The
Irish History
And
The Fighting Irish
And
The Fighting Irish
( The Pale )
The Pale, continued from previous page. . .
tax base shrank to a fraction of what it had been in 1300. The Earls of Kildare ruled as Lords
Deputy from 1470 ( with more or less success ) by a series of alliances with Gaelic Clans. This lasted until the 1520s, when the earls passed out of royal favour, but the 9th earl was reinstated in the 1530s. The brief revolt by his son " Silken Thomas " in 1534-35 led on to the Tudor reconquest of Ireland in the following decades, in which Dublin and the surviving Pale was used as the main military base for expansion.
The Pale boundary essentially consisted of a fortified ditch and rampart built around parts of the medieval counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare, actually leaving half of Meath, most of Kildare and south west Dublin on the other side. The northern frontier of the Pale was marked by the De Verdon fortress of Castle Roche. Whilst the southern border roughly corresponds to the present day M50 motorway in Dublin. The following discription of the Pale is from the parish of Taney:
In the period immediately after the Norman Settlement was constructed the barrier known as the ' Pale ' separating the lands occupied by the settlers from those remaining in the hands of the Irish. The barrier consisted of a ditch, raised some ten or twelve feet from the ground with a hedge of thorn on the other side. It was constructed no so much to keep out the Irish as to form an obstacle in their way in their raids on the cattle of the settlers, and thus give time for a rescue. The Pale began at Dalkey, and followed a southwesterly direction towards Kilternan; then turning northwards passed Kilgobbin, where a castle still stands and crossed the parish of Taney to the south of that part of the lands of Balally now called Moreen, and thence in a westerly direction to Tallaght, and on to naas in the County of Kildare. In the wall bounding Moreen is still to be seen a small watch-tower and the remains of a guard-house adjoining it. from this point a beacon-fire would raise the alarm as far as Tallaght, where an important castle stood. A portion of the Pale is still to be seen in Kildare between Clane and Clongowes Wood College at Sallins.
Within the confines of the Pale the leading gentry and merchants lived lives not too different from that of their counterparts in England, except that they lived under the constant fear of attack from the Gaelic Irish. Eventually after the 16th and 17th centuries, and especially after the Anglican Reformantion and the Plantation of Ulster, the Old English settlers were gradually assimilated into the Irish nation, in large part due to their relative reluctance to give up Roman Catholicism ( those who became Protestants were rewarded with a higher status ) They were in fact joined by othere English Catholics fleeing persecution under Elizabeth I and subsequent monarchs. This large body of middle and lower class English speakers, combined with their rejection by the ascendant Protestant upper class, provided much of the impetus for the displacement of the Irish language from Ireland's population.
( Norman and Gael continued )
Irishwomen
have been famed, and wooed, in all ages and in many lands for their
chastity, wit, vivacity, tenderness, intelligence, and beauty. Intermarriages with the British, or Welsh princes went on from the twilight of history. Many Saxon lords, too, sought wives in Ireland. Even before the Invasion the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury ( 1100 ) sent an ambassador to crave a princess of the House of O'Brien in wedlock, but Magnus, King of Denmark, secured her for his own son, Sitric, King of Man. On the day when the victorious Richard, Earl of Pembroke, surnamed Strongbow, married Eva, daughter of Dermot MacMurrough. King of Leinster on the blood soaked battlefield of Waterford ( 1170 ), the Irish conquest of the Norman conquerors begun. For marrying the Lady Rose O' Comor, daughter of Rury, King of Connacht, the elder Hugh de Lacy roused the ire of Henry II, and won dismissal from his post as Chief Governor of Ireland. The second Hugh de Lacy took unto wife the daughter of Alan, Lord of Galloway, grandson of King Baliol of Scotland. The renowned Richard de Burgh, the mighty " Red Earl " of Ulster, espoused Una, daughter of Prince Hugh O' Conor. Their daughter married into the Royal house of Scotland. Hence the Bruces, through the female line, were descended from MacMurrough, King of Leinster, and Robert's wife, Ellen, Queen of Scots, daughter of the " Red Earl " came of the royal lineage of the
O' Conors of Connacht. William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, the ablest soldier of his day, wedded Isabella, daughter of Eva and Strongbow. Their eldest son, William, was the husband of Eleanor Plantagent, sister of
Henry III of England. On his death, she became the wife of the famous Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. The King of Scotland took another of her sisters to wife. The daughter of the last Earl of Ulster married Lionel, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward III of England. The seed of MacCarthy More, King of Cork, and of Petronilla de Bloet passed into the House of Stuart and fructified in the person of the Sixth James of Scotland ( First James of England) As generation succeeded generation all the Irish clans, in the five-fifths of Eirinn, were united in ties of blood, with, and helped to conquer to Gaeldom, all the Norman families.
