CHAPTER X
The Norman-Welsh Invasion of Ireland—Their Landing in Wexford
POPE ADRIAN’S “gift” of Ireland to Henry II, absurd as it may appear in this age, was not without precedent in the Middle Ages, when the Roman Pontiff was regarded as supreme arbiter by nearly all of Christendom. Such “gifts” had been made before the time of Adrian, and some afterward, but they were not considered bona fide by the countries involved. So also with the Irish people as a majority. They respected, as they still respect, the Pope in his spiritual capacity, but rightly conceived that he had no power whatever to make a present of their country to any potentate, whether native or alien, without their consent. An influential minority held otherwise, with most unfortunate results, as we shall see. Some superzealous Catholic writers have sought to discredit the existence of the “bull” of Adrian, but weight of evidence is against them, and, in any case, it was “confirmed,” at Henry’s urgent request, by Pope Alexander III. The king was engaged in civil war with his own sons—in every way worthy of their rapacious father—during most of his reign, for he held under his sway Normandy, Aquitaine, and other parts of France, which they wanted for themselves. Thus no chance to push his long meditated Irish scheme presented itself until about A. D. 1168. Fifteen years prior to that date, Dermid, or Dermot, MacMurrough (Mac Murro), King of Leinster, a very base and dissolute ruler, had carried off the wife of O’Ruarc, Prince of Breffni, while the latter was absent on a pious pilgrimage. The lady was a willing victim, and added the dowry she brought her husband to the treasure of her paramour. When Breffni returned to his castle and found that his wife had betrayed him, he was overpowered by grief and anger, and, not having sufficient military force himself to punish his enemy, he called on Turlough Mor O’Conor, then titular Ard-Righ, to assist him in chastising MacMurrough. O’Conor did so to such purpose that, according to Irish annals, Dervorgilla, which was the name of O’Ruarc’s wife, together with her dowry, was restored to her husband, who, however, discarded her, and she died penitent, it is said, forty years afterward in the cloisters of Mellifont Abbey. But Dermid’s evil conduct did not end with his outrage against O’Ruarc. He entertained the most deadly animosity to the O’Conor family on account of the punishment inflicted on him by Turlough Mor, and when on the death in battle of Ard-Righ Murtagh McLaughlin, Roderick, son of Turlough Mor, claimed the national crown, MacMurrough refused him recognition, although nearly all the other sub-kings had acknowledged him as supreme ruler of Ireland. Incensed at his stubbornness, King Roderick, who had with him O’Ruarc and other princes of Connaught, marched against Dermid, who, seeing that he was overmatched, burned his palace of Ferns, and, taking to his galley, crossed the Irish Sea to England and sought out King Henry II at his Court of London. On arriving there he was informed that the king was in Aquitaine, and thither he at once proceeded. The politic founder of the Plantagenet dynasty received him quite graciously and listened complacently to his story. Henry was secretly well pleased with the treasonable errand of his infamous guest, which was to demand Anglo-Norman aid against his own monarch, regardless of the after consequences to the fortunes of his country. He enumerated his grievances at the hands of the O’Conors, father and son, and related how he had been the faithful ally of the former in his long war with one of the Thomond O’Briens. Turlough Mor, he considered, had treated him badly for the sake of O’Ruarc, and his son, Roderick, had been quite as hostile, forcing him to seek Henry’s protection against further invasion of his hereditary patrimony. The Anglo-Norman king said, in reply, that he could not aid MacMurrough in person as he was then engaged in a war with one or more of his own sons, but he consented to give him commendatory letters to certain Norman chiefs, brave but needy, who were settled in Wales and the West of England, and had there made powerful matrimonial alliances. The traitor gladly accepted the letters, “did homage” to Henry, and took his leave elated at the partial success of his unnatural mission. Landing in Wales, he found himself within a short time in the presence of Richard De Clare, surnamed “Strongbow,” a brave, adventurous, and unscrupulous Norman noble, who bore the title of Earl of Pembroke. He also made the acquaintance of other Norman knights—among them Robert Fitzstephen, Maurice De Prendergast, Maurice Fitzgerald, ancestor of the famous Geraldine houses of Kildare and Desmond; Meyler FitzHenry and Raymond Le Gros—all tried warriors, all in reduced circumstances, and all ready and willing to barter their fighting blood for the fair hills and rich valleys of Ireland. They listened eagerly while MacMurrough unfolded his precious plot of treason and black revenge. The daring adventurers seized upon the chance of fortune at once, and the traitor was sent back to Ireland to prepare his hereditary following for the friendly reception of “the proud invaders,” his newly made allies. Before leaving Wales he had made bargains with the alien adventurers which were disgraceful to him as a native-born Irishman. In a word, he had, by usurped authority, mortgaged certain tracts of the land of Leinster for the mercenary aid of the Anglo-Normans, or, to be more historically exact, the Norman-Welsh.
