With the blessing of the English Pope, Adrian IV, the Norman, Henry the second invaded Ireland in 1171 with five hundred knights and four thousand horse and foot soldiers. They landed in four hundred ships at Waterford in October of that year.
Henry's conquest of the south-east was little more than a triumphant march. Without question, the skill of the Normans in the art of war, their use of the longbow, cavalry, heavy battle swords and their armour had a telling effect on the minds of the Irish chiefs. The Irish for their part were used to fighting on foot without armour and with axes, spears and light swords. In addition, due to their independence, there was not the cohesion among them that would have enabled them to maintain a united front against such a powerful invader.
The Irish only considered paying homage in the light of minor kings to a greater king which was a thing they had always been used to doing to one of their own. Yet surely they must have realised the vast difference between submission to one of their own and to a foreign invader. It shows lamentable demoralisation and stamps their memory with lasting shame.
Fionn O'Carroll, who was King of Ely at this time, to his credit did not join their number. He died in 1205, according to the annals of the Four Masters, without surrendering his independence.
The strange mesmerism which the presence of Henry seemed to have brought to the Irish princes disappeared on his departure and they woke up to realise that they had welcomed an invader and meekly accepted him. Now at last they began to rise up against the enemy and endeavour to drive him out. Less daunted now by Norman discipline and equipment they set their bravery and strategy against the Normans' skills and discovered that the Normans were not omnipotent. Several chiefs inflicted big defeats on them and if it had not been for the vacillation of Roderick O'Connor they might have been driven out.
Roderick O'Connor made a treaty with Henry which acknowledged Henry's lordship of Leinster, Meath and a few other places occupied by Henry's men, while Henry in return acknowledged Roderick's right to the High Kingship of the remaining five sixths of Ireland.
Pacts such as these had little effect in securing any form of lasting peace as every Norman chief warred on his own account and every Irish chief and prince, when opportunity offered, warred against the invader. Such demoralisation now set in that within a short time the Irish chiefs were not only warring with Norman barons but with each other and Norman baron was warring with Norman baron.
As with their conquest of England and Wales, the Normans consolidated each gain with a castle. Dublin castle, which was to become the seat of British government in Ireland and a place feared and hated by native Irishmen, was begun in 1204 on the site of the old Norse fort which dominated the city. Walled towns were built in Galway, New Ross, Athenay, Drocheda and all over Ireland. The process of reducing Ireland by incastellation, or castle building, was pursued with relentless enthusiasm; and so successful was it that in less than seventy years three quarters of the country was under Anglo-Norman sway.
The Normans marked their progress by much slaughter and barbarity. Robbing and burning churches, and frequently killing the people in them.
During this period trade with Britain and the continent flourished and, for the first time, Ireland came to experience the widespread use of coins. Also for the first time in 1297 an Irish parliament was established on the British model with Norman representatives coming from the three quarters of the country that was under their control.
The remarkable fact remains that the Irish people were not driven back upon any part of the kingdom. They remained scattered yet unconquered among the foreigners. The Normans occupied the present counties of Antrim, Down, Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare and most of West Meath, Limerick and the adjoining districts. In Connaught their rule extended from Galway northwards and eastward over the western plain. On the other hand the remainder of Ulster and the adjoining districts was stoutly maintained by the O'Neils and other northern septs while in the central plain of Leinster and North Munster the O'Conors of Offaly, the O'Mores of Laois and the O'Carrolls of Ely sat tight on their ancestral lands in spite of the foreigners efforts to dislodge them.
Teige O'Carroll was King of Ely at this time and the tenth in descent from the Carroll from whom the patronymic is derived. He is the chief whose name is inscribed on the casket of the celebrated relic known as the 'Book of Diamura' which is a copy of the gospels written for St Cronan. It is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
The Normans used the church for all purposes of statecraft, its higher officers were spies upon popular movements while its ablest bishops, neglecting their spiritual offices and becoming wholly absorbed in temporal administration. The Anglo-Norman churchmen acted as viceroys for the King of England. The Irish church was treated with great cruelty and the direst oppression. Irish nuns and monks could not be harboured in any district where the Norman church writ ran. From the pulpits they preached "It is no offence against God to kill any Irish human being".
In their complaint to Pope John the twelfth in 1318, Donald O'Neil King of Ulster, Roderick O'Carroll of Ely and other Irish princes declared:
"As it very constantly happens, whenever an Englishman, by perfidy or craft, kills an Irishman, however noble, or however innocent, be he clergy or layman, there is no penalty or correction enforced against the person who may be guilty of such wicked murder, but rather the more eminent the person killed and the higher rank which he holds among his own people, so much more is the murderer honoured and rewarded by the English, and not merely by the people at large but also by the religious and bishops of the English race."
Of this Roderick O'Carroll, son of Maolroona, the following is recorded in the annals of Friar Clyn:
"Anno 1346 occiditur Thadeus filius Roderici O'Carwyl, princeps de Ely-Caryl, vir portens, Iocuplex et dives et bellicosus precipius Anglicorum inimicus et persecutor."
CHART SHOWING THE DESCENT OF THE O'CARROLLS LORDS OF ELY
Carroll (led the Elians at the
| battle of Clontarf 1014)
|
Fionn O'Carroll (King of Ely) died 1205
|
Teige O'Carroll
|
-------------------------
| |
Maolroona Daniel, settled at Litterluna
| |
Roderick (d 1346) Donough (d 1306)
| |
Teige William Alamn
| |
Teige Donough (d 1377)
Any errors, additions, suggestions or queries please do contact me (see below).