What has Mr. Emmet to say of the treatment of the Irish people by the English Romanists from Henry II. down to and including the reign of Mary the First? He will scarcely find that the students of Irish history will agree with his statement.
There is another tale, legend or fact, in which, of course, a woman and her abduction from her husband, O'Roirke, Prince of Breffin, by Dermot MacMurrogh, King of Leinster, with her own consent many think, was the cause of the interposition of the English, and she is called the Irish Helen. Dermot fled to England and laid his case before the King, craving protection and swearing allegiance. Henry was too busily engaged in France to attend, but he did issue an edict offering his protection to all who might aid his trusted subject, Dermot, King of Leinster.
This aroused Richard, Earl of Chepstow, called "Strongbow," who for his assistance was to receive the hand of Dermot's daughter in marriage, and a settlement of all of that Irish King's property upon them and their children (a contract which was fulfilled), but Strongbow being tardy was anticipated by Robert Fitzstephens, who agreed to assist Dermot, and was to receive in payment the town of Wexford and adjoining lands, and he it was whose boats landed on this little beach, where the water murmurs so quietly to-night.
Dermot in his castle yonder at Ferns awaited the coming of these invaders, and promptly sent his natural son Donald with five hundred horse to join them, and so the game was played, and his throne restored to him.
Then came Strongbow, then Henry II. with his armies, and the English were here to stay.
Whatever the facts of the case are, it is certain that just here landed the first of the English, and from here spread their rule,—whether for good or ill is the great question of to-day in this island. There are no relics of the event, though there appear to be some earthworks which are thought of Celtic origin.
The leagues are not many which separate this cliff from Cardiganshire in Wales, and a friendly intercourse was kept up until Pope and King came together in solemn conclave.
One of that King's first acts was the bestowal of Dublin upon the "good citizens of my town of Bristol." The capital of a kingdom bestowed upon the traders of Bristol! The original of this gift is in the Record Office of Dublin castle.
Would it have been any satisfaction to those of the land which he had so oppressed to have known of the ending of this "Great King"? Dying at Chinon in a rage so terrible that even death could not smooth out the traces from his face, Henry II.'s body was plundered like the Conqueror's, and, like his, left stark naked. Shrouded at last in some cast-off garments, it was placed in its coffin, a rust-broken sceptre stuck in its hand, an old and meaningless ring of no value on its finger, while the crown on its brow was composed of a piece of gold fringe torn from a discarded robe of some court dame, who doubtless had curtsied to the ground many times before the living monarch. In such state, Henry II. was buried in the stately abbey of Fontevrault and promptly forgotten, though the wrongs he did Ireland lived on and on.