Ireland, 1494-1868;

Front matter

Mni

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME |

FROM THE

Preface

IT is hardly correct to say that Irish History is deficient in dramatic passages, and in scenes that lend themselves to picturesque description. A Froissart would have given life and beauty to the exploits of many of the Anglo- Norman warriors ; a native chronicler of poetic genius would have made the deeds of more than one of the Celtic Princes, especially of Shane O'Neill and of the illustrious Tyrone, shine out in brilliant significance. The story of the sieges of Londonderry and of Limerick, and of the battles of the Boyne and of Aghrim has been told by eminent writers ; but these have belonged to the conquering race ; and the works of writers of the conquered race on these events are dull and imperfect Irish History contains episodes that a Walter Scott would have animated and made striking ; but they have not been treated by a master hand; a "vates sacer" has not appeared to give them attractive form and colouring.

This side, however, of Irish History is not that which possesses the greatest interest. The march of Irish affairs after the Anglo-Norman conquest has been, for the most part, outside the great movements of the European World ; there has been no Irish Bannockburn and no Irish Flodden ; many eminent Irishmen have been more conspicuous in foreign lands than their own. Irish History is most valuable on its internal side, that is, as it unfolds the conditions and circumstances under which the Irish People has existed through many centuries, and has become what it is. The story to a superficial mind may appear " a tale of little vi Preface.

meaning," a wearisome account of the long and hopeless struggle of a weak dependency with an infinitely more powerful nation and state. But the series of events which constitutes Irish History is of no ordinary interest to the true historical student and to thinkers and statesmen worthy of the name. The annals of few countries so clearly illustrate the evident sequence of cause and effect in the evolution of the life and the fortunes of a misruled, backward, and most ill fated community. Irish History, especially when contrasted with that of England, shows most strikingly how calamitous were the effects, in the Middle Ages, of the complete absence of a strong monarchy and a strong central government from a land abandoned to feudal oppression and to Celtic tribal disorder and discord. It shows very plainly how ill it may be when a people much superior in civilisation and wealth tries to rule a people inferior in these respects ; how misconceptions and fatal mistakes may follow ; how efforts to extend the domain of good government may lead to gross and far-spreading injustice. It illustrates only too vividly how terrible may be the results of conquest carried out piecemeal, through long spaces of time, and of wholesale confiscation following in its train ; and it signally proves how dreadful may be the issue of conflicts in which a feeble subject race defies the power of a great ruling State, in times of fierce religious and national passion. It indicates, on the other hand, how infatuated are attempts such as these ; especially when the weaker people is torn by intestine broils and divisions, and, while it beards an enemy tenfold in strength, throws its chances away in its insensate quarrels. Irish History places in the fullest light the evils of wrong done in the name of religion ; of a system of government framed on the principle of the ascendency of a mere sect ; of society formed, in all its parts, on the domination of a small caste, and on the denial of right to a conquered people ; of the divisions of race and faith rending a community

Preface. vii

in twain, and forbidding the fusion of classes kept apart, and of commercial restrictions of extreme harshness ; and it teaches a whole series of economic lessons, throughout its long course, of the greatest value. It must be added that it bears witness to the truth, that it is difficult for a Teutonic people to manage, or even to understand, a Celtic, particularly when the latter is on a plane of life, usages, and habits completely different ; and that British policy for Ireland, however well-meaning, has often been mistaken, owing to sheer ignorance, and has been repeatedly and most unfortunately too late, even in its best and wisest remedial measures.

The History of Ireland, besides, if I do not err, is deeply interesting for another general reason. Philosophy attests the moral government of the Universe, and rightly asserts the freedom of the will of man. But History recognises and teaches how immense is the power of circumstance in shaping the fortunes of states and nations ; and points out that these repeatedly have seemed to depend on what we in our ignorance call accidents. This has especially been the case in the course of the affairs of Ireland ; and it cannot fail to attract the attention of a thoughtful mind. Over and over again it has seemed as if Irish History would have been completely changed, with happy results, but for slight incidents that appear but the freaks of Fortune. To refer to a few instances only — how different it would have been if Henry of Anjou had not turned aside from the conquest in his power ; had Edward I done for Ireland what he did for Wales; had Henry VIII lived a few years longer; had William III been true to his nature in the affair of the Treaty of Limerick ; had not Lord Fitzwilliam been recalled by a petty intrigue ; had Pitt, on the occasion of the Union, compelled George III to bow to his will, as he had compelled him before; had Catholic Emancipation been accomplished with " the wings " in 1825 ! In these, and many other important passages of viii Preface.

