast that could have fed most if not all of those 18,000. He would not have cared. From the epithet above, you can guess he was not a nice man.

A hardline Protestant, he refused the local parish priest, Father Michael Meehan,  permission to build a Catholic church on his land in Kilbaha, as his master, the landowner and his father-in-law, Edward Westby, did not want such a focus for Catholic worship. In defiance, Father Meehan built a small mobile church called the Little Arc on the foreshore, and this became a focus for resistance to the tyrannical landlord. But this was mild. Through 1847, at the worst heights of the Famine, Keane evicted twelve families from his land in Garraunnatooha, the most famous - or infamous - of these being Bridget O'Donnell and her family. Bridget was pregnant at the time, and her husband worked a small farm of five acres from Keane. He had purchased oat seeds from the landlord, grown the corn and harvested it, then had it confiscated by Keane's agent, Dan Sheedy. Sheedy had then arrived with a gang to evict the O'Donnell's. Owing to the trauma, Bridget had given birth to a stillborn baby and received the last rites from Father Meehan, though whether she survived, died or what happened to her afterwards is unknown.
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Also unknown, and of some small comfort, is what happened to Keane's body after he died. Supposed to have been interred in his own private mausoleum, he rather inconveniently (but not before time, if you ask me) died before it was completed, and so was instead laid to rest in the vault of the Burkes, where he had had the body of his governess, Margaret Barnes buried. When the new tomb was ready his son came to move the body but found to his dismay that it was gone, along with that of the governess. A search party found nothing, and it would be a full seven years before the two corpses would be discovered to have been buried nearby in another plot, with the nameplates removed from their coffins. Perhaps the ghosts of the victims  of the Irish families he treated so reprehensibly had their revenge from beyond the grave?

His kind of brutish, unprincipled, evil behaviour would not have been typical, in fairness, of every landlord in Ireland, but the few who were decent and treated their tenants well would certainly have been in the minority. Bridget's plight came to national attention when an engraving of her appeared in the London Illustrated News, the picture like something out of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is shown the spectres of want and ignorance skulking beneath the cloak of the Ghost of Christmas Present. The pathos and pity such a figure elicited threw into sharp relief the disgraceful practices of Irish landlords, Keane being accused of being over-zealous in his eviction of tenants from Klirush, especially in the local Poor House, from 1848 - 1849, and a parliamentary committee was convened to look into the allegations, which had been brought to British officials by the Poor Law inspector for the Union, Captain Kennedy. As a result, a reporter was despatched from the London Illustrated News, and he brought back this harrowing account.

"It is a specimen of the dilapidation I behold all around. There is nothing but devastation, while the soil is of the finest description, capable of yielding as much as any land in the empire. Here, at Tullig, and other places, the ruthless destroyer, as if he delighted in seeing the monuments of his skill, has left the walls of the houses standing, while he has unroofed them and taken away all shelter from the people. They look like the tombs of a departed race, rather than the recent abodes of a yet living people, and I felt actually relieved at seeing one or two half-clad spectres gliding about, as an evidence that I was not in the land of the dead."

Perhaps it did English people some good to see the way their representatives were treating the Irish people in their power, perhaps they didn't care, but the engraving of  Bridget O'Donnell and her pathetic family remains one of the striking images of the Great Famine, akin perhaps to that picture of the GIs raising the flag at Iwo Jima, or the Chinese student facing the tank in Tiananmen Square. Even when the evicted tenants did their best to set up makeshift shanty towns, huts of mud and sticks called "scalps", near to where they had only just recently lived before being thrown out by an uncaring landlord, they were not safe. This account tells of how one woman lost not only her second, lean-to home, but also her child, no doubt the work of the "wreckers", bands of tough, young, ill-educated poor yobs who worked for the landowner or his agents, and must have been equated to the Yeomanry of earlier decades.

