Gaelic Ireland, C.1250-C.1650: Land, Lordship and Settlement 9781851828005, 9781846828904, 1851828001
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Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
Illustrations
List of Contributors
Abbreviations and conventions
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Recovering Gaelic Ireland, c.1250- c.1650
I. Collaboration without Anglicisation: The MacGiollapadraig Lordship and Tudor Reform
II. Delusions of Dál Riada: The Co-ordinates of Mac Domnaill Power, 1461-1550
III. Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla in the Late Sixteenth Century
IV. Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland: Some New Evidence
V. The Mapping of Ireland’s Cultural Landscape, 1550-1630
VI. Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
VII. Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
VIII. Settlement and Place-names
IX. Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
X. An Architectural History of Gaelic Castles and Settlements, 1370-1600
XI. Tower Houses and Late Medieval Secular Settlement in County Limerick
XII. The Morphology of Gaelic Lordly Sites in North Connacht
XIII. The Archaeology of Gaelic Lordship East and West of the Foyle
XIV. Assembly and Inauguration Places of the Burkes in Late Medieval Connacht
XV. ‘Dwelling houses in the old Irish barbarous manner’. Archaeological Evidence for Gaelic Architecture in an Ulster Plantation Village
XVI. Crannogs in Late Medieval Gaelic Ireland, c.1350-c.1650
XVII. The Maritime Cultural Landscape in Medieval Gaelic Ireland
Place-name Index
Personal-name and Collective-name Index
Citation preview
Gaelic Ireland, c.–c.
Gaelic Ireland c.–c. Land, Lordship and Settlement
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick EDITORS
F O U R C O U RT S P R E S S for the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement
This book was set in . on . point Ehrhardt by Mark Heslington, Scarborough, North Yorkshire for FOUR COURTS PRESS LTD
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© the various authors and Four Courts Press
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-85182-800-5 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-84682-890-4 (ebook) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
Printed in Great Britain by MPG Books, Bodmin, Cornwall.
To Gearóid Mac Niocaill
This publication was grant-aided by the Publications Funds of National University of Ireland, Galway and National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
Contents
I L LU S T R AT I O N S LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
A B B R E V I AT I O N S A N D C O N V E N T I O N S
AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Introduction: Recovering Gaelic Ireland, c.-c. Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
PA RT I . T H E L O R D S H I P S : P O L I T I C A L S T RU C T U R E A N D S O C I A L O RG A N I S AT I O N I
II
III
IV
Collaboration without Anglicisation: The MacGiollapadraig Lordship and Tudor Reform David Edwards
Delusions of Dál Riada: The Co-ordinates of Mac Domnaill Power, - Simon Kingston
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla in the Late Sixteenth Century Patrick J. Duffy
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland: Some New Evidence Fiona Fitzsimons
PA RT I I . T H E NAT U R A L A N D B U I LT E N V I RO N M E N T : S O M E D O C U M E N TA RY A N D S C I E N T I F I C R E C O R D S V
VI
The Mapping of Ireland’s Cultural Landscape, - John H. Andrews
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland Kenneth Nicholls
VII
Contents Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
VIII
Settlement and Place-Names Nollaig Ó Muraíle
IX
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems Katharine Simms
PA RT I I I . S E T T L E M E N T S T U D I E S : T H E A RC H I T E C T U R A L A N D A RC H A E O L O G I C A L R E C O R D X
XI
An Architectural History of Gaelic Castles and Settlements, - Rolf Loeber
Tower Houses and Late Medieval Secular Settlement in County Limerick Colm J. Donnelly
XII
The Morphology of Gaelic Lordly Sites in North Connacht Kieran D. O’Conor
XIII
The Archaeology of Gaelic Lordship East and West of the Foyle Thomas E. McNeill
XIV
Assembly and Inauguration Places of the Burkes in Late Medieval Connacht Elizabeth FitzPatrick
XV
‘Dwelling houses in the old Irish barbarous manner’: Archaeological Evidence for Gaelic Architecture in an Ulster Plantation Village Audrey J. Horning
XVI
Crannogs in Late Medieval Gaelic Ireland, c.-c. Aidan O’Sullivan
XVII
The Maritime Cultural Landscape in Medieval Gaelic Ireland Colin Breen
P L AC E - NA M E I N D E X
P E R S O NA L - NA M E A N D C O L L E C T I V E - NA M E I N D E X
Illustrations
I N T RO D U C T I O N
Figures Lordships, c.. Territorial units in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ireland. Ross Bán MacMahon’s Ballybetagh of Ballyleck in , showing the tates occupied by his freeholders and the surviving settlements featured within them. Drinking vessels. The late sixteenth-century Ballylin sword. Scian with decorated hilt, from the River Shannon near Athlone, Co. Roscommon. Table Archaeological excavations conducted at Gaelic tower houses and their environs, -.
-
DUFFY
Figures Relief map of Co. Monaghan. Townlands in parishes. Tates in (Raven’s Survey), Donaghmoyne parish, and modern townlands (Ordnance Survey). Tates in (Raven’s Survey), Magheracloone parish, and modern townlands (Ordnance Survey). Townland topography, west Monaghan. Townland topography, south Monaghan. Ballybetaghs in Co. Monaghan.
ANDREWS
Figures Muskerry, Co. Cork, c.. Lifford and vicinity, counties Donegal and Tyrone, . Near Castlepark, Kinsale Harbour, . Carrigafoyle castle, Co. Kerry, . Haulbowline fort, Cork Harbour, c..
Illustrations
Near Dunboy castle, west Co. Cork, . Near Glin castle, Co. Limerick, . Near Caher castle, Co. Tipperary, .
Plate Unidentified crannog and Dungannon castle, Richard Bartlett, . NICHOLLS
Figure The Capercaillie or Coileach Fheadha.
HALL AND BUNTING
Figures Percentage pollen diagram for modern pollen rain spectra from woodland adjacent to Claraghmore bog, Co. Tyrone. Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Garry bog, Co. Antrim. Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Garvaghullion bog, Co. Tyrone. Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Claraghmore bog, Co. Tyrone. Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Annagarriff bog, Co. Tyrone.
LOEBER
Figures Gaelic revival and control of lands at the end of the fifteenth century. Distribution of Gaelic lordships and tower houses in the later medieval period. A schematic representation of the network of castles within and outside of a Gaelic lordship.
Plates O’Carroll’s Leap castle, Co. Offaly. Blarney castle, Co. Cork, seat of MacCarthy Mór. Donegal castle, view of the tower house.
Tables Dated Gaelic castles built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Gaelic castles built in the sixteenth century.
Illustrations D O N N E L LY
Figures Distribution of tower houses in Co. Limerick. Castles included in the Cromwellian Civil Survey.
Plate The MacSheehy tower house at Lisnacullia.
O’CONOR
Figures Location map of sites mentioned in text. The Rock of Lough Key as it appeared in . Moated site at Cloonfree. Line plan of Ogulla moated site. Contour plan of Ogulla moated site.
MCNEILL
Figure Map of the lands east and west of the Foyle, showing sites mentioned in the text.
Plate The O’Cahan tomb at Dungiven priory.
F I T Z PAT R I C K
Figures The location of ‘Ratsecer’ in Conmaicne Cúile Talad and ‘Caher na nIarla’ in Uí Fhiachrach Aidhne. Caher na nIarla and environs. Plates Raheenagooagh ringfort identified as ‘Ratsecer’ in the townland of Rausakeera North near the village of Kilmaine. Dunkellin castle, church, and settlement cluster extending south of Dunkellin river.
HORNING
Figures Map of Carrickfergus, c., showing beehive-shaped creats. Excavation plan of Tildarg house.
List of Illustrations
‘A Plat of the lands of the worshipful company of Mercers’ at Movanagher. Excavation plan of the Gaelic house at Movanagher. Detail from Raven, showing Irish house in relation to the bawn.
Plates View of the Gaelic house remains in relation to the bawn. Detail of posthole and stake hole.
O ’ S U L L I VA N
Figures Distribution map of crannogs in Ireland. Late medieval artifacts from crannogs. Wakeman’s drawings of crannogs and everted-rim ware pottery from Lough Eyes, Co. Fermanagh. Plates Aerial view of Cró-inis and Dún na Sciath, Lough Ennell, Co. Westmeath. Detail from a map of Monaghan and surrounding counties c.. A detail of Bartlett’s map of Monaghan town and environs.
BREEN
Figures A model for the investigation of factors influencing settlement in the maritime zone. A portion of a mid sixteenth-century map of Berehaven showing the O’Sullivan tower houses at Dunboy and Castletown. An early seventeenth-century folio of Baltimore, Co. Cork showing a vibrant maritime landscape. The galley inscribed on a late medieval gatehouse at Dunluce castle, Co. Antrim.
Plate The O’Malley family crest from a stone memorial plaque on Clare Island.
Table The pottery assemblage from the excavations undertaken by Fahy at Dunboy castle, Co. Cork.
List of Contributors JOHN ANDREWS
Chepstow, Wales
COLIN BREEN
Centre for Maritime Archaeology, University of Ulster, Coleraine
LY N DA B U N T I N G
School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, The Queen’s University of Belfast
C O L M J . D O N N E L LY
School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, The Queen’s University of Belfast
PAT R I C K J . D U F F Y
Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
DAV I D E DWA R D S
Department of History, University College, Cork
E L I Z A B E T H F I T Z PAT R I C K
Department of Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway
F I O NA F I T Z S I M O N S
Trinity College, Dublin
VA L E R I E H A L L
School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, The Queen’s University of Belfast
AU D R E Y H O R N I N G
School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, The Queen’s University of Belfast
SIMON KINGSTON
London
RO L F L O E B E R
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
T H O M A S E . M AC N E I L L
School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, The Queen’s University of Belfast
NOLLAIG Ó MURAÍLE
Department of Celtic, The Queen’s University of Belfast
KENNETH NICHOLLS
Department of History, University College, Cork
K I E R A N D. O ’ C O N O R
Department of Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway
List of Contributors
A I DA N O ’ S U L L I VA N
Department of Archaeology, University College, Dublin
K AT H A R I N E S I M M S
Department of Medieval History, Trinity College, Dublin
Abbreviations
The Annals of Connacht, ed. and trans. A.M. Freeman (Dublin, Institute for Advanced Studies, ). AClon The Annals of Clonmacnoise, ed. D. Murphy (Dublin, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, ). AFM Annals of the kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, ed. and trans. J. O’Donovan, vols (Dublin, ). AI The Annals of Inisfallen, ed. and trans. S. Mac Airt (Dublin, Institute for Advanced Studies, ). Ainm Ainm: Bulletin of the Ulster Place-name Society ALC The Annals of Loch Cé, ed. and trans. W.M. Hennessy, vols (London, ). ALI The Acts of the Lords of the Isles, ed. J. Munro and R.W. Munro (Scottish Historical Society, Edinburgh, ). Anal. Hib. Analecta Hibernica, including the Reports of the Irish Manuscripts Commission (Dublin, –). Ann. Tig. The Annals of Tigernach, ed. and trans. W. Stokes, in Revue Celtique, - (–); reprint vols (Felinfach, ). AU Annals of Ulster, ed. and trans. W.M. Hennessy and B. MacCarthy, vols (Dublin, –). BAR British Archaeological Reports BL British Library Bod. Lib. Bodelian Library Oxford BSD The Books of Survey and Distribution, ed. R.C. Simington, vols (Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, –). Cal. Carew MSS Calendar of the Carew manuscripts preserved in the archiepiscopal library at Lambeth, vols (London, –). Cal. papal letters Calendar of entries in the papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: papal letters (London, –). Cal. pat. rolls Calendar of the patent rolls (London, –). Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Calendar of patent and close rolls of chancery in Ireland, HenryVIII Hen.VIII–Eliz. to th Elizabeth, ed. J. Morrin (Dublin, ). Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I Irish patent rolls of James I: facsimile of the Irish record commissioners’ calendar prepared prior to , with foreword by M.C. Griffith (I.M.C., Dublin, ). Cal. S.P. Ire. Calendar of the state papers relating to Ireland, vols (London, –). CDS Calendar of documents relating to Scotland, ed. J. Bain (Edinburgh, –) Chron. Scot. Chronicum Scotorum, ed. and trans. W.M. Hennessy (London, ). AC
Civil Survey EB Fiants HMC. rep. [etc.] IHR. Bull. IHS Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist.
ITS JACAS JBS JCHAS JGAHS JIA JKAHS JKAS JRSAI JWHS L&P Med. Arch. Misc. Ir. Annals NAI NLI NMAJ NMI OKR Ormond Deeds OSI OSNI PRIA PRO PRONI RCAHMS RHASJ RIA RMS Rot. Pat. Hib.
Abbreviations Civil Survey, A.D. 6-6, ed. R.C. Simington, vols (Dublin, –). Excavations Bulletin The Irish fiants of the Tudor sovereigns, vols (Dublin, ). Historical Manuscripts Commission, ninth [etc.] report, appendix, part I [etc.] (London, –). Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Irish Historical Studies Irish Economic and Social History: the journal of the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland (Dublin and Belfast, –). Irish Texts Society Jounal of the Ardagh and Clonmacnoise Antiquarian Society Journal of the Butler Society Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society Journal of Irish Archaeology Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Journal of the Wexford Historical Society Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. Gairdner (London, ). Medieval Archaeology Miscellaneous Irish annals (A.D. –), ed. S. Ó hInnse (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, ). National Archives of Ireland National Library of Ireland North Munster Antiquarian Journal National Museum of Ireland (Dublin) Old Kilkenny Review Calendar of Ormond Deeds, ed. E. Curtis, vols (Dublin, -). Ordnance Survey of Ireland Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Public Record Office (London) Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (Belfast) Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland Roscommon Historical and Archaeological Society Journal Royal Irish Academy (Dublin) Registrum magni sigilii Regum Scotorum, ed. J.M. Thomson et al (Edinburgh, –). Rotulorum patentium et clausorum cancellariae Hiberniae calendarium, ed. E. Tresham (Dublin, ).
Abbreviations Rot. Scot. RSS Rymer, Foedera SHR TA TCD UJA WSEI. Arch. Soc. Jn. ZCP
Rotuli Scotiae in Turri Londinensi asservati, ed. D. MacPherson (London, –). Registrum secreti sigilli Regum Scotorum, ed. D. MacPherson (Record Commission, London, –). Foedera, conventiones, litterae et cujuscunque generis acta publica, ed. T. Rymer (London, –). Scottish Historical Review Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, eds. T. Dickson and J. Balfour (Edinburgh, –). Trinity College, Dublin Ulster Journal of Archaeology Waterford and South-east of Ireland Archaeological Society Journal Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie
CONVENTIONS
The following chronology is used in this volume: Early medieval High medieval Late medieval Post-Norman
(fifth century to c.) (c. to c.) (c. to c.) the period from the mid-thirteenth century onward that marks the beginning of the Gaelic revival and the decline of the Anglo-Norman colony
The various forms of Irish place-name and personal-name spellings used in this book are those referred to by the respective contributors.
Acknowledgments
On September a group of scholars met in Trinity College, Dublin to discuss how research into post-Norman Gaelic Ireland, and in particular issues of settlement, landscape, territoriality and social organisation, might be advanced. Short papers highlighting areas that needed further investigation and problems faced by researchers in this field were presented on that occasion by Katharine Simms, William Smyth, Rolf Loeber, Matthew Stout and chaired by Kevin Whelan. A conference proposal resulted from the September meeting and in February ‘Settlement and Landscape in Gaelic Ireland, -’, hosted by the Group for the Study of Irish Historic Settlement (GSIHS), was held at All Hallows College, Dublin. Most of the essays in this book derive from the proceedings of that conference. The editors, on behalf of GSIHS, would like to thank The Heritage Council, The British Council and the Council of Irish Chieftains for their generous support of the conference, and Kenneth Nicholls and Thomas McErlean for their active involvement in its formative stage. Special thanks are due to Rolf Loeber for his vision and his encouragement of this initiative from the outset. The book would not have been possible without the dedication and commitment of all the contributors to whom the editors are indebted. We are also grateful to the staff of Four Courts Press for their patience and professionalism, especially to Martin Fanning. For permission to reproduce copyright material, our thanks to Oxford University Press; the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House; Ordnance Survey of Ireland; the Council of Trustees of the National Library of Ireland; Dúchas, The Heritage Service; The Discovery Programme; Environment and Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland; Cambridge University Committee for Aerial Photography; British Library; Lambeth Palace Library; Public Record Office, London; Sheffield Archives. Thanks are also due to Helen Bermingham for indexing, to James Keenan, Matthew Stout, Angela Gallagher, Markus Casey, James Patience and Tony Corey for maps, site plans and photographs, and to Tony Roche (Photographic Section, Dúchas, The Heritage Service) for his assistance. Finally, our sincere thanks to colleagues on the committee of GSIHS for their advice and support throughout this undertaking.
Introduction: Recovering Gaelic Ireland, c.-c. PAT R I C K J. D U F F Y, DAV I D E DWA R D S A N D E L I Z A B E T H F I T Z PAT R I C K
This book is intended as a contribution towards the modest but encouraging renaissance of interest in the heritage of the post-Norman Gaelic world. Written by historians, archaeologists, palynologists, historical geographers and place-name specialists, the essays presented here explore facets of political structure, social organisation, natural environment and human settlement in Gaelic Ireland in the period c.-c..
REFLECTIONS ON THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF GAELIC IRELAND AFTER THE NORMANS
To borrow an epigram from one of the key pioneers of the subject, ‘Gaelic Ireland in its later period has been as unfortunate in its historiography as it was in its history’. Until the mid s the number of practising experts on Gaelic lordship and settlement for the period c.–c. could be counted on the fingers of one hand. A glance at some of the published bibliographies concerning medieval and early modern Ireland reveals this neglect in the starkest light.Asplin’sbibliographyof secondaryworksformedievalIrelandc.-, published in , contains just a page-and-a-half under the heading ‘Gaelic Society’. Remarkably, a collection of readings on ‘Milestones in Irish History’ broadcast on RTE between and assumed little had occurred in Gaelic Ireland that was of lasting significance during four-and-a-half centuries There is a comparable growth of interest in Scottish Gaelic heritage. See for instance M. Newton, A handbook of the Scottish Gaelic world (Dublin, ); J. A. Atkinson, ‘National identity and material culture: decoding the Highland myth’ in J.A. Atkinson, I. Banks and J. O’Sullivan (eds.), Nationalism and archaeology (Glasgow, ), -; R.A. Dodgshon, From chiefs to landlords: social and economic change in the western highlands and islands, c.- (Edinburgh, ). K. Nicholls, Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages (Dublin, ), preface. P.W.A. Asplin, Medieval Ireland, c.-: a bibliography of secondary works (RIA, Dublin, ), -.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
of eventful history, offering listeners nothing at all about the vicissitudes of the Gaelic territories from the Anglo-Norman invasion of until the flight of the northern earls in . As recently as , Clarke, in his review of more than twenty years of published research for the New history of Ireland: bibliographical supplement, -, was able to state with absolute accuracy that although there had been important advances in our understanding of the political world of the Gaelic territories since the s, nonetheless ‘the economy of Gaelic Ireland remains virtually unknown’. Each of the three historical disciplines must share responsibility for this, as the majority of historians, archaeologists, and historical geographers, for various reasons, have shied away from study of the subject, preferring other pastures. It is difficult to think of another area of Ireland’s past that has been so poorly served by scholarship. Even the most basic facts have been left unexplored. Given that much of later medieval Gaelic Ireland was ‘swordland’, or a land of war, it is, for instance, peculiar that the size and distribution of the country’s many private armies has yet to be systematically investigated. The first accurate map of the Gaelic territories – ‘Lordships, circa ’ (Fig. ), compiled by Nicholls – only appeared in . Prior to its publication geographers, archaeologists and historians had shown scant interest in the spatial ordering of the Gaelic regions, content to settle for vague and entirely impressionistic representations of the location and extent of the principal territories, depicting them without boundaries (when they depicted them at all). There is L. de Paor (ed.), Milestones in Irish history (Cork and Dublin, ). A. Clarke, ‘Introduction’ in A. Clarke, R. Gillespie and J. McGuire, A new history of Ireland: bibliographical supplement, - (Oxford, ), ; Mary O’Dowd also commented on the lack of investigation into Gaelic society in the bibliographical guide to her essay, ‘Gaelic economy and society’ in C. Brady and R. Gillespie (eds.), Natives and newcomers: the making of Irish colonial society, - (Dublin, ), -. Other important bibliographies include P.W.A. Asplin, ‘Bibliography’ and ‘Bibliographical supplement’ in A. Cosgrove (ed.), A new history of Ireland, ii: medieval Ireland, - (Oxford, ), -, -; and J.G. Simms, ‘Bibliography’ in T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F. J. Byrne (eds.), A new history of Ireland, iii: early modern Ireland, - (Oxford, ), -. Curiously, the bibliographical guide to the revised and enlarged edition of T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin (eds.), The course of Irish history (Cork and Dublin, ) largely ignores the groundbreaking new work that had appeared on later medieval Gaelic Ireland since its first edition in . L. Price, ‘Armed forces of the Irish chiefs in the early sixteenth century’ in JRSAI, (), -, which reproduces an inaccurate contemporary estimate of army sizes drawn up c. -, remains the only publication on the subject. Moody, Martin and Byrne (eds.), A new history of Ireland, iii, -. Versions of it have since been reproduced, adapted or modified by other authors for inclusion in numerous books and articles. The one exception to this was W.F.T. Butler (d. ), professor of English literature at University College, Cork, who produced the only map of the Gaelic lordships large and small to appear before that of Nicholls, as a frontispiece to his classic book, Confiscations in Irish history (London, ). Sadly, although a very good attempt, the map’s impact is lessened by its small size, with some of the boundaries difficult to discern. Other scholars instead relied on an inferior but better produced map clearly derived from it that
Introduction
as yet no significant archaeological data to form a view of pre-tower house chiefry residences (see Simms and O’Conor, this volume) or the bawn buildings and attendant village settlements of tower house owners. We have but a threadbare understanding of the household equipment of aristocracy, clergy, professional classes and peasantry. Little is known of the architecture of late medieval law schools and bardic schools, the nature of priestly accommodation in Gaelic parishes and the settlements of biataigh and caoraigheachta, to mention but a few. Dedicated scholarly enquiry into post-Norman Gaelic Irish society was not truly established until the work of the historians Mac Niocaill, Nicholls and Simms, and also Canny, began to appear in the s. Previously, interested students had to piece together for themselves an inevitably incoherent impression of the subject from chronologically scattered and thematically appeared as an end-piece in the enlarged edition of E. Curtis, A history of medieval Ireland (). There are, of course, a small number of studies of pre-Norman tribal boundaries, one of the more outstanding of which is Patrick Power’s, Chrichad an Chaoilli: being the topography of ancient Fermoy (Cork, ), which he translated and annotated from the Book of Lismore. G. Mac Niocaill, ‘Notes on litigation in late Irish law’ in Irish Jurist, (), -; ‘A propos du vocabulaire social Irelandais au bas moyen age’ in Études Celtiques, / (-), -; ‘The contact of Irish and common law’ in Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, / (), -; ‘Irish law and the Armagh constitutions of ’ in Irish Jurist, (), -; ‘Seven Irish documents from the Inchiquin Archives’ in Anal. Hib., (), -; ‘Land transfer in sixteenth-century Thomond: the case of Domhnall Óg Ó Cearnaigh’ in NMAJ, (), -; ‘Aspects of Irish law in the late thirteenth century’ in Historical Studies, (Dublin, ), -. Among his important later works is ‘The interaction of laws’ in J. Lydon (ed.), The English in medieval Ireland (Dublin, ), -. See K.W. Nicholls, Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland; ‘A commentary on the nobility and gentry of Thomond in ’ in Irish Genealogist, / (), -; ‘Some documents on Irish law and custom in the sixteenth century’ in Anal. Hib., (), -; ‘The Irish genealogies: their value and defects’ in Irish Genealogist, (); Land, law and society in sixteenth century Ireland (Dublin ); D.B. Quinn and K.W. Nicholls, ‘Ireland in ’ in Moody, Martin and Byrne (eds.), A new history of Ireland, iii, -. Later works include, The O Doyne (Ó Duinn) manuscript: documents relating to the family of O Doyne from Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin (Dublin, ); ‘Anglo-French Ireland and after’ in Peritia, (), -; ‘Gaelic landownership in Tipperary in the light of the surviving Irish deeds’ in W. Nolan and T.G. McGrath (eds.), Tipperary: history and society (Dublin, ), -. K. Simms, ‘The archbishops of Armagh and the O’Neills, -’ in IHS, (-), -; ‘Warfare in the medieval Gaelic lordships’ in Irish Sword, (-), -; ‘The medieval kingdom of Lough Erne’ in Clogher Record, (-), -; ‘Niall Garbh II O’Donnell, king of Tir Connaill, -’ in Donegal Annual, (-), -; ‘Guesting and feasting in Gaelic Ireland’ in JRSAI, (), -; C.A. Empey and K. Simms, ‘The ordinances of the White Earl and the problem of coign in the later middle ages’ in PRIA, C (), -; ‘The Battle of Dysert O’Dea and the Gaelic resurgence in Thomond’, Dál gCais, (), -. Among Simms later works are From kings to warlords: the changing political structure of Gaelic Ireland in the later middle ages (Woodbridge, ; reprinted, ); ‘Bards and barons: the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and the native culture’ in R. Bartlett and A. MacKay (eds.), Medieval frontier societies (Oxford, ), -. N. Canny, ‘Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, and the changing face of Gaelic Ulster’ in Studia Hibernica, (), -; ‘The flight of the earls, ’ in IHS, / (March ), -.
O’Flaherty
M O
O’Haras
LEYNY
Bermingham
DARTRY
MacDonaghs COOLAVIN MOYLURG
HY MANY O’Kelly
MacDavid (Burke)
CLAN CONWAY
MAGHERY O’Connors
MacDermot
MacSweeney Fanad
FANAD
Dillon
EAST
BREIFNE
Tyrrell
CARBURY
FERTULLAGH
KINELEAGH MacGeoghegan
Delamar
FARNEY
PALE
THE
SLANE
Fleming
O’Hanlon
FEWS
ORIOR
MacCann
IVEAGH
MOURNE
Magennis
MacCartan
KINELARTY
C LA N D E B O Y E
MacDonnell
THE GLENS
MacQuillan
THE ROUTE
MacMahon
KILLEEN DELVIN Plunket Nugent DUNSANY
O’Reilly
MacMahon
ORIEL
MacKenna
TROUGH
O’Cahan
DARTRY MacMahon
O’Neill
TYRONE
INISHOWEN O’Doherty
MOYBRECKRY
Dalton
ANNALY
O’Ferrall
MacRannell
MUNTEROLIS
Magauran
TULLYHAW
Maguire
FERMANAGH
O’Donnell
TYRCONNELL
MacSweeney na Doe
BREIFNE
O’Rourke
WEST
TIRRERRILL CORRAN
CARBURY
MacCostello
CONMACNY
IS
RR
ris
Joyce
CL AN
BOYLAGH O’Boyle
O’Connor Sligo MacClancy
CLAN O’Gara MacJordan COSTELLO
GALLEN
M ac m or
IAR CONNACHT
MacWilliam Iochtar (Burke)
OW
O’Malley
LE S
T HE
Barret
TIRAWLEY
BANAGH
MacSweeney na Doe
MacSweeney Banagh
TIRERAGH O’Dowda
The other boundaries shown are those of lordships where these can be demarcated.
The boundary of the Pale is as defined by a statute of 1488.
In some areas, e.g. Clanricard, the family name in larger type indicates the overlord.
Joyce
BREIFNE
Names of ruling families shown thus:
Names of Lordships shown thus:
LECALE
White ARDS Savage
DUFFERIN
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
O’Mahony Finn
CARBERY
MacCarthy
MUSKERRY
MacDonoghMacCarthy
ORRERY
O’Donovan Barry Roe
IBANE
MacCarthy Reagh
O’Driscoll
BEARE O’Sullivan Beare
O’Sullivan Mór
MacCarthy Mór
DUHALLOW
Fitzgibbon
KILMORE
Courcy
Barry óg
KINELEA
Desmond
Burkes
Butler of
KERRYCURRIH
IMOKILLY
DECIES Fitzgerald
Tobin
O’Dempsey
of
earl
Powers
O’Brennan
LIBERTY OF earl of Shrewsbury WEXFORD
Ormond
MacDavymore
KINSELLAGH
earl of
O’Morchoe
MacVaddock
MacMurrough
O’Toole
O’Byrne
Eustace
IMAAL O’Toole earl of Ormond
FORTH O’Nolan
SLIEVEMARGY
MacMorish O’Connor LEIX O’More
IRRY
earl of Kildare
Bermingham
CLANMALIERE
Ormond
Mac Gillapatrick
OSSORY
UPPER
Purcell
Butler of Cahir
earl of Desmond
Knight
Condon
Wh
ite
MacBrien
AHERLOW
Barrymore
Desmond
FERMOY Roche
KILNAMANAGH
O’Dwyer
Burke
M
IK ea
IN R er ER gh
CLANWILLIAM Dunboyne
Br
O c CO Ma ien
H
G NA
CLANGIBBON
Desmond
OWNEY
O’Mulryan
ILEIGH
ELY
O’Carroll
O’Dunne
IREGAN
FERCALL
O’Molloy
OFFALY O’Connor
Fig. : Lordships, c. by K.W. Nicholls (reprinted from A new history of Ireland, iii: early modern Ireland ‒ edited by T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F.J. Byrne, Oxford, , by permission of Oxford University Press).