Irish History, circumstance, that seems almost fortuitous, has played a decisive and an adverse part ; and a kind of dark and mournful fatality, like the song of the chorus in the Greek Drama, appears to play over a protracted and unhappy tragedy. This is given to us as an ensample, and affords matter for reflection.

I have written this work on Irish History with a reference to these leading ideas and from these points of view. I have, I hope, composed the narrative in the spirit in which every narrative of the kind should be composed. I have endeavoured to trace the causes of events, to show their connection and relations, to tell the truth fearlessly, to be strictly impartial, and yet always to make allowance for the stress of circumstance, and for the frailties, the passions, and the ignorance of humanity. I shall have gained my object if I shall have directed the attention of thoughtful minds in Great Britain and Ireland to Irish History. The subject, for various reasons, is of supreme importance to the people of both countries.

As I have been confined within rather narrow limits of space, I have been obliged to be chary of notes. I have enumerated in the Appendix the authorities, to which the reader may be referred. Those which seem to me of special value are printed in italics.

I have to thank Professor G. W. Prothero for his admirable skill and care in editing this book, dnd also the Treasurer and Librarian of the King's Inns, Dublin, for much valuable information.

WILLIAM O'CONNOR MORRIS.

Gartnamona, Tullamore.

December 17 th, 1895.

Table Of Contents

PAGE

Chapter I. Ireland before the Anglo-Norman Conquest I

„ II. The Anglo-Norman Conquest of Ireland. State of the Country from the Reign of Henry II to that of Henry VII 24

„ III. Ireland during the Tudor Period to

THE end of the REIGN OF HeNRY

VIH 59

,, IV. Ireland to the end of the Reign of

Elizabeth 83

„ V. From the Death of Elizabeth to the

Restoration 122

- „ VI. From the Restoration to the Capitulation of Limerick . . . .163

,, VII. The Period of the Penal Laws in Ireland. The Revolution of 1782. . 197

„ VIII. Grattan's Parliament. The Rebellion

Appendix

List of Authorities . ... 355

Index 366

Map of Ireland ... . . at end

ERRATA.

p. 25, 1. i\, for home read Rome.

p. 362, 1. 16, for Madden read Madden.

p. 362, 1. 27, for Pieces read Precis.

IRELAND.

CHAPTER I.

IRELAND BEFORE THE ANGLO-NORMAN CONQUEST.

Prehistoric Ireland. The Milesian conquerors. The Irish an Aryan Celtic race. Pagan Ireland. The island cut off from the Empire. First traces of Irish history. The mission of Patrick and its results. Ireland little affected by the consequences of the barbarian conquests and the fall of Rome. Splendid achievements of the Early Irish Church. State of society in Ireland before subsequent invasion and conquest. The Monarchy. The inferior kings. The chiefs and other orders. The tribes, clans and septs. The settlement of the land. The Church. The organisation and features of society. The arts of war and peace in Ireland. The Brehon laws. History. Poetry. Music. Architecture. Sculpture. The characteristics of the Irish. The Danish invasions. Brian. Decline of the Monarchy, and of civilisation. Proximity of England to Ireland. The island exposed to Anglo-Norman conquest.

The traces are faint of the prehistoric race which spread over Ireland in remote antiquity. The island is particularly rich in stone; it contains numerous Cyclopean remains; but it has nothing like Stonehenge in extent and grandeur. Tradition indicates that it was peopled from the East; the Fomorians have been called a Turanian tribe ; the Firbolgs were probably