Having put together their scalp, the woman's husband went off somewhere while she visited a "neighbour" about 100 yards away. While she was out of the scalp it was set on fire. She ran back to try to save her child, but was only in time to see them being 'taken out of the scalp on a shovel, all burnt to death, by a man named Michael Griffin. I am sure that the scalp was set on fire by some person or persons, for it could not otherwise take fire.' Utter scum. Not content with destroying the family's poor home and kicking them off the land, they burned down their makeshift one, and never bothered to check if anyone was inside. True, they probably did not mean to kill anyone, but I doubt the fact they did caused them any sleepless nights.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/George_Bingham%2C_3rd_Earl_of_Lucan.png)
George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan(1800 - 1888)

Another serious offender was a nobleman, an earl, who was so dismissive of and uncaring of his tenants that he snapped he "would not breed paupers to pay priests", had over 300 homes knocked down, making over 2,000 people homeless in Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo, and even went so far as to destroy their only alternative means of support, the workhouse. He, too, earned the nickname "The Exterminator" among the Irish. For his crimes against humanity he was appropriately punished, being promoted from colonel to major general in 1851. He was not a popular man, enraging the local garrison by demanding their barracks windows be blocked up, as he snarled the men were looking at his wife as she took her walks in the garden of his house, which the barracks overlooked. On arriving in Ireland he dismissed his land agent, a popular man called St. Clair O'Malley, and immediately set about enforcing the kind of reputation he had enjoyed in the army, as a martinet and a bully.

One one occasion, his tenants in Castlebar, believing him to be in London, burned him in effigy, and then had to scatter in panic as he rode up upon them, shouting "I'll evict the whole bloody lot of you!" An interesting fact here is that after returning to England, he was posted to the Crimea and actually led the doomed and pointless but very famous Charge of the Light Brigade. Odd to read that when he came back to Castlebar he was welcomed, the city illuminated in his honour. As a postscript, it seems his son was far better than his father, returning to Mayo and being much fairer with the tenants, providing education for Catholic children and allowing the tenant farmers to buy their land.

Denis Mahon

A major in the British army, he secured landlordship of Strokestown, in Co. Roscommon, by having its previous owner, his uncle Maurice, declared mentally unfit and taking over. His first move was to inform the tenants there that rents, which had lapsed during the tenure of his uncle, were now due, including all arrears, going back three years. Obviously nobody could pay this sort of money, and a strike was quickly organised, whereby everyone refused to pay. Mahon responded with mass evictions, but the families returned to their homes, he would have them evicted again, they would return, and the whole thing took on the complexion of a crazy game of roundabouts.

Mahon broke this cycle by ensuring those evicted were moved onto chartered "coffin ships" bound for Canada. Almost everyone on board died or were refused admittance, the news coming back to their families in Roscommon. This led to an attack on Mahon in which he was killed on November 2 1847, the murder sparking off a tinderbox of similar killings of landlords, and threats against others. Not surprisingly, the Ascendancy back in London were quick to jump upon this as a Catholic plot against Protestant landlords, without bothering to consider how brutal a man Mahon had been, and four men were eventually accused of his death, two hanged, one sentenced to transportation for life (which, given the coming years of famine, may very well have saved his life. Or he may have died over there, but at least he would have had more of a chance than those he left behind) and one who escaped to Canada.

The final word on evictions can perhaps be best left to the Bishop of Meath, The Most Reverend Thomas McNulty, who wrote, in a pastoral letter to his congregation:

Seven hundred human beings were driven from their homes in one day and set adrift on the world, to gratify the caprice of one who, before God and man, probably deserved less consideration than the last and least of them ... The horrid scenes I then witnessed, I must remember all my life long. The wailing of women—the screams, the terror, the consternation of children—the speechless agony of honest industrious men—wrung tears of grief from all who saw them. I saw officers and men of a large police force, who were obliged to attend on the occasion, cry like children at beholding the cruel sufferings of the very people whom they would be obliged to butcher had they offered the least resistance. The landed proprietors in a circle all around—and for many miles in every direction—warned their tenantry, with threats of their direct vengeance, against the humanity of extending to any of them the hospitality of a single night's shelter ... and in little more than three years, nearly a fourth of them lay quietly in their graves."