With Scotland, north of the Grampians, Gaelic Scotland, there was no break in relationship down the ages. It is no exaggeration to say that intermarriage and community of language, customs and interests, made the north and west of Ireland and Argyll and the western Scottish Isles one family estate. Inverness was the capital of Gaeldom in the Middle Ages. The Scottish Kings made commercial treaties and social compacts in favour of the Irish of Ireland and to the detriment of the English of Ireland.
The result of the blending of the two races, Irish and Anglo-Norman-French, Gaels and Sean Gaels, was an enriching and deepening of national life in every department. Paralleling like happenings in England and Scotland
The absorption of the invaders occurred earlier in the Green Isle. " If the speech is Irish the heart is also Irish " as an English official bitterly declared. So long as the Irish retained their native culture and language, their power of assimilating what was best in other resident races was marvellous.
The Sean Gaels ( old foreigners ) became " more Irish than the Irish themselves " They donned the Irish national dress, used the Irish tongue, fostered Irish literature and music, ruled their subjects by the Brehon laws, and because they became essentially Irish they won the devotion and fidelity of the people. They even discarded their own Norman names in favour of Irish names. Sir John Davies, in the reign of James I of England, deplored their conduct: " As they did not only forget the English language and scorned the use therof, but grew to be ashamed of their very English names, though they were noble, and of great antiquity, and took Irish surnames and nicknames "
The De Burghs were transformed, first into Burkes, then into MacWilliams. The De Birminghams became MacYoris; the Dexecesters, MacJordans; the De Angulo family was hence-forth known as MacCostello. " In Munster, of the great families of the Geraldines planted there, one was MacMorice, Chief of the House of Lixnaw; and another MacGibbon, who was also called the White Knight. " . . . " And they did this in contempt and hatred of the English name and nation whereof these degenerate families became more mortal enemies to England than the Gaels. "
Because they fell under the spell of the wide culture of the Gaels with its deep humanities, its kindly, genial atmoshere, there was " utter ruin " to English interests. Perhaps in no other race was the doctrine of the equality of man so well understood as among the Gaels.
O' Conors of Connacht. William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, the ablest soldier of his day, wedded Isabella, daughter of Eva and Strongbow. Their eldest son, William, was the husband of Eleanor Plantagent, sister of
Henry III of England. On his death, she became the wife of the famous Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. The King of Scotland took another of her sisters to wife. The daughter of the last Earl of Ulster married Lionel, Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward III of England. The seed of MacCarthy More, King of Cork, and of Petronilla de Bloet passed into the House of Stuart and fructified in the person of the Sixth James of Scotland ( First James of England) As generation succeeded generation all the Irish clans, in the five-fifths of Eirinn, were united in ties of blood, with, and helped to conquer to Gaeldom, all the Norman families.
With Scotland, north of the Grampians, Gaelic Scotland, there was no break in relationship down the ages. It is no exaggeration to say that intermarriage and community of language, customs and interests, made the north and west of Ireland and Argyll and the western Scottish Isles one family estate. Inverness was the capital of Gaeldom in the Middle Ages. The Scottish Kings made commercial treaties and social compacts in favour of the Irish of Ireland and to the detriment of the English of Ireland.
The result of the blending of the two races, Irish and Anglo-Norman-French, Gaels and Sean Gaels, was an enriching and deepening of national life in every department. Paralleling like happenings in England and Scotland
The absorption of the invaders occurred earlier in the Green Isle. " If the speech is Irish the heart is also Irish " as an English official bitterly declared. So long as the Irish retained their native culture and language, their power of assimilating what was best in other resident races was marvellous.
The Sean Gaels ( old foreigners ) became " more Irish than the Irish themselves " They donned the Irish national dress, used the Irish tongue, fostered Irish literature and music, ruled their subjects by the Brehon laws, and because they became essentially Irish they won the devotion and fidelity of the people. They even discarded their own Norman names in favour of Irish names. Sir John Davies, in the reign of James I of England, deplored their conduct: " As they did not only forget the English language and scorned the use therof, but grew to be ashamed of their very English names, though they were noble, and of great antiquity, and took Irish surnames and nicknames "
The De Burghs were transformed, first into Burkes, then into MacWilliams. The De Birminghams became MacYoris; the Dexecesters, MacJordans; the De Angulo family was hence-forth known as MacCostello. " In Munster, of the great families of the Geraldines planted there, one was MacMorice, Chief of the House of Lixnaw; and another MacGibbon, who was also called the White Knight. " . . . " And they did this in contempt and hatred of the English name and nation whereof these degenerate families became more mortal enemies to England than the Gaels. "
Because they fell under the spell of the wide culture of the Gaels with its deep humanities, its kindly, genial atmoshere, there was " utter ruin " to English interests. Perhaps in no other race was the doctrine of the equality of man so well understood as among the Gaels.