M. I. I of the stem of the Belgse: the Tuatha-ua-Danaans, "adepts in Druidical and magical rites " — not impossibly a sacerdotal caste— are said to have been of Pelasgic origin. The evidence of language, however, admirably sifted by Zeuss, proves that the main body of the Irish people, of which History takes account, was an Aryan community of the great Celtic stock, once dominant in Britain, in Gaul, in Spain, and scattered over other parts of Europe. It seems probable that it belonged to the tribes of the Gael rather than of the Cymry, — these last perhaps the Cimmerii of Greek story, the Cimbri, at one time the terror of Rome, and the fathers, almost certainly, of the Celts of Wales. A migration of warlike Celts from Spain, after long wanderings through the Scythian wastes, overran Ireland before the Christian era; the Milesian settlement seems to point to a real conquest. Heber, Heremon, and Ir, the sons of Milesius, are as mythical perhaps as Romulus and Remus, as Arthur and Modred, as Hengist and Horsa ; but the families of the leading Irish chieftains, tradition affirms, sprang from their loins ; and the Milesians seem to have been an aristocratic order. They are described as " bold, honourable, daring, prosperous, bountiful, and not afraid of battle or combat."

The land inhabited by the Irish race is widely separated from the rest of Europe, and is surrounded by Atlantic waves and tempests. Phoenician and Spanish traders seem to have reached its shores, as far back, perhaps, as the day of Carthage \ but the Celts have never had a turn for the sea ; and Ireland assuredly was, to Roman eyes, even more cut off from the world than Britain. Caesar scarcely alludes to the island at all ; Agricola thought it not worth invading, though a single legion and a few auxiliaries would, in his judgment, have made the conquest certain. The Celts of Ireland were left to themselves, and to their primitive life and usages, long after Gaul had fallen under the power of Rome, Britain had

I.] Ireland before the A7iglo-Norman Conquest. 3

known the presence of Roman colonies, and the Celt of the Iberian Peninsula had felt Roman bondage. They, therefore, had no experience or taste of the civilisation that followed the march of the legions ; and the peculiarities of the land they dwelt in, divided by forests and immense peat-mosses, swept by torrents of rain from the West, and with a climate, then and long afterwards, injurious to health, would naturally have kept them in a state of backwardness. Yet in the first centuries succeeding the birth of Christ, we perceive in Ireland, if, no doubt, faintly, the image of an Aryan people established everywhere, and possessing the characteristics of the great Aryan family. A dim shadowy monarchy was in existence ; the names of Conn of the Hundred Battles, of Feredach the Just, of Felim the Lawgiver show that Ireland had her mythical Tullus, and her mythical Numa. A gradation of noble orders appears, in which probably great fighting men, Druids, and poets held a prominent place ; and traces are found of a growing tribal system. Erinn was pagan, and given to idolatry, like Paul's Corinth, but its paganism seems to have been more akin to nature-worship and the cult of the Sun, than to the horrid superstitions of the Cymric race — half thralls of the Druidic priesthood — which had their chief seats in Anglesea and in parts of Gaul, and which terrified even the trained Roman soldiery. The land seems to have been not divided : there was " not a ditch, nor fence, nor a stone wall," ran an ancient legend, until long afterwards ; and the population was, probably, still largely nomade. But agriculture, and all that this implies, was common ; parts of the community were certainly seated on the soil, under the system of common ownership, and of patriarchal custom, which forms a distinctive mark of an Aryan race.

Ireland' remained completely outside the track of the first

great barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire, and of the

ences which these brought with them. The decline of the

Imperial power in Britain is attested by a raid on the sea-board of Wales led by Niall of the Nine Hostages, a warrior king of the great Milesian stock, and with difficulty repelled by Stilicho, the conqueror of Alaric, and the friend of Claudian. " The ocean foamed with the oars of the Scots," the poet wrote ; this was perhaps the first instance of the descents of the Pictish and Scottish races on the decaying settlements of Roman Britain. The embryo kingship of Ireland was held by the Hy-Niall — the fathers of the O'Neills of History, the most illustrious of the Irish chiefs — for a period of nearly five hundred years; and, doubtless, as nomade life disappeared, the archaic organisation of the Aryan races developed itself more thoroughly on the land, in the village community, the sept, and the clan. But, as has always been the case with Aryan peoples, in certain stages of their growth and progress, and has been especially the case with the Celt, Ireland was a land of incessant strife and war; like the Hindoos, the Hellenes, the Latins, the Teutons, the Irish Celts were in a state of perpetual tribal discord. Light breaks first on Ireland in the fifth century, when this chaos of rude and wild heathendom was gradually made a Christian body of men united in some measure by a living and common faith. Patrick is a grand historical figure, surrounded as he is by a halo of legends ; the success of his mission was decisive and complete. Irish Paganism, possibly for some time in decline, yielded rapidly to the influence of the Saint ; "the lights of the Druids were quenched and their spells were broken"; the pagan chiefs bowed before the man of