Soon after the departure of Dermid for Ireland, Robert Fitzstephen, the readiest of the warlike plotters, and the first of the invaders, sailed for that country at the head of thirty knights, sixty men in armor, and three hundred light-armed archers. In the fragrant ides of May, 1169, they landed on the Wexford coast, near Bannow, and thus, inconsequentially, began the Norman invasion of Ireland. De Prendergast arrived the following day with about the same number of fighting men. Only a few years ago, in removing some débris—the accumulation of ages—near Bannow, the laborers found the traces of the Norman camp-fires of 1169 almost perfectly preserved. The two adventurers sent tidings of their arrival to MacMurrough without delay, and he marched at once, with a powerful force of his own retainers to join them. All three, having united their contingents, marched upon the city of Wexford, many of whose inhabitants were lineal descendants of the Danes. They made a gallant defence, but were finally outmanœuvred, overpowered, and compelled to capitulate. Other towns of less importance submitted under protest to superior force. Indeed there seemed to be a total lack of military foresight and preparedness in all that section of Ireland in 1169. Fitzpatrick, Prince of Ossory, descended from that ally of the Danes who attacked the Dalcassians returning from Clontarf, alone opposed to the invaders a brave and even formidable front. He committed the mistake of accepting a pitched battle with MacMurrough and his allies, and was totally defeated. King Roderick O’Conor, hearing of the invasion, summoned the Irish military bodies to meet him at Tara. Most of them responded, but the Prince of Ulidia, MacDunlevy, took offence at some remark made by a Connaught prince, and, in consequence, most of the Ulster forces withdrew from the Ard-Righ. King Roderick, with the troops that remained, marched to attack MacMurrough at his favorite stronghold of Ferns, where he lay with the Normans, or a part of them, expecting a vigorous siege. Instead of assaulting the enemy’s lines at once, when his superior numbers would, most likely, have made an end of the traitor and his Norman allies, O’Conor weakly consented to a parley with Dermid, who was a most thorough diplomat. The Ard-Righ consented, further, to a treaty with MacMurrough, who, of course, designed to break it as soon as the main body of the Normans, under Strongbow in person, should arrive from Wales. He did not, nevertheless, hesitate to bind himself by a secret clause of the treaty with the king to receive no more foreigners into his army, and even gave one of his sons as a hostage to guarantee the same. The Ard-Righ retired from Ferns satisfied that the trouble was ended. The royal army was scarcely out of sight of the place when MacMurrough learned that Maurice Fitzgerald, at the head of a strong party of Normans, had also arrived on the Wexford coast. He now thought himself strong enough to lay claim to the High Kingship and negotiated with the Danes of Dublin for recognition in that capacity. Meanwhile, still another Norman contingent under Raymond Le Gros landed at the estuary of Waterford, on the Wexford side thereof, and occupied Dundonolf Rock, where they intrenched themselves and eagerly awaited the coming of Strongbow with the main body of the Norman army.
