Irish History
And
The Fighting Irish

( Norman and Gael )

Norman and Gael continued . .

 meanest clansman of an O'Neill or a MacDonnell stood on equal footing with a Chieftain. When Art

MacMurrough and three other Irish Kings visited Richard II in Dublin the English were horrified to see the royal guests sitting down to the table with their minstrels and whole retinue. " They told me this was a praiseworthy custom of their country, " records the official scribe, but such democratic conduct would not be allowed by this feudal master of ceremonies. So they were separated - the kings were sequestered at one table, the retinue at another. " The Kings looked at each other and refused to eat, saying i had deprived them of their old custom in which they had been brought up. " But the boorish " allotted tutor in manners " informed them that it was not decent or suitable to their rank, " for now they must conform to the manners of the English. " " With the dignity of courteous guests " they yielded. When Sir John Harrington visited O'Neill he found him seated in the open surrounded by his clansmen. In such a position he averred he would rather be " The O'Neill than the King of Spain" Harrington marvelled at the love and admiration the Gaels exhibited toward their lord. " With what charm such a master makes them love him i know not; but if he bid come they come; if go, they do go; if he say do this, they do it. "
The habbit of the Normans fostering their children with mothers of the Gael and having them to act as sponsors in baptism for their childre, was hateful to the English Government. " Both of which, " adds Sir John Davies " have ever been of greater estimation among this people than with any other nation in the Christian world . . .Fostering hath always been a stronger alliance than blood, and fostering children do love and are beloved of their foster fathers and their sept more than of their natural parents and kindred, and do participate of their means more frankly, and do adhere unto them in all fortunes with more affection and constancy. "

England bitterly bewailed the " degenerate " fate in Ireland of its own original conquerors - the Norman-French. On the other hand, the Gaels with truer insight, declared that these Sean Ghalls " gave up their foreignness for a pure mind, their surliness for dgood manners, their stubbornness for sweet mildness, and their perverseness for hospitality. " Drastic steps were taken to prevent the amalgamation of the races, to blight the bloom of Gaelic-Anglo-Norman civilisation. The notorious Statute of Kilkenny ( 1367 ) was but one of a long series of legislative acts designed for this purpose. It begins thus:

" Many of the English of Ireland discarding the English tongue, manners, style of riding, laws and usages, lived and governed themselves according to the mode, fashion and language of the ' Irish enemies ' and also made divers marriages between themselves and the Irish, whereby the said lands and the liege people thereof, the English language, the allegiance due to their lord the King of England and the English laws, were put in subjection and decayed, and the Irish enemies exalted and raised up, contrary to reason. "

So it declared any such alliance high treason ( The godfathers and godmothers of the same child were gossips. The children nursed by the same mother were fosters. Two boys nursed on the same milk were foster-brothers ) It declared war on gossipred, on fostering, on the Irish language, on Irish culture, on Irish music and its professors, on Irish law and its judges, on Irish games and pastimes, on the Irish clergy, on Irish manners and customs, on Irish trade and commerce. The English born in England were no longer to be dubbed " English churls or clowns, " nor were the English born in Ireland to be called " Irish dogs. " To crown all, the English Archbishps and Bishops pronounced sentence of excommunication against all who disobeyed the statute.
Love mocked at such penal laws. The wedding bells continued to ring down the corridor of the centuries. The prospect of being hanged, drawn, disembowelled, and quartered - the legal penalty - had no terrors for the Irish, New or Old, Sean Ghalls or Gaels. Every avenue of tyranny and of terror was explored to find means of arresting the irresistable tide of Gaelicism. If a wayfarer was seen either riding in the Irish fashion, or dressed in Gaelic costume, or not wearing " a civil English cap, " it was advisable and lawful " to murder the offender. Even the sporting of a moustache after the Irish fashion ( the fashion on the Continent then also ) and not having a shaven upper lip like the English, was denounced by Act of Parliament ( 25 Henry VI 1447 ) as deserving death, and the delinquents estate was to be forfeited to the Crown.

I would not give my Irish wife for all the dames of the Saxon land;
I would not give my Irish wife for the Queen of France's hand;
For she to me is dearer than castles strong, or lands, or life -
An outlaw - so I'm near her, to love till death my Irish wife.

I knew the law forbade the banns - I knew my king abhorred her race -
Who never bent before their clans must bow before their ladies' grace.
Take all my forfeited domain, I cannot wage with kinsmen strife -
Take knightly gear and noble name, and i will keep my Irish wife.