God ; not impossibly what was worst in Irish pagan usages

still conspicuous in ancient Indian law— was swept away by his amending hand. And Patrick was the founder of that noble Church, which from Ireland sent the everlasting light through a world convulsed by the death-throes of Rome, and overspread, for ages, by ever increasing gloom.

We leap over four stormy centuries, in which the mould of

I.] Ireland before the Anglo-Norman Conquest. S

modern Europe was cast, in the fusion of barbarism and the wreck of the Empire. Fierce and wild races from the deserts of the East poured over the provinces of that Imperial state, which for centuries had held the world at peace, and had been deemed eternal in its majestic structure. Rome was sacked over and over again ; the new Rome on the shores of the Bosporus was threatened by conquering Semite hordes; Attila and his Huns were, with difficulty, expelled from Gaul ; Charles of the Hammer just saved the West from the arms of the Saracen. Meanwhile the Teuton had founded settlements in Italy, in France, in Spain, and in England, destined to become the beginnings of mighty kingdoms ; and at last the genius of Charles the Great constructed a new Empire in the midst of the Continent, extending from the Elbe to the Ebro ; and this, though girt round by still untamed tribes, was to be the fruitful germ of the civilisation yet to come. To this source we may largely ascribe monarchic government, the feudal system, the medieval Church, the conception of the state, and the organisation of the land in Europe ; the arrangement everywhere bearing the mark of rude and general conquest, and of the ideas of Rome, blending with those of the old Aryan communities. As had been the case before, Ireland was not affected directly by these stirrings of the world, and by the immense consequences following in their train, though indirectly she had a part in them. She continued isolated, to a great extent, so far as regards her secular life, her political existence, and her social usages. The loose supremacy of the Hy-Nialls went on; but it does not seem to have acquired strength, or to have possessed the character of a real Monarchy. The country fell under the rule of four or five houses of chiefs, lords of dominant and powerful tribes, which had more or less subdued the inferior septs and clans; and these were nearly always at feud with one another. The peculiar organisation of the land had become, doubtless, less archaic than it had been; collective ownership, the growth of the patriarchal idea, extremely strong in the Aryan races, still prevailed, but had become less general; agriculture had created separate ownership, and that to a very great extent; and the chiefs of the different tribes, septs, and clans, had gained increased power, and enlarged landed possessions, by processes curiously like those of the feudal system.

But if the History of Ireland, in those ages, does not, for causes plainly to be traced, show much political or social growth, it discloses one of the grandest and most remarkable religious movements the world has beheld. St Patrick, we have seen, made Ireland Christian ; the island, enclosed by the great sea of the West, was beyond the sphere of the gigantic movements which, north, east, south, and west, overthrew the Empire. The intellect, too, of the Irish, like that of all Celts, is keen, vivid, and especially skilled in communicating its ideas wherever it extends ; and the Irish and Celtic nature is strongly emotional, and vehement in its enthusiastic fervour. These facts explain the astonishing part Ireland played in the extension of the Christian faith, from the sixth until nearly the tenth century. Tom as the land was by intestine broils, the Church maintained a vigorous life of its own ; it had its scores of bishops, a great array of clergy, hundreds of holy men in its religious orders ; its monasteries, schools, and colleges were many and flourishing. Learning and piety spread from these centres of light happily not disturbed by the shock of falling Rome; Ireland became a seat of Christianity of a peculiar type ; and she diffused the sacred influence over many lands, doing great things to uphold Christendom, and to preserve the Word in the ages of barbarian conquest. This, indeed, ^vas the most glorious work of the Early Irish Church, a " lasting possession " for the family of man. The zeal of Columba and his successors raised the lamp of life on the shores of lona, and sent its rays over heathen Scotland. It burned in the