Knight of Kerry
of
e
ar
l ear
ld
KERRY
Fitzmaurice
Ki
ond sm De
n
rie
CONNELLO
Knight of Glin
O’B
CLANMAURICE
O’Connor Kerry
Burke
CLANWILLIAM
ARRA
Mac I Brien
O’Kennedy
ORMOND
SILANMGHY O’Madden
Fox
H
CORKAVASKIN MacMahon
MacNamara
CLANCULLEN
PUBBLEBRIEN
O’Brien
THOMOND
O’Connor
CORCOMROE
BURREN O’Heyne O’Loghlen O’Shaughnessy
MacWilliam Uachtar (Burke)
CLANRICARD
O’Melaghlin
G
tts
DO
rre
O
Ba
DELVIN MacCoghlan
Introduction
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
disconnected publications. Much of the material published on Gaelic dynasties during the nineteenth century and in the greater part of the twentieth century, although not devoid of useful references and occasional insights, tended towards romantic sentiment rather than historical accuracy – somewhat comparable to the popular Victorian genre of Highland Gaelic family histories. The exceptions were those based entirely or in part on primary research, such as O’Donovan’s enduring publications on the Uí Maine and the Uí Fhiachrach, O’Conor’s historical memoirs and genealogies of the O’Connors of Connacht, Brady’s McGillycuddy papers, and Hill’s account of the Macdonnells of Antrim. In the same period the tactile heritage of postNorman Gaelic society, its material culture and settlement remains, received only the most cursory attention. Fleeting allusions to sites and artifacts of later medieval Gaelic interest featured in Wilde’s catalogue of the antiquities housed in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy and in the works of Woodmartin and Wakeman which were largely concerned with lake settlements. Joyce, in his Smaller social history of ancient Ireland, published in , attempted to give the reader something of an insight into domestic utensils and weaponry, but it was so hopelessly broad in its chronology that the few allusions to and illustrations of later medieval Gaelic artifacts were lost in the exercise. During the s and s one of the sole luminaries of post-Norman Gaelic history was Walsh who made important works such as the Book of Fenagh and Beatha Aodha Ruaidh Uí Dhomhnaill available in print. His See, J. O’Hart, The last princes of Tara: or, a brief sketch of the O’Hart ancient royal family (Dublin, ); J. O’Toole, History of the Clan O’Toole and other Leinster septs (Dublin, ); Anon, The MacNamaras: the story of an Irish sept, their character and struggle to maintain their lands (London, ); S. T. McCarthy, The MacCarthys of Munster: the story of a great Irish sept (Dundalk, ). See for instance, J. Logan, The clans of the Scottish Highlands, vols (London, -); W. Fraser, The chiefs of Grant (Edinburgh, ). J. O’Donovan (ed.), The tribes and customs of Hy-Many (Dublin, ); The genealogies, tribes and customs of the HyFiachrach (Dublin, ). Roderic O’Conor, A historical and genealogical memoir of the O’Connors, kings of Connacht, and their descendants: collected from the annals of Ireland, and authentic public records (Dublin, ). W. M. Brady, The McGillycuddy papers: a selection from the family archives of the McGillycuddy of the Reeks (London, ). G. Hill, An historical account of the Macdonnells of Antrim: including notices of some other septs, Irish and Scottish (Belfast, ). W.R. Wilde, A descriptive catalogue of the antiquities of stone, earthen, and vegetable materials in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, ). W.G. Wood-Martin, The lake-dwellings of Ireland or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin commonly called crannogs (Dublin, ). W.F. Wakeman wrote extensively on crannogs. See for instance, ‘The crannogs in Lough Eyes, Co. Fermanagh’ in JRSAI, (), -; ‘Observations on the principal crannogs of Fermanagh’ in JRSAI, (th ser., ), . P.W. Joyce, A smaller social history of ancient Ireland (Dublin, ). P. Walsh, Gleanings from Irish manuscripts (Dublin, ; nd ed., Dublin, ); (ed. and trans), Leabhar Chlainne Suibhne: an account of the Mac Sweeney families in Ireland with pedigrees (Dublin, ); The will and family of Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone (Dublin, ); The Ó Cléirigh family of Tír Connaill (Dublin, ); The Book of Fenagh (Dublin,
Introduction
endeavours were complemented by the occasional writings of Curtis, Price and Ó Domhnaill on Gaelic themes. Devotees of the archaeology of Gaelic Ireland were also thin on the ground at this time, but perhaps under-appreciated is the legacy of Davies who conducted and published an impressive body of fieldwork on Gaelic sites in Ulster, especially in Cavan and Tyrone, between and . In particular, his crannog excavations in Lough Inchin, Co. Cavan and on Island MacHugh, Co. Tyrone have received renewed interest in recent years (see also O’Sullivan, this volume). During the s and s HayesMcCoy broke new ground in providing one of the first over-views of late sixteenth-century Gaelic society, but his most lasting legacy is his work on Gaelic military history which he began as early as . Along with some of the interesting observations of Rynne on ringforts, and weaponry of native manufacture, Hayes-McCoy’s additional work on Irish swords and his commentary on settlement features marked on Tudor maps began to highlight the lacunae in post-Norman Gaelic settlement and material culture research. Building on the foundations laid in particular by Mac Niocaill, Nicholls and Simms, the number of scholars active in the field of post-Norman Gaelic Ireland has increased. During the s and s significant contributions ); Irish men of learning (Dublin, ); (ed. and trans) [with C. Ó Lochlainn], The Life of Aodh Ruadh O Domhnaill, vols (ITS, , , Dublin, -); Irish chiefs and leaders, ed. C. Ó Lochlainn (Dublin, ). E. Curtis, Richard II in Ireland, -, and submissions of the Irish chiefs (Oxford ); ‘Murchertach O’Brien, high king of Ireland, and his Norman son-inlaw, Arnulf de Montgomery, c.’ in JRSAI, (), -; ‘The “Bonnaght” of Ulster: a treaty between Richard, duke of York, and Eoghan O’Neill, captain of his nation []’in Hermathena, (), -. L. Price, ‘Armed forces’; ‘Notes on Feagh McHugh O’Byrne’ in JKAS, (-), -; ‘The O’Byrnes country in County Wicklow in the sixteenth century’ in JRSAI, (), -; ‘Powerscourt and the territory of Fercullen’ in JRSAI, (), -. S. O Domhnaill, ‘Sir Niall Garbh O’Donnell and the rebellion of Sir Cahir O’Doherty’ in IHS, / (March, ), -; ‘Warfare in sixteenth century Ireland’ in IHS, / (March ), -; See, for instance, O. Davies, ‘Contributions to the study of crannógs in south Ulster’ in UJA, (), -; ‘Types of rath in southern Ulster’ in UJA, (), -; ‘The castles of Co. Cavan’ in UJA, (), -; ‘The churches of County Cavan’ in JRSAI, (), -; with H.P. Swan, ‘The castles of Inishowen’ in UJA, (), -. K.D. O’Conor, The archaeology of medieval rural settlement in Ireland (Dublin, ), -; A O’Sullivan, The archaeology of lake settlement in Ireland (Dublin, ). G.A. Hayes-McCoy, ‘Gaelic society in Ireland in the late sixteenth century’ in Historical Studies, (), -; ‘Strategy and tactics in Irish warfare, -’ in IHS, (-), -; ‘The tide of victory and defeat: Clontibret, ’ in Studies, (June ), -; ‘The army of Ulster, -’, Irish Sword, (-), -. E. Rynne’s article on ‘Some destroyed sites at Shannon airport, Co. Clare’ in PRIA, C (), - has received renewed interest in the current debate on the chronology of Irish ringforts (see for instance, M. Stout, The Irish ringfort, Dublin, , - and O’Conor, The archaeology, ). See also E. Rynne, ‘Three Irish knifedaggers’ in JRSAI, (), -. G.A. Hayes-McCoy, Sixteenth century Irish swords in the National Museum of Ireland (Dublin, ); Ulster and other Irish maps,c. (Dublin, ); ‘The making of an O’Neill: a view of the ceremony at Tullaghoge, Co. Tyrone’ in UJA, (), -.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
were made by Bradshaw, Frame, Johnston, Casway, O’Dowd, Cunningham, Brady, and Morgan in history, by Robinson, Graham, and Duffy in historical geography, and by McNeill, Barry, McErlean, and Manning in archaeology. The publication in of the first of a series of interdisciplinary county histories instigated by Nolan (History and society), B. Bradshaw, ‘Native reaction’; ‘‘Manus the Magnificent’: O’Donnell as Renaissance prince’ in A. Cosgrove and D. MacCartney (eds.), Studies in Irish history (Dublin ), -. R. Frame, ‘The justiciar and the murder of the Mac Murroughs in ’ in IHS, (-), -; ‘English officials and Irish chiefs in the fourteenth century’ in English Historical Review, (). D. Johnston, ‘Richard II and the submissions of Gaelic Ireland’in IHS, (), -. J.I. Casway, Owen Roe O’Neill and the struggle for Catholic Ireland (Philadelphia, ); ‘Unpublished letters and papers of Owen Roe O’Neill’ in Anal. Hib., (), -; ‘Rosa O’Doherty: a Gaelic woman’ in Seanchas Ardmhaca, (-), -; ‘The last lords of Leitrim: the sons of Sir Teigue O’Rourke’ in Bréifne, (), -. M. O’Dowd, Power, politics and land: early modern Sligo, - (Belfast, ); ‘Gaelic economy’; ‘Land inheritance in early modern Co. Sligo’ in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., (), -; ‘Land and lordship in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Ireland’ in P. Roebuck and R. Mitchison (eds.), Economy and society in Scotland and Ireland, - (Edinburgh, ), -. B. Cunningham, ‘Native culture and political change in Ireland, -’ in Brady and Gillespie (eds.), Natives and newcomers; ‘The Composition of Connacht in the lordships of Clanricard and Thomond, -’ in IHS, (), -; ‘The historical annals of Maolín Óg Mac Bruadeadha, -’ in The Other Clare, (), -; B. Cunningham and R. Gillespie, ‘The east Ulster bardic family of Ó Gnímh’ in Éigse, (), -; ‘ “Persecution” in seventeenth-century Irish’ in Éigse, (), -. C. Brady, ‘The killing of Shane O’Neill: some new evidence’ in Irish Sword, (), -; ‘The O’Reillys of east Breifne and the problem of Surrender and Regrant’ in Bréifne, (), -; ‘Sixteenth-century Ulster and the failure of Tudor reform’ in C. Brady, M. O’Dowd and B. Walker (eds.), Ulster: an illustrated history (London, ), -. H. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion: the outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Woodbridge, ); ‘Extradition and treason-trial of a Gaelic lord: the case of Brian O’Rourke’ in Irish Jurist, (), -; ‘The end of Gaelic Ulster: a thematic interpretation of events between and ’ in IHS, (), -; ‘Hugh O’Neill and the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland’ in Historical Journal, (), -. P. Robinson, ‘Irish settlement in Tyrone before the Ulster plantation’ in Ulster Folklife, (); ‘Vernacular housing in Ulster in the seventeenth century’ in Ulster Folklife, (), -. B.J. Graham, ‘Clachan continuity and distribution in medieval Ireland’ in P. Flatres (ed.), Paysages ruraux europeéns (Rennes, ), -; Medieval Irish settlement: a review (Norwich, ). P.J. Duffy, ‘Patterns of landownership in Gaelic Monaghan in the late sixteenth century’ in Clogher Record, (-), -; ‘The territorial organization of Gaelic landownership and its transformation in County Monaghan, -’ in Irish Geography, (), -. T.E. McNeill, ‘Church building in the fourteenth century and the “Gaelic revival”’ in JIA, (), -; ‘Lordships and invasions: Ulster, -’ in Brady, O’Dowd and Walker (eds.), Ulster, . T.B. Barry, ‘“The people of the country . . . dwell scattered”: the pattern of rural settlement in Ireland in the later middle ages’ in J. Bradley (ed.), Settlement and society in medieval Ireland: studies presented to F. X. Martin (Kilkenny, ), -. T. McErlean, ‘The Irish townland system of landscape organisation’ in T. Reeves-Smyth and F. Hammond (eds.), Landscape archaeology in Ireland (Oxford, ), -. C. Manning, ‘Clough Oughter Castle, Cavan’ in Bréifne, / (-), -; ‘Revealing a private inscription’ in Archaeology Ireland, / (), -. W. Nolan (ed.), Tipperary: history and society (Dublin, ).
Introduction
gave an added boost to the subject, facilitating over the last fifteen years the publication of essay-length studies of some of the later medieval Gaelic lineages, their territories and strongholds. Studies of particular septs have begun to receive attention, and the midland septs in particular have been well served by the recent work of Fitzsimons and Ó Cléirigh on the O’Connors of Offaly, Loeber and Venning on the O’Carrolls of Ely, Carey on the O’Mores and Edwards’ research into the MacGiollapadraigs of Ossory. These studies represent a major leap forward since the publication in of Hitchcock’s Midland septs and the Pale. A new generation has now emerged whose research into aspects of the history, archaeology and historical geography of Gaelic Ireland is only beginning to filter through into the mainstream (additional works are cited below). Enumerating the authoritative studies of post-Norman Gaelic Ireland is a relatively straightforward task, but revealing the source of its neglect is a more complex matter. The reasons are both academic and historical. One of the most frequently cited causes of this inattention is the appallingly poor survival of documentary evidence about Gaelic Ireland. The destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland (PROI) and its treasures in dealt a heavy blow to knowledge of all aspects of the Irish past, Gaelic history included, and seriously curbed the potential of Irish historical research. Yet, this terrible catastrophe cannot account for the fact that it was not until the s that serious and sustained research into the history of the post-Norman Gaelic world was undertaken. Nor can the archival disaster of account for the failure to seek out alternative sources for study of the subject. Although an untold number of precious documents with a bearing on the experiences of Gaelic lordships during the high and later medieval periods were consumed in the See for instance, K. Simms, ‘Late medieval Donegal’; D. Mac Eiteagáin, ‘The Renaissance and the late medieval lordship of Tir Chonaill, -’; and R.J. Hunter, ‘The end of O’Donnell power’, all in W. Nolan, L. Ronayne and M. Dunlevy (eds.), Donegal: history and society (Dublin, ), -, -, -. B. Cunningham, ‘From warlords to landlords: political and social change in Galway, -’ in G. Moran, R. Gillespie and W. Nolan (eds.), Galway: history and society (Dublin, ), -. T.E. McNeill, ‘County Down in the later middle ages’, and H. O’Sullivan, ‘The Magennis lordship of Iveagh in the early modern period, -’, both in L. Proudfoot and W. Nolan (eds.), Down: history and society (Dublin, ), -, -. F. Fitzsimons, ‘The lordship of O’Connor Faly’ in W. Nolan and TP. O’Neill (eds.), Offaly: history and society (Dublin, ), -. C. Ó Cléirigh, ‘The O’Connor Faly lordship of Offaly -’ in PRIA, C, -. R. Loeber, The changing borders of the Ely O’Carroll lordship’ in Nolan and O’Neill (eds.), Offaly: history and society, -. T. Venning, ‘The O’Carrolls of Offaly: their relations with the Dublin authorities in the sixteenth century’ in Nolan and O’Neill (eds.), Offaly: history and society, -. V.P. Carey, ‘The end of the Gaelic political order: the O’More lordship of Laois -’ in P.G. Lane and W. Nolan (eds.), Laois: history and society (Dublin, ), -; D. Edwards, ‘The MacGiollapadraigs (Fitzpatricks) of Upper Ossory, -’ in Lane and Nolan (eds.), Laois: history and society, -. F.R.M. Hitchcock, The midland septs and the Pale (Dublin, ).
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
flames at the PROI, scholars have as yet made little attempt to recover from the calamity. Other documents survived, such as the Chancery Pleadings, thousands of which date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many relating directly to the Gaelic lineages and their territories. Although there is a first-rate catalogue available for consultation at the readers’ desk of the National Archives, the Pleadings have rarely been used. The extensive series of Chancery and Exchequer Inquisitions that survived the explosion have been similarly under-utilised, as have the Ferguson Manuscripts and the Thrift Abstracts. It is telling to note, moreover, that much valuable evidence can be found in other places. The PROI’s holdings of purely Gaelic material are not known to have been extensive. Prior to it was the custom in Ireland for Gaelic sources to be deposited elsewhere, especially with the Royal Irish Academy and the library of Trinity College, Dublin, where they have remained, unharmed, to this day. Likewise, since the number of manuscript collections deposited with the National Library that contain Gaelic legal material (agreements, decisions, deeds, wills) dating from the later medieval period, has increased significantly. However, despite being publicised by the Irish Manuscripts Commission, these have been consulted by only a handful of historians and historical geographers. Additionally, searches overseas, had they been undertaken, especially in the United Kingdom, might have turned up long-lost documents of relevance, as recent work has shown. The devastation of the PROI and the loss of other invaluable archival deposits, both before and after , did not prevent the development of a research culture dedicated to recovering knowledge of Anglo-Norman/English colonisation and The catalogue was prepared by Kenneth Nicholls. Perhaps if it were published in full calendar form the pleadings would be used more widely. For the first published analysis of Gaelic Ireland to draw upon them as a source, see Nicholls, ‘Some documents’, passim. For example, the Inchiquin Manuscripts, which contain documents concerning the O’Briens of Inchiquin and many of the lesser Gaelic lineages of the west of Ireland dating from the fourteenth century, and the Kavanagh (Borris) Papers, which have documents from the midsixteenth century relating to the lineages of south Leinster. The Irish Manuscripts Commission dedicated three issues of its journal, Analecta Hibernica, to publicising the existence of these and other important collections: Anal. Hib., (); ibid. (); ibid. (). B. Donovan and D. Edwards, British sources for Irish history, -: a guide to manuscripts in local, regional and specialised repositories in England, Scotland and Wales (Dublin, ); ‘British sources for Irish history before : a preliminary handlist of documents held in local and specialised repositories’ in Anal. Hib., (), -. Previously unknown collections of Gaelic material discovered by Donovan and Edwards include some O’Connor of Offaly deeds - held among the Sherburne estate papers at Dorset Record Office, several O’Connor Sligo documents dating from among the Wentworth Irish deeds at Sheffield City Library, and some O’Brien of Lemeneagh deeds dating from on deposit at Northants Record Office. (British sources, , -, -). For a discussion of the ongoing crisis in Irish archive survival, see D. Edwards, ‘Salvaging history: Hogan and the Irish Manuscripts Commission’ in D. Ó Corrain (ed.), James Hogan (-): revolutionary, historian and political scientist (Four Courts Press, Dublin, ).
Introduction
administration in Ireland before the mid-seventeenth century. Indeed, far from hindering research, the terrible loss of documents seems to have acted as a spur to investigation of this crucial area of the Irish past. Plainly, the search for an explanation of all this inattention to Gaelic Ireland must look beyond the low survival of documents. Another reason sometimes given to explain the neglect of the subject is the serious technical difficulty of interpreting correctly many of the Gaelic sources that have survived – the annals, chronicles, genealogies and law codes, but particularly the bardic poems. This too is an unconvincing excuse. For many years historians especially tended to avoid consulting extant literature in Irish, so much so that they were accused by one scholar of refusing to accept the literature ‘as a valid historical source’ before the s. Knowledge of the Irish language was not necessary to read this material. Since the midnineteenth century, celticists had provided translations of many of the poems, annals and other texts, replete with helpful scholarly commentaries and footnotes. In fairness to the historians, however, at least two serious obstacles did exist to prevent them from overcoming their discomfort with Gaelic literary sources – the lack of available interpretative guidelines and the failure of celticists to produce a grammatical handbook of Classical (Early Modern) Irish. To this day no grammatical handbook has appeared. It was not until Mac Niocaill published The medieval Irish annals in that anything resembling an interpretative guideline to the annals existed. As for the poetry, despite all the fine work that had been done by specialists on Gaelic texts, it was only with the appearance in of James Carney’s book, The Irish bardic poet, followed six years later by Brian Ó Cuív’s The Irish bardic duanaire, that Gaelic poetry finally became comprehensible to the non-specialist. Prior to that celticists had appeared more interested in tracing the development of the Irish language through philology than in rediscovering the social, political and intellectual world in which the surviving texts had been created. Primarily concerned with mastering obscure technicalities, in their hands the work of the bards and other writers had seemed dauntingly complex. An unhelpful mystique evolved around the Gaelic literature scaring off interested scholars from outside of the discipline. It is encouraging to note, therefore, that one of the principal debates currently raging in Gaelic literary studies, concerning the extent to which It is not usually noted that the subject most affected by the explosion of was the history of Anglo-Norman and English law and administration in Ireland, as most of the records consumed in the blast were court records and other government files and registers going back to the early thirteenth century. See H. Wood, Guide to the contents of the Public Record Office of Ireland (Dublin, ). Bernadette Cunningham’s comment in the bibliography attached to her essay ‘Native culture and political change’, . G. Mac Niocaill, The medieval Irish annals (Dublin, ). J. Carney, The Irish bardic poet (Dublin ); B. Ó Cuív, The Irish bardic duanaire or ‘poem book’ (Dublin, ).
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
bardic poetry reacted to the transformation of the Irish political scene during the Elizabethan and early Stuart period, or remained unresponsive, locked into age-old conventions, was sparked off by historians who ventured into the field of Gaelic literature in the late s and s. Where Irish archaeology is concerned, a historiography of that discipline would in the first instance reveal that the emphasis given to the pursuit of Irish prehistory and early Christianity during the successive ‘Celtic’ revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been a stubborn legacy. It has been suggested that the preference for prehistoric and early Christian archaeological research, which continued well into the s, arose in part from the ‘natural’ predilection of archaeologists towards ‘studying periods for which there is little or no documentary evidence, where their discipline and methods of enquiry will have the most impact’. But, by the same logic, the dearth of documents concerning post-Norman Gaelic Ireland, especially for the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, necessarily demands that the number of archaeological surveys and excavations at known Gaelic settlement sites should increase from what has been an almost flat baseline. The neglect of the archaeology of medieval Ireland per se has also been attributed to the fact that Irish archaeologists for much of the twentieth century dismissed it as a ‘branch of English archaeology’ – a mindset which had its origins in cultural nationalism. The emergence of concerted Viking and Anglo-Norman archaeological research in the s and s, advanced by scholars such as Wallace and Barry, marked a major watershed in Irish early and high medieval studies. The debate was sparked off by B. Bradshaw, ‘Native reaction to the westward enterprise: a case study in Gaelic ideology’ in K.R. Andrews, N. Canny and P.E.H. Hair (eds.), The westward enterprise: English activities in Ireland, the Atlantic and America, - (), -. Other key contributions include T.J. Dunne, ‘The Gaelic response to conquest and colonisation: the evidence of the poetry’ in Studia Hibernica, (), -; N. Canny, ‘The formation of the Irish mind: religion, politics and Gaelic Irish literature, -’ in Past and Present, (), -; B. Ó Buachalla, ‘Na Stíobhartaigh agus an t-aos léinn: cing Séamas’ in PRIA, C (), -; ‘James our true king: the ideology of Irish royalism in the seventeenth century’ in D.G. Boyce, R. Eccleshall and V. Geoghegan (eds.), Political thought in Ireland since the seventeenth century (London ), -; B. Cunningham, ‘Native culture’, -; M. O Riordan, The Gaelic mind and the collapse of the Gaelic world (Cork, ); M. Mac Craith, ‘Gaelic Ireland and the Renaissance’ in G. Williams and R. Owen (eds.), The Celts and the Renaissance: tradition and innovation (Cardiff, ), -; M. Caball, Poets and politics: reaction and continuity in Irish poetry, - (Field Day Monographs, Cork, ). O’Conor, The archaeology, . O’Conor, The archaeology, . Among his leading publications are P. Wallace, ‘Carpentry in Ireland, AD -: the Woodquay evidence’ in S. McGrail (ed.), Woodworking techniques before AD , BAR International Series (Oxford, ), -; ‘The archaeology of Viking Dublin’ in H.B. Clarke and A. Simms (eds.), The comparative history of urban origins in non-Roman Europe: Ireland, Wales, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Russia from the ninth to the thirteenth century, BAR International Series (Oxford, ), -; The Viking Age buildings of Dublin, vols (Dublin, ). See, for instance, T.B. Barry, Medieval moated sites of southeast Ireland (Oxford, ); ‘Anglo-Norman ringwork castles: some evidence’ in T. Reeves-Smyth
Introduction
However, the declaration of medieval Gaelic Ireland as a field of archaeological enquiry still remained to be made. In Keimelia, a welcome collection of essays focusing on the archaeology of medieval Ireland, published in , thirty-three of the thirty-four essays dealt with topics of Viking, native preNorman, Anglo-Norman or later colonial interest. Just one, by Lacy, tracing the development of Derry between c. and c., tackled in any length something of the archaeology of post-Norman Gaelic society. Flanagan, in a short piece on maritime history, alluded to the wreck-site of one of Tuathal Ó Máille’s ships that went down at Cuan Inbhir Mhóir in , suggesting that there ‘might be some remote chance of identifying the rock and finding the wreck’. In addition, two essays on medieval artifacts highlighted the need for further enquiry into aspects of the material culture of native Irish society. Halpin in his study of ‘Irish medieval bronze maceheads’, suggested that an ‘Anglo-Norman background is likely for the Irish maceheads, but no conclusive evidence can as yet be presented in support of this’. Cherry, in his essay on ‘Medieval jewellery from Ireland’, concluded that more work was needed to relate or contrast medieval Anglo-Irish jewellery with native Irish dress ornament ‘or to analyse in terms of dress ornament the distinctiveness in dress underlying the Statutes of Kilkenny in ’. A second collection of twentyfour archaeological and historical essays, on the theme of Settlement and society in medieval Ireland, was also published in , increasing the profile of Irish medieval archaeology. Like Keimelia, however, its contents reflect a discipline that was then primarily concerned with early Christianity, the Vikings and Anglo-Norman Ireland. Some of the essays in part three of the collection, given to ‘Late medieval Ireland’, touch upon archaeological and architectural matters of Gaelic interest, particularly Barry’s discussion of later medieval rural settlement patterns, and MacCurtain’s observations on tower houses in the Shannon estuary region. Over a decade has passed since the publication and F. Hammond (eds.), Landscape archaeology in Ireland. BAR (Oxford, ), -; The archaeology of medieval Ireland (London, ). G. Mac Niocaill and P. F. Wallace (eds.), Keimelia: studies in medieval archaeology and history in memory of Tom Delaney (Galway, ). B. Lacy, ‘The development of Derry, c.-c.’ in Keimelia, -. L.N.W. Flanagan, ‘Irish annals as a source for maritime history, - A.D.’ in Keimelia, -: . A. Halpin, in Keimelia, -: . J. Cherry, ‘Medieval jewellery from Ireland: a preliminary survey’ in Keimelia, -: . One of the few works on medieval jewellery to have been written since Cherry’s article appeared is M.B. Deevy’s, Medieval ring brooches in Ireland: a study of jewellery, dress and society (Dublin, ). The ring brooch is not typical of Gaelic Irish dress and is more usually found on Anglo-Norman settlements. The occurrence of ring brooches at crannogs in Roscommon, Meath, Westmeath and Leitrim reflects, Deevy believes, exchange of gifts in alliances or other social ties between Anglo-Norman and Gael in thirteenth and fourteenth-century Ireland. Barry, ‘The people of the country’ in Bradley (ed.), Settlement and society. M. MacCurtain, ‘A lost landscape: the Geraldine castles and tower houses of the Shannon estuary’ in Bradley (ed.), Settlement and society, -.
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of these noteworthy volumes and it is still the case that more is known about the daily life of the average Viking in tenth-century Dublin than the domestic world of the Gaelic chief or Gaelic peasant in thirteenth to sixteenth-century Ireland. One of the problems has been the lack of recognition of Gaelic society as a culture group meriting scholarly archaeological investigation, like the Vikings or Anglo-Normans. O’Conor’s recently published Archaeology of medieval rural settlement, which devotes a chapter to Gaelic Ireland, emphasises the significant presence of the Gael in the archaeological record and enables a familiarity to begin to develop with this relatively new branch of Irish archaeology. Sensitivity to the archaeological legacy of all incoming peoples who contributed to the making of Ireland is of the utmost importance in a modern democratic society, but so too is the act of redressing loss and absence. A mature and liberating knowledge of the Irish past requires the recovery and contextualisation of the tangible heritage of the medieval Gaelic world in tandem with colonial Ireland. Put simply, it is the missing slice of the cultural spectrum. The under-performance of historical geographers is equally perplexing, although in more recent years a handful of geographers have been attempting to reconstruct some of the Gaelic territorial geographies of the later medieval period. The Atlas of the Irish rural landscape, published in , encapsulates many of the interests and objectives of historical geography in Ireland, as well as its historical scope. It focuses on landscape and environment and the processes in their evolution – a synthesis of habitat and history which fits well into the interdisciplinary reach of this book. In a sense, the section in the atlas entitled ‘From pre-history to plantation’ is an appropriate reflection of the limited attention paid by geographers, as well as historians and archaeologists, to the late medieval Irish landscape. There are twenty-six well-illustrated pages on prehistoric and early medieval Ireland, with one page referring to the late medieval period containing passing references to Gaelic Ireland. Much historical geographical work in the twentieth century has focused on the period of transition from medieval to modern Ireland. However, Estyn Evans, one of the founding fathers of historical geography in Ireland, succumbed in his writing to a temptation to ‘linger among the megaliths’ and to focus on millennial continuities from prehistoric to modern cultural landscapes with only limited engagement with the medieval Gaelic world. Apart from Evans, who largely eschewed documentary sources in favour of landscape evidence,
O’Conor, The archaeology, -. F.H.A. Aalen, K. Whelan, M. Stout, (eds.), An atlas of the Irish rural landscape (Cork, ). E.E. Evans, The personality of Ireland (Cambridge, ), .
Introduction
geographers like Smyth, Nolan, Graham, Robinson, Duffy, and Andrews, have used regionally extensive seventeenth-century documentary sources to see backwards into the Gaelic world. Smyth has made particular use of the Civil and Down surveys and the poll tax to try to reconstruct the geographies of the later medieval period and especially the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish landscape mosaic. In relation to this dependence on relatively abundant early modern documentary sources, of course, it is worth noting Andrews’ observation that ‘much of Ireland’s Gaelic character was still intact when the country first emerged into cartographic daylight under the Tudors’. Had scholars inherited as reliable a body of work in post-Norman Gaelic social structures and settlement as they did in Gaelic literary studies, then the neglect of high and later medieval Gaelic history, archaeology and geography as a major topic of academic study and debate need not have warranted such disquiet. Unfortunately, however, much of what was available was infected by value judgements peculiar to cultural nationalism. Each of the three Celtic revivals – those of the eighteenth century, the s, and the s – had as their aim the creation of a positive national identity based on the romantic concept of the Irish as a heroic civilised people. The formula for this new Irish identity was sought in a regeneration of the traditional language, literature, music, arts and games. The problem was that in order to achieve these lofty aims the model for the heroic race could not be the Gael of the recent past, those who had lived through the war-torn sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and suffered defeat after defeat. Rather, the template was divined as an ancient Celtic civilisation sufficiently remote and elusive so as not to bring with it any cause for dissension. Eighteenth-century revivalists like Charles Vallancey (-), Charles O’Conor (-) and Sylvester O’Halloran (-) had sought their blueprint for the new Irish identity in W.J. Smyth, ‘Making the documents of conquest speak: the transformation of property, society and settlement in seventeenth-century counties Tipperary and Kilkenny’ in M. Silverman and P.H. Gulliver (eds.), Approaching the past: historical anthropology through Irish case studies, (New York, ); W. Nolan, Fassadinin: land, settlement and society in southeast Ireland - (Dublin, ); J. Graham, ‘Rural society in Connacht, -’ in N. Stephens and R. Glasscock (eds.), Irish Geographical studies in honour of E. Estyn Evans (Belfast, ), -; P. S. Robinson, The plantation of Ulster: British settlement in an Irish landscape, - (Dublin, ); J.H. Andrews, ‘The maps of the escheated counties of Ulster, -’ in PRIA, C (), -; P.J Duffy, ‘The evolution of estate properties in south Ulster -’ in W.J. Smyth and K. Whelan (eds.), Common ground: essays on the historical geography of Ireland (Cork, ), -. W.J. Smyth, ‘Society and settlement in seventeenth century Ireland: the evidence of the “ census’’’ in Smyth and Whelan (eds.), Common ground, -. J.H. Andrews, Shapes of Ireland: maps and their makers - (Dublin, ), . J. Hutchinson, The dynamics of cultural nationalism: the Gaelic revival and the creation of the Irish nation state (London, ), . C. Vallancey (ed.), Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, vols (Dublin, -). C. O’Conor, Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland (Dublin, ). S. O’Halloran, Insula Sacra (Dublin, ); An introduction to the study of the history
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
prehistory, in the legendary world of Fianna warriors, druids and seers. The antiquary George Petrie (-), who was the intellectual backbone of the revival of the s, looked to the so-called Golden Age of early Christianity and the role played by the ‘Celtic Irish’ in the emergence of the Christian West as the potential role model for a new Ireland. The motives of the revivalists were for the most part altruistic, and authors like John O’Donovan (-), Eoghan Ó Comhraidhe (Eugene O’Curry, -), and later, Eóin MacNeill, produced outstanding scholarship of lasting value. But the precedence then given to the study of Irish prehistory, early Christianity and philology, to the virtual exclusion of the built heritage, material culture and economic and political realities of late medieval Gaelic society, had lasting consequences. Manifestly, the notion of Celtdom has cast a long shadow over meaningful enquiry into the post-Norman Gaelic world. A peculiar version of the Gaelic Irish past, recreated as a glorious Celtic idyll was also embodied in the ‘national literature’ – those popular histories, collections of ballads on historical themes, letters and political speeches made available to the layman in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Frequently written in a vindicatory and patriotic style and as a response to colonial oppression, the appeal in much of this literature was often to sentiment. The introduction to MacCarthy’s Book of Irish ballads, first published in , urged Irish writers to ‘endeavour to be racy of their native soil . . . illustrate the character of their country, treasure her legends . . . ennoble her superstitions’. The Sullivans, in their preface to Irish readings which was published in , wrote: The literature of Ireland, especially in recent times, is identified with the struggles and aspirations of the Irish people for freedom. Its noblest passages are either protests against oppression or appeals to the love of liberty, and justice, and honour that glows in the Irish heart. Swift gave it that direction at the outset, and in our time it received extension and impulse from the warm Celtic soul of Thomas Davis. Our national literature is now essentially patriotic, and nearly all the additions that are being made to it are in the same character. In that fact, and the fact that it is loved and cherished by the whole Irish race, we see one of the surest pledges for the future independence and greatness of our country.8
and antiquities of Ireland (Dublin, ); Ierne defended (Dublin, ); History of Ireland (Dublin, ). G. Petrie, ‘Inquiry into the origins and uses of the round towers of Ireland’ in Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, (), re-issued as The ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland (Dublin, ). D.F. Mac Carthy, The book of Irish ballads (nd ed., Dublin, ), . A.M. and T.D. Sullivan (eds.), Irish readings (Dublin, ), .