By this time Henry II began to grow jealous of the success of his vassals in Ireland. He wanted to conquer the country for himself, and, therefore, sent orders to Strongbow not to sail. But that hardy soldier paid no attention to Henry’s belated command, and sailed with a powerful fleet and army from Milford Haven, in Wales, arriving in Waterford Harbor on August 23, 1171. The Normans, under Raymond Le Gros, joined him without loss of time, and the combined forces attacked the old Danish city. The Danes and native Irish made common cause against the new enemy and a desperate and bloody conflict occurred. The Normans were several times repulsed, with great loss, but, better armed and led than their brave opponents, they returned to the breach again and yet again. At last they gained entrance into the city, which they set on fire. An awful massacre ensued. Three hundred of the leading defenders were made prisoners, their limbs broken and their maimed bodies flung into the harbor. King MacMurrough, who had already pledged his daughter’s hand to Strongbow—a man old enough to have been her father—arrived just after the city fell. In order to celebrate the event with due pomp and circumstance, he caused the Princess Eva to be married to the Norman baron in the great cathedral, while the rest of the city was burning, and the blood of the victims of the assault still smoked amid the ruins! An ominous and fatal marriage it proved to Ireland.
And now, at last, the blood of the native Irish was stirred to its depths and they began, when somewhat late, to realize the danger to their liberty and independence. In those far-off days, when there were no railroads, no electric wires, no good roads or rapid means of communication of any kind, and when newspapers were unknown, information, as a matter of course, traveled slowly even in a small country, like Ireland. The woods were dense, the morasses fathomless, and, in short, the invaders had made their foothold firm in the east and south portions of the island before the great majority of the Celtic-Irish comprehended that they were in process of being subjugated by bold and formidable aliens. There had existed in Ireland from very ancient times five main roads, all proceeding from the hill of Tara to the different sections of the country. That called “Dala” ran through Ossory into the province of Munster. The road called “Assail” passed on toward the Shannon through Mullingar. The highway from Tara to Galway followed the esker, or small hill range, as it does in our own day, and was called “Slighe Mor,” or great road; the road leading from Tara to Dublin, Bray, and along the Wicklow and Wexford coasts was called “Cullin”; the highway leading into Ulster ran, probably, through Tredagh, or Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, and Armagh, but this is not positive. As it was the route followed by the English in most of their Ulster wars, it is quite probable that they picked out a well-beaten path, so as to avoid the expense and labor of making a new causeway. McGee tells us that there were also many cross-roads, known by local names, and of these the Four Masters, at different dates, mentioned no less than forty. These roads were kept in repair, under legal enactment, and the main highways were required to be of sufficient width to allow of the passage of two chariots all along their course. We are further informed that the principal roads were required by law to be repaired at seasons of games and fairs, and in time of war. At their best, to judge by the ancient chroniclers, most of them would be considered little better than “trails” through the mountains, moors, and forests in these times.
MacMurrough and Strongbow did not allow the grass to sprout under their feet before marching in great force on Dublin. King Roderick, leading a large but ill-trained army, attempted to head them off, but was outgeneraled, and the enemy soon appeared before the walls of Leinster’s stronghold. Its Dano-Celtic inhabitants, cowed by the doleful news from Waterford, tried to parley; but Strongbow’s lieutenants, De Cogan and Le Gros, eager for carnage and rich plunder, surprised the city, and the horrors of Waterford were, in a measure, repeated. The Danish prince, Osculph, and most of his chief men escaped in their ships, but the Normans captured Dublin, and the English, except for a brief period in the reign of James II, have held it from that sad day, in October, 1171, to this.
Roderick O’Conor, that weak but well-meaning prince and bad general, retired into Connaught and sent word to MacMurrough to return to his allegiance, if he wished to save the life of his son, held as a hostage. The brutal and inhuman traitor refused, and King Roderick, although humane almost to a fault, had the unfortunate young man decapitated. This was poor compensation for the loss of Waterford and Dublin. Those pages of Irish history are all besmeared with slaughter.
Many of the Irish chroniclers, who are otherwise severe on Norman duplicity, relate a story of chivalry, worthy of any age and people, in connection with Maurice de Prendergast and the Prince of Ossory. Strongbow had deputed the former to invite the latter to a conference. The Irish prince accepted. While the conference was in progress, De Prendergast learned that treachery was intended toward his guest. He immediately rushed into Strongbow’s presence and swore on the hilt of his sword, which was a cross, that no man there that day should lay hands on the Prince of Ossory. The latter was allowed to retire unmolested, and Prendergast and his followers escorted him in safety to his own country. De Prendergast has been known ever since in Irish annals as “the Faithful Norman,” and his fidelity has made him the theme of many a bardic song and romantic tale.