I.] Ireland before the Anglo-Norman Conquest. 7

Holy Isle of Lindisfarne; the Saxons of Northumbria felt its influence, soon after Augustine had landed on the plains of Kent. Irish missionaries preached in Wales, and beyond the Severn ; their glory shone in many lands of the Continent. Their voices were heard along the Jura ; in the Alpine ranges of wild Switzerland ; beside the banks of the Maine and the Rhine ; telling the tidings of great joy to savage conquerors, who still bowed down before Thor and Woden. It is a most significant fact that Charles the Great — the embodiment of civilisation in his age — had a singular esteem for holy men from Ireland ; they were often guests at his Imperial table. And as Ireland sent forth her teachers of the Faith, so she received within her borders thousands of Christians flying from the savagery and turmoil of the dying Roman world. Merovingian kings found a home in Ireland; monks, bishops, and priests sought a peaceful refuge from lands watered by the Nile, the Seine, and the Danube, in the crypts of Armagh, and where the Shannon flows beside the lonely churches of Clonmacnoise.

We may now glance at the state of primitive Ireland, at her institutions, her social structure and her laws, and at the progress she had made in the arts of life, before she felt the effects of invasion and conquest, that is, after the beginning of the ninth century. The ideas that were to prevail in most parts of Europe, and that flowed largely from barbarian dominion, mingling with the influences of Imperial Rome, had not had much power over her people, because she had been little in contact with them. The conceptions of monarchy, with a strong central government, of a church modelled on the Roman type, of aristocracy strictly ordered, of assemblies which were to enact laws, of land stamped with the feudal system, of cities with municipal rights — the conceptions, in a word, that appear in the medieval state, were not in existence or were very weak, for Ireland had been nearly a stranger to them. Ireland, nevertheless, presented the image of an Aryan community.

as yet backward, but progressing to a state of higher developement. A monarchy existed, and though in name elective, it had become hereditary in the Hy-Niall line, as the Empire was in the House of Austria. The monarch had little sovereign power; he was not, in any sense, the Head of a state ; he had no Parliament, no Army, no Courts of Justice. But he was the acknowledged superior of every other chief; he seems to have had a right to demand their services, and the armed forces of their tribes in time of war ; he had a claim to something resembling a national tribute. He had a Court, and all that pertained to it ; a nobility like the feudal Companions ; a retinue of Bards and Judges of high degree ; and he perhaps assembled the chief men of Ireland, and possibly representatives of the different tribes, at Tara, the place of royal gatherings. He was regularly crowned with solemn rites ; his coronation had much in common with the coronations of the German Caesars. The King of Ireland received the crown, after religious ceremonies, august and striking; in the presence " of the Princes of the Land," of " the Bishops," of the " free states," and possibly of men chosen from the people'.

Four or five lesser kings held the chief rule in Ireland, under their suzerain, the supreme Monarch. These were the heads of the most powerful tribes, which gradually had become dominant; they were akin to the great sovereign nobles of France, and to the Princes of Imperial Germany, dependent in name, but in their own "countries" rulers. Their state resembled that of their overlord ; they had their Courts, their noblesse, and their bands of retainers ; they exercised authority over inferior chiefs ; they commanded the forces of the leading tribes, and of the communities included in them ; and their influence had been for ages increasing. Their kingship, too,

■^ See a most interesting account of the coronation of a king of Connaught in the thirteenth century, in Tlie ff Conors of Contmught, 83 seq.

I.] Ireland before t/ie Anglo-Norman Conquest. 9

ran in the royal lines, if subject to a kind of election; the Tanist, the successor of the dead king, was not necessarily his direct heir, though, in all instances, of his blood; he was sometimes really chosen by the tribe; and this mode of succession, which seemed so barbarous to Tudor lawyers, was in truth akin to many successions in medieval monarchies, and possibly is a source from which primogeniture arose. These lesser kings probably had the chief power in Ireland; like the great lords and princes of the Middle Ages they kept the land in a state of petty war and trouble. Beneath these kings were the minor chiefs, masters of subject tribes, clans, and the lowest units, the septs ; their condition doubtless in some respects resembled that of their immediate superiors. But they were bound to them by many ties of dependence, analogous to those of the feudal system; and while their influence over the classes below them was growing, they were falling more and more under the control of the kings. The chiefs of the septs seem to have widely differed in many points from the other chiefs ; the succession to their lands at least — though this is a difificult subject — was different from that of the acknowledged kings. It was more archaic, and bore the trace of the patriarchal idea of the Aryan family ; but it was a mode of succession like that of the Gavelkind of Kent, though denounced as "sluttish and lewd" by the Cokes and the Spensers.

Under the chiefs, high and low, there seems to have been a local aristocracy of some kind, differing from the personal noblesse of the kings. The position of this order is, however, obscure; it may have had something in common with the Anglo-Saxon freeholder. There was a series of classes of inferior grade, but separated by well marked distinctions; they corresponded in some respects to the free tenants, the villeins, and the serfs of the feudal manor. These orders of men were dependent on the chief, his vassals, in fact, in lo Ireland. [Chap.

different degrees; they owed him allegiance, and probably supplied a large part of his forces in war. But the Ceile of substance, with herds of his own, was in a far better position, and more free, than the Saer stock or the Daer stock tenants, kept in subjection, though not to the same extent, by loans of cattle from the chief, which made them his debtors, as in the case of the Plebeians and Patricians of Rome. The subjection was in proportion to the amount of the debt, but these various classes, holding land, as they did, with concurrent rights in it, as joint owners, were liable, it would appear, "to a just rent " only, though the chief's power over them had long been growing. Outside the pale of these were the Fuidhir tenants, composed largely of broken men, of captives in war, and of landless outcasts ; these were also followers of the chief in battle ; and they were bound to all kinds of degrading services. The chiefs multiplied this class by a variety of means, for this tended to augment their influence ; they had a right to quarter retainers on them, "the coyne and livery" of another day; and they seem to have had a free hand to oppress them. The Fuidhir had no protection against "a rackrent," or indeed against any kind of exaction ; his lot was, doubtless, miserable and hard. But Tudor lawyers and many writers are wholly in error, when they confound the free and other tenants of the Irish chief, with the order of the despised Fuidhirs, and describe the chief as simply a cruel lord of down-trodden serfs ; the assertion is not only false, but absurd. Beside the land-holding classes, there were classes of slaves, the lowest certainly in the social scale ; and as the towns were very few and small, an urban population scarcely existed.

This organisation of society— still archaic but presenting features like those of feudalism — as in the case of all Aryan races, had stamped its peculiar character on the land, on which it had been established for ages. The Monarch, the lesser kings, and perhaps all the chiefs, had appropriated large tracts

I.] Ireland before the Anglo-Nonnan Conquest. ii

of land in demesne which they certainly held as separate owners ; and besides the tribute due to the supreme suzerain, the inferior rulers were entitled to different kinds of renders, within the limits of the lands of which they were the heads. Ireland as a whole was not thought of as a common country — the idea at least was very feeble — the great tribes were the main political units; and beneath these, and forming part of them, were the inferior tribes, the clans, and the septs, possessing landed usages in some respects the same, in others very different. Even the great tribes were still known by the name of Families, a • sign of the force of the old patriarchal idea ; their rulers were, or were believed to be, of the blood of an heroic common ancestor • the whole tribe was connected in some sense by this tie ; and the land of the tribe was by tradition its common property. But these conceptions had, to a great extent, died out ; the heads of the tribes may have had the descent claimed; but the tribes included, we have seen, inferior units, which certainly had not a common origin ; in the tribe, and in these, the land was held for the most part, perhaps, in separate ownership ; this tendency was ever on the increase; and the notion that the tribe lands were subject to collective rights, was probably, as a usage, waning away. This process was going on through the lower tribes and clans, and even down to the smallest division, the sept; separate ownership of the land was always extending; "the primitive communism" of the land was passing away. In the sept, however, the least developed unit, the family idea was still potent, and with this the notion of common property in the land. The lands of the chief of a sept, we have seen, were divided by a process akin to Gavelkind. On the death of a member of a sept, a somewhat similar mode of succession — though probably only one of several modes — ^was adopted, the chief, it is alleged, distributing the lands among the remaining members, the nearest in blood to the supposed common ancestor. The family idea, too, made artificial ties nearly as strong as natural in the ancient Irish household. The foster child was as much loved as the child by parentage, the godson as the son by blood, ■ these usages, too, seeming odious to Tudor lawyers, who could not ascend to their true sources.