Introduction
Flood in his preface to Ierne published in , explained that he had carefully selected writings that were ‘intrinsically interesting as illustrating certain phases of the national life’ with the object of ‘inspiring a deeper and more reasoned love of our country’. He excluded ‘all such passages or references as might tend to revive or perpetuate old enmities and rancours, which it were better to allow to rest in a merciful oblivion’. The transformation of the Gael into romantic Celtic hero also extended into the world of Irish Free State art. Lamb and Keating in particular, found suitable fodder for the crafting of a new Irish identity in the lifestyle and landscape of the Gaelic-speaking people of the West of Ireland which they believed ‘reflected a relatively unchanged pattern of life linked to an ancient Celtic era’. The poverty and social deprivation of the western people became charm and heroism at a brush stroke. After independence was declared in , a sort of ideological hostility emerged towards the later medieval Gaelic world as the very period that had inaugurated centuries of English occupation and oppression. In an emotively charged intellectual environment, scholars with strong nationalist sentiments in the fledgling Free State continued to cherish knowledge of early Christian and pre-Norman Ireland, but tended to disapprove of detailed examination of post-Norman history as inappropriate to the new circumstances of independence. Many of the Free State intelligentsia believed that study of the past should be a handmaiden to patriotism, to love of Ireland and its native people. Catholic churchmen such as the Jesuit Timothy Corcoran even expected the teaching of Irish history to serve as a branch of religious instruction, whereby Irish children might be inculcated with a deeper, historical, appreciation of Catholic ethics and spirituality. Having gained control of the education system in the wake of British withdrawal in , they were able to put their theories into practice with extraordinary success, much to the detriment of post-Norman history. In the new school curriculum that emerged in the s (crafted while the great celticist, MacNeill, was Minister of Education), what little later medieval history that was passed on dealt almost exclusively with the brave but doomed struggle against English tyranny exhibited by politically appropriate Irish chieftains such as Shane O’Neill (the Proud), Hugh O’Neill (the Great), and Red Hugh O’Donnell, in the reign of Elizabeth I. Clerical educationalists like Corcoran added their weight to ensure that the rebellions against English rule were depicted as a continuous struggle that was religious as well as political, Catholic as well as Gaelic. But apart from the heroic failure J.M. Flood, Ierne: a selection of prose and poetry relating to Ireland (Dublin, ), . M. Bourke, ‘A growing sense of national identity: Charles Lamb (-) and the West of Ireland’ in History Ireland / (), -. F.T. Holohan, ‘History teaching in the Irish Free State, -’ in History Ireland, / (Winter, ), -; G. Doherty, ‘The Irish history textbook, -’ in Oideas (Samhradh, ), -; ‘National identity and the study of Irish history’ in English Historical Review, (), -.
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of the rebel chieftains, it was decided that the later medieval period contained little that was worthwhile or ‘educational’, so that the entire period from c. to c. was otherwise used only to teach pupils to disdain it as a time of shameful foreign domination that gave rise to terrible national suffering and an execrable, and entirely alien, landlord system. In attempting to nurture a new patriotic and Gaelic-speaking citizenry (history was supposed to be taught through the Irish language) the Free State educational elite consequently succeeded in quelling interest in the later Gaelic past. With so little research having been done before the s on the history, geography and archaeology of high and later medieval Gaelic Ireland, and with such a poor historiographical heritage to draw upon, it is not surprising that those few scholars who did attempt to incorporate the Gaelic experience into accounts of post-Norman Ireland provided an unsatisfactory representation. Far from advancing knowledge of the subject, their efforts, based on too little research of their own, tended only to reinforce the inadequacies of previously published work, especially that of the cultural nationalists of the nineteenth century. Drawing upon this heritage, two misconceptions of post-Norman Gaelic history had attained widespread acceptance by the second half of the twentieth century: the supposition that the Gaelic order was unchanging, devoid of dynamism, locked into ancient power structures, customs and settlement patterns, and the idea, known as ‘two-nation theory’, that after c. the country was divided absolutely between areas of Anglo-Norman and English settlement (the Englishry of Ireland) and Gaelic settlement (the Irishry). Despite the best efforts of Mac Niocaill, Nicholls and Simms who, since the late s, have drawn attention to the dynamism and adaptability of the Gaelic territories, these interpretative misconceptions continue to be influential. The idea of an archaic native culture remains at the heart of the debate on the nature of sixteenth and seventeenth-century bardic poetry. Similarly, having languished for some years, the two-nation theory has recently made a comeback. In Ellis argued that, for the most part, those areas of Ireland that were ethnically English remained politically and culturally quite separate from those that were ethnically Gaelic. This assertion wholly dismisses the When a stone memorial was erected at Baginbun in to commemorate the th anniversary of the Anglo-Norman landing, within days it lay broken to pieces! For example A.J. Otway-Ruthven’s, A history of medieval Ireland (London, ), commences with a short section detailing ‘The archaism of Irish civilisation’. See also G.A. Hayes-McCoy, ‘Gaelic society in Ireland in the late sixteenth century’ in Hayes-McCoy (ed.), Historical Studies IV (London, ), -. The current chief proponent of the view that bardic poetry was utterly inflexible, incapable of change, is O Riordan, Gaelic mind, -, , , . For critics’ reaction to her argument, see especially B. Bradshaw, ‘The bardic response to conquest and colonisation’ in Bullán, / (), -; B. Ó Buachalla, ‘Poetry and politics in early modern Ireland’ in Eighteenth-century Ireland, (), -.
Introduction
intermingling of the Gaelic Irish and the gaelicised Anglo-Irish which others have argued was such a strong feature of later medieval Ireland in the localities outside the Dublin Pale. The essays in this book represent a cross-section of current scholarship on post-Norman Gaelic Ireland, and include contributions from some longestablished names, and many more new ones. It is hoped that it will mark the beginning of an identifiable approach to a neglected subject, characterised by an awareness of regionality, a common emphasis on the importance of the case-study, and an appreciation of the benefits of interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, archaeologists, geographers and place-name specialists.
PA RT I . T H E L O R D S H I P S : P O L I T I C A L S T RU C T U R E A N D S O C I A L O RG A N I S AT I O N
The single most important feature of political life in post-Norman Ireland was the lordship. Called oireacht or pobal in Irish, the term denoted both the territory and the people under the rule of a lord. According to a well-known document of , at the beginning of the sixteenth century Ireland was divided into approximately sixty Gaelic Irish and thirty gaelicised Anglo-Irish territorial lordships, some powerful and expansionist, others weak and in decline and prey to hostile neighbours. Each of these lordships, even the weakest, retained a semblance of autonomy, offering obedience to none unless forced to do so by military might. The English colonial administration in Dublin was but a marginal presence, its authority confined largely to the east coast, and though this was already beginning to change, the lordships remained the essential units of political power outside the Pale, in the provinces, until the latter part of the sixteenth century. Even during the mid-seventeenth century, although overtaken by the structures of the early Stuart state and the economic power of new British settlers, the lordships continued to maintain a residual though increasingly ghostly influence in Irish political life. It is the longevity of the lordships that explains why this book abandons the traditional chronological limits of ‘late medieval Ireland’ beyond the usual
S.G. Ellis, ‘“More Irish than the Irish themselves”? – the “Anglo-Irish” in Tudor Ireland’ in History Ireland, / (Spring ), -. Ellis’s views have been criticised by K. Nicholls, ‘Worlds apart? – the Ellis two-nation theory on late medieval Ireland’ in History Ireland, / (Summer ), -. S. P. Henry VIII, ii, no. .
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terminal dates accepted by scholars (, or ) in order to embrace another century or more of history, down to c.. As the work of Simms has shown, during the thirteenth century, in the wake of the Anglo-Norman conquest, Gaelic rulers were compelled by circumstances to reinvent themselves and gradually they replaced the ancient terminology of kingship with that of lordship. This new terminology continued to define the Gaelic political world for the following years, until a series of sweeping changes and reversals in the seventeenth century brought it finally to an end. The first scholar to attempt to rediscover the structures and workings of the new Gaelic lordships that emerged after c. was Nicholls, in his Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages, published in . Concentrating almost exclusively on internal structures of power, he emphasised the extent to which effective lordship was dependent upon a ‘strong man’ who could impose his will upon his kinsmen and the people of his territory through political and military persuasion. Power as it operated within the lordships was often arbitrary with, among other things, considerable discord often surrounding the levying of various revenues and exactions, which a lord might claim as his by right, but which others saw as his only by extortion and intimidation. While rejecting the notion that Gaelic society was divided into two legal classes of ‘free’ and ‘unfree’, Nicholls argued that the lords exercised a more or less imperial jurisdiction over all those born within their territories as being their subjects, and that the harsh grasping nature of their rule produced a two-tiered society consisting of the more prosperous landowners and privileged professional groups on the one hand, and the great mass of the local inhabitants, ‘the depressed classes’, on the other. Elsewhere in his work he attempted to show how institutions such as the brehon law and public assemblies, and officials such as the hereditary marshals and rent collectors, existed to give order and structure to local life and enforce the rule of the lord. His observations on legal structures have been complemented most usefully by the work of Mac Niocaill, who remains the principal authority on late medieval legal developments in Ireland. Between them, Nicholls and Mac Niocaill have revealed that the Gaelic lordships were not slow in borrowing from the English common law on certain points after c., just as many of the Anglo-Irish lordships found it advantageous to adopt aspects of the brehon system. It was fifteen years after the publication of Nicholls’ Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages before a second book on the post-Norman Gaelic territories appeared – From kings to warlords by Simms, published in . Focussing primarily on internal evidence such as bardic poetry, genealogies Simms, From kings to warlords, chapter . Nicholls, Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland, chapters -. Mac Niocaill, ‘The interaction’, passim; ‘The contact’, passim; ‘Notes on litigation’, passim.
Introduction
and annals, she augmented Nicholls’ work by recovering the ideology as well as the institutions of the lordships that began to emerge in the thirteenth century to replace the kingdoms of the pre-Norman period. To validate this innovation, the Gaelic rulers turned to the secular learned classes, the seanchaí and the brehons, to draw a veil over their abandonment of kingship by emphasising selective instances of their continuity with their pre-Norman, monarchical, forebears (in doing so, they created that impression of a seemingly immutable Gaelic past that would later mislead scholars so much). Above all, Simms’ book drew attention to the thoroughgoing transformation of Gaelic power structures across the high and later medieval period, and provided in many cases the first detailed discussion of Gaelic administration, charting important changes of meaning in terms such as ‘assembly’, ‘council’, ‘lordship’ and ‘territory’. Other scholars have contributed significantly to our understanding of the internal structures of Gaelic lordship in different parts of the country, in particular Nic Ghiollamhaith, who has investigated the changing nature of the Gaelic king-vassal relationship in Thomond in the fourteenth century; Morgan and Edwards, who have uncovered evidence of significant military innovation and ‘modernisation’ in the lordships of Hugh O’Neill and Feagh McHugh O’Byrne in the late sixteenth century; Cunningham, who has reconstructed and analysed the impact of English government policies aimed at demilitarising the lordships of Connacht and Thomond in the reign of Elizabeth I; O’Dowd, who has shed a great deal of light on the question of land inheritance and land transfer in the western lordships during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; and Duffy, who has discussed the changing nature of Gaelic territorial organisation in Monaghan during the same period (discussed in Part below). Knowledge of the contested nature of Gaelic succession from within the ranks of the derbfine, or extended lineage, has been especially enhanced for the O’Neill country by studies of the careers of Shane O’Neill, Turlough Luineach O’Neill, and Hugh O’Neill published by Brady, Canny and Morgan. Outside the regions that were ethnically Gaelic, Edwards has shown that by the reign of Elizabeth I full-blown successional warfare along the lines typical of ‘the Irishry’ had become a serious A. Nic Ghiollamhaith, ‘Kings and vassals in later medieval Ireland: the Uí Bhriain and the MicConmara in the fourteenth century’ in Barry, Frame and Simms (eds.), Colony and frontier, -. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, -; D. Edwards, ‘In Tyrone’s shadow: Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, forgotten leader of the Nine Years War’ in C. O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne: the Wicklow firebrand (Rathdrum Historical Society, ), -, -. Cunningham, ‘The Composition of Connacht, passim. O’Dowd, ‘Land inheritance’, passim; Power, politics and land, chapter . Duffy, ‘Territorial organisation’, passim. C. Brady, Shane O’Neill (Dublin, ), chapter . Canny, ‘Hugh O’Neill’, passim. Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, chapter .
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problem in more gaelicised parts of Anglo-Ireland such as the frontier areas of the Ormond lordship. Of equal importance to the internal functioning of the lordships, however, were the formal and informal structures that characterised their external relations, not only with other lordships, but also with foreign powers such as the English, Scottish, French and Spanish monarchies, and the papacy. Often the only way for a Gaelic lord or sub-lord to realistically fend off the overtures of an aggressive neighbour or rival was to appeal for help to a stronger outside force. Sometimes this could backfire badly, as Ó Cléirigh has revealed of the fate of Cathaoir O’Connor Faly after , and as Morgan has revealed of the fate of Brian O’Rourke in . A great deal of recent work has drawn attention to such external relationships, primarily as part of a mainstream narrative of high politics, though as yet we await a single detailed study of the subject, one that would concentrate on the role of secular and clerical envoys and spies and assess the frequency and effectiveness of the signing of treaties and the formalisation of alliances. Three of the essays that comprise Part of this collection (by Edwards, Kingston and Duffy) focus on the political and territorial organisation of the Gaelic lordships, but the fourth and final essay (by Fitzsimons) draws attention to another distinctive dimension of lordship – lordship as a social relationship, a hierarchical connection between people. Just as the proliferation of territorial lordships across later medieval Ireland meant that politics was usually heavily localised, so was power intensely personal in character, its expression dependent upon the personality of an individual lord or chief. Perhaps this further explains why study of the post-Norman Gaelic world has taken so long to develop. To properly understand Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland it is first necessary to recover the local concerns of the lordships and the personal traits of the lords, an extremely difficult task given the poor survival of Gaelic family papers. Where sufficient evidence has survived, however, it has been possible to reconstitute important parts of this forgotten and neglected world. It is no coincidence that all four papers in Part I pertain to developments during the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, since significant collections of documents are extant for this period that are otherwise unavailable for D. Edwards, ‘The Butler revolt of ’ in IHS, (), -. Ó Cléirigh, ‘The O’Connor Faly lordship’, -. Morgan, ‘Extradition and treason-trial’, passim. The external relations of the O’Neills have been extensively, but not exhaustively, dealt with: Morgan, Tyrone’s Rebellion, chapters -; M. Kearney Walsh, Destruction by peace: Hugh O’Neill after Kinsale (Armagh, ); J. J. Silke, ‘Hugh O’Neill, the Catholic question, and the papacy’, in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, th ser., (), -; Simms, ‘The archbishops of Armagh’, passim. For insights into the external relations of the O’Byrnes of Wicklow, see O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, especially the essays by K. Nicholls, B. Donovan, D. MacEiteagáin and D. Edwards.
Introduction
earlier periods. Edwards’ contribution draws upon some scattered remnants of the Fitzpatrick of Castletown Papers, currently deposited in the National Library and National Archives, to recover details of the operation of lordship in the MacGiollapadraigs’ territory of Upper Ossory, while Kingston’s essay on the growth of Mac Domnaill power in Antrim after is based upon a widely dispersed but recently published group of charters and other documents, known as the Acts of the Lords of the Isles. But new evidence need not necessarily come from new sources. The contributions of both Duffy and Fitzsimons rely entirely on English government papers, standard sources available to scholars for generations, which, when added to other fragments of evidence, serve admirably to piece together some of the most important parts of the Gaelic jigsaw. Collectively, the four essays should help to correct one of the most enduring misconceptions about political conditions in later medieval Ireland. Since Tudor times, when they were written, a series of hostile English and AngloIrish descriptions of the native lordships have been handed down to scholars, depicting the native territories as blighted regions characterised chiefly by the spirit of violence and lawlessness. Far from having their suspicions raised by the fact that these texts all date from the same period (c.-) and seem to mutually reflect the superiority of English centralised government, some historians have confused perception with reality, and accepted them as largely accurate in their description of Irish practices. Yet to outsiders accustomed to strong central control, it was inevitable that the Gaelic and gaelicised lordships would seem disordered, even anarchic, ruled as they were by warlords often at war with their immediate kin as well as with their neighbours and traditional lineage enemies. But as Nicholls first showed, the instability of Gaelic society was mainly at the top. Provided the ruling lord was fully in control of the derbfine (the biggest threat to his authority), the lordships could be in fact highly ordered places beneath the surface. Edwards reveals that in sixteenthcentury Upper Ossory, a territory where internal power struggles rarely threatened to escalate into full-blown civil war, brehon law continued to operate as it had done time out of mind, and the brehons maintained a strong presence at political gatherings, in order to ratify decisions. The relative stability that prevailed within Ossory’s borders nurtured a quietly prosperous Gaelic economy, and the territory was remarkable in the later medieval period for possessing important trading centres, chiefly Aghaboe, but also Durrow. The Acts of the Lords of the Isles, eds., J. Munro and R.W. Munro (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh, ). The best introduction to this material remains D.B. Quinn’s, The Elizabethans and the Irish (Ithaca, ), but see also N. Canny, The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland: a pattern established, - (Hassocks, ), chapter , and C. Brady ‘The road to the view: on the decline of reform thought in Tudor Ireland’ in P. Coughlan (ed.), Spenser and Ireland: an interdisciplinary perspective (Cork, ), -.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
The essays by Kingston and Duffy add considerably to our understanding of the Gaelic lordship as an ordered society by dwelling at length on the existence of formal political and territorial structures long ignored by scholars. Kingston sheds light on the hitherto mysterious political body known as the Council of the Isles, where representatives of the Mac Domnaill lineage and their kin met to take key decisions relating to internal family matters and also to decide upon political relations with the outside world. Students must await the appearance of his forthcoming book on the Mac Domnaill lordship to learn more of the workings of this significant institution. Duffy’s contribution offers a major advance in knowledge of the Gaelic landholding system, focussing attention particularly on the land denomination called the ‘ballybetagh’ to show that the distribution of land was organised in a highly regulated way to facilitate lineage expansion from the top down and to enable the qualified existence of sub-lordships, headed by ‘strong men’ and populated by their followers. The ballybetagh, he contends, was the product of a society that emphasised family and local relationships above economic factors; unlike its English counterpart, Gaelic society was not market-driven, something of course which English observers, the product of a metropolitan culture, found impossible to understand. Fitzsimons’ essay should become an important reference in the ongoing controversy about ‘two-nation theory’ and the extent to which the Anglo-Irish lineages had become acculturated, or gaelicised, by proximity to the Gaelic lordships. Having discovered an unusually detailed description of the operation of the Irish social customs known as fosterage and gossiprid, from a manuscript of among the State Papers, her essay shows that Elizabethan observers were in no doubt that many of the Anglo-Irish were at least partly gaelicised in their methods of social relations. Fosterage and gossiprid were both overtly political in purpose, and had since the fourteenth century been adopted and adapted by the Anglo-Irish to develop their bonds of affinity with Gaelic neighbours and to cement useful alliances. Although outlawed in the lands of ‘the Englishry’ by the Statutes of Kilkenny in , fosterage and gossiprid had spread across the whole of Anglo-Ireland, even penetrating deep into the heart of the Dublin Pale, so that by the sixteenth-century English observers were shocked and disillusioned to discover the extent to which the Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Irish lineages shared many aspects of the same political culture, all coming together ‘in kin[d]red, allyance and affynitie of bludd’. In any discussion of the political life of the lordships, however, close attention must necessarily be paid to the conduct of relations with the English crown. Although, following the implosion of English political power in Ireland in the latter part of the fourteenth century, it would be the s before the crown was again capable of mounting a serious challenge to the lordships, SP // (p.).
Introduction
many lords and chieftains found it politically advantageous to maintain friendly lines of communication with Dublin and London. Far from being anti-English patriots, as nationalist scholars and educationalists once tried to portray them, most of the Gaelic lords were in fact pragmatists concerned with maximising their power and enhancing their reputation at minimum risk. Collaboration with the crown could be a highly effective means of keeping unwanted intruders at bay, not least the ambitious agents of royal power, the justiciars and lord deputies, commissioners and military officers. As the contributions of both Edwards and Kingston make plain, the Gaelic lords were well versed in the cunning crafts of Renaissance diplomacy. A deal was a deal only as long as it suited, and a promise was often not worth the paper on which it was written. From the late fifteenth century until the s the Mac Domnaill leaders in Antrim and the Isles skilfully manipulated English fears of Scottish royal interference in Ulster to extract useful concessions from London, while carefully avoiding delivering on their promises of service if it did not serve their purposes to do so. The MacGiollapadraigs were equally manipulative, maintaining an extraordinary level of autonomy in the midlands throughout the sixteenth century as many of their Gaelic neighbours collapsed, and this through a combination of lofty but entirely insincere promises to the crown and the occasional performance of self-interested military service. In short, the late medieval Gaelic lordships are no place for romanticists and educationalists on the lookout for morally uplifting heroes! They are instead places where the wit and strength of local rulers were strenuously tested, and where weakness was punished. Only by recovering the realpolitik of the lordships can the story of how they attempted to expand or survive be properly told.
PA RT I I . T H E NAT U R A L A N D B U I LT E N V I RO N M E N T : S O M E D O C U M E N TA RY A N D S C I E N T I F I C R E C O R D S
The nature of the island’s environmental and topographical inheritance is important in understanding the geography of the Irish medieval world and its Gaelic and English components. Smyth has pointed to the evolution of strong regional cultures associated with the fragmentation of the richer lowland regions and manifested in the enduring territorial lordships of the medieval period. The boglands and mountains were significant not as desert wastelands but as zones of retreat and refuge, the great islands of fertile glacial drift in the midland bogs becoming centres of monastic and secular civilisations. The ‘regional dialectic between the peoples of the plains and those of the hills or bogs is a recurring island-wide feature of Ireland’s cultural geography’, W.J. Smyth, ‘The making of Ireland: agendas and perspectives in cultural geography’ in
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
marked no doubt by the residual woodlands and forests which are discussed by Nicholls in this volume. This landscape dichotomy is a variation on a European theme of cultural antipathy between field and forest – civilisation versus the wilderness. Frontiers and borderlands, which were a not insignificant element in the medieval world of Europe, were especially notable in Ireland because of this topographical diversity. The bogs of the midlands, the mountains of Wicklow and the drumlin swarms across south Ulster were important borderlands shielding an enduring world of overlords and Gaelic territories and filtering intercultural and economic exchanges with the Pale. Trying to read the medieval Gaelic world through the prism of today’s environment is difficult because of the intervention of centuries of modification and husbandry. The native forests are gone and new fieldscapes have been laid down since the seventeenth century. The archaeologist, geographer and historian have to read between the lines of this landscape text, to look at the surface and underneath the surface for meanings and understanding. Language is one of the keys to unlocking the secrets of environment and landscape in medieval Gaelic Ireland. For archaeologists and geographers especially, the landscape is frequently the primary source to be examined for its meaning and we read the landscape through a language that makes sense to us – a ‘grammar’ of lines, shapes, structures and content. But essentially we are inheritors of a rationalist landscape tradition of post eighteenth-century European order, a landscape of structured geometrical logic. In reading the environment of the Gaelic world, therefore, we are frequently like the nineteenth-century colonial settlers of the New World, looking at exotic landscapes through eyes accustomed to the different ‘signs and symbols’ of picturesque England or Europe. There is a comforting familiarity about the map of Raleigh’s lands in Cork in with its neatly enclosed parks and English named fields, but which, as Andrews notes in this volume, was probably a freak document in terms of Irish landscape representation. Indeed he points to the absence in sixteenth and seventeenth-century cartography in Ireland of a modern sense of landscape, which was seen ‘not as one extensive carpet-like surface but as an assortment of small objects set against a background of empty space’. We must be aware of these shortfalls in reconstructing Gaelic landscapes. Even the traditional documentary texts are alien, in the sense that their cultural and social context and meaning frequently elude us today. Simms (below) highlights the problems, for example, in translating medieval Irish terminology on the nature of houses in the Gaelic world. Mág Uidhir’s ‘fair green lawn . . . reddened by the racing of fleet steeds’ [in contrast to its overgrown grassy state when in English hands] might be a metaphor for the contrast between a Gaelic Graham and Proudfoot (eds.), An historical geography, -: ; A.P. Smyth, Celtic Leinster: towards an historical geography of early Irish civilisation, AD - (Dublin, ), -.
Introduction
and English, pre-modern and modern, world. Language constructs landscapes, and tantalisingly vague words in Irish and English can obstruct understanding. Even contemporary use of English terms such as ‘freeholder’, ‘rent’, ‘estate’, ‘demesne’ are loaded with modern or later meanings. What is real and what is constructed? Here is a Foucauldian notion of the real existence outside language, of immutable ‘facts’ from the past for historians, and of familiar landscapes in the past for geographers. Reconstructing Gaelic landscapes is inhibited by the different ways of ‘seeing’ them. Gaelic bardic poetry, for example, was a social construction of Gaelic landscape and society. Indeed the qualitative contrast between the Gaelic and English records is more than one of creative versus factual style, manifested in the dry records and inventories of the English colony and the Gaelic poets’ preoccupation with alliteration and rhyme. Both sources give differently distorted views of the Gaelic world – the persistent debate about the impermanence and nomadic nature of later medieval Gaelic society is often largely attributable to exaggerated accounts from the Pale; but Gaelic sources have provided equally misleading impressions of landholding, landscape and landuse. In map and written records from both sides of the medieval frontier, therefore, it could be suggested there was a variety of inventions of Gaelic Ireland – not to mention later nineteenth and twentieth-century renditions of it. Barry and Graham have both pointed to the conceptual deficiencies in medieval studies which ignore what Graham calls the British Isles and European experience. Geographers like Simms and Smyth have attempted to introduce such a comparative dimension into studies of settlement and landscape. Dodgshon provides a comprehensive framework for the way European spatial order evolved from tribal lands to chiefdoms, to feudal and modern state systems of order, with integration into progressively larger and more hierarchically ordered systems. The territorial emergence in the medieval period of dominant élites had a powerful impact on developing social and political geographies around centres of power: the ‘tendency for distance from the centre to correlate with genealogical distance meant that social relations moved down-slope from these centres’. Ireland in the medieval period conforms to this pattern of genealogical and territorial marginalistion. The Gaelic world especially contained a territorial structure that was demarcated by lineage groups, distinguished frequently by their relationship with the dominant sept in the lordship. The chiefdoms were able to extend tributary A. Simms, ‘Core and periphery in medieval Europe: the Irish experience in a wider context’ in Smyth and Whelan (eds.), Common ground, -; W.J. Smyth, ‘The dynamic quality of Irish village settlements’ in J.M. Dewailly and R. Dion (eds.), Campagnes et littoraux d’Europe (Lille, ). R.A. Dodgshon, The European past: social evolution and spatial order (London, ), . See Nicholls, Land, law and society, ; A. P. Smyth, Celtic Leinster, .
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
networks out to the edges of their territories, channeling surpluses into their centres which were distinguished by high levels of consumption and display, manifested, for instance, in the buildings and furnishings described below by Simms. The transition from fragmented territorial chiefdoms to the centrifugal tendencies of the state is relevant to an understanding of medieval Ireland and its experience at the end of the sixteenth century. The chiefdoms were based on a web of kinship alliances whose geographical limits were socially determined, as in Airghialla, by the territorial device of the ballybetagh-tate structure. This form of territorialisation was used by lords in an embryonic or pre-market situation in order to distribute and control their land resources among their septs or lineages. The emergent state on the other hand was defined in primarily spatial, as distinct from social, terms: ‘Instead of space being organised through society, it was now . . . a case of society being organised through space . . . In this simple but profound change, we are confronted with one of the decisive revolutions in human spatial order’. The new centralised state in the late medieval period replaced land as the patrimony of kin with land as the patrimony of the king (or the state). Place-names and territorial structures and boundaries that still mark the landscape of Ireland reflect many of the priorities of social organisation in the medieval period and, as Andrews has observed, ‘toponymy in long-inhabited countries can prove more resistant to change than any material structure.’ One of the problems with using place-names to read the landscape is that many of the written and mapping records of the Irish language names have been transmitted to us through English. Nollaig Ó Muraíle in his contribution to this book brings a linguistic scholarship to bear on the original texts of the place-names to recover their meanings and contexts. In Airghialla, the ballybetagh and tate structure reflects a precise response to the ecological potential of the region, an evolved and customary territorialisation of the landscape and a hierarchical allocation of lands among the septs of the region. Graham has highlighted the allocation of land in ballybetaghs and quarters in Donegal; by the early seventeenth century many were divided into half-quarters and ballyboes, the antecedents of today’s townlands, with some quarters continuing as very large townlands. Duffy has demonstrated that the intricate townland network of Monaghan county is a product of the highly structured Gaelic arrangement of tates within ballybetaghs in Gaelic Airghialla. Similarly, O’ Dowd has examined the configuration of landownership in early modern Sligo with a recognisably Gaelic structure undergoing Dodgshon, The European past, , . Andrews, Shapes of Ireland, . J.M. Graham, ‘South-west Donegal in the seventeenth century’ in Irish Geography, (), -; ‘Rural society in Connacht -’, -. Duffy, ‘The territorial organisation of Gaelic landownership’, -; ‘Patterns of landownership in Gaelic Monaghan’, -.
Introduction
local modifications by individual landowning septs. Based on his study of Gaelic mid-Ulster, Tom McErlean’s work on systems of territorial order for late medieval Ireland provides a useful model for future research on this topic. While an island-wide model of territorial order prevailed, it had regionally-diverse territorial manifestations ranging from a semblance of uniformity in Ulster, to greater diversity in Connacht and Munster, and an attenuated legacy in Leinster where Anglo-Norman modifications overlay an earlier Gaelic inheritance. The endurance and stability of these units, embedded in landscape and social memory, reflects the fineness and detail of Gaelic boundary knowledge. Natural features were used most often as the only fixed entities in contemporary landscapes, and boundaries were well known to locals in an age before maps. Ó Muraíle and Andrews refer to the lack of urgency in keeping precise written or cartographic records of location and topography in a localised world where everybody knew his place, his ‘countrie’, and his territory. This local customary topographical knowledge, typical of the ‘mapping’ texts of the medieval world, emerges in a description of lands near Stranorlar in : . . . said gort lies as follows, that is to say, it begins from the middle causie of stone, lying between the church and the town of Shraghmirlar, and so running along a little ditch, by a bog side, inclosing a fort, and so crossing a little small brooke running up and over a moss or turf pit, and so down to a stone ford, and from thence directly to a black thorn which stands by the King’s highway . . . and so along to a little running brook, and so directly up to the cawsie where the first bounds began. . . . In terms of the detailed evaluation of land resources under the Gaelic regime, Simms has pointed to the possible elaboration of Gaelic taxation systems through the medieval period. Where earlier a general tribute of cattle was levied on a whole territory, later more allowance was made for variations in value of land reflected, for example, in the extent and the profitability of different lands. In Ruaidhrí Mac Diarmada was reported in very traditional role as claiming ‘two hundred cows from the two Mac Raghnaills, and one hundred cows from Mac Donnchadha of the Corann, and sixty cows from O Gadhra, forty-eight cows from O hAinlighe, and forty-eight cows from Mac Branain, twenty-four cows from O Flannagain. . . .’ In the early seventeenth O’Dowd, ‘Land inheritance’, -. McErlean, ‘The Irish townland system of landscape organisation’, -. Quoted in J.M. Graham, ‘South-west Donegal’, . K. Simms, ‘Gaelic lordship in Ulster in the later middle ages’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Trinity College Dublin, ), -. The Annals of Loch Cé: a chronicle of Irish affairs from AD to AD , ed. and trans. W.M. Hennessy (London, ), .
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
century in Sligo, a survey of ‘rent’ and ‘country charges’ indicates a rough approximation to the productive value of the land, though there is also a suggestion that dues were calculated like a poll tax, according to the numbers of people who were to pay them. In the absence of what Dodgshon has called the role of ‘price-fixing markets on the structuring of space and spatial order’ – a process which in Ulster had to wait until after the commercial renting of farms following the plantations and which undermined the survival of the Gaelic system – tributary taxation generally approximated to fairness within lordships where space was determined by the ‘cows grass’ principle, i.e. the stocking capacity of territorial units was reflected in size of units. Opacity of terms like ‘rent’, ‘tenant’ and ‘freeholder’, however, often obscures meaning when discussing taxation in the Gaelic lordships. The frequent tendency for double and even treble ‘taxation’ by the various tiers in the lordship hierarchy was a critical weakness in the Gaelic structure which resulted in political instability in the regions and economic oppression for many of the occupants of the land. As important as the process of gaelicisation, which has been highlighted in studies of medieval Ireland, is the equally important impact of English Ireland on the Gaelic world. In spite of consistent hostilities across the frontier, Gaelic peoples in south Ulster had adopted a range of feudal practices in the thirteenth century. Family names and personal Christian naming practices among Gaelic and Anglo-Irish from seventeenth century sources have been used by Smyth to highlight the nature of cultural interaction across the frontier zones, also reflecting significant inter-ethnic marriage patterns. By the sixteenth century in many regions of the country, the process of intercultural change had reduced the differences in landholding practices between the Gael and descendants of Anglo-Normans. One of the important realities in medieval Ireland was its fragmentation of political authority, and borderlands were the inevitable consequence. With the emergence of territorial chiefdoms, interdigitated with Anglo-Irish feudal lordships, towns and market hinterlands, cores, peripheries and unstable landscapes on the fringes of lordship were inevitable developments. Island wide, by the fourteenth century, there was a territorial continuum from the Pale’s precariously balanced centralised authority linked to England, through some of the great Anglo-Irish gaelicised lordships which had intermittent administrative O’Dowd, Power, politics and land, . Dodgshon, The European past, . B. Smith, ‘The medieval border: Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Irish in late thirteenth and early fourteenth century Uriel’ in R. Gillespie and H. O’Sullivan (eds.), The borderlands: essays on the history of the Ulster-Leinster border (Belfast, ), -: . See also Simms, From kings to warlords, -; A. Cosgrove, Late medieval Ireland, - (Dublin, ), -. Smyth, ‘Society and settlement’; P.J. Duffy. ‘The nature of the medieval frontier in Ireland’ in Studia Hibernica, - (-), -.
Introduction
Town QUARTER
BALLYBETAGH
BALLYBETAGH
QUARTER Ballyboe SESSIAGH (gort)
Ballyboe SESSIAGH
QUARTER
(Tullagh) Ballyboe SESSIAGH
BALLYBETAGH
QUARTER
Tate
BALLYBETAGH
Poll
BAILE
GALLON pottle
QUARTER
Cartron
(Trine)
Plowland PLOWLAND
GNIVE
Cartron
COWLAND
Plowland Plowland (Dunquiny) PLOWLAND Quartermeer OCTOMEER
(Horseman’s bed) SHILLING-
GROAT-LANDS PENNY-
MARTLAND
CAPELL LAND
Plowland
(oxland)
QUARTER (MAN PORTION)
Plowland
QUARTER
Plowland GNIVE
BALLYBETAGH ....... Primary Territorial Unit QUARTER ................... Intermediate Unit
Ballyboe ...................... Small Unit SESSIAGH
........................ Subdenomination
(Tullagh) ........................Local variant
Territorial units in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ireland (after T. McErlean, ). FIG.
links with the centre, to the variety of Gaelic lordships, internally coherent and interconnected by a complex of alliances and overlordship with Gael and Gall. A language of ‘marches’, ‘land of peace/war’, ‘fásaigh’ and ‘magheries’ expressed these complex political and cultural geographies. In Gaelic Irish
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
regions, territories which lay on the borderland between two paramount chiefs were liable to be raided from both sides and in this volume Loeber examines the close relationship between settlement, castle building and unstable border districts. Nicholls also notes that borderlands and frontier zones were especially vulnerable to settlement abandonment and regeneration of woodlands in the fásaigh or wastelands. The borders of Airghialla were heavily wooded in the late sixteenth century and between its core and the Pale were districts distinctively identified as the march and maghery, where disorder and instability were endemic. Throughout the medieval period the south Ulster region was a buffer zone which produced a number of small distinctive lordships whose survival depended on their facility to negotiate between superior powers to the north and south: for example, Sligo’s late thirteenth-century sub-lordships of O’Haras, O’Dowds and others emerged under the O’Connors. In west Bréifne, O’Rourke and MacClancy consolidated their borders by the sixteenth century. The Maguires, MacMahons, O’Reillys and O’Hanlons were also consolidating their territories across this south Ulster hill and lake-strewn frontier zone. These borderlands were perceived, at least in the view of one new English commentator in the late sixteenth century, to have an important strategic role in shielding overlords and in obstructing the centralising policies of the modern state: ‘O’Donnell made McGwyers quarrell his own accounting that MacGwyer and O’Rourke to be as two hedges to his countrie, which hedges being broken down, his own countrie was to lie open to reformation’. Part II of this volume focuses on a number of themes relating to aspects of the late medieval environment and landscape in Ireland. As a source which would seem to have obvious application to a study of landscape, settlement and environmental conditions, maps from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have frequently been used by geographers and historians to provide fleeting glimpses of late medieval Ireland. John Andrews focuses on the techniques and content of a range of map examples from this period, critically examining the representation of cabins, house clusters, castles, churches, forts and other features of the built environment. He concludes significantly that Irish maps have limited utility for understanding the late medieval landscape. He describes what seems a promising source as being generally the work of strangers to the country whose cartographic representations were completed in great haste, and whose principal objective was to record strategically important elements of the landscape and its principal territorial parameters for subsequent colonial exploitation. H. O’Sullivan, ‘The march of south-east Ulster in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: a period of change’ in Gillespie and O’Sullivan (eds.), The borderlands, -:, . H. Wood (ed.), The chronicle of Ireland -, by Sir James Perrott (Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, ), .
Introduction
Simms discusses the vocabulary of settlement and architecture used in sixty-three praise poems spanning the period from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. Many of the words used for the chief ’s house or dwelling are difficult to pin down with modern terms or concepts: a late sixteenth-century poem on Lifford castle uses ten different terms, none of them ‘caisleán’. Settlement structures and interior household arrangements are often alien to us today: like Magauran’s hall in west Cavan, presiding over a cluster of houses, its walls made of wattle-and-daub hazel, and draped with animal-hide rugs and green and brown coloured satin cloth. Normal socio-economic relations across lordship borders are implied in the probable English involvement in the construction of Aodh O’Conor’s great house at Cloonfree in Roscommon in the fourteenth century and of Rudhraighe MacMahon’s house in Airghialla. Place-names are one of the most important keys to understanding the medieval period, which have been particularly used by some geographers and historians to help interpret regional patterns of settlement. Ó Muraíle in his chapter is concerned with describing and examining the evidence of place-names and topographical references from a sample of medieval Gaelic collections which, like the sources adverted to by Simms, are frequently slanted representations of contemporary realities. Documentary evidence through the medieval period has led scholars to make certain assumptions about the forest landscapes of Ireland. Hall and Bunting highlight opportunities for cooperation between historians, archaeologists and palynologists in their report on a new method of dating bog deposits from the medieval period – tephra-dated pollen studies. Tephrachronology is a technique being used in Ireland for pollen analytical research into landscape change during recent centuries which is revealing a much more locally varied landscape as rich in plant variety as that of today. Nicholls comprehensively reviews documentary sources on the nature and extent of woodland in premodern Ireland – records of the existence and extinction of woodland fauna like the goshawk and capercaillie, and surveys of woodland quality in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Overall the impression given in these written and mapping surveys is of woodlands persisting in borderlands – either natural border zones like the southern shore of Galway Bay, the shorelands of Lough Neagh, around boglands in the midlands, as well as along the boundaries of autonomous lordships. The imposition of centralised political authority which extinguished these borderlands in the seventeenth century ultimately facilitated the removal of most of the significant woodlands as well.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick PA RT I I I . S E T T L E M E N T S T U D I E S : T H E A RC H I T E C T U R A L A N D A RC H A E O L O G I C A L R E C O R D
Research into the archaeology of post-Norman Gaelic civilisation is a recent advent in Irish archaeology. The eight settlement studies which constitute Part III of this volume are a formative step in tackling aspects of the archaeology and architectural history of Gaelic territories in the period from c. to c.. The emphasis is placed mainly on secular rather than ecclesiastical settlement, and while some of the sites discussed fall within the remit of kingship rather than lordship, the main thrust of the collective works is an exploration of various facets of the archaeology of lordship. Some of the impetus for this development in Irish archaeology can be attributed to the earlier work of historians such as MacNiocaill, HayesMcCoy, Nicholls, and Simms, and geographers like Duffy and Graham, who have raised fundamental questions relating to the nature of social organisation, land-holding and settlement in high and late medieval Gaelic Ireland. More recently, O’Conor’s pioneering work on Gaelic settlement has provided a forum for debate and suggested directions for future archaeological research. The pooling of intellectual resources is essential to the formation of a working matrix for the study of Gaelic settlement. Inevitably, as with any nascent study area, variable opinions on methodology and approaches to the source material, whether landscape or documents, will arise. An independent evolution of archaeological interest in the Gaelic cultural landscape and the material assemblage of that society have been somewhat G. Mac Niocaill, ‘The origins of the betagh’ in Irish Jurist, (), -; ‘Gaelic Ireland to ’ in J. Lee (ed.), Irish historiography - (Cork, ), -. See further works listed under footnote . A number of Hayes-McCoy’s publications have been influential in Irish archaeology, most notably his commentary on settlement in Ulster and other Irish maps, and ‘Strategy and tactics in Irish warfare’, -. See footnote . K. Simms, ‘Nomadry in medieval Ireland: the origins of the creaght or caoraigheacht’ in Peritia, (), -; ‘Frontiers in the Irish church: regional and cultural’ in T. Barry, R. Frame and K. Simms (eds.), Colony and frontier in medieval Ireland (London, ), -; ‘Gaelic warfare in the middle ages’ in T. Bartlett and K. Jeffrey (eds.), A military history of Ireland (Cambridge, ), -. See further works listed under footnote . P.J. Duffy, ‘Farney in : an examination of Thomas Raven’s survey of the Essex estate’ in Clogher Record, / (), -; Landscapes of south Ulster: a parish atlas of the diocese of Clogher (Belfast, ), -. See further works listed under footnote . See for instance, B.J. Graham, ‘Medieval settlement in Co. Roscommon’ in PRIA, C (), -; ‘Timber and earthwork fortifications in western Ireland’ in Medieval Archaeology, (), -; ‘The high middle ages: c.- c.’ in B.J. Graham and L.J. Proudfoot (eds.), A historical geography of Ireland (London, ), -. See also his comments on the town in Gaelic Ireland in ‘Urbanisation in the high middle ages’ in T. Barry (ed.), A history of settlement in Ireland (London, ), -: -. Additional works are listed under footnote . O’Conor, The archaeology. See in particular chapter and appendix I.
Introduction
dilatory. Apart from O’Conor’s work, among the more recently published monument-specific studies which incorporate a Gaelic dimension, are McNeill’s, Castles in Ireland: feudal power in a Gaelic world, and O’Sullivan’s, The archaeology of Irish lake settlement in which he highlights the late use of crannogs, particularly in Gaelic Ulster. In his Medieval Ireland: an archaeology, O’Keeffe touches upon native encastellation, rural settlement and the thorny subject of ringfort chronology, while Barry’s ‘The last frontier: defence and settlement in late medieval Ireland’ examines early tower houses in Gaelic dominated areas, and their use as boundary markers and defences in localised frontiers. In the last ten years a handful of articles have also appeared dealing specifically with Gaelic settlement themes, such as O’Keeffes’ ‘Rural settlement and cultural identity in Gaelic Ireland, ’, and Long’s ‘Three settlements of Gaelic Wicklow: Rathgall, Ballinacor, and Glendalough’. But regional studies of lordships are perhaps what is most required at this formative stage of enquiry: generalisation can only be authoritative if it is based on comprehensive fieldwork and primary document searches. Some small-scale archaeological surveys like those conducted in the barony of Ikerrin, Co. Tipperary and the Iveragh peninsula, Co. Kerry have drawn together data which is of potentially great value to scholars working on the archaeology of lordship. For instance, in Stout’s Ikerrin, detailed accounts of all the O’Meagher tower houses are provided, while O’Sullivan and Sheehan’s Iveragh includes reports, plans and elevations of the many MacCarthy and O’Sullivan tower houses on the peninsula. Model studies examining the relationship between Gaelic castles and landholding have already been conducted in two lordships – in northern Tír Conaill and Fanad by Ní Loingsigh, and in Ely O’Carroll where Loeber has investigated the distribution of demesne lands and castles of the O’Carroll sept in the sixteenth century. If settlement studies of Gaelic lordships have been scarce and seldom T.E. McNeill, Castles in Ireland: feudal power in a Gaelic world (London, ). A. O’Sullivan, The archaeology of lake settlement in Ireland (Dublin, ), -. T. O’Keeffe, Medieval Ireland: an archaeology (Stroud, ), -, -, -. T. Barry, ‘The last frontier: defence and settlement in late medieval Ireland’ in Barry, Frame and Simms (eds.), Colony and frontier, -; see also his comments on Gaelic-Irish rural settlement in his essay on ‘Rural settlement in medieval Ireland’ in Barry (ed.), A history of settlement in Ireland, -: -. T. O’Keeffe, ‘Rural settlement and cultural identity in Gaelic Ireland, -’ in Ruralia, (), -. H. Long, ‘Three settlements of Gaelic Wicklow: Rathgall, Ballinacor and Glendalough’ in K. Hannigan and W. Nolan (eds.), Wicklow: history and society (Dublin, ). See also, H. Long, ‘Settlement and social life in Feagh McHugh’s Ballinacor’ in O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, -. G.T. Stout, Archaeological survey of the barony of Ikerrin (Roscrea, ), -. A. O’Sullivan and J. Sheehan, The Iveragh Peninsula: an archaeological survey of south Kerry (Cork, ), -. M. Ní Loingsigh, ‘An assessment of castles and landownership in late medieval north Donegal’ in UJA, (), -. Loeber, ‘The changing borders of the Ely O’Carroll lordship’, -.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
published, still fewer archaeological research excavations of attested high and late medieval Gaelic sites i.e. sites known to have been constructed for and occupied by Gaelic lords, professional classes, churchmen, military, biataigh (betaghs), or caoraigheachta (creaghts), have taken place. The index of excavations (-), compiled by Bairéad in the current Excavations Bulletin, combined with the catalogue of excavations conducted in , lists about twenty tower houses of Gaelic and gaelicised septs, whether unaltered or incorporated into later plantation dwellings, which have been the subject of scientific excavation in that twenty-nine year period. Sept Name
Location Parke’s Castle, Kilmore, Co. Leitrim Dunboy Castle, Co. Cork Ballinskelligs Castle, Co. Kerry Bunratty Castle, Co. Clare Newtown Castle, Burren, Co. Clare Gragan Castle, Gragan West, Co. Clare Enniskillen Castle, Co. Fermanagh Dromahaire Castle, Drumlease, Co. Leitrim Fitzpatrick Grantstown, Co. Laois Burke/McMoyler Claretuam Castle, Co. Galway O’Dea O’Dea’s Castle, Dysert, Co. Clare O’Brien O’Connell Street, Ennis, Co. Clare O’Malley Castleaffy, Co. Mayo O’Brien Ballynagowan Castle, Co. Clare Burke Cloughaun Castle, Kilchreest, Co. Galway Burke Castlegar, Co. Galway O’Brien Dromoland Castle, Co. Clare O’Brien Ennistymon Castle, Ennistymon, Co. Clare MacCarthy Riabhach Kilcoe Castle, Kilcoe, West Co. Cork MacSweeney Doe, Castle, Sheephaven Bay, Co. Donegal O’Rourke O’Sullivan Bere MacCarthy Mór MacNamara O’Loughlin O’Loughlin Maguire O’Rourke
TABLE
Excavator and Year C. Foley, - E.M. Fahy, J. Sheehan, / E. Gibbons, D. Lavelle, / D. Lavelle, N. Crothers, E. Halpin, // D. Delaney, R. Crumlish, B. Gibson, / M. Henry, G. Walsh, R. Crumlish, A. Conolly, J. Higgins, K. Hanley, J. Kiely, E. Cotter, H. King,
: Archaeological excavations conducted at Gaelic tower houses and their environs -.
As impressive as this list may appear at first glance, most of these excavations, particularly from the s onward, were responses to current planning regulations and were often of necessity piece-meal. While Gibson’s excavation in the environs of O’Dea’s tower house had a clearly defined objective which I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations : summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland (Dublin, ).
Introduction
resulted in the interpretation of a courtyard building as the ‘castle bakery’, the circumscribed nature of the respective excavations at Grantstown, Castleaffy and Dromoland, for instance, produced nothing of archaeological significance. Carried out more by accident than design, they are products of the circumstances in which modern Irish archaeological excavation is now practised. Land development for housing, commerce and industry increasingly dictates which sites will be archaeologically excavated, and quite often, the pace of that development sets limits on what can be achieved and understood during the course of excavation. By its very nature, the pragmatism associated with building for the future often carries a remorseless disregard for the relicts of the past. Other than short accounts in earlier bulletins, many of these excavations remain unpublished in full, and so the information derived from them cannot yet be put to use. A variety of academic reasons, some of which have been discussed above, are consistently cited for the lack of exploration of Gaelic settlement. The dearth of reliable documentary sources, in comparison to those available for the English colony, is frequently voiced. Loeber, in his essay ‘An architectural history of Gaelic castles and settlements, -’, in Part III, challenges these alleged impediments, and Simms’ exploration of the ‘House poems’, in Part II, demonstrates how, when used with caution, bardic poetry can be a very rewarding source for settlement studies. Loeber suggests that native sources, English administrative records and topographical surveys, in addition to foreign travellers’ accounts and the limited number of drawings by non-Irish draftsmen, have not been ‘systematically used to advance knowledge of Gaelic castles and settlements . . .’ There is also an unfounded perception that medieval Gaelic society was so unstable and its settlements for the most part so impermanent that it is a futile exercise to seek them. There are a number of separate issues to be addressed here. Gaelic society was hierarchical and so there is need to distinguish between the settlements of those occupying different classes. At the pinnacle of this hierarchy are the strongholds of chiefs, with their demesne lands and mensal lands, the estates and residences of collateral lines and cadet branches of ruling families, as well as those of leading vassals, household stewards, and military. The dwellings and schools of the professional classes such as brehons, ollamhs, bards and physicians are a distinct field of enquiry, as is the search for the settlements of the biataigh, and the seanbhaile and buaile sites of caoraigheachta engaged in seasonal transhumance. Over half of the essays in Part III concentrate on the strongholds and dwellings of Gaelic aristocracy, be they crannogs, moated sites, or tower houses; but Loeber and McNeill also raise questions relating to the dwellings of the professional classes. Loeber draws attention to references concerning the house of John MacClancy, chief brehon to the earl of Desmond in the sixteenth century, and to the stone houses at
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
Kilbarron, Co. Donegal erected by grandsons of ‘Diarmaid Ó Cléirigh of the Three Schools’. In his concluding remarks, McNeill in his exploration of the archaeology of Gaelic lordship east and west of the Foyle queries the so-far archaeologically ‘elusive’ residences of the erenaghs, so often mentioned in connection with the hospitality which they dispensed to Archbishop Colton during his diocesan visitation of Derry in . He makes the point that the tower at Banagher could well have been the erenagh’s strong house there. With Horning’s essay we are introduced to a more humble Gaelic vernacular, postand-wattle house at Movanagher, Co. Derry and to the concept of cross-cultural ties between Gaelic and Plantation society in seventeenth-century Ulster. Horning’s excavation shows that the Movanagher house had been adapted and occupied by English settlers in the Mercers’ Company plantation village. She challenges the assumption that the portable dwellings or ‘creats’, so often associated with caoraigheachta in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Tudor administrative records, were exclusively the trappings of nomadic people. Wattled buildings do not necessarily imply temporary settlement: those built at Armagh, Carrickfergus, and Movanagher, for instance, were intended as more permanent dwellings. O’Sullivan also raises the issue of lower status dwellings. He suggests that some of the smaller lake-shore crannogs in Cavan and Monaghan, with their flimsy huts, roundwood posts rather than palisades, and typical finds of small domestic objects, crannog ware, rotary querns and animal bone, could in fact be low-status habitations, and in this case possibly even related to summer booleying. Similarly Breen endeavours to place the common man into the picture of coastal settlement arguing that coastal communities were ‘far more stable with a larger degree of permanence than has previously been suggested.’ The idea of the fishing village located near the harbour of a Gaelic lord is portrayed in Captain Cuellar’s account of the huts of straw or coarse grass which constituted a small village near Streedagh Strand on the Co. Sligo coast. Knowing where to look and how to look is one of the challenges that face archaeologists of Gaelic settlement. As Loeber points out, surviving physical remains have been under-utilised. One of the fundamental starting points is the establishment of a matrix in which to study post-Norman Gaelic settlement. In the past, archaeologists tended to choose anachronistic county units as the geographical field for the study of monuments. But the only context in which to examine the archaeology of medieval settlement per se is within the political and administrative geographical matrix pertinent to the period being investigated. Archaeological study of the Anglo-Norman manor in Ireland has advanced following the understanding that the manor was the fundamental Anglo-Norman administrative unit with defined geographical limits. Within this unit archaeologists have identified manorial capita, boroughs, villages, submanors, granges and scattered rural settlements. Likewise, an understanding of
Introduction
the components of post-Norman Gaelic settlement requires that sites be plotted within the relevant Gaelic geographical matrix, whether oireacht (lordship), ballybetagh (estate), baile, also known as tate and poll (townland), or lucht tighe (mensal lands) and churchlands. As a demonstration of the potential usefulness of this approach to interpreting Gaelic settlement, a map of the known boundaries of the ballybetagh of Ballyleck, in the MacMahon lordship of Airghialla in , is included here (Fig. ). Approximately seventeen tates (two are unnamed), the boundaries of which correlate with those of townlands, comprised this estate. In , along with a further twenty-seven ballybetaghs, it constituted part of the demesne lands of the MacMahon chief Ross Bán MacMahon. Ten different freeholders, mostly McCabes, occupied Ballyleck. The map shows a tower house in Ballyleck tate itself and ringforts in the tates of Ballyleck, Crumlin, Cornaglare, Drummuck, Lisnashannagh and Cavanagarvan. A crannog is situated on Ballagh Lough (Loch an Leic) in Kiltubbrid tate, while uphill in the townland of Leck is Mullach Leic, the inauguration and oireachtas site of the MacMahons. Although the MacMahonship was abolished in , inaugurations continued there at least until c. – Bartlett represents it as a ‘living’ site on his map of Southeast Ulster, . Leck tate, in which the inauguration site is situated, was the freehold of Brian McCabe McDonnel in . Some interesting questions arise from this map. Were the six ringforts marked in the tates of their respective freeholders merely surviving relicts of the early medieval past, or were they in fact functional residences or cattle enclosures of the MacCabes, Con McHugh MacMahon and Owen McMagonell in ? Was the tower house in Ballyleck tate one of Ross Bán’s residences, and how does the ringfort in the same tate relate to it? The crannog on Ballagh Lough in the tate of Kiltubbrid was in fact one of the principal MacMahon kingship strongholds in the thirteenth century. It was the location of an important agreement made on November , , between Bishop Matthew MacCathassaigh and Brian MacMahon, king of Airghialla. What function did it assume after the MacMahon chiefs moved their principal stronghold to the crannog of Rath Tully in Monaghan town sometime in the fifteenth century? Such a programme of reconstructing the geography of Gaelic landscape, even on the smallest scale, is potentially of immense value to archaeologists conducting surveys or excavating sites. It informs and assists the archaeologist in bringing appropriate research
Based on Duffy’s map of landownership in Monaghan () in ‘The territorial organisation’, Fig. , with additions from Fiants, vol. , -, [] and Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas. I, . Duffy’s map reconstructs the pattern of Gaelic land-holding after the abolition of the ‘MacMahonship’ in . Therefore the pattern indicated in the survey cannot be taken as an exact reflection of the situation prior to , although it is likely to be quite close. PRO, London, MPF . Nicholls, ‘The Register of Clogher’, -.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
: Ross Bán MacMahon’s Ballybetagh of Ballyleck in , showing the tates occupied by his freeholders and the surviving settlement features within them.
FIG.
questions to bear on the interpretation of the cultural landscape before a spade is actually placed in the ground. Revisiting medieval Gaelic Ireland involves the recovery of places and landscapes that were once part of the old geography of Gaelic lordships. For the archaeologist and settlement historian this involves shifting geographical perspective and mentally stripping away modern village and townscapes, urban sprawls, late field boundaries, motorways – the entire rattle-bag of modern endeavour – in order to more clearly see surviving medieval monuments and
Introduction
settlements in something of their original contexts. It also requires an understanding that what is now farmland, scenic lake or desolate upland may once have been the location of chiefry castles, Gaelic villages and scattered settlements, seasonal booley huts, gathering sites, secular law schools and bardic schools, priests’ houses, parish churches and their glebelands. In other modern European societies where monuments and landscapes of the past have been mindfully carried through time and incorporated into contemporary living, the process of seeing the past is more accessible. Because the tactile Gaelic past is something of a severed head there are inherent difficulties in attempting to reconstruct the landscape and settlements of that civilisation. The collection of essays in Part III begins to address these difficulties by focusing on particular areas of lordships. They are largely thematic and regional in their approach to settlement features, most of them examining a particular monument type or the relationship of archaeological sites to each other in specific lordships of Ulster, Connacht and Munster. Donnelly, in ‘Tower houses and late medieval secular settlement in County Limerick’, examines the proliferation of tower house building in the Limerick Earldom of Desmond. Through an analysis of the Desmond Survey of and by mapping the tower houses, a number of patterns have emerged. The most notable concentration occurs in the fertile lowlands of the Earldom, which had a strong pastoral economy. The escalation of tower house construction within the earldom Donnelly relates directly to the proliferation of estates in the late medieval period – a development which had its genesis in the stability created during the long incumbency of James, the th earl of Desmond (-). Unlike the expansion of tower houses on the lowland landscape of late medieval Limerick, which Donnelly associates with an increase in free tenants and sub-tenants, McNeill shows that the centralisation of power in the case of the MacSweeney and O’Cahan lordships ‘resulted in little proliferation of castles’ at lesser centres. O’Conor’s essay moves the geographical focus to north Connacht, concentrating specifically on the area of north Roscommon, which was dominated by the MacDermots of Magh Luirg and the O’Conors of Síl Muiredaigh throughout the medieval period. ‘The morphology of Gaelic lordly sites in north Connacht’ demonstrates how Gaelic settlements of the late twelfth to fourteenth century can be made visible again through archaeological survey and reasoning, combined with documentary leads. He examines a number of MacDermot and O’Conor high-status residences of the crannog and moated site type. The interesting juxtaposition of a moated site with a crannog at Knocklough on the southern shores of Cloonacleigha Lough in Sligo introduces the idea that other moated sites in north Connacht were built by Gaelic lords. O’Conor identifies a moated site on the southern shore of Lough Key as ‘longphort Meic Diarmata’ mentioned in the annals for the fourteenth century,
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
and another at Cloonfree near Strokestown which was Aedh O’Conor’s stronghold. Cloonfree and its ‘palace’ or great house, which was burned down in shortly after it was built, is the subject of two elaborate praise poems, the details of which Simms explores in Part II. The interesting ‘pairing’ of crannogs with other types of strongholds noted by O’Conor in north Roscommon is taken up by McNeill in his study of the Foyle region. A motte and bailey, not of ‘classic character’, at Managh Beg in the Fincairn glen, perhaps used as a refuge rather than a strategic castle, lies just two miles from a crannog in Lough Enagh East and a church on the nearby shore. This site has been identified as the ‘villa Dermitii O’Cahan’ where Archbishop Colton sojourned in during his metropolitan visitation of the diocese of Derry. McNeill persuasively argues that the motte and bailey at Managh Beg and the crannog and its lakeshore church could be connected. He suggests that the crannog either served as a ‘centre of power’, with the motte used as a ‘retreat in times of trouble’, or that Enagh may have been the successor to Managh Beg. One of O’Conor’s principal arguments is that the lack of classic Western European-style timber or masonry castles in Gaelic areas before c. was one of the most marked contrasts between Gaelic lordships and those areas of medieval Ireland controlled by Anglo-Normans. The thirteenth-century fortress on the Rock of Lough Key, a MacDermot stronghold, is interpreted by him not as ‘a proper masonry castle’ but a natural island fortress defended either by crannog-like wooden defences or by a cashel-like mortared stone wall. Loeber, however, argues that the view that Gaelic lords relied on ‘natural rather than man-made defenses’ before c. may be premature, and that a study of the sites of wooden castles could yet ‘force us to revise explanations about the transition to stone castles’. He also makes the point that while several factors may explain the differences in the density of stone castles in Gaelic territories, masonry castles may have been less common in heavily wooded parts of the country where the construction of timber ones would have been less costly. In defence of the view that Gaelic lords were building masonry castles before c., McNeill argues that the enclosure castle with its stone gatehouse on a crag at Elagh, west of the Foyle, can be attributed to the O’Doherty lords of Inishowen and that it can be ‘compared with other Gaelic stone castles of the fourteenth century, notably Harry Avery’s castle, Co. Tyrone’. Furthermore, the implications of the existence of pre- masonry castles, and their real role as centres of power, sometimes military but more usually political and economic, he believes, have not been subjected to rigorous scrutiny by archaeologists, due in part to the ‘traditional, but erroneous, stress on castles as military structures’. Definitions of the Gaelic ‘castle’ are far from resolved and will undoubtedly continue to be the subject of lengthy debate for some time to come.
Introduction
Models for studying maritime settlement in Gaelic lordships with coastal frontiers and the economic role of the coastal tower house concern Breen in his study of Gaelic maritime activity. He proposes that while the Gaelic seaboard does not appear to have had a centralised bureaucratic port system, it did have a somewhat less formalised system of controlling and exploiting maritime resources. He explores this through an examination of coastal settlement and defence, communication and exploitation. The coastal tower house, quite often accompanied by a village settlement, is portrayed not just as a stronghold and administrative centre but as key point from which fishery resources could be controlled and exploited. The sites for the O’Sullivan Bere tower houses in Bantry Bay, the MacCarthy tower house at Ballinskelligs and those of the O’Malleys in Mayo were, he suggests, carefully selected to avail of and control anchorage, landing and access to fishing grounds. Gaelic lords indulged in fishing as a commercial activity but the exaction of tributes and the imposition of levies on foreign fleets fishing Gaelic waters appears to have been a more lucrative source of income whether monetary or in the form of goods like wine. Much of Part III is concerned with the nature of dwellings and strongholds, but the landscape history of Gaelic meeting-culture and the adoption of Gaelic election practices by families of Anglo-Norman origin is also explored for two lordships in Connacht. It has been suggested that the ‘Gaelic reconquest’ ought to be viewed as much as a ‘Gaelicisation of the Anglo-French élites as a revival by the Gaelic ones’. FitzPatrick’s essay investigates one particular expression of gaelicisation among the Connacht Burkes – the adoption of open-air assembly by Clann Uilliam Íochtair, the Lower or Mayo Burkes, and their Clanrickard counterparts Clann Uilliam Uachtair in Galway. Gathering sites, which were used for the inauguration of chiefs, for oireachtais and parleys of all sorts, are an integral part of the settlement history of lordships. They are often located in the freehold of the inaugurator and frequently adjacent to the lucht tighe or mensal lands. Although assembly places tend not to have a unique morphology, ranging as they do from mounds to enclosures, churches, and less commonly ringforts, the majority of those identified in the field fall into the category of enclosed or unenclosed mounds, some of which may well have been built for this specific purpose of assembly. Certain renowned gathering sites, like Magh Adhair of the Thomond O’Briens, have considerable antiquity and were used over a long period of time. That particular site served Dál gCais assemblies at least as early as the tenth century and inauguration ceremonies of opponents of the earl of Nicholls, ‘Anglo-French Ireland and after’, -: . E. FitzPatrick, ‘The inauguration of Tairdelbach Ó Conchobair at Áth an Termoinn’ in Peritia, (), -. See, E. FitzPatrick, ‘The practice and siting of royal inauguration in medieval Ireland’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Trinity College, Dublin, ).
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
Thomond as late as the close of the sixteenth century. The precepts of royal ritual were not immutable, nor was Gaelic society static. Therefore this sort of continuity of place and tradition should not be taken as typical of all inauguration places and practices. Both branches of the Burkes, being of AngloNorman stock, were in a sense newcomers to the Gaelic custom of inauguration and outdoor assembly. In order to give a sense of antiquity to their lordship in south Connacht, the Clanrickard Burkes appear to have adopted the earlier inauguration place of the conquered Uí Fhiachrach Aidhne, for the creation of their leaders. Perhaps about , the Mayo Burkes chose an impressive rath on a ridge with panoramic views of their demesne lands in the old territory of Conmaicne Cúile Talad which itself formed part of their mensal lands. If as MacNiocaill has suggested ‘the distinction between “Gaelic” and non“Gaelic” Irish society is a conceptual tool which the historians can profitably abandon’, will archaeology reveal a similar blurring of distinctions between the trappings of Gaelic lords and ruling families of Anglo-Norman origin – between, for instance, a fifteenth-century O’Byrne chief and a Butler lord? The fundamental question is whether Gaelic sites actually have a unique character that can be archaeologically defined and clearly distinguished through the archaeological record alone. In other words are there settlement and building types, and unique items in domestic, military, and ecclesiastical material assemblages which describe the Gael and which differ from those of colonial society in high and late medieval Ireland? A review of the types of dwellings erected by Gaelic ruling families shows some uniqueness but also a borrowing from or perhaps a parallel development with Anglo-Norman society, and later, a sharing with Plantation society. In this volume O’Conor shows how moated sites, generally viewed as a quintessential Anglo-Norman rural settlement form, were used by Gaelic chiefs in north Connacht, while McNeill argues that a motte and bailey in the Fincairn glen, east of Lough Foyle, may have been an integral part of a Gaelic lordship centre. Elsewhere McNeill has asserted that many of the alleged Anglo-Norman mottes in Ulster could in fact be Gaelic Irish in origin. The dwelling types which most seem to distinguish the Gael are ringforts and crannogs. While several instances of the use of raths and cashels as dwelling places in high and late medieval Gaelic Ireland can be cited, their function as residences of non-castle owning freeholders Mac Niocaill, ‘Gaelic Ireland’, . T.E. McNeill, Anglo-Norman Ulster: the history and archaeology of an Irish barony, - (Edinburgh, ), -. See for instance, S.H. O’Grady (ed.), Caithréim Thoirdhealbhaigh, ii (ITS, , London, ), ; J. Carney (ed.), Poems on the O’Reillys (Dublin, ), [] – the residence of Pilib O’Reilly, chief of East Bréifne (d. ), was Lios Geannáin; Cathair Mhic Neachtain, the O’Davoren law school in north Burren, and Cahermaclanchy, the probable MacClancy law school north of Doolin, Co. Clare, are both cashels, while the fifteenth-century O’Loughlin tower house at Cathair Chlogáin near Lisdoonvarna has a cashel as a bawn wall.
Introduction
is a theme which, as Loeber points out, has not yet received any detailed attention. Unlike the Anglo-Norman adoption of the ringfort as a useful foundation on which to construct motte and bailey castles, particularly in Ulster, crannogs were apparently not incorporated into the blueprint for AngloNorman settlement. They remained distinctively Gaelic, sharing analogies only with Scottish lake-settlement. Their variable functions as lordly residences, defensive strongholds, farmsteads, hospitals, prisons, bullion and ammunition stores in the period c.-c., are the subject of O’Sullivan’s essay. He makes the important point that because Irish archaeology has been more concerned with the origins of monuments rather than their subsequent periods of occupation, much of the evidence for the later use of crannogs has ‘usually been ignored, or even discarded’. The problem is compounded by the fact that only eight crannogs have actually been excavated, the majority of these in the east and south midlands. If ringforts and crannogs are diagnostic of Gaelic settlement, the tower house is perhaps the most visible expression of Gaelic lordship in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Ireland. But the tower house is not peculiar to the Gael. It is the ubiquitous masonry dwelling of late medieval aristocratic and gentry society, from the Pale to the Connemara coast and from Inishowen to Bantry Bay. Of the forty-three tower houses surviving on the Co. Offaly landscape, for instance, at least ten were constructed by new English planters between and , and a further half dozen standing tower houses were refurbished by incoming settlers in the same period. This shared architectural heritage can also be seen in relation to the fortified houses of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: in Daniel O’Carroll’s Ballymooney Castle built in c., for instance, which, with its recessed central block and gable-fronted towers, resembles Dorothy Parsons’ sketch-plan for the plantation house at nearby Birr, Co. Offaly. Loeber suggests that there may be some structural, defensive and stylistic features of Gaelic-built and occupied tower houses that are unique to them. Among these are the mural staircase which runs in the thickness of the wall around two sides of the building (notably in Ulster); the absence of main vaults and a preference for wooden floors, especially in the midlands; the presence of corner bartizans positioned at mid-height of the building; and stylistic differences in terms of decorative devices. Detailed regional studies of tower houses are obviously required to advance these suggestions. Of particular interest is O’Sullivan’s discussion of crannog finds, which opens a much-needed enquiry into Gaelic material culture. The range of artifactual evidence for late medieval occupation of crannogs recovered during excavations and as surface finds, is as yet unquantified, and for the most part See for instance Dunsilly and Killybegs, Co. Antrim. C. O’Brien and P. D. Sweetman, Archaeological inventory of County Offaly (Dublin, ), .
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
this crucial record is hidden in footnotes and catalogues. Although it is supposed that this evidence may amount to no more than scatters of pottery, some metalwork and coins (suggestive of short-term use), the re-evaluation of such collections could provide considerable information on the material assemblages typical of late medieval Gaelic occupation. O’Sullivan’s review of some of those collections, in the reports on crannogs in the north midlands, the drumlin-belt and the northeast, prepared by Wood-Martin, Davies, Hencken, and Collins and Proudfoot among others, reveals a range of native and imported objects. As virtually no study of the later metalwork in these collections has been undertaken it is unknown to what extent it is ‘native’ or more eclectic in origin. The archetypal Gaelic pottery, found frequently on crannogs, is everted-rim ware – quite crude, conservatively decorated handmade domestic pottery used for cooking. It was a particularly commonplace cooking vessel in Ulster of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and, remarkably, occurs as late as the sixteenth century in west Ulster crannogs. Where imported ceramics recovered from Gaelic sites are concerned, the potential contribution to the picture of economic activity in particular lordships has already been demonstrated in relation to the O’Sullivan Bere tower house at Dunboy. The array of Continental wares, particularly the fifteenth and sixteenth-century French and Spanish pottery recorded during excavations at the tower house, is likely to have arrived with the foreign fleets fishing the rich waters of the southwest coast (see Breen, Table ). A re-assessment of existing collections of surface and excavated finds is obviously required if the nature of both native and imported objects represented at Gaelic sites is to be determined. A separate study could also be conducted on the many late medieval objects donated to the National Museum of Ireland, catalogued in earlier museum reports, and those documented by Sir William Wilde for the museum of the Royal Irish Academy in the mid-nineteenth century. Some of these may prove on further examination to be of Gaelic-Irish manufacture – such as the late medieval chest of yew wood with decorative bronze mountings found in a bog at Knockmore, Kilmihil, Co. Clare, the iron battle axe with inlaid ornamentation of silver from Ballina, Co. Mayo and the splendid wooden harp recovered from Curragh Marsh, Co. Kerry in the nineteenth century. Among the many objects catalogued by Wilde, are several meadracha (methers or wooden drinking vessels, Fig. ) the most charming of which is one formed out of a piece of crab-tree, bound towards its base by a copper hoop, and inscribed ‘Dermot Tully, ’. Both Hayes-McCoy and Rynne made some important contributions to the National Museum of Ireland Report (Dublin, -), and plate . National Museum of Ireland Report (Dublin, -), - and plate . Wilde, A descriptive catalogue, -.
Introduction
FIG. : Drinking vessels (left to right): a large two-handled decorated meadar of sycamore, a four-handled type of willow and a circular goblet of elm (W. R. Wilde, ).
study of different items of Gaelic Irish weaponry in the collection of the National Museum of Ireland during the s and s, but there has been little or no sequel to their work. In Hayes-McCoy’s account of sixteenth-century iron double-edged blade swords he identifies two distinct types used by the Gaelic Irish and the Scots in the sixteenth century. The first type, with its long, straight, double-edged and broad blade with fan-shaped or sometimes slotted quillons and an open ring pommel, he describes as ‘a distinctively Irish weapon’ that has no analogues outside of Ireland. Hayes-McCoy’s second recognisable type is the claidheamh mór or claymore, such as the Lough Gara single-hander found in the bottom of a dugout canoe or simple cot boat, submerged at Eagle Island in MacDermot’s lordship of Magh Luirg. A third type – of which there is just one exemplar – recovered from a bog near Ballylin, Co. Offaly (Fig. ) incorporates qualities of the first two with the addition of elaborate ornament in the form of strapwork or interlace and foliage motifs on the quillon. Rynne also identified some sixteenth-century Irish swords from the River Corrib, Co. Galway, and made a special study of the scian or skean, the sixteenth/seventeenth-century Irish knife-dagger, so remarked upon by the Tudors, the closest equivalent of which is the Highland dirk. Like the swords, the scian (Fig. ) is uniquely Irish, characterised by the absence of a pommel or guard, a short triangular single-edged blade and a hilt, sometimes decorated with simple twists, knot-work or plait-work, with waisted grip bound at either end by iron ferrules. It is often such detail, rather than method of manufacture or function, that typifies and distinguishes objects made by peoples with different cultural ethos. Tedious as it might seem, it is just this sort of close scholarly attention over a whole range of artifacts and site types that will in Hayes-McCoy, Sixteenth century Irish swords. E. Rynne, ‘Military and civilian swords from the River Corrib’ in JGAHS, , -: -. Rynne, ‘Three Irish knife-daggers’, -; ‘A th or th century skean from the River Shannon at Corbally, Limerick’ in NMAJ, (), -.
FIG.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
: The late sixteenth-century Ballylin sword (E. Johnston, ).
Introduction
: Scian with decorated hilt, from the River Shannon near Athlone, Co. Roscommon (E. Rynne, ). FIG.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
time contribute to the overall understanding of cultural diversity and contiguity in Ireland after c. .
R E S E A RC H S T R AT E G I E S F O R T H E F U T U R E
The development of research into the heritage of Gaelic lordship requires strategies on two different levels () those particular to different disciplines and () more fruitfully, collaborative strategies which draw upon interdisciplinary approaches and methods. Contributors to this volume have raised several ideas for prospective research directions within their own subject areas: . Projects in History • Future research must attempt as a matter of urgency to chart the Gaelic experience of Anglo-Norman colonial domination before c., for only by determining the heaviness of what nationalists once termed the ‘Anglo-Norman yoke’ will the true nature of the re-emergence of Gaelic regional power become apparent. • A series of publications examining the fortunes of each of the lineages needs to be undertaken, similar in scope and focus to what has developed in recent years for the MacMurrough Kavanagh kings of Leinster through the writings of Frame, Ó Corráin, Flanagan, Nicholls, and Moore. • More attention needs to be paid to Gaelic life and experience outside the confines of the Gaelic lordships, i.e. to the Irish who lived within the Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Irish territories after c.. Parker has recently provided a model of the way forward in this area in his study of the Irish of Anglo-Norman Waterford, his work all the more refreshing for the fact that it deals with ‘minor’ Gaelic families, about whom little has ever been written. Similar studies could be fruitfully undertaken, utilising Anglo-Norman and English records to reveal the survival of
R. Frame, ‘Two kings in Leinster: the Crown and the Mic Mhurchadha in the fourteenth century’ in Barry, Frame and Simms (eds.), Colony and frontier, -; D. Ó Corráin, ‘Diarmait MacMurrough (-) and the coming of the Anglo-French’ in C. Brady (ed.), Worsted in the game: losers in Irish history (Dublin, ), -; M.T. Flanagan, Irish society, Anglo-Norman settlers, and Angevin kingship (Oxford ); K. Nicholls, ‘The Kavanaghs, -’ in Irish Genealogist, (-), -, -, -; ibid, (-), -; D. Moore, English action, Irish reaction: the MacMurrough Kavanaghs, - (Maynooth, ). C. Parker, ‘The internal frontier: the Irish in Co. Waterford in the later middle ages’, in Barry, Frame and Simms (eds.), Colony and frontier, -.
Introduction
other lesser lineages in colonial areas. Likewise, the growing Gaelic population of the Pale, a phenomenon widely reported in sixteenth-century sources, demands close investigation, not least because of the relative abundance of documentary evidence for the Dublin area. Such studies would add to the debate about ‘two-nation theory’ that is referred to throughout this book, providing further evidence of the extent of the cultural assimilation, or ‘anglicisation’, experienced by many Gaelic families. • Finally the Gaelic experience of plantation and dispossession during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is in need of examination. The standard reference on the Irish experience of plantation in Ulster, an essay published by Moody more than sixty years ago, is barely five pages long; it has been only partly, and indirectly, displaced by Gillespie and Robinson. Work by White, and more recently by Carey and Fitzsimons, has indicated what can be recovered of the political experience of dispossession in Laois and Offaly before the s, but knowledge of later developments is patchy. Some years ago Sheehan made a start at recovering aspects of the Gaelic experience of plantation and dispossession in Munster, but his work was concerned only with the s and s; the native side of the re-plantation of Munster after remains unexplored. Regarding Ulster, a publisher might be found for Hunter’s thesis, the best statement to date on the native experience of, and reaction to, the greatest of all plantation schemes, which otherwise is in danger of being forgotten. The so-called ‘minor plantations’ that occurred in the s and s (in north Wexford, Longford, Leitrim, Ely O’Carroll, O’Dunnes country and Upper Ossory in Queen’s County, the countries of O’Molloy, McCoughlan and Fox in King’s County, and O’Melaghlin’s country in Westmeath) also require detailed study.
T.W. Moody, ‘The treatment of the native population under the scheme for the plantation of Ulster’, in IHS, (), -. R. Gillespie, Colonial Ulster: the settlement of east Ulster, - (Cork, ); Robinson, The Plantation. D.G. White, ‘The Tudor plantations in Ireland to ’. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, vols. (Trinity College, Dublin, ). Carey, ‘The end of the Gaelic political order’, -; Fitzsimons, ‘The lordship of O’Connor Faly, -’, -. A. J. Sheehan, ‘The overthrow of the plantation of Munster in October ’ in Irish Sword, (), -; ‘Official reaction to the native land claims in the plantation of Munster’ in IHS, (), -. R.J. Hunter, ‘The Ulster Plantation in the counties of Armagh and Cavan, -’. Unpublished M.Litt. thesis (Trinity College, Dublin, ). They have not been examined as a whole since Butler’s seminal Confiscations in Irish history appeared in . The Longford plantation is dealt with in part in R.
Patrick J. Duffy, David Edwards and Elizabeth FitzPatrick
Projects in Historical Geography • An exploration of the meaning and spatial significance of land uses, land values and land assessment units in a range of Gaelic lordships and the relationship between settlement patterns and these environmental management tactics. • A reconstruction of both the spatial and territorial expression of the Gaelic world and the regional and local influences and interactions with the post-Norman colony – the cores and peripheries, borders and boundaries of the late medieval lordship mosaic. • A study of the endurance of urban centres through the turbulence of the Gaelic resurgence, and the relationship between Gaelic settlement concepts and urbanisation. Projects in Archaeology • Small focused projects developing the concept of Gaelic settlement field survey within the appropriate geographical matrix, at oireacht, ballybetagh and baile level. • Select research excavations of earthworks, crannogs and ringforts associated with Gaelic occupation. • Geophysical prospection and research excavation of select known timber castles, tower house bawns and their immediate environs which may reveal traces of village settlements. • The identification of the upland and lowland homesteads of caoraigheachta where the evidence has best survived in the north and west. • An investigation of settlements centred on parish churches and late medieval religious houses. • A detailed field survey of the late medieval secular law and bardic schools, following through with carefully considered research excavation of select sites. • The re-assessment of artifacts recovered from Gaelic sites excavated in the past, is requisite, as is the compilation of an interrogative data-base of ceramics, metalwork and organic objects of Gaelic origin, whether retrieved during scientific excavation as surface finds, or stray finds which found their way to museums through donations. • A study of the architectural sculpture and art of the Gaelic revival. • Comparative studies of Gaelic Irish and Gaelic Scottish material culture and settlement forms.
Gillespie, ‘A question of survival: the O’Farrells and Longford in the seventeenth century’, in R. Gillespie and G. Moran (eds.), Longford: essays in county history (Dublin, ), -. The Upper Ossory scheme receives a short discussion in Edwards, ‘The MacGiollapadraigs’, -.
Introduction
. Collaborative Projects An opportunity for systematic collaborative efforts by a range of disciplines has arisen out of this book. As a number of contributors have shown, considerable use can be made, for instance, of sixteenth and seventeenth-century maps, written surveys of lands and properties, as well as archaeological field surveys and excavation data to unlock the story of the Gaelic physical, cultural and social environment. The most fruitful results can be achieved by creating an interdisciplinary matrix into which some of the above-mentioned projects can be channelled. With the current growth in research funding, it should be possible to envisage a number of long-term and short-term projects on aspects of Gaelic lordship after c. . This might be achieved, in the first instance, through the establishment of a forum of scholars to propose, discuss and advise on prospective research and secondly, the creation of a central computerised database of sources for the study of Gaelic Ireland. The following are just some of the promising collaborative exercises which could be considered for the future: • An important and difficult longterm project, which will require the input of several disciplines, is the creation of an atlas of the Gaelic lordships of Ireland from the period of the Gaelic revival. • The establishment of a series of sept histories as a forum for the publication of scholarly research on Gaelic dynasties. • As a model multi-disciplinary case study, the reconstruction of a ballybetagh or Gaelic estate in a given period, describing its geographical limits, landholding, natural environment and archaeological settlement. • Case studies of economic activity in lordships with and without maritime frontiers. • The identification of agricultural practices. • Investigations of the interface between Gaelic and colonial society c.-c. through an assessment of material culture, settlements, economic activity, and institutions.
PART I
The Lordships: Political Structure and Social Organisation
Collaboration without Anglicisation: The MacGiollapadraig Lordship and Tudor Reform
DAV I D E DWA R D S
Over the last twenty-five years the historiography of sixteenth-century Ireland has been dominated by one word – reform. Responding to the interpretative model advanced for sixteenth-century England by Elton, historians of sixteenth-century Ireland such as Bradshaw, Ellis, Crawford and Brady have, to varying degrees, attempted to replace the image of Tudor captains trying to conquer the country with one of Tudor politicians striving in vain to reform it. Whereas once the history of sixteenth-century Ireland was a simple military narrative, a tale of Irish rebellions doomed to failure in the face of growing English power, the current orthodoxy presents a different picture entirely – one of hard-pressed English officials struggling (with limited resources) to impose order over a fractured and volatile society. In other words, the Tudor reconquest, when it came, occurred more by accident than design. The Tudor government aspired not to overthrow the Gaelic order in Ireland, but rather to undermine it by tugging away at its foundations, constantly striving to persuade Irish lords and chieftains to abandon their own political methods and social customs in favour of English ones, and thus to replace ‘barbarism’ with ‘civility’. What was most remarkable, it has been argued, about Tudor rule in B. Bradshaw, The Irish constitutional revolution of the sixteenth century (Cambridge, ); S.G. Ellis, Reform and revival: English government in Ireland, – (Royal Historical Society, Woodbridge, ); S.G. Ellis, Tudor Ireland: crown, community and the conflict of cultures, – (London, ); J.G. Crawford, Anglicising the government of Ireland: the Irish Privy Council and the expansion of Tudor rule, - (Dublin, ); C. Brady, The chief governors: the rise and fall of reform government in Tudor Ireland, – (Cambridge, ). In one of the most recent, and most sophisticated, statements of this interpretation it has been suggested that even the agents of eventual English conquest, the army captains, were ‘central agents in the advancement of a policy of gradual social and political reform’. See C. Brady, ‘The captains’ games: army and society in Elizabethan Ireland’ in T. Bartlett and K. Jeffrey (eds.), A military history of Ireland (Cambridge, ), . For a major re-evaluation of ‘reform’ we must await the publication of Professor Nicholas Canny’s next book, Making Ireland British, – (Oxford, forthcoming).
David Edwards
Ireland, was not its reliance on force, but rather its manifest self-assurance that the country could be made amenable to English dominion through ‘reform’; that by the use of the carrot as much as the stick the regional lords could be made to acquiesce in their own reduction and restraint. The Tudor government, according to this new orthodoxy, was primarily concerned with what would in recent times be termed social engineering: the creation of a new society in Ireland modelled, of course, on life in England. Essentially, in place of an Ireland that was semi-nomadic, heavily militarised, and dominated by autonomous native lords, the crown and its advisers wished to create an Ireland that was sedentary, peaceful, and regulated by crown officials, a country where life revolved around the manor house and parish church instead of the castle and private army. Accordingly, a tale once told by military historians is now told by political historians examining the minutiae of reform plans, ‘plats’ and treatises. If it has one overriding weakness, it is that it is ‘castle-centred’, or governmentcentred, in its perspective. Rarely in this historiography has native Ireland reared its head. There is a real need for local historians, historians of the Gaelic-Irish and Anglo-Irish lordships, to enter the debate, for the suspicion remains that the implementation of ‘reform’ was more apparent than real, in other words, that the government espoused one thing but did another. The main histories of sixteenth-century Ireland all suffer from a profound ignorance of the actual experience of Tudor rule, of how it affected the everyday lives of Irish people. Little has been done to test the claims concerning the objectives of ‘reform’ that were made by English career politicians and government officials based in Dublin against the (often appalling) reality of what was done on their orders in the regions. If ‘reform’ is to be accepted as anything more than a political platitude, a smokescreen used by the incumbents of Dublin Castle to justify a policy of military engagement and colonial expansion in the provinces, then historians must surely show government officials moving about the country actively promoting, as their primary objective, the adoption of English law and English-style social arrangements. Furthermore, it is as important for students of the Gaelic order as those of the English administration to investigate the implementation of ‘reform’, for clearly if ‘reform’ was actively pursued, and did prevail, then parts of Gaelic Ireland may indeed have participated in its own transformation during the sixteenth century, even, perhaps, in its own decline. What follows is a case study of how one middle-ranking Gaelic dynasty, the MacGiollapadraigs of Upper Ossory, interrelated with the reform policy The phrase was used by Hiram Morgan in a review, History Ireland, / (Summer ), . For a critique of some of the limitations of the reform historiography, see D. Edwards, ‘Beyond reform: martial law and the Tudor reconquest of Ireland’ in History Ireland, / (Summer ), –.
Collaboration without Anglicisation
espoused by the government. Quite well documented, the MacGiollapadraigs provide ideal material for a clearer understanding of Gaelic attitudes to English rule and political, social and cultural change, as they co-operated extensively and often with the royal government. If ‘reform’ were ever going to effect change in Gaelic society, it would first have had to succeed in territories such as ‘Magillapatrick his contrie’. As the following pages will show, however, evidence of the government pursuing anything like a coherent reform programme in their territory is thin indeed.
T H E M AC G I O L L A PA D R A I G S
It is well known, an established historical fact, that the MacGiollapadraigs (or Fitzpatricks) of Upper Ossory were one of the first Gaelic lineages to acquiesce in the expansion of English power in Ireland during the sixteenth century. In the head of the line, Brian MacGiollapadraig, became the first Irish chieftain to be granted a peerage by an English king, when he was created baron of Upper Ossory by order of Henry VIII. To receive it, he willingly surrendered his traditional chiefly title of ‘the MacGiollapadraig’, and he also agreed to substitute the English law of primogeniture for tanistry, the traditional Irish successional system. Likewise he was the first Gaelic ruler to take his place in the house of lords of the Irish parliament in Dublin. Most famously, in he allowed his eldest son and eventual successor as second baron, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, to be reared as a courtier in England, as a schoolfellow of the future king, Edward VI. Barnaby soon embraced English Protestantism (in its militant Edwardian form), the first Gaelic lord to do so, and some of his earliest surviving correspondence, written in Catholic France in –, are peppered with what one leading Reformation scholar has recently described as ‘iconophobic anecdotes’. In the historiography of Tudor Ireland these developments have earned the MacGiollapadraigs regular citation as a native dynasty with little to fear from the reform policies of the Dublin administration, as they reaped clear benefits from co-operation with the royal authorities. Nationalist, unionist and ‘revisionist’ academic historians have all agreed on this. As one Catholic nationalist author once put it, the MacGiollapadraig barons were a disgrace to the Gael, their one saving grace being, at the end of the sixteenth century, their belated support of the Catholic religion. For instigating the family’s policy of collaboration Brian, the first baron, was roundly condemned by the same D. MacCulloch, Tudor church militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (London, ), . Ellis, Tudor Ireland, , ; N. Canny, From Reformation to Restoration: Ireland, – (Dublin, ), , ; C. Lennon, Sixteenth-century Ireland: the incomplete conquest (Dublin, ), .
David Edwards
writer as ‘an unnatural parent and brother, a traitor to his clan [sic] and country, and a worthless contemptible being’! His sons fared little better, described as mere ‘time-server[s] with the government, more or less anti-Irish, or rather pro-English’. To unionist historians, of course, the MacGiollapadraigs’ political positioning was something to be praised. In their tradition the first and second barons of Upper Ossory were singled out as ‘admirable Irish noblemen’ who performed their duties to the crown ‘most honourably’. More neutral language has been employed by modern academic historians and ‘revisionists’, who have simply described the MacGiollapadraig chieftains as ‘local loyalists’ and ‘Gaelic loyalists’. But how much did the English government get from the loyalist rulers of Ossory? Can the MacGiollapadraigs really be represented as traitors to Gaeldom, as supporters of English ‘reform’? Is there any evidence that through co-operation they embraced anglicisation, the ultimate objective it is generally agreed of Tudor reform policy? In a recent narrative history of the lineage and its struggle for survival during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, I suggested that the MacGiollapadraigs did very little for the crown, contending that though they often paid lip service to government demands they were careful to protect their own traditional interests rather than advance the policy of anglicisation. Brady, in a general analysis of the fate of reform in the reign of Elizabeth I, has argued much the same. It would be fair to say, however, that as yet neither Dr Brady nor myself have clinched the argument – Brady because, writing a general survey of crown politics, he did not examine the MacGiollapadraigs in enough detail, myself because my main objective was to establish the outlines of the history of the lineage and its leaders, something which had not been accomplished before. The following contribution attempts to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. Through close examination of extant evidence relating to the MacGiollapadraigs’ government of Upper Ossory, it will confirm the hypothesis that the dynasty offered the crown little beyond political collaboration. For all their public posturing in Dublin and London, the family leaders – even the outwardly anglicised second baron, the courtier Barnaby Fitzpatrick – carried on in Ossory much as they had before the advent of the Tudor reintervention. It was only after the completion of the Tudor reconquest, W. Carrigan, The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, vols. (; reprint Kilkenny, ), i, , . See the comments of Herbert Hore in the notes to his edition of ‘Sir Henry Sidney’s memoir of his government of Ireland, ’ in UJA, (), –: ; the eighteenth-century antiquarian Horace Walpole was also a great admirer of the MacGiollapadraig leaders. Ellis, Tudor Ireland, ; Lennon, Sixteenth-century Ireland, . D. Edwards, ‘The MacGiollapadraigs (Fitzpatricks) of Upper Ossory, –’ in P. Lane and W. Nolan (eds.), Laois: history and society (Dublin, ), –. Brady, Chief governors, –.
Collaboration without Anglicisation
when the crown no longer needed their support, that the full impact of reform was felt in their territory and the Gaelic order finally collapsed there.
A GAELIC SOCIETY AND ECONOMY
Extant evidence of its territorial organisation indicates that Upper Ossory under MacGiollapadraig rule remained a vibrant Gaelic lordship throughout the sixteenth century, irrespective of the increasing proximity of the English government and its official representatives. Across the Gaeltacht it was renowned as a centre of culture and learning, home to no less than three Gaelic medical schools, run by the O’Conor, MacCashien and O’Kelly ollamhs, and a law school run by the O’Doran brehons. Even the establishment of an English plantation on the forfeited territories of the O’Mores and O’Connors in Laois and Offaly did not noticeably affect the Gaelic way of life in Ossory. The arrival of English colonists on the plantation did not produce a significant settler overspill into Upper Ossory; the local leaders, the barons, appear to have had hardly any English tenants. Nor did they commonly have English servants. In the entire course of the sixteenth century they seem to have recruited just the one Englishman directly into their service, Anthony Wright, who served the second baron, Barnaby, at the time of his death in , and held a small tenancy in the territory. Far from bringing English settlers into Ossory, as required by the terms of a crown lease of the dissolved monasteries of Aghaboe and Aghmacart in –, the barons instead retained Upper Ossory as an entirely Gaelic region into the seventeenth century. It was only with the plantation of Upper Ossory and the establishment of an English colony at Borris-in-Ossory in the s that an English settler community of any size emerged in the area. Before that date, as government records confirm, the population of Ossory was uniformly native Irish. In , out of more than named inhabitants of the territory that were pardoned by the crown, none were English, and only one was Anglo-Irish. The economic heart of Upper Ossory was Aghaboe, an ancient town that Much is known of the O’Conor medical family. See J. Bannerman, The Beatons: a medical kindred in the classical Gaelic tradition (Edinburgh, ), –; B. Ó Cuív, ‘The Irish language in the early modern period’ in T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F.J. Byrne (eds.), A new history of Ireland, iii: early modern Ireland, – (Oxford,), –; P. Walsh, ‘Richard O Connor: Irish scribe’ in Irish Book Lover (May–June ), –; W. Wulff (ed.), ‘On the qualities, maners and kunnynge of a surgean’ in ZCP, (), –: –. For a MacCashien ollamh, see Carrigan, Ossory, i, ; for an O’Kelly, Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Elizabeth I, –. The O’Doran brehons are discussed below. Carrigan, Ossory, i, . Fiants, Eliz. I, no. . For this plantation see Edwards, ‘MacGiollapadraigs’, –. Gerald Dillon of Clonmoyne. Him aside, the pardon records the names of those local families that lived under MacGiollapadraig rule as follows: MacCashiens, O’Duigans, O’Phelans, O’Dorans,
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had almost died in the mid-fourteenth century as a result of MacGiollapadraig attacks on the Anglo-Norman colonists in the area, but had subsequently reemerged as a moderately prosperous town under Gaelic control because of MacGiollapadraig patronage. In its status as a renascent commercial centre was greatly enhanced when the lord of Upper Ossory, Finghine MacGiollapadraig, established a Dominican abbey there. Afterwards, like Cavan under the Breifne O’Reillys, Aghaboe traded under MacGiollapadraig protection. In its status as a bona fide Gaelic town was confirmed when the first baron of Upper Ossory, Brian MacGiollapadraig, secured a crown grant directly from Henry VIII permitting him to hold a weekly market (every Thursday) at ‘his towne of Haghevo’. This grant was vital to Aghaboe’s future. At the parliament held in Dublin in , at which Brian had been present as a member of the lords, legislation geared towards anglicising the economy had been passed against the ‘grey merchants’ of the Pale and the south who had secured exclusive trading rights with Gaelic lordships such as Upper Ossory, to the great detriment of the Anglo-Irish towns and markets and of the royal exchequer. By procuring a crown-licensed market under his own control, Brian insured that merchants could continue to trade with him at Aghaboe exactly as they had done before – by exclusive arrangement with himself – without fear of prosecution in the English courts. Moreover, while giving the outward appearance of embracing the English market economy, the grant had nothing to do with anglicising Upper Ossory; if anything, Baron Brian had sought the grant as a cover by which to avoid an anglicising influence. Although his action did not allow Aghaboe to grow much in size it did secure its place as a ‘legitimate’ trading post in the midlands as the English government attempted to reassert its hold over Irish economic affairs. References in government papers mention a well travelled road or ‘greate waye’ connecting Aghaboe with Durrow to the south, on the frontier with Co. Kilkenny, and it continued to participate in the world of trade until Jacobean
McDonells, O’Molloys, O’Heilans, O’Glisshens (Gleesons), O’Brophys, McGriffins, McKennans, Coffys, O’Mores, McLoughlins, McCostigans, O’Kennys, McEvoys, O’Birgins (Bergins), O’Kirrys, O’Tynnans, O’Birdans, O’Kellys, O’Dullanys, O’Connors, O’Cahills, O’Bruyns, O’Beaghans, O’Mearas, O’Brennans, McMurraghs, O’Gormocks, McGillephoylls, O’Bevreys, and O’Lonnegans (Fiants, Eliz. I, no. ). Henry and Brian King of Castletown, mentioned in the pardon, were not English, but members of the O’Cionga lineage of seanchaí. For the O’Ciongas, see K. Mulchrone, E. Fitzpatrick and A.I. Pearson (eds.), Catalogue of Irish Mss in the Royal Irish Academy: index ii (Dublin, ), ; Ibid., K. Mulchrone (ed.) Fasciculus XXVI (Dublin, ), . It is possible that Finghine had established the monastery there as an act of contrition for the depredations of his predecessor, Dermot MacGiollapadraig, who in had burned the shrine at Aghaboe containing the bones of St Canice. See Carrigan, Ossory, ii, . S.P. Henry VIII, iii, , . Stat. Ire., i, , . My thanks to Brian Donovan for helping me work this out.
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times, when it probably declined following the political eclipse of the MacGiollapadraig lords. Under the terms of a treaty entered into with the king’s lord deputy in , Brian MacGiollapadraig, first baron of Upper Ossory, had agreed to do away with many of his Gaelic customs and practices and to embrace a more English way of life. Among other things he had undertaken, hand on heart, to use, and to cause his tenants to use, the English language and manner of dress, to build houses after the English fashion, and to use English methods of agriculture. His promises were hardly sincere. While use of the English language certainly increased in subsequent years, at least among some senior figures, Irish remained the language of the tenantry and peasantry of the lordship, and Baron Brian himself is not known to have ever uttered a word of English. Likewise, before the s, when an English plantation emerged at Borris-inOssory, visitors to Upper Ossory never noted any English-style housing in the territory. Far from allowing his country to be anglicised and his tenants set free of the burden of customary exactions, the first baron and his sons retained the Gaelic system of landlord–tenant relations and estate management until the reign of James I. The customary exactions levied by the barons of Upper Ossory in the sixteenth century are mentioned in various sources. In , for instance, Baron Barnaby Fitzpatrick, usually described as the most anglicised of the Irish chiefs, told a government official that he expected the inhabitants of Durrow on the Kilkenny–Ossory frontier to carry the same burden of exactions as the inhabitants of the rest of Upper Ossory. Thus they had to support not only his soldiers, but his horses and dogs too, feeding them and housing them for as long as he asked. They had also to provide ale or beer ‘of every brewing’ to his household at Culahill. Likewise, in a rare surviving document that details the exercise of lordship in Upper Ossory – Barnaby’s instructions to his brothers of early – he expected the inhabitants of ‘the contre’ to offset the costs of any expeditions or journeys that were made by his family ‘acordynge the auncyente custome’. As the work of Nicholls and Simms has shown, these were all standard levies or ‘cesses’ found in most Gaelic Irish lordships in the later medieval period (and in some Anglo-Irish ones too), simply means by which the ruling lord defrayed his costs and controlled his subjects. It is interesting that in a lordship as closely affiliated to English rule as Upper Ossory, traditional exactions survived unaltered into the early years of the seventeenth century. As late as the MacGiollapadraig barons required the people of their country C. MacNeill (ed.), ‘Lord Chancellor Gerrard’s notes of his report on Ireland’ in Anal. Hib., (), . P. Wilson, The beginnings of modern Ireland (Dublin, ), –. MacNeill (ed.), ‘Lord Chancellor Gerrard’s notes’, . K. Nicholls, Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages (Dublin, ), –; C.A. Empey and K. Simms, ‘The ordinances of the White Earl and the problem of coign in the later middle ages’ in PRIA, C (), –.
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to provide free labour services (‘laboure of men or garranes’), free transport of goods (‘portage’ and ‘carriadge’), and free maintenance of the baron’s servants, horses and dogs (‘cesse of men’, ‘cesse of horses and houndes’). It seems, then, that daily life in Upper Ossory was left almost entirely untouched by Tudor reform policy, which typically depicted exactions such as these as the very features of Gaelic society most in need of alteration, acts of petty tyranny that were perpetrated by the native lords upon the peasants. The barons of Upper Ossory remained cattle lords in the classic Gaelic tradition. While some arable farming was carried out under their supervision (documents mention wheat fields near Durrow, for instance, and ploughing services are alluded to in the aforementioned list of exactions) the MacGiollapadraig country was cattle country. Even the second baron, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, reckoned his power by the number of head of cattle he could pasture on the country. It was for this reason that a government order of required him to enter into a bond of cows to keep the peace with his O’Carroll adversary. The size of the barons’ herd is impossible to estimate with accuracy, but it must have amounted to several thousand cattle. At the close of the Elizabethan period, and acting on the advice of the Butlers, crown forces campaigning against the rebel heir to the barony, Teige MacGiollapadraig (future fourth baron), took a prey of cows in his father’s possession, besides an untold number of goats. Given that they only passed through a narrow strip of the territory, it can safely be assumed that the MacGiollapadraigs had many more cattle elsewhere. The barons were also lords of stud, breeding horses in large numbers. Part of the stud was kept near the border with Ely O’Carroll, and was occasionally subject to raids by the O’Carrolls, such as that early in the reign of Elizabeth I when O’Carroll soldiers were accused of the ‘stealth [theft] of ten stud mares’ from Ossory. The barons let most of their horses run wild about their country at any one time, selecting others to be ‘broken’ and trained close to their main castles; according to his last will and testament, in Baron Barnaby bequeathed his ‘wild stode’ to his brother and successor Florence. Florence for his own part claimed to have lost good horses and garrans (working horses) during a Butler attack in . Rather less is known of the extent of the other main feature of this predominantly pastoral economy, sheep farming. One document seems to suggest that lands at Aghaboe and at Killeny were set aside for sheep grazing, but is indeterminate on the matter, while another document records NAI, M. . D.B. Quinn, The Elizabethans and the Irish (New York, ), –; N. Canny, The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland: a pattern established, – (Hassocks, ), –. HMC, Haliday MSS: the Irish Privy Council Book, – (London, ), –. Cal S.P., Ire., – and Addenda, –. HMC, Haliday MSS, –. Carrigan, Ossory, i, . Cal. S.P., Ire., – and Addenda, . Carrigan, Ossory, i, .
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that wool from the lord’s flock was stored at Culahill castle. The aforementioned Butler attackers of were accused of making off with more than , sheep. Possibly one of the main reasons why the government’s policy of anglicisation made such slight progress in Upper Ossory was because its economy was predominantly a pastoral one. Quite simply, to the MacGiollapadraigs the imposition of English-style landlord–tenant relations, in which a tenant acquired rights during the period of a lease and could not be ordered about at will, seemed unnecessarily benevolent and complicated, entirely inappropriate to their requirements. As Baron Barnaby admitted to the lord chancellor of Ireland in he did not possess many deeds or written evidences about his title to his land, for usually he had little need of any: ‘he saythe all that countrye of Osserye is kepte and holden after the Irish order by continuance and possession for which they have no writinge to showe’. With only a limited amount of arable land in use in the territory, there existed no underclass of prosperous tenant farmers or ‘sturdy husbandmen’ to demand beneficial leases and sensitive handling. Instead there was a mass peasantry subsisting as tenants-at-will to the MacGiollapadraig lords and their senior followers. With no leases to honour, the barons could move their cattle and sheep wherever they liked within Ossory’s confines, and the peasantry was expected to follow. In a Gaelic pastoral economy such as this, where all land was owned by the ruling lineage and its adherents, and farmed on its behalf, there was no concept of tenant’s rights; effectively, all the peasants were serfs. We should not be surprised, therefore, that government reform policies aimed at engineering a new society in Ireland excited no response from the rulers of Upper Ossory beyond empty promises of compliance. Far from being ‘traitors to the Gael’, as nationalists once claimed, the MacGiollapadraig barons clung like limpets to the Gaelic order, for in economic terms at least, ‘reform’ and anglicisation had nothing to offer them.
A GAELIC JURISDICTION
The anglicisation of the economy was just one of the ‘reform’ demands made of the clan leaders by the crown during the sixteenth century. Far more pressing, of course, was the crown’s need for political subservience. Repeatedly the MacGiollapadraig barons were required to bow to the sovereign rights of the monarchy and to accept all its laws and demands. Questions of territoriality NLI, MS. (). As n. above. MacNeill, ‘Lord Chancellor Gerrard’s report’, . He did, however, possess deeds pertaining to Clonboran Castle, according to the testimony of local witnesses in : NLI, D. , .
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and jurisdiction lay at the core of Tudor reform policy. The lords of Upper Ossory, to be accepted as lawful subjects, had to agree to hold their ancestral lordship directly of the crown and to place it at the disposal of royal judges and officials. The very notion of anglicisation in Ireland rested on the assumption that the English common law and its main public expression, trial by jury, was the cradle of a civil society. Crown politicians and administrators all acknowledged that English law, once imposed, would prove the surest means by which to wean the Irish from their erring ways, to tame them of their wildness and cure them of their lust for independence. MacGiollapadraig co-operation with the extension of English common law was so slow it was almost imperceptible, for the family leaders were determined above all else to prevent their lordship being made subject to the jurisdiction of their great enemies the Butlers of Ormond in Co. Kilkenny. Their anxiety in this matter was greatly exacerbated by the fact that when Kilkenny – based as it was on the MacGiollapadraigs’ pre-Norman kingdom of Osraige – was created a shire during the Anglo-Norman period their lands in Upper Ossory had been included as part of it. Although the lineage had managed through almost constant border warfare in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to disengage themselves from the county, the Butlers and their clients among the Kilkenny gentry had never relinquished their claim that the MacGiollapadraig country was part of the shire ground of Co. Kilkenny. A particular bone of contention was the Butlers’ demand that Upper Ossory answer the summons of the sheriff of Co. Kilkenny; translated, this amounted to a call for the MacGiollapadraigs to subjugate themselves to Butler power, as the sheriffs of Kilkenny were invariably Butler supporters. Tudor ‘reform’ policy seemed a singularly unwelcome innovation in this regard. Insisting that all ground be shire ground so that shire courts could be convened to uphold English law, ‘reform’ carried an implicit threat to deliver the MacGiollapadraigs into the arms of their bitterest foes, for until the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I, Kilkenny was the nearest major town to Upper Ossory in which a shire court might be held. As I have shown elsewhere, fear of being swallowed up by Butler expansion during the sixteenth century was the main reason why the MacGiollapadraigs commenced collaborating with the crown in the first place, during the s. From where they stood they saw co-operation with far-off Dublin castle as the For the Kilkenny sheriffs see D. Edwards, ‘The Ormond lordship in County Kilkenny, –’. Unpublished PhD thesis (Trinity College, Dublin, ), –. As Lord Deputy Sidney, a great friend of Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick, put it in : ‘suerlie it will never be thoroghelie well till the same [Upper Ossory] be made Shier grounde, and your highenes Writte curraunte there as in your other Countyes’. See J. Buckley (ed.), ‘A Viceregal progress through the south and west of Ireland in ’ in WSEI. Arch. Soc. Jn., (), . Edwards, ‘MacGiollapadraigs’, –.
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only way to protect themselves from the occupants of Kilkenny castle. Their stance presented the royal government with a choice – to press ahead with the ‘reform’ of Upper Ossory by forcing the dynasty into respecting the Englishstyle jurisdiction of the Kilkenny sheriffs, thus running the risk of inciting a MacGiollapadraig revolt, or else to place the implementation of ‘reform’ on hold and safeguard the dynasty’s independence in order to curb the growth of Butler power in the midlands. More often than not the English chief governors chose the latter option, having compelling reasons of their own to fear the extent of Butler influence in the country. In addition, following the inauguration of the Laois–Offaly plantation scheme after it was in the government’s interest to maintain the MacGiollapadraig barons as allies against the dispossessed O’Mores and O’Connors. And so it was that the barons of Upper Ossory promised time and again to obey English law and to answer the royal ‘writs, precepts and commandments . . . in any place where courts should be kept’, yet for many years failed utterly to appear before any court sessions. True, to demonstrate their biddability the barons would offer hospitality to crown officials and judges, entertaining them at Culahill Castle and elsewhere, but they never invited these same officials to hold court hearings within the confines of Ossory. Similarly, when it was suggested by Lord Deputy Sussex in that the lineage might answer the summons of the English sheriffs of Queen’s County in neighbouring Laois and attend the sessions of the shire court at Maryborough, far from objecting to the suggestion the MacGiollapadraig leaders seemed to welcome it, yet they proved unable to translate agreement in principle into agreement in practice. Trading on their usefulness as a buffer to Butler expansion and as enemies to the rebel O’Mores and O’Connors, the barons kept the crown’s officials at bay until the late s. In the meantime law and order was administered in Upper Ossory after the Gaelic fashion, by the local brehons, the O’Dorans, who ran a law school in the territory. Indeed, the barons made no secret of their preference for brehon law. A document currently held in the Royal Irish Academy shows how in May the first baron, Brian MacGiollapadraig, only agreed to have his political differences with Richard Butler, Viscount Mountgarret, settled through the agency of the brehons Edmund O’Doran and Dermot O’Doran, acting on his behalf, and Carol O’Doran and Fergananim O’Doran, acting on the viscount’s behalf. The royal government sent three legal representatives of its own, Sir Thomas Cusacke, James Dowdall and John Synnott, but as the document makes clear these were present essentially to facilitate a Gaelic settlement. The terms of the award of Edwards, ‘Ormond lordship’, –, –, –, –, –. Cal. Carew MSS, –, . N. Patterson, ‘Gaelic law and the Tudor conquest of Ireland: the social background of the sixteenth century recensions of the pseudo-historical Prologue of the Senchas már’ in IHS, / (May ), –: –, –.
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May were based on three weeks of negotiations with both parties and their O’Doran brehons, and the brehons were co-signatories to the final document of settlement. Far from administering English-style justice, the crown is instead seen acting as a neutral mediator in a manner reminiscent of the Kildare Fitzgeralds in an earlier period, even insisting on the provision of ‘slanety’ – sláinte, a Gaelic bond of guarantee – of £, by both parties. Thirteen years later, in October , the crown was no further forward. Again trouble had broken out between the MacGiollapadraigs and the Butlers, this time over rival claims to Clonboran Castle and its estate, and again it was settled, not by the crown courts, but by arbitration requiring the involvement of O’Doran brehons. With a consistency bordering on monotony the lack of English law in Upper Ossory was brought to the government’s attention by the head of the Butler dynasty, the earl of Ormond. In November , roaring with frustration against the latest success of what he perceived as Barnaby Fitzpatrick’s ‘double dealing’ towards the crown – whereby Barnaby had once more managed to retain jurisdictional independence in return for only token compliance with government requirements – Ormond demanded: ‘Is he [Barnaby] not suffered to live lawless and none of his country to appear at sessions?’ In another, more temperate, letter, Ormond again returned to the issue of Upper Ossory’s unattachment to the county law circuits: ‘I would those of Ossory were answerable to [English] law, that they might live in some order. They never come to assizes or sessions, as the rest of the County of Kilkenny do’. Matters came to a head in September , following the arrival in the Kilkenny–Ossory borders of the new lord chancellor of Ireland, Sir William Gerrard. Unlike many senior government office-holders – including those who, like him, had served in the administration of Wales – Gerrard was not willing to allow the anomalous position of Upper Ossory to remain unchecked, it ‘not [being] of any countie, and so not answerable to lawe’. He was determined, moreover, to avoid acknowledging the jurisdiction of the local brehons. His lengthy description of his talks with Baron Barnaby makes no mention of his having ever consulted the O’Dorans for their opinion; nor did he require the O’Dorans to ratify his eventual settlement of the Durrow frontier dispute, or even to witness it. Instead, as the second-most important royal official in The crown was even content to guarantee restitution of stolen goods to be made ‘accordinge the usuall custome of the bordours’: RIA, MS. D.., item . When mentioning this case Nicholls, in Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland, , noted Upper Ossory ‘had not yet been completely subjugated to the common law’, but Dr Patterson, in ‘Gaelic law’, , overlooked this point in her own discussion of the case despite citing Nicholls in an accompanying footnote. NLI, D. , . The chief witness was William O’Doran, brehon, of Castlefleming, aged ; another was Carroll O’Doran of Durrow, aged . Ormond to Fitzwilliam, Nov. (Bod. Lib., Carte MS , fol. ). Same to same, Aug. (Carte MS , fol. ). MacNeill (ed.), ‘Lord Chancellor Gerrard’s notes’, .
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Ireland, he set out to stamp his authority, and the authority of his office, on the rulers of Upper Ossory. It was his policy, as he put it, ‘by little and little to stretch the Pale further’ through the extension of the common law and the powers of the royal judges. Accordingly, when the earl of Ormond produced evidence taken from the ancient registers of the bishopric of Ossory to show that Upper Ossory had belonged to Co. Kilkenny in medieval times, the jurisdictional autonomy so long enjoyed by the MacGiollapadraigs was suddenly endangered, for Gerrard was persuaded of the validity of Ormond’s case. On his return to Dublin he arranged for the appointment of a royal commission, operating under the great seal of Ireland, to consider how Upper Ossory might be made shire ground, ‘as though made by parliament’. Having chosen the commissioners he then pointed them towards reaching what he assumed was the right verdict: ‘sithence I have fownde by recorde that Ossorie is of the countie of Kilkennye . . . the same I sent to be given in evidence before the commissioners’. Fortunately for the MacGiollapadraigs the royal commission moved very slowly, allowing Baron Barnaby the opportunity to bring his contacts in government to bear on its work. By the time the commission next appears in crown records, in April , the London privy council had intervened to urge caution upon the commissioners; in effect it seems to have redefined the terms of the commission itself. Whereas Gerrard had wanted it simply to examine the evidence that proved Upper Ossory belonged to Co. Kilkenny, the privy council required it instead to give equal consideration to the possibility that the territory might either continue ‘to be no shire grounde’ – a heresy to Gerrard – ‘or els to be united to the Queens Countie’. In the event of the commissioners deciding that Ossory should be returned to Kilkenny, then they were to examine how the MacGiollapadraigs could best be assured of a fair trial there. Probably on Gerrard’s advice, a Welsh solution to the problem was suggested, whereby the MacGiollapadraigs might have their cases judged not by proButler Kilkennymen but rather by special outside juries composed of freeholders either of Carlow or Queen’s County. If this proved feasible, that is agreeable to both sides – then the commissioners were to propose the rejoining of Upper Ossory to Co. Kilkenny at the next Irish parliament. In the event, of course, no Welsh solution was attempted and Upper Ossory escaped being shired with Kilkenny. Consent was necessary for the royal commission to work, but none had been forthcoming. The Butlers could see no C. Brady, ‘Comparable histories? Tudor reform in Wales and Ireland’ in S.G. Ellis and S. Barber (eds.), Conquest and union: fashioning a British state, – (London, ), –: –; quotation, Ellis, Tudor Ireland, –. MacNeill (ed.), ‘Lord Chancellor Gerrard’s notes’, –. ‘As it is used in the marches of Wales . . . who in like cases have juries oute of the next Englishe counties’: J. Hogan and N. McNeill O’Farrell (eds.), The Walsingham letter-book or register of Ireland, May to December (Dublin, ), .
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reason why the territory should be given special dual status in the Irish shire system, neither fully within Co. Kilkenny nor fully without, while the MacGiollapadraigs, ever the opportunists, were able to convince enough government officials of their preference for inclusion in Queen’s County that after Gerrard’s death no senior official was prepared to press the case for Upper Ossory’s inclusion in Kilkenny, and the entire scheme collapsed, as they would have wished. About – a contemporary observer noted that the third baron, Florence MacGiollapadraig, had shown himself agreeable to ‘suffer trial of his [people] in the Queenes County, and holds himself a member thereof ’’, yet once again this reads suspiciously like more empty promises. It was only at the beginning of the following century, in , that at last a solution to Upper Ossory’s indeterminate position was found, when it was shired with Queen’s County and the MacGiollapadraigs and their followers formally undertook to answer the jurisdiction of the Maryborough sessions house. In the meantime, the Gaelic order prevailed, as it had always done, and the imposition of English outside authority was kept at arm’s length. MacGiollapadraig participation in the extension of English law was, at best, limited. In no way can the family leaders be convincingly described as supporters of anglicisation. They most certainly were not ‘native lords who had adopted English law’ or promoted ‘administrative reform along English lines’, as a Celtic scholar has argued. The case for their being espousers of English legal ways rests on a misunderstanding of surviving evidence. During the s the MacGiollapadraigs’ brehons, the O’Dorans, made a number of small but significant recensions to the Gaelic law texts, changes which have been located in the historical preface to the great legal compilation, the Senchas már. In particular their recensions facilitated the adoption of the death penalty (hanging) as a punishment for homicide in Upper Ossory. Plausibly, this development has been identified as evidence of the O’Dorans and their masters the MacGiollapadraigs seeking to find a basis for harmony with the demands of the English government. In the absence of English-style court sessions, however, it cannot and does not indicate harmonisation with the advancement of anglicisation through the adoption of English common law, or what has been termed MacGiollapadraig ‘support for recourse to [English] due processes of curial law’. Rather it may hint at collusion with something altogether different – martial law, which had arrived in Upper Ossory for the first time in , when Barnaby Fitzpatrick, the future second baron, had received a commission Not that this shiring project was entirely without consequences. In Ormond indicted Baron Barnaby of treason in Kilkenny’s county courthouse. The charges were recognised and Barnaby soon found himself imprisoned in Dublin Castle, a decision which could be construed as implying the government had accepted the validity of the Kilkenny court to hear Ossory cases at that time. NLI, MS , p.. Fiants, Eliz. I, no. . Patterson, ‘Gaelic law’, –, . Ibid., .
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to execute ‘felons, rebels, enemies and notorious evildoers’, and which had been periodically reimposed since, in , and . Martial law had little to do with the advancement of English law, being merely a means by which the crown and its supporters could be rid of opponents at minimum cost and maximum speed. Indeed, by the time the recensions to the Senchas már had been made, those such as Lord Chancellor Gerrard, who advocated anglicisation in Ireland through the extension of the common law, were becoming increasingly critical of the imposition of an alternative military-style regime in the country, one which, based on the widespread use of martial law terror tactics, paid scant attention to English judicial processes such as trial by jury. It was possibly the need to carry out summary executions by martial law, rather than to execute those found guilty after ‘due process’ (trial by jury), that had caused Barnaby Fitzpatrick and his O’Doran brehons to make a subtle alteration to the Ossory law texts. As a major beneficiary of English military policy, Barnaby was expected to authorise many hangings and killings, all the more so as he and his family were allowed to retain Upper Ossory as an autonomous Gaelic lordship. If the recensions made to the historical prologue of the Senchas már reveal anything, it is that the MacGiollapadraigs supported a different concept of ‘reform’ to that usually identified by historians – one based on military and political co-operation, not legal or cultural assimilation.
A GAELIC ARMY
The commissions of martial law granted by the Elizabethan government to the second and third barons of Upper Ossory provide final confirmation that their territory was left untouched by the politics of ‘reform’ and anglicisation. Historians agree that one of the main planks of Tudor reform policy in Ireland was the demilitarisation of the native lords. Only by stripping them of their armed retinues would the lords be made less independent, proud and haughty, more amenable to crown control – that is, less Irish, more English. If the armies could be made to disappear (the prevailing logic ran), then the Pale might be made safe from raids and depredations, and major provincial lords would be less likely to conspire with continental powers against English dominion. The granting of martial law powers was hardly consistent with this objective. Fiants, Eliz. I, nos. , , , . For the burgeoning martial law controversy of the s and s, see D. Edwards, ‘Ideology and experience: Spenser’s View and martial law in Ireland’ in H. Morgan (ed.), Political ideology in Ireland, – (Dublin, ), –: –.
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As ever in MacGiollapadraig–government relations there was a wide divergence between government theory and government practice. Far from having their forces reduced, in the mid-sixteenth century the MacGiollapadraigs actually increased the size of their army with the assistance of the government. After May , and before July , Barnaby Fitzpatrick was made a captain of kerne on the government military establishment, commanding forty soldiers of his own choosing that were paid for by the crown. The soldiers helped him in his bid to wrest control of Upper Ossory from his father in , and thereafter to intimidate opponents to his rule. But even by the time he had assured himself of the dynastic leadership he continued to avail of the government captainship and its financial support of extra soldiers. The captainship of kerne was a purely pragmatic arrangement, instituted by Lord Deputy Sussex (-) and continued by his successors in the Irish administration in order to secure MacGiollapadraig military assistance against rebel elements. As a means of improving security and increasing crown control in the troublesome midlands it proved relatively successful. Barnaby Fitzpatrick served the crown dependably and fiercely, defending the Laois-Offaly plantation from attack on numerous occasions, and killing many rebels, including Rory Oge O’More. The captainship, however, was most definitely not consistent with the lofty claims that were often made by senior Dublin officials about policy objectives in Ireland, insisting that through continued support and encouragement the MacGiollapadraigs and others like them would embrace political and cultural reform. This point was brought home to Elizabeth I in , when she learned of military depredations committed by Barnaby and his men in Kilkenny and Tipperary. How, she wondered, could someone like ‘Sir Barnabie’, ‘who hath bene so civillie brought up here within our realm [of England] from his young yeares’, ‘be the author of such barbarous actes’? Evidently, the queen and some of her advisers at Whitehall believed that ‘reform’ was possible - that through being made familiar with superior English ways Gaelic lords like the MacGiollapadraigs would cease to behave like warlords towards their neighbours, and keep the peace as lords did in England. Outraged by the revelation of his true nature, the queen pronounced Barnaby ‘worthy of most severe punishment’, and urged her lord deputy to compel him to reform his ways and begin immediately to make amends for the wrongs he had done. Barnaby escaped punishment, and instead of abandoning his reliance on military strength, he developed it further. So long as crown officials in Dublin HMC, De L’Isle and Dudley MSS, i, , , . Edwards, ‘MacGiollapadraigs’, . HMC, De L’Isle and Dudley MSS, i, , , ; A.K. Longfield (ed.), Fitzwilliam accounts, – (Dublin, ), , , . Elizabeth I to Fitzwilliam, May (PRO, S.P. //). There is a contemporary copy of this in an Irish entry book among the State Papers, Domestic: S. P. /, pp –.
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continued to see MacGiollapadraig strength as a guarantee of O’More and O’Connor weakness, and a barrier to Butler expansion, he was able to behave as a traditional warlord, for the government was prepared to turn a blind eye to his more wayward antics, irrespective of the queen’s frustration with him. Therefore, despite the passing of legislation in the Irish parliament of – outlawing native military rule and the exaction of coign and livery, Barnaby continued to behave as military ruler of his country, and to impose coign and livery charges on his subjects, until his death in – and this while being a public supporter of the very administration that was responsible for the legislation. In the spring of , prior to departing for the English court, he drew up a list of instructions for his brothers Florence and John ‘for the government of my contre’ during his absence. No other document more effectively gives the lie to his posing as an anglicised pro-reform Gaelic lord, for it hints at few concessions to government reform policy. Apart from expressing a strong desire that Florence and John should ‘let the peax be kepte to all neyghbors’, refrain from war with the Butlers, and offer no refuge to rebel elements, Barnaby required his brothers simply to carry on the family’s independent rule of Upper Ossory, ignoring all outside concerns. The sixth instruction, concerning military matters, required his brothers to continue their reliance upon his private army, the ‘forces of the contre’. Moreover, in the event of an attack on his territory he authorised Florence and John to ‘bring in strangers’ (mercenaries) at their discretion to help repulse the invaders; these were to be maintained by a levy on the inhabitants of Upper Ossory ‘acordynge the awncyente custome’. This last is significant in two respects. First, it appears very much to resemble the imposition of buannacht (bonaght), a charge levied in many Irish lordships for the recruitment of emergency reinforcements of mercenary troops, often in the form of Scots-Irish galloglass. Second, and more significantly for our purposes, the hiring in of extra soldiers was to be done without a prior request for a crown license. It has recently been suggested that the Dublin government, in passing legislation against native military power in , was not seeking to abolish it completely, but rather to establish a basis by which it could gain greater control over the native forces. Manifestly, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, V. Treadwell, ‘The Irish parliament of –’ in PRIA, C (–), –, . The mention of awardsmen in clause of his instructions conforms with an Ormond deed of Feb. (Ormond Deeds, –, no. ). The fact that Barnaby signs himself Fitzpatrick at the end of the document instead of ‘Upper Oss.’ confirms its date as early , as he did not succeed his father as nd baron until August that year. NLI, MS (). Only once did he mention the issue of law, instructing Florence and John to ‘pleasure’ the earl of Ormond ‘wythin law’. It is not clear whether common law or brehon law is intended. C. Brady, ‘Why was Shane O’Neill attainted in ?’, conference paper delivered Trinity College, Dublin, March .
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the government supporter, gave little thought to such plans. In , as his feud intensified with the earl of Ormond over the ownership of Durrow, Barnaby’s army, commanded by his brothers Tirlagh and Callough, seized Durrow, invaded north Co. Kilkenny and occupied Kilmocar Castle. Ironically, in recent times Ormond had embraced some of the ‘reform’ demands of the crown, and abandoned coign and livery and other illegal military exactions in his territories. Given that Barnaby and his family again escaped punishment, and were actively protected by the government, it is difficult not to avoid the conclusion that out in the provinces government policy was about changing the balance of power, not ‘reform’ or anglicisation. The MacGiollapadraigs’ military independence continued unaffected until the beginning of the seventeenth century. Regular government support enabled Barnaby’s successor as baron, his brother Florence, to upgrade the MacGiollapadraig army, and to transform it from a traditional Irish force into one more in keeping with developments in continental Europe and the process known to historians as the Military Revolution. Where once the family leaders had been content to retain an army suitable mainly for guerrilla warfare, dependent upon cavalry (horsemen) and foot soldiers (kern) armed with swords and daggers, Baron Florence had by created a modern army in its stead, one that was more suitable for siege warfare and pitched battles. According to a government pardon of that year he no longer employed many kern, having replaced them with pikemen and shot. He was not the only Gaelic lord to do this: the principal leaders of the great rebel confederacy responsible for the Nine Years War, Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, and Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, are both known to have replaced kern with pikemen and shot. What makes his case important was that he was able to institute these changes while retaining his independence under the crown. Government policy, not as it was espoused, but as it was actually implemented, enabled him to modernise and strengthen his private army, the very antithesis of Tudor ‘reform’.
C O N C LU S I O N
As a case study in sixteenth-century Irish politics, this examination of the MacGiollapadraigs has provided a striking example of the implausibility of historical models that are not grounded on a solid core of fact. Life as it was Edwards, ‘Ormond lordship’, –, –. Fiants, Eliz.I, no. . H. Morgan, Tyrone’s rebellion: The outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Woodbridge, ), –; D. Edwards, ‘In Tyrone’s shadow: Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, forgotten leader of the Nine Years War’ in C. O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne: The Wicklow firebrand (Rathdrum Historical Society, ), –: –.
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lived in the MacGiollapadraig country was not as certain scholars have depicted it. The interpretation repeatedly advanced since the early years of the twentieth century, first by Catholic nationalist historians, and later by a prominent Celtic specialist, that the MacGiollapadraig chieftains substituted English ways for Gaelic ones, is hopelessly inaccurate. A close examination of all available evidence shows that while the family leaders benefited considerably from the expansion of the Tudor state, they were left almost entirely unaffected by it, and that they did very little to further it beyond offering military support when it was demanded. On close inspection, Upper Ossory under MacGiollapadraig rule proves to have been a Tudor wonderland, a place where nothing was quite as it seemed – not least for the politics of ‘reform’. Great friends of the English, the MacGiollapadraig chieftains embraced change to insure nothing was changed in their country; they learned the English language and put their signatures to English legal documents in order to retain their Gaelic ways, and they protected and escorted English legal officials so as to keep them out of their country. It was only in , when Ireland was reconquered and completely under English control, that ‘reform’ was at last introduced to Upper Ossory. Far from welcoming it, the MacGiollapadraig barons had cause to curse it, for its arrival signalled the end of their local supremacy. Having consulted with the lord deputy and council in Dublin, two English judges summoned the inhabitants of the territory to the Queen’s County shire court at Maryborough where, by government decree, they announced that all the customary exactions imposed by the MacGiollapadraig leaders – the very foundations of their power – had been abolished. As the judges’ declaration resounded in the courthouse its implications were obvious to all; aristocratic autonomy, the essence of the Gaelic order, was now over in Ossory, and the MacGiollapadraigs faced an uncertain future. Small wonder they had been so slow to embrace ‘reform’ over the previous seventy years. So long as their military collaboration had been of importance to the crown, the preservation of their independent Gaelic lordship had been more or less guaranteed. Once the soldiers that they had provided were expendable, however, they could no longer avoid ‘reform’, and their political demise, their loss of independence, commenced forthwith. If the experience of the MacGiollapadraig barons of Upper Ossory was comparable to other lords and lineages, then maybe this little essay might serve a wider purpose, warning historians of Tudor Ireland of the dangers of studying what did not happen (‘reform’) at the expense of examining what did (reconquest). Plainly, the prevailing emphasis on the importance of English ‘reform’ policy to a proper understanding of Tudor rule in Ireland needs to be questioned. There was no ‘reform’ in Upper Ossory during the Tudor era; it NAI, Paulet (Fitzpatrick) Papers, M. .
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was only after the commencement of the Stuart regime in that ‘reform’, as it is usually understood, was instituted. For the pre- period, only by exploring what took place in the regions, in the Gaelic and Anglo-Irish lordships, will the true nature of Irish life in the so-called age of ‘reform’ be established. Should the MacGiollapadraigs’ experience prove typical – an important question in itself – then scholars might perhaps substitute Gaelic survival strategies for English reform policies as the main focus point of investigation, the better to reflect the actual experience of Tudor government in the country as a whole. But of course any new interpretative framework should be put on hold until other lineages have been examined. For too long now sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Irish history has been bedevilled by sweeping interpretations and premature generalisation; for once, let us try to get the facts in place before adopting new themes and models. There is a real need to test the experience of other native collaborators before discarding the ‘reform’ model. In particular, historians should look for evidence of English law courts and legal officials at work in the territories of the O’Briens of Thomond, the MacMahons of Monaghan, the O’Reillys of Breifne, the O’Carrolls of Ely, and the O’Shaughnessys of Kinelea in Galway, to name just a few of those who co-operated quite closely with the crown in the Elizabethan period. For until more is known about them, the nagging doubt will always persist that the experience of the MacGiollapadraigs was exceptional. APPENDIX M AC G I O L L A PA D R A I G M I L I TA RY F O RC E S I N
(Source: Fiants, Eliz. I, no. )
Horsemen () Edmund McKellagh of Atharney Teige McDonell of Shanboe John O’Molloy of Clonmyne Finine McDonell of Tintore Kellagh McTeige of Mahernyskagh Teige Oge of Mahernyskagh
Donell Roe O’Phelan of Clonkemegan Donogh Oge McCashien of Coolbally Donogh Oge McDonogh McWilliam of Ballevoy Teige McKellagh McShane of Knockmoran
Donogh McTeige of Clonboran Kenny Boy O’Carroll of Ballytaggart Shane McTerlagh of Rathkilkedy Shane McKennan of Cornegowre
Shot () Geoffrey McKennan of Shane McDonell of Capneray Shanbuohy Dermot McTeige of Kealtagh Dermot Roe McKennan of Donell McPhelan of Kealtagh Roskriny Connor O’Phelan of Shangary Teige McBrian Reogh of Owen O’Phelan of Shangary Graige
William McGeoffrey Roe of Eglish William McHugh Boy of Graigvelly Edmund Oge O’Hellan of Graigvally
Collaboration without Anglicisation Hohn McHugh of Graigvally Dermot McKellagh McShane of Knockmoran Conly McFinnine of Tintore Gillpatrick McConnor of Sharagh Piers O’Duigan of Newtown Gilpatrick O’Doran of Castlefleming Donogh McWilliam of Keppagh Shane McConnor O’Phelan of the Garran Donogh O’Bevrey of Castletown
Philip McDonogh of Donaghmore Donell McTeige Moy of Kilcowran Grany ny Costegan of the Dirren [a woman] Donogh McKryny of Dirrenashansy Shane McEdmund of Cornegowre Teige McDermot of Cornegowre Finine Duff McDoell of Cornegowre
Teige McWilliam of Dirrenshallagh Teige McBryny of Ballytrasny Edmund O’Brohy of Kilderaghamen Gilpatrick O’Costegan of Garranroe Shane McCostegan of Garranroe Donogh O’Brohy of Culahill Dermot Fyn O’Bergin of Grantstown Rory McKerwoll O’Phelan of Killdromid
Shane McCraghy of Bawnagher Donell O’Duigan of Donaghmore Rory O’Duigan McDonnogh of Donaghmore Teige McEdmund Roe of Clonmine Laghlin O’Broyne of Lisduff
Edmund O’Doran of Castlefleman William O’Doran of Castlefleman Owney McDonogh of Balcraghy Teige McKryny of Dirrenashansy Finine McGeoffrey McFinine Roe of Coolkyrie
Pikemen () Edmund McShane McTeige of Clonogidan William O’Phelan of Killdromody Edmund McLaghlin of Ballada William Oge O’Phelan of Kilbride Dermot McCraghy of Bawnagher
Delusions of Dál Riada: The Co-ordinates of Mac Domnaill Power, - SIMON KINGSTON
McSkimin, in the preface to his magisterially entitled History and antiquities of the county of the town of Carrickfergus, from the earliest records to the present time, remarks that one of the fruits of his labour is that ‘Much fabulous rubbish has been cleared away, and a remembrance preserved of those spots which have been the scenes of remarkable events . . .’ A few pages later he gloomily avers that ‘The ancient accounts of this place, like most others, present little but traditionary legends, being involved in at least a common share of obscurity.’ The Mac Domnaill of Antrim, who frequently appear in the story of Carrickfergus, have suffered more than their fair share of such obscurity. As a semi-detached branch of the greater Clann Domnaill of the Hebrides, the family of Clann Eoin Mhóir, as it was originally known, merits but brief mention. Standard narratives commence only in the sixteenth century, as the family’s influence is seen to have increased, and by this period it is known to historians as Clann Domnaill South. Because most discussions of the kindred begin in the early s they miss nearly a century of the family’s development, and also misconstrue as novel behaviour which had characterised Clann Eoin Mhóir for generations. Much of the material from the fifteenth century would no doubt have been consigned to the fabulous rubbish heap by McSkimin. Yet it is possible with a combination of source materials, from both sides of the North Irish Sea, to chart the progress of the Antrim Mac Domnaill from the s. This knowledge enhances an understanding of the actions and preoccupations of the family in the early modern period – even in the s there was little new under the diffident Antrim sun. The North Irish Sea region in which Clann Eoin Mhóir moved was first and always a geographically remote area for the administrations of Scotland and England. Physical impenetrability was matched by the region’s politics. S. McSkimin, History and antiquities of the county of the town of Carrickfergus, from the earliest records to the present time (Belfast, ), vi. McSkimin, History and antiquities, . J.M. Hill, Fire and sword: Sorley Boy MacDonnell and the rise of Clan Ian Mor, – (London, ).
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To the outsider, the facility of natives to use the apparently divisive sea as a connection made the area unpredictable: whilst far from united, the affairs of Ulster and the Isles were irreversibly connected by accidents of affinity as well as geography. Navigation of this heterogeneous territory remained a problem for national governments throughout the later medieval period. In central Ulster the English crown had virtually no presence, and on its eastern seaboard Anglo-Irish settlement was bound as strongly to the Gaelic political dynamic of its neighbours as it was to Dublin. Western Scotland, whilst formally more tractable country, proved for most of the fifteenth century to be at the extremity of Scottish crown influence. Letters and chancery records from Scottish and English observers, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, indicate that each administration believed that invasion of their territories from the North Irish Sea region was both feasible and almost perpetually imminent. As one commentator has put it, the strange paranoia felt about Ulster and the Isles by representatives of both English and Scottish crowns displayed ‘not so much the narcissism of small differences as the neurosis of short distances’. Central to this opinion was the belief that since the region was beyond the ken of one government it must necessarily be alive with partisans of the other. In reality the North Irish Sea world was frequently terra incognita for both powers. Gaelic Irish sources are also, perhaps surprisingly, often ignorant of the detailed realities of Clann Domnaill power. The Gaelic literati, who as individuals operated with equal facility in the Gaeltacht of Scotland and Ireland, were consciously antiquarian in the material they produced, adhering to poetic topoi long after they had ceased to depict contemporary reality and continuing, seven centuries after their first writing, to copy and gloss the Brehon law tracts. The elegant vacuity with which Niall Óg Ó Néill was urged to seize the high-kingship of Ireland in the s and John II Lord of the Isles described as the scourge of Meath, was typical of the Gaelic mode. This convention did not lend itself to analysis of contemporary local politics on their distinctly subsagic scale. Such writers conceived of themselves principally as the stewards of a tradition they had a duty to preserve and transmit, so it is unsurprising that they were imperfect journalists. Thus, in spite of its formulaic inclusion in Dr Ciaran Brady, in a paper delivered at the ‘Celebrating Columba’ conference on IrishScottish relations held at Strathclyde University in Sept. , but not yet published. On the antiquarianism of the Gaelic literati see, for example, the work of Ó Cuív and O Riordan. B. Ó Cuív, The linguistic training of the medieval Irish poet (Dublin, ); M. O Riordan, The Gaelic mind and the collapse of the Gaelic world (Cork, ). L. McKenna (ed.), Aithdioghlúim Dána (Irish Texts Society, Dublin, ), no. , vv. –, ; A. MacBain and J. Kennedy (eds.), The Book of Clanranald, in A. Cameron (ed.) Reliquae Celticae (Inverness, ), –, –: ‘Cennus eirenn albuin . . .’, ‘measgadh midhe onchu íle’ (putting Meath in commotion, the leopard of Islay).
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descriptions of events, there was much about Scotland and its people which remained deeply mysterious to Irish Gaelic writers. In , for example, the Annals of Ulster record that a ship ‘came from Inverary’ and kidnapped the Ua Catháin; a year later, equally enigmatically, it returned him. A rival faction of the Uí Catháin may have been operating a ‘no claim no blame’ policy; more probably, as will be suggested, this was the work of Clann Eoin Mhóir. That the annalists themselves could furnish no explanation illustrates the extent of the divide. As such, it was a link to what sometimes amounted to a different world for the annalists. External observers employed a range of names for the inhabitants of the Ulster-Isles region, from the pithy ‘Scottyshe Irysshe’ or ‘Irish Scotish’ to the prosaic ‘Irichemen dwelling in the Hielands and Ilis of Scotteland’. These titles betray an uncertainty about how to classify the confusingly peripatetic Mac Domnaill. To Scots officialdom Clann Eoin Mhóir, and indeed Clann Domnaill generally, were from the ‘Yrishe cuntrey’; yet to Irish writers they were the Mac Domnaill of Scotland. A crucial difference between sources external to the region was that for English commentators in the early sixteenth century Clann Eoin Mhóir activity seemed new. Stylistic conceit, if nothing else, required Gaelic writers to describe Scots in Ulster almost as a commonplace. The received imagination of the greater Gaeltacht comprehended both Ireland and Scotland, even though understanding of contemporary political nuance was more elusive to the writers of the annals. One source free from the misconceptions mentioned thus far, is the body of the Acts of the Lords of the Isles. Drawn from the period prior to , these charters and other documents record the administration of Clann Domnaill lordship in the fifteenth century and the place of Clann Eoin Mhóir within it. In particular they highlight the central importance of the Council of the Isles; the primary instrument of governance in the Lordship of the Isles, this assembly brought together the heads of the major kindreds. Taken together the sources for the later medieval period, accepting their several partialities and confusions, suggest a continuity of aspiration and selfperception on the part of Clann Eoin Mhóir. A preoccupation with maintaining a lordship on both sides of the North Channel was a characteristic of the kindred from the beginning; its modus vivendi, apparently so novel to sixteenth-century observers, had been established much earlier. The permanent migration of Islesmen to Ulster, which so alarmed English . . . do airitin [Ua Catháin] la luing táinic a halpain, no a hinber air. J. Gairdner (ed.), Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (London, ), xix (), , no. ; H. Wood (ed.), The chronicle of Ireland by Sir James Perrott (IMC, ), ; The history of Scotland from the death of James I, by John Lesley (Edinburgh, ), . Lesley, History, ; AU . J. Munro and R.W. Munro (eds.), The Acts of the Lords of the Isles (Scottish History Society, Edinburgh, ) (ALI).
Delusions of Dál Riada
observers, began in the late fourteenth century. It was caused principally by successive Scots royal offensives in the Isles. MacDonald of Sleat in his account of affairs in the Isles describes the two time-honoured options for Scottish rebels: ‘. . . either to betake themselves to the hills, or to go to Ireland . . .’ In the fifteenth century many of the émigré Hebrideans moved into what was already a well-established Clann Domnaill lordship in Antrim. The branch of the Clann Domnaill affinity that possessed this Ulster lordship was Clann Eoin Mhóir. The eponymous founder of the kindred, Eoin Mór, married Marjorie Bisset around thus acquiring the seacht tuaithe, the seven countries, of the Glynns of Antrim. To these lands he linked his own inheritance in the Isles. It was a geographically propitious situation; in emergency the Clann Eoin Mhóir could have reinforcements in Antrim from Kintyre within a day. In a series of treaties, from to Eoin Mór, styled ‘Jehen de Ilys’, appears alone, as an ally of the English. In , Henry IV dispatched Henry Percy to negotiate with ‘John of the Isles lord of Dunyvaig and the Glynns and Donald his brother’ at Cockermouth. That Eoin, the younger of the two and subordinate in the politics of the Isles, should be named before his brother is indicative of the particular interest a lordship set on both sides of the North Channel held for the English crown. Further evidence of this interest is provided by the indentures entered into by Eoin Mór, ‘Lord of Dunevege and the Glynnis’, with Henry IV at Carrickfergus in . Eoin Mór acted alone in the negotiation of this arrangement and there is no mention of his brother the Lord of the Isles. Although the first decades of the fifteenth century seem especially crepuscular to the historian, the foundations of a successful settlement in Antrim were laid and built upon. In Ulster, Eoin Mór, made shrewd local associations and was, for a time, an ally of the Clann Aodha Buidhe Uí Néill. While its consolidation in Ulster went largely unremarked and is difficult to detail, Clann Eoin Mhóir was clearly heavily involved in the politics of the Isles. As Hugh MacDonald’s history of the MacDonalds (Mac. of Sleat), in J.R.N. MacPhail (ed.), Highland Papers, i (Scottish History Society, ), . A precise date for the alliance is unavailable but in the wardship and marriage of the two daughters and heirs of ‘the late knight Hugh Bysset’ was being mentioned so presumably Marjorie’s marriage was at about this time. See Rot. Pat. Hib., b. Rymer, Foedera, vii, , , , , , . After , the last of the treaties listed, Eoin’s title must have changed to include his recently acquired Ulster territories. ‘nobilis vir Johannis de Insulis dominus de Dunwage & de Glynns & Donaldus frater ejus’, Rot. Scot., ii, –; ALI, lxxvi. College of Arms, Betham’s manuscripts, repertory to records of the Exchequer, Henry IV, . On Irish Memoranda Rolls see, Philomena Connolly, List of Irish entries on the memoranda rolls of the English Exchequer, – in Anal. Hib., (). Eoin became Henry’s faithful liege-man rendering all services for his lordship of the Glynns and all other lands held in Ulster. AFM, iv, [], Coccadh mor eitir mhac uí Neill Bhuidhe albanaigh goill uladh an Rúta.’, AU, iii, – [].
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the pre-eminent advisors to the Lords of the Isles in the Council, Clann Eoin Mhóir leaders were protagonists in virtually all the developments of any significance in the period. The resonantly titled Council of the Isles, and its workings, is a subject for fuller study elsewhere. Not only its name but also its manner of operation sound strikingly contemporary: its periodic gathering of the major kindreds of the Isles permitted the Clann Domnaill to exercise an elastic ‘lordship by affinity’ in the Hebrides and western Scotland. Eoin Mór’s successor, Domnall Ballach, was to play a critical leadership role in the Lordship of the Isles. Employing the Council and the disposition of his personal lordship adroitly, Domnall personified the Clann Domnaill motto ‘Air Muir ‘s Air Tír’ (By Sea and By Land). In , for example, with the head of Clann Domnaill proper in the custody of the Scottish crown and a royal expeditionary force marching on the lordship, it was Domnall Ballach who led the Clann Domnaill affinity at the battle of Inverlochy. The political co-ordinates of Domnall Ballach’s power were fixed on both sides of the North Channel. Consequently, his lordship of Antrim facilitated engagement in the politics of Ulster without diminishing his role in the Isles. Clann Eoin Mhóir succeeded in creating an Ulster identity independent of, but co-operative with, the Uí Néill of Tír Eóghain. By the s these relations had warmed, and in Clann Domnaill and Uí Néill forces combined to inflict a series of defeats on Uí Néill enemies. Clann Domnaill amphibious troops provided the seapower which Gaelic Irish leaders in Ulster lacked. Links with the Uí Catháin were developed also; the epithet of Domnall’s grandson, Eoin Cathanach, suggests that he was fostered with that kindred. With lands in Islay, Antrim, Kintyre and Ardnamurchan, in addition to responsibility for Greenan in Carrick, Domnall Ballach possessed what amounted to a controlling stake in the Lordship of the Isles. There are persistent references to a ‘Donald lord of the Isles’ in the period and clearly outsiders saw him as a dominant influence. Such influence was exercised A fuller discussion is offered in a forthcoming book on Clann Eoin Mhóir in the fifteenth century by the present author. ALI, ; Mac of Sleat, –. Amongst those whom he led was John MacLean of Coll; John was a son of Lachlan MacLean with whom Domnall had been fostered. Despite some desertions, those who rallied to Domnall were some of the greatest client lords of Clann Domnaill proper: MacIan of Ardnamurchan, MacLean of Coll, Ranald Bán from Antrim (Domnall’s brother), MacDuffie of Colonsay, MacQuarry of Ulva and MacGee of the Rhinns of Islay. AU, iii, [] record that Eoghan Ó Néill was assisted in his protracted struggle with Niall Garbh Ua Domnaill by a large fleet (coblach mór) led by Mac Domnaill of the Isles. ‘Cathanach’ may simply mean rough, or warlike [‘of the battles’?] but circumstantial evidence suggests it refers in Eoin’s case to his foster family. In the context of the struggle between the Uí Catháin and the Mac Uibhilin this contact was highly significant, AU, iii, []; – []; – []; []. It was not unusual for an epithet to be applied on this basis, for example Niall Gallda of Clann Aodha Buidhe who was presumably fostered in Scotland or with the Anglo-Irish. ALI, xxv, and . A number of the Scottish narrative sources imply that the earl of Ross and the Lord of the Isles were two distinct
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through the medium of the Council of the Isles, the principal institution of the Clann Domnaill lordship. From to Domnall was the chief witness to a series of charters and was evidently the senior member of this council. Perhaps the best example of the unity of the pan-insular world in which Clann Eoin Mhóir moved under Domnall Ballach is the Treaty of Westminster–Ardtornish. In many respects it is also peculiar as the English king of the day was seized by a moment of apparent insight when framing the agreement. Briefly, Edward IV and his advisors had the clarity of vision to distinguish Clann Eoin Mhóir from the agents of the Scots crown, and also to see that it could operate entirely beyond the dynamic of Scots politics. Negotiated in and sealed in the following year, the treaty was negotiated by Edward with the earl of Douglas and MacDomnaill leaders. Douglas was of course a fugitive from Scotland, hoping forlornly to return and seize the throne; in this context, Westminster–Ardtornish is usually regarded by historians as a standard manoeuvre of no lasting significance in the course of Anglo-Scottish conflict. Indeed, the purely Scottish element of the treaty is little more than a combination of vague aspiration and non-specific politesse: it refers to the rights of James Douglas, in the event of an English conquest of Scotland. In reality, the prospect of bringing Scotland, or even ‘the more part thereof ’, to obedience to the English crown with the particular aid of the Douglas faction was a very remote one. The cursory references to James Douglas are unconvincing as declarations of serious intent; it is the frequently neglected allusions to Clann Domnaill which carry conviction. These elements, the substance of the treaty, were concerned as much with Ireland as with Scotland. In associated discussions, a focus on Ulster was intimated by the appointment in March of Richard, bishop of Down and Connor; he was empowered by Edward IV to receive the oaths of the three Mac Domnaill. From the outset, Irish considerations are evident in the arrangements on the Clann Domnaill side too, with the appointment of Ragnall Bán, Domnall Ballach’s brother, as one of the ambassadors to Edward. The terms of the treaty follow from this: Domnall Ballach is given parity with John II, Lord of the Isles. Domnall and his son Eoin continue to be mentioned by name on the Mac Domnaill side individuals, The Asloan Manuscript contains a good example when James Douglas is described as going to the Isles to meet two leaders. W.A. Craigie (ed.), The Asloan Manuscript (Scottish Texts Society, Edinburgh, ), . Furthermore, a ‘Donald Lord of the Isles’ is co-sealant to the related Douglas/Crawford/Ross bond of . ALI, . ALI, –, –, –, –, –, –, , –, and . Nicholson describes it as having ‘results serious enough, but hardly comparable to those envisaged in its terms: before it Ross had already behaved in boisterous fashion, and afterwards he merely behaved in a more exaggerated fashion.’ R.G. Nicholson, Scotland: the later middle ages (Edinburgh, ), . ALI, . CDS , iv, . The utility of Irish clergy in negotiations with the Lords of the Isles had been recognised by Henry IV in and . The text of the Treaty is given in full by ALI, –.
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throughout the document. That the English felt they were securing their Ulster frontier is clear; specific reference is made to the ‘Scottes in Irlande’ against whom the Mac Domnaill were enjoined to fight if necessary. In return they were to receive a yearly fee from the English exchequer. Straddling the North Channel, Clann Eoin Mhóir was to be employed in a conflation of English policy interests. It was simultaneously a potential ally against the king of Scots and a responsive element within the ‘Scots of Ulster’, a group that often appeared amorphous and potentially threatening to the English interest. Edward IV was remarkable in having, albeit briefly, a co-ordinated policy for his Ulster lordship; in he sent gifts to Énrí Ó Néill of Tír Eóghain with whom he arrived at an entente. This tentative rapprochement with the Uí Néill, intended at securing the position of the Anglo-Irish settlement in Antrim and Down, was complemented by an understanding with Clann Eoin Mhóir. The policy enjoyed a measure of success. As with the Uí Néill, there is no record of Clann Eoin Mhóir attacking the English in the years which immediately follow . Corroborative of this is the breakdown of the Mac Domnaill alliance with Clann Aodha Buidhe which would have drawn them into such attacks. The achievement was short-term and was not followed up by an attempt at a comprehensive re-ordering of the political situation in Antrim; this too paralleled the experience of the Uí Néill. The permanent establishment of a new dispensation with the English crown remained just as elusive for Clann Eoin Mhóir, as it did for the lords of Tír Eoghain. The period of lucidity on the part of the English government passed and it was replaced with the customary anxiety about the undifferentiated threat from ‘Scots in Ulster’. A letter from a fearful Anglo-Irish squire in well exemplifies this fear – on hearing reports of ‘, and more’ Scots living in Ulster, it assumed they were busily preparing for an invasion of Ireland by James III. Their ambitious aim, the writer was certain, was ‘to subdue al thys land to the obeysaunce of the Kyng of Scottes’. The neurosis was back. In failing to credit Clann Domnaill with any capacity for autonomous action, this See, K. Simms, ‘ “The King’s friend”: O Neill, the crown and the Earldom of Ulster’ in J. Lydon (ed.), England and Ireland in the later middle ages (Dublin, ), –. In Clann Aodha Buidhe actually carried out a raid on the Antrim Scots in which Sean mac Alasdair Mac Domnaill and many of his people were killed. The ‘Sean’ of AU is the Eoin son of Alasdair Mac Domnaill who is recorded by AFM as having died in like manner in . The Alasdair in question was another brother of Domnall Ballach and Ragnall Bán. See genealogies attached. Of graver import was the capture in of both Eoin, Domnall Ballach’s successor, and his son Eoin Cathanach by Clann Aodha Buidhe. On that occasion, Eoin Cathanach’s son, Aedh Ruadh, was killed. Munro describes Aedh Ruadh as a son of Eoin not Eoin Cathanach but this may be at odds with the AU. The entry reads ‘An T-eidhre Eoin Cathanach a mac, do ghabail in mac dob’ fherr aigi, idon Alexandair Ruadh, do marbh felonice le hAedh Óg . . .’ Alexander may be Eoin Cathanach’s son. It is not improbable that Eoin Cathanach had a son of his own in although he was probably still a minor. ALI, . Chancery Miscellanea Bundle , no. , c. Ed. IV [C.//], printed in D. Bryan, The Great Earl ofKildare (Dublin, ), –.
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understanding of interaction with the Isles was still coloured by memories of the Bruce Invasion rather than the more imaginative and informed analysis of Edward IV. Thus, successive waves of Islesmen fleeing the king of Scots were taken for the vanguard of his invading army. In fact, the real threat to English interests in Ulster lay in an alliance between the Scots crown and the Uí Dhomnaill of Tír Conaill which was renewed in , although with no lasting effect. In the same year, a Scottish ship bombarded and plundered Carrickfergus in what was the only attack of its kind in the period. This action had nothing whatever to do with Clann Domnaill, and very possibly nothing to do with the king of Scots either, as one source claims he did not order the attack. Albeit fleetingly, the Treaty of Westminster–Ardtornish had represented an alternative, mutually beneficial, understanding between the English crown and the Mac Domnaill; it was a notion which was to be mooted again at intervals. In , as in the later agreements, the Ulster connection, and in particular the leaders of Clann Eoin Mhóir, crucially informed both the character of English interest and the nature of relations with Clann Domnaill. The significance of the Ulster connection grew in the final years of the fifteenth century, with the elaboration of the tradition of Antrim Mac Domnaill leadership in the Isles in times of crisis. Persistently at odds with the Scots crown, the lords of the Isles were ultimately losers in the politics of the Scottish community of the realm. The power of the greater Clann Domnaill was damaged in when it was deprived of the earldom of Ross and shattered in with the forfeiture of its title to the Isles. Nevertheless, despite this slighting of the greater connection, in the years following the forfeiture Clann Eoin Mhóir leaders constructed a coherent lordship around the rump of the old insular dominions. This provided a paradigm for the kindred’s later self-destructive obsession with pan-insular dominion. There is considerable confusion about this period in the standard histories of the Isles; these accounts are based largely on a seventeenth-century Scottish version of events and lack detail. It is clear that the leaders of Clann Eoin Mhóir, namely Eoin and Eoin Cathanach, were arrested at Finlaggan on Islay by MacIan of Ardnamurchan and hanged shortly afterwards at Edinburgh. However, existing accounts are frequently at odds about whether this happened in or . Indeed, most Scottish historians assume that the earlier date marks the end of any coherent Clann Domnaill dominion based around the lordship of the Isles. The use of sources from Ulster elucidates the murky stuff of the Hebridean narrative somewhat in this period. A picture emerges of a Clann Eoin Mhóir lordship which incorporated substantial parts of the RMS, ii, ; N. MacDougall, James IV (Edinburgh, ), , . Æ.J.G. MacKay (ed.), The historie and cronicles of Scotland ... written and collected by Robert Lindesay of Pitscottie (Scottish Texts Society, Edinburgh, ) (Pitscottie), i, ; Nicholson, Scotland, –; MacDougall, James IV, –.
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lordship of the Isles in the latter decades of the fifteenth century. In this ephemeral new Dál Riada, Eoin and Eoin Cathanach remained very much alive until . The Annals of Ulster suggest this version of events by placing the executions in ; Eoin Mac Domnaill son of Domnall Ballach, is described in the obit, unambiguously, as king of the Hebrides [Rí Innsí Gall ]. This title had been used to describe major leaders of the Clann Domnaill in the past; conjoined with the epithet Mór, a conscious harking back to the eponymous founder, it suggests Eoin was regarded as Lord of the Isles by Irish observers. Intimations that Clann Eoin Mhóir exercised some form of lordship in the Isles after are present in Scottish material too. The distinct interest of the crown in ‘Schir Johne of the Ilis’ [that is, Eoin] who was orchestrating rebellion in the Isles marks him out as a leader. In it was Eoin who was summoned to answer charges of treason, just as John the last lord of the Isles had been. There seems little doubt that Eoin was responsible, in that year, for storming Dunaverty castle and hanging the governor appointed by James IV. Day to day royal intelligence concerning the Isles seems to have been poor; on at least one occasion before it was believed that Eoin Mac Domnaill had been killed, and an alleged witness of the event was summoned to James IV. In Ulster, the figure of Eoin Cathanach, Eoin’s son, looms large. The battle of Glassdrumainn in , a struggle between two rival factions within the Tír Eóghain Uí Néill, effectively precluded that kindred from engaging in any expansionist activity. In its wake, Clann Eoin Mhóir was able to exercise additional influence in eastern and central Ulster. Eoin Cathanach enjoyed a pivotal position in the affairs of the region. His marriage to Cecelia (Síle) Savage sustained a link with the Anglo-Irish settlements in the east with which the new Dál Riadans marched. Meanwhile, his ties of fosterage meant he was well placed to act as arbitrator or, more accurately, a strongman in the affairs of the Uí Catháin, to the west of Antrim Mac Domnaill territory. The most obvious example of such involvement was in when Eoin Cathanach took part in the murders of Aibne, Goffraigh and Sean Gallda Ua Catháin in support of the leadership contention of Aibne’s brother Tomas Ua Catháin. It is also plausible that it was Eoin Cathanach who in ordered the mysterious kidnapping of Sean Ua Catháin alluded to above. When, in that instance, the ensuing struggle resulted in victory for the ‘wrong’ rival kindred, Sean was returned. If this was Eoin Cathanach’s doing, it was a somewhat clumsy first TA, i, , Eoin to be ‘summoned . . . of tressone in Kintyre’. Gregory asserts that on recapturing the castle Eoin hanged the governor from the wall within sight of the King and his fleet. This is, he claims, ‘a tradition well known in the Western Highlands’. Gregory, History of the Western Highlands, –. TA, i, records the cost of l. on freight and hire of a ship to Dunaverty by the King and his victuals whilst there. Eoin Cathanach is named by AFM as one of the killers, .
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exercise in the art of being a powerbroker; it is nevertheless indicative of Clann Eoin Mhóir aspirations and is consonant with its later activity. Given the reports of their demise in Scottish narratives, the vitality of Clann Eoin Mhóir leadership in the mid-s is dramatic. This is underscored by a record of events in Ulster in . In October of that year, the earl of Kildare was in Dundalk receiving submissions from a range of the northern Gaelic kindreds. A letter sent by one of the earl’s party, Sir Ralph Verney, described with some trepidation the arrival in Ulster of ‘Jhon of the oute Iles’; with ‘scottes and keterykes’. This ‘Jhon’ had come into Clann Aodha Buidhe territory reputedly to rescue his son who had been captured by them. Having achieved this, the force of Scots continued to lurk on the border of Savage’s country. Though the tone of Verney’s description is that of worried incomprehension in the face of an alien presence, ‘what he [John] meanythe we cane not tell as yete’, the response of the earl of Kildare was reasonably shrewd: he sent messengers proposing some sort of alliance. However, the savvy displayed by the English crown and its diplomats in the early s is not in evidence. There was no collective memory of earlier engagements in Ulster in the minds of English emissaries, and they seem dumbfounded by the presence of Scotsmen in such numbers on the frontier of the Anglo-Irish settlement. The ‘Jhon of the Oute Isles’ must surely be Eoin, father of Eoin Cathanach, and his presence in Ulster suggests that he had come to secure his lordship of the Glynns personally. Eoin Cathanach may, as Verney thought, have been captured by Clann Aodha Buidhe; or Eoin may simply have been unhappy with his son’s ‘lieutenancy’ of the Ulster territories. The impression of Eoin’s intentions that can be gleaned from the letter suggests he had not departed from the stance which Domnall Ballach had adopted in Ulster. There is no word of attack on the Anglo-Irish settlement, despite its rather self-conscious vulnerability. Instead Eoin remained in the Clann Eoin Mhóir stronghold ‘nye upon savagis contrey’, a fact rendered much less threatening by the knowledge that Eoin was married to one of the Savages. The real object of Mac Domnaill animosity was Clann Aodha Buidhe. The willingness (also mentioned in the letter) of both that kindred and the Uí Dhomnaill to come into the king’s peace is explained by their fear of attack from the increasingly potent Clann Domnaill South. The reality of the Mac Domnaill threat to them is explicit in Verney’s description of the penitent Ó Domnaill and Clann Aodha Buidhe Ó Néill as ‘tuoo the gretteste Iryshemen of the northe which marchen uppon Scotland and the oute yeles’. During a phase of Uí Néill weakness, when the The form in which the submissions were made is recorded along with a list of those chiefs who submitted. PRO E , . Printed in A.E. Conway, Henry VII’s relations with Scotland and Ireland (Oxford, ), –. PRO S.C., lviii, f.. Printed in Conway, Henry VII’s relations, –. Ó Domnaill had links to the king of Scotland which were maintained throughout this period. It is worth noting that he may also have had contacts amongst the
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Uí Dhomnaill family might have been enjoying ascendancy in the province, their hegemony in Ulster was threatened by the new Dál Riada. To James IV in Scotland, Clann Eoin Mhóir’s Ulster territories appeared to be a springboard from which an element of Clann Domnaill might begin the comprehensive recovery of the lands of the lordship of the Isles. Evidence of royal concern about recidivist elements amongst the Clann Domnaill affinity is clear during the s. In the end, the crown was able to capitalise on the opportunism of the MacIans, a family that had previously supported the lords of the Isles. The capture of Clann Eoin Mhóir leaders at Finlaggan, the old caput of the lordship of the Isles, was sanctioned retrospectively by the crown. In the wake of the break-up of the Clann Domnaill lordship, the Scots king allowed ‘market forces’ to operate, and families such as the MacIans and, on a larger scale, the Campbell earls of Argyll acquired parts of it piecemeal. The final destruction of the Clann Domnaill ‘monopoly’ in the Isles was assured with the execution, not imprisonment, of Eoin, along with Eoin Cathanach and two of his brothers. The Scots king aimed permanently to remove the Clann Domnaill South from Scottish politics. It is notable that, in spite of their conspicuous involvement in Ulster politics, Eoin and Eoin Cathanach were still defined by Irish chroniclers in terms of their Scottish credentials. In the Irish account of events in , the title given to Eoin was ‘Mac Domnall of Insí Gall and lord of many other parts of the great lands of Scotland’ (‘Mac Domhnuill Inse Gall, agus tíortha iomadamhla oile de mhóirthír Alban’). Thus, even members of Clann Eoin Mhóir who spent most of their lives in Ulster were seen as ‘of Scotland’ by the Irish of Ulster; this perception was to persist in the following century. For Clann Eoin Mhóir, the legacy of the fifteenth century was a remarkable marine mobility; this led to an almost equal division of its territory and focus between Ulster and the Isles. This facility frequently made the kindred an attractive ally to the English crown; and, contrary to what might be expected, this pan-insular character was reinforced, rather than diminished, in the years immediately following the forfeiture of the greater Clann Domnaill lordship. In spite of the apparently terminal events of , the careers of significant Clann Domnaill leaders in the early sixteenth century perpetuated the crosschannel tradition of their forebears. Alasdair, son of Eoin Cathanach, escaped arrest in as he was in Antrim; and it was he who led the kindred in the aftermath of the executions in Edinburgh. A seventeenth-century Ulster genealogy describes him as ‘the last to be called the Mac Domnaill’. He was neighbouring kindreds of Clann Domnaill. Domnall of Arran described as a Scottish leader (Cenn-fedhna Albannach ) had been killed on campaign with Ó Domnaill at Sligo in late summer . T. Ó Donnchadha (ed.), Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe (Dublin, ), ; also Carew MSS., f. . Cited in B. Ó Cuiv, ‘Some items relating to the MacDonnells of Antrim’ in Celtica, (), –: –. Ó Cuiv, ‘Some items’, –.
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known to Ulster annalists as Alasdair ‘son of the Mac Domnaill of Scotland’, his immediate Scottish association distinguishing him from Mac Domnaill gallóglaigh of the Uí Néill and other mercenary families. In Scotland, he was referred to as ‘Alexander John Canachissone’, later Lord of Dunivaig and the Glynns; he was defined there by his membership of Clann Eoin Mhóir. Historians have frequently assumed that Alasdair was the first leader of Clann Eoin Mhóir to live in Antrim permanently. This overlooks the fact that his very survival was due to the fact that he was not the first of Clann Eoin Mhóir to base himself in Ulster. Rather, he had grown up in an established Mac Domnaill settlement in Antrim. Although he was born and raised in Ulster, the first references to the adult Alasdair are Scottish ones. In he is mentioned as an apparently quiescent ‘familiar and servant’ to the earl of Argyll. The Campbells, of whom Argyll was leader, were as already mentioned the chief beneficiaries of the forfeiture of the Isles and it was against them that most later Clann Domnaill activity was directed. However, on coming of age Alasdair first engaged in the settling of a more immediately personal score. In alliance with Domnall Gallda of the Lochalsh Mac Domnaill family, Alasdair defeated and killed MacIan of Ardnamurchan, the traitor of Finlaggan, at the battle of Creagain Airgid in . Domnall Gallda had led sporadic uprisings in the Isles after and Alasdair clearly saw him as an ally rather than a rival. This is borne out by the testimony of one source that suggests that Alasdair and Domnall determined to divide the Isles between them; Alasdair was to have dominion south of the point of Ardnamurchan. The death of Domnall Gallda, shortly after the pact had been made, prevented it from having any lasting significance; however, the agreement is indicative of the pragmatic approach of the inheritors of the Clann Eoin Mhóir legacy. As in the s, the aim was to maintain a lordship based around the kindred’s patrimony in Kintyre and the southern Hebrides. The beginnings of the inevitable conflict with the Campbells can be dated to . The situation was further confused in when James V, in the first RSS, ii, . MacKenzie argued that ‘it was not until about that Clan Donald began to form permanent settlements in Antrim.’ W.C. MacKenzie, The highland and islands of Scotland: a historical survey (Edinburgh, ), . More recently, Ohlmeyer has stated that ‘Alexander, fifth of Dunyveg, was the first to reside permanently in County Antrim and from this point onwards the family began to extend its influence . . . to include the lands to the north-west . . .’. J.H. Ohlmeyer, Civil war and Restoration in the three Stuart kingdoms (Cambridge, ), . MacDonald of Sleat implies that he fled from Islay to Ulster at the time of the arrest of his father. This is followed by an account of how, having defeated a MacIan party in Antrim, Alasdair took Dunivaig castle from MacIan by storm; certainly there was violence prior to the royal confirmation of patrimonial lands on Islay and Kintyre to Alasdair and this may have been part of it. Mac of S, –. RSS, i, . ALI, , n., Clanranald, . Ardnamurchan had been used as a point of division on precious occasions. See, R.A. MacDonald, The kingdom of the Isles (East Linton, ), ; J. MacInnes, ‘West Highland sea power in the middle ages’ in Proceedings of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, (), –: .
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decisive act of his adult reign, declared void all grants of land in western Scotland made during the regency. In the ensuing period Alasdair launched further attacks on Campbell territory. The death of the third earl of Argyll in coincided with royal attempts to arbitrate; and it proved highly convenient for Alasdair when the new Campbell leader failed to appear before the king and council to present his version of events in the west. As a result, in Alasdair held the floor and won the favour of the crown; in a veritable paean of loyalty to James, Alasdair offered to serve in hostings into England or any parts of ‘the mainland of this realm’. In so doing he avoided any reference to Ulster. Fleetingly therefore, Clann Domnaill, under Alasdair, received the Scots king’s blessing and the Campbells fell from favour. In passing, the importance of the summons sent to Alasdair in is noteworthy, as it lists the leaders of the families which were involved with him in his west coast revival. The leaders of the principal branches of Clann Domnaill are named along with the heads of major client kindreds from the former lordship; altogether the names amount to a list of members of a revived Council of the Isles, which is surely what they constituted. Alasdair’s power in the Isles, like that of the Clann Domnaill lords before him, rested on the support of these kindreds. Alasdair remained engaged on both sides of the North Irish Sea. In for example, just prior to his offensive on Campbell, he is listed in an Uí Néill host which raided the Uí Dhomnaill. Ten years later, in the wake of his success at the Scots Court, Alasdair is again recorded on campaign in Ireland, this time in alliance with Ó Domnaill in Connacht. A general westward expansion out of the base in the Glynns continued, regularly bringing Clann Domnaill South into conflict with neighbouring families. In , the year of Alasdair’s death, his son Gilla-esbuig Daeíneachair (the manly) was killed by an Uí Néill raiding party in retaliation for depredations carried out in Triain Conghail. Alasdair’s obit in the Annals of Ulster tersely reveals how he was seen by the Ulster Irish: ‘The MacDomnaill of Scotland went to death (namely, Alastair, son of Eoin Cathanach).’ In the records of Gaelic Ireland Clann Domnaill South remained at once familiar and strange. Distant, ‘of Scotland’ not Ulster, but located in a well-known genealogical world, Alastair son of a man fostered A remission was granted to Campbell for his raids on Colonsay in , Book of the thanes of Cawdor, . The instability in the region in the early s was exacerbated by the feud between the MacLeans of Duart and Campbells of Cawdor, A. and A. Mac Donald, The Clan Donald (Inverness, ), i, . Printed in A. and A. MacDonald, The Clan Donald, i, . RSS, ii, , and . T. Thomson and C. Innes (eds.), Acta Parliamentorum Scotorum (Edinburgh, –), ii, –. AU, iii, []. AU, iii, [] and AFM, v, []. AU, iii, []. Triain Conghail is the country to the south of the Glynns containing Belfast. ‘MacDomnaill na hAlban, a dhul d’heg (idon, Alastrann, mac Aeon Cathanaidh).’ AU, iii, []. The parenthetic detail is in a paler ink apparently by a later scribe.
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with the Uí Catháin and with a mother from among the Savages. As by the governments with which they had to deal, so with their Gaelic neighbours, Clann Domnaill South found itself half comprehended. After the death of Alasdair, the tentative unity that he had created for the Clann Domnaill affinity in the Southern Isles disintegrated: Alasdair’s son James was educated at the Scottish court and could not provide leadership. Sporadic unrest amongst the people Bishop Lesley referred to as the ‘Irichemen’ of the Isles was easily suppressed by the crown. Typical was the expedition of on which James V along with the bishop of Orkney, Robert Maxwell (who had sailed to meet him) received submissions from a range of MacDomnaill leaders. It was not until the s and the release of Domnall Dubh, grandson of the last lord of the Isles, that Clann Domnaill received a strong leader. Domnall was held captive by the earl of Argyll, from birth until being dramatically freed in . This ‘fenian exploit’ resulted, upon Domnall’s re-capture, in his being transferred to the more secure confinement of Edinburgh castle in . There he remained until his release in aged over . The reasons for the release of Domnall Dubh are not clear, coming as it did in the somewhat confused aftermath of James V’s death, but it transformed the Isles. In June the Clanranald MacDomnaill, under John Moydartach, defeated the Frasers of Lovat at the battle of Blair-nan-Leine near Loch Lochy. John who led the Clanranald was a close ally of Domnall Dubh. Loyalty among the former client kindreds to the new Clann Domnaill leader was widespread; even after a charm offensive by Argyll, families such as the MacLeod rose out in support of Domnall Dubh. This was enhanced by the decision of the regent to release the highland leaders who had been in custody since James V’s expedition. In such circumstances, it could not be long before the conflict by proxy ceased, and the resumption of direct MacDomnaill-Campbell war began. In May an ‘assurance’ between the two men had ended and, according to one source, ‘it was openly bruited in Edinburgh, that the earl of the Isles would take plain part with the earl of Lennox against all Scottishmen his enemies . . .’. Lennox was a member of the pro-English faction amongst the Scottish magnates and was at loggerheads Lesley, History, ‘Irichemen’ comment, ; expedition, . Domnall Dubh, by Angus Óg, out of Isabella daughter of Colin, second earl of Argyll. Clanranald, , ‘le nimertas féine’. MacDougall, James IV, –. This is Domnall’s age, assuming he was born shortly after the death of his father Angus Óg in . Clanranald, . ALI, . It is particularly remarkable in the case of Torquil MacLeod, who joined in Domnall’s abortive rising of ; MacLeod had received confirmation of his lands and the Bailliary of Trotternish from Campbell, as well as being married to Argyll’s sister. RMS ii, , . ADC, iii, , –, –. Angus Óg and Domnall Dubh are numbered and in the genealogical tables. A. Clifford (ed.), Sadler’s State Papers (Edinburgh, ), i, , . The use of the title ‘earl’ to describe him is also indicative of how Domnall was perceived.
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with a pro-French one, which included Argyll. Association with him thus placed Domnall Dubh firmly in the tradition of his fifteenth-century antecedents in two very important respects – opposition to the Campbells and communion with the English crown. As before, Clann Domnaill was to assist in making Scotland’s difficulty England’s opportunity. This impression was undoubtedly reinforced by reports of Domnall Dubh, as far afield as Antwerp, describing him as ‘a new king in Scotland out of the Scottyshe Irysshe.’ In early June a letter from the English privy council to the lord deputy and council in Ireland outlined a plan of co-operation with Domnall Dubh. A few days later a letter addressed to ‘the Lord of the Isles in Scotland’ from the privy council stated that ‘upon the good reporte declared by my Lorde of Levenowx’ ducats had been dispatched, to be paid to Domnall by Lennox when a treaty was agreed. A yearly pension of ducats was to follow thereafter. In July Domnall Dubh summoned the Council of the Isles, a summons answered by the heads of all the major Clann Domnaill collateral branches and client kindreds. The Council authorised Roderick MacAlister ‘Bishoppe elect of thisles of Scotland and brother of the Lord Maclane’, to negotiate with the English. Subsequent talks bore fruit. On August Domnall Dubh was in Carrickfergus, from where he wrote to Henry VIII expressing his willingness to accept the terms of the proffered English pension. Domnall styled ‘of the Isles and Erll of Ross’, with his ‘Baronis and weill awisit Counsell’, duly appeared in the Grey Friars’ chapter at Carrickfergus. He swore to become the Henry’s true subject, hold his restored lands in the Isles of the English king, and obey his will as communicated by the earl of Lennox. Domnall undertook to provide fighting men for Henry’s campaign in Scotland. The stuff of the treaty was pressed from the same three-cornered mould as the Westminster–Ardtornish agreement of . Scottish, Irish and English polities were negotiated, just as they had been in the previous century. Henry VIII, like Edward IV, had a moment of insight into the possible utility of Clann Domnaill and its pan-insular dominions; Domnall Dubh pursued the same policy of pragmatic and potentially profitable co-operation with the English, as had his predecessors. The grand title, adopted by Domnall on this J. Wormald, Court, kirk and community (Edinburgh, ), . L & P, xix, no. ; R.H. Brodie, ‘Countess of Murray’s Letter, ’ in SHR, (), –. J.R. Dasent (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, new series (London, ), i, . The named councillors were MacLean of Duart, John of Clanranald, MacLeod of Lewis, MacLeod of Dunvegan, Maclean of Lochbuie, Angus of Clann Eoin Mhóir (son of Alasdair), MacLean of Turlosk, Archibald of Clan Hustoun, MacIan of Ardnamurchan, MacLean of Coll, MacNeill of Barra, MacKinnon of Straqordill, MacQuarrie of Ulva, MacLean of Ardgour, MacDomnaill of Glengary, Rannaldson of Knoydart and MacLean of Kingairloch. Cal. S.P. Dom., v, . Ibid. Ibid., –. Amongst the witnesses was John Carswell later the first Protestant bishop of the Isles. A. and A. MacDonald, The Clan Donald, .
Delusions of Dál Riada
occasion, conjured up images of the MacDomnaill power of the mid-fifteenth century; the title to the earldom of Ross had been forfeited in . However, in contrast to this grandiose atavism, the letter from the English Privy Council to its Irish counterpart puts Domnall’s role in perspective: ‘The Lord of the Isles will serve the King and annoy Argyll. He is to have a pension.’ Initially operations went smoothly. By August, according to one Patrick Clonevyll sent by Henry ‘to allure the said Scots’, Islesmen were at Carrickfergus and another were preparing for campaign on the mainland of Scotland. Shortly afterwards, MacAlister wrote to the privy council confirming the service of the in expediting ‘thannoyaunce of the . . . Erll of Argiles contrey’. Further reports from Ardnamurchan and Inverlochy described continuing attacks on Argyll and Huntly. In response, Henry VIII wrote a laudatory missive to Domnall in which he addressed him as ‘our right trusty and welbiloved Cousyn, thErle of Rosse, and of thIsles of Scotland.’ Success did not last however, and in late autumn, with the primary target of Dumbarton castle still not captured, the force of Islesmen began to disintegrate. The MacMhuirich authors of the Books of Clanranald claim that a disagreement over the division of money was the chief cause of the breakdown in relations. Subsequently, Domnall travelled to Ireland once more, intent on raising a new force for the campaign; but these plans came to nothing when Domnall died at Drogheda en route to Dublin. Even in death Domnall Dubh was in a tradition of MacDomnaill activity in Ireland: not far from Drogheda is Fochart where two MacDomnaill leaders had died fighting in Edward Bruce’s army in . So quite suddenly the career of the last leader of Clann Domnaill proper came to an end. With Domnall Dubh’s death the headship of the Clann Domnaill affinity passed to Clann Domnaill South, who as Clann Eoin Mhóir had so often possessed it in reality already. The Treaty, with its echoes of the s, illustrated how the politics of Clann Domnaill in the sixteenth century had come to be permanently oriented to co-ordinates in both Ulster and the Isles. That external observers in the English and Scottish governments perceived this as a new phenomenon is, as this survey is intended to show, a testimony to their institutional amnesia rather than to the actual novelty of the situation. Yet, in spite of the lofty intitulations of the agreement, the role of Clann Domnaill in it was always a pale imitation of their former position; the universality of the Clann Domnaill motto ‘By Sea and Land’ was gone, replaced by the subordinate ‘Serve the King and annoy Argyll’. This mirrored the general decline of Clann Domnaill. In the Isles the various segments of the greater kindred remained hopelessly divided and were steadily dispossessed of Cal. S.P. Ire.,–,–. L&P,xx(),–. Cal. S. P. Dom,v,–. Ibid., , dated September. Clanranald, . Ibid.
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lands and title. The MacMhuirich remembrancer is nothing if not candid: ‘I know of none of the descendants of Eoin Mór, who have a title, except the Earl of Antrim and the Laird of Largie in Kintyre; nor of the descendants of Ranald Bán, son of Eoin Mór; nor of the descendants of Angus of Islay, son of Eoin Cathanach.’ Like the frame of reference of their poets, the political aspirations of Clann Domnaill lords took some time to catch up with this reality. Whilst its destiny was manifestly in Ulster, Clann Domnaill South continued to entertain delusions of Dál Riada for generations after the s. Even in the seventeenth century Clann Domnaill South was wrestling with its obsession with lands in Kintyre. Having persuaded James Campbell, Lord Kintyre, to sell out in , the Antrim Mac Domnaill seemed on the verge of reclaiming the ancestral lands when Archibald Campbell, Lord Lorne, blocked and then had rescinded the sale at the Scottish Court. The belief that Clann Domnaill South lordship ought rightfully to incorporate lands on both sides of the North Channel had been engendered in the fifteenth century, and nurtured in the sixteenth; delusory it may have become in the course of the s, but it was to remain part of the Antrim Mac Domnaill character for generations. Long before the era of the Ulster plantations, Clann Eoin Mhóir had built what was to remain an enduring connection between Antrim and Scotland. Disingenuous though the association is, it is hard not to hope that as the notion of a Council of the Isles returns to vogue, the family which invented the term should also enjoy renewed attention.
Clanranald, . A. MacInnes, ‘Gaelic culture in the seventeenth century: polarization and assimilation’ in S.G. Ellis and S. Barber (eds.), Conquest and union (London, ), –: –.
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla in the Late Sixteenth Century
PAT R I C K J. D U F F Y
The main source for understanding the territorial structure of Gaelic Ireland in the later medieval period is the legacy of English versions of it which were constructed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. These records are the consequence of a meeting of two societies with different, though not mutually unfamiliar, perceptions of priorities in owning and working the land. The emerging modern state placed emphasis on measurement of acres, spaces and boundaries, expressed in surveys, inventories and maps of property and land values. The Gaelic world had a different sense of landscape and its economic and social significance. There was, however, a shape and spatial order to the Gaelic landscape, which in spite of cultural and tenurial differences was real and discoverable to the colonial authorities. That the ‘past is a foreign country’ with different social practices may be due more to the way we see Gaelic Ireland through the language of our time or the language of Tudor administrators than anything else: we can be ensnared by words making it possible to misread past landscapes. Smyth has spoken of the dangers of ‘projecting modern evaluations of land-use uncritically backwards in time’. Concepts of ‘ownership’, ‘tenant’, ‘freeholder’, ‘estate’ are all fundamental features of the spatial organisation of landscape for us today, where boundaries around pieces of property have clear social and legal significance. Thus terminology can lead us unconsciously to make unwarranted assumptions about landscape realities in the pre-modern state. It is important, however, to appreciate that different cultural experiences and modes of production have a variety of spatial expressions or spatialities, and to apply this awareness to our understanding of Gaelic organisation of space. Dodgshon has argued for the need to see landscapes and spatial order ‘as See B. Cunningham and R. Gillespie, ‘Englishmen in sixteenth-century Irish annals’ in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., (), –. A.P. Smyth, Celtic Leinster: towards an historical geography of early Irish civilisation AD – (Dublin, ), .
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developing within an ideological context that provided ideas on how society should be organised within itself and how it should relate to its resource base’. So for instance, feudal relations were mapped into the landscape, which was ‘part of the way the king both controlled and exploited his realm’. Spatiality can thus be conceptualised as being socially produced and layered with meanings which vary across time and cultures. The problem is to understand the nature of the production of space and landscape in Gaelic Ireland. This said, however, initial attempts to reconstruct the configuration of Gaelic landscapes are less prone to misinterpretation when using empiricallygrounded descriptive data than when using more conceptually ambiguous narrative accounts such as Gaelic annals or poetry. Although concentrating on empirical space, or space as simply territorial containers of things, is only part of reality, landscapes as topographical facts are less prone to ambiguity or misreading than landscapes as imaginary constructs. Acknowledging the existence, therefore, of some obstacles to understanding, and the incompleteness of this approach to the past, the following essay will examine the evidence of a number of topographical sources to see how space was organised in the south Ulster territory of Airghialla in the late sixteenth century.
T H E L A N D S C A P E S O F M AC M A H O N ’ S L O R D S H I P
By the sixteenth century the Gaelic lordship of Airghialla was largely under the control of the MacMahons. Apart from the northern district of Truagh which was held by MacKennas (subservient to MacMahon in the sixteenth century), all the other sub-territories in the lordship were dominated by branches of the MacMahons. When MacMahon’s country was shired as Monaghan in , these territories were established as the baronies of Trough, Monaghan, Dartrey, Cremourne and Farney. As part of a policy to settle internal disputes in the county and to introduce the lineaments of English local administration, the government in Dublin undertook a survey and division of the lands in the county in . This inquisition recorded the names of all landholders in the county and the territorial disposition of their lands. A similar survey was undertaken in after the nine years war to reestablish the earlier settlement. R.A. Dodgshon, ‘The changing evaluation of space –’ in R.A. Dodgshon and R.A. Butlin (eds.), An historical geography of England and Wales (nd edition, London, ), –: , . B. Cunningham, ‘Native culture and political change in Ireland –’ in C. Brady and R. Gillespie (eds.), Natives and newcomers: essays on the making of Irish colonial society – (Dublin, ), –. The survey of Co. Monaghan is printed in Inquisitions of Ulster, vol II, xxi-xxxi. The division of Monaghan: Cal. S.P. Ire., – (London, ), –.
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
What kind of physical landscape was represented in this south Ulster county? With counties Down, Armagh and Cavan, Monaghan contains the most characteristic drumlin landscapes in Ireland. These are distinctive countrysides of oval-shaped hills, interspersed with small lakes strung out along streams and rivulets which wind among the hills. The north-western boundary of Monaghan runs through the only true mountainous upland in the county – Sliabh Beagh – which reaches up to metres (Fig. ). Another upland ridge extends east–west across the centre of the county from midArmagh. A third fairly extensive upland of – metres in the southern half of the county continues into east Cavan. These uplands separate three east–west trending lowland districts – in the north a limestone-based corridor extending from north Armagh south-westwards to Clones and the Erne lakelands in Fermanagh; in mid-county, extending into east Cavan, and an extension of the plain of Louth into Farney barony in the south of the county. With the exception of Slieve Beagh, all of the area is covered in drumlins, so extensive as to have given the Gaelic word to the scientific study of these glacially-deposited hills: the many townland names with the prefix drum reflect the significance of these hills. The almost ubiquitous cover of drumlins smooths over the differences in structural elevation and gives the landscape an appearance of uniformity. The drumlin topography, however, varies through the county reflecting the underlying structural geology. Thus, for example, in the northern and southernmost lowland districts, the drumlins are small, symmetrical in shape and are composed entirely of glacial drift. In contrast, the upland areas contain more widely spaced ‘drumlinoid’ hills, which often comprise a rock core on which the glacial drift has been deposited. Sixteenth-century Airghialla did not exhibit the environmental extremes of Donegal or Tyrone, with their mountain fastnesses and rich river basins. In the south Ulster and Monaghan areas, there is a narrow but locally significant range in ecological potential which is important in trying to understand some of the rationale behind the Gaelic organisation of landscape resources. Of some value in understanding the territorial order in the landscape is the variety of Gaelic names for the innumerable hills: apart from ‘drum’, there is a range of names which represent subtle environmental varieties in the region’s topography - cor, tulach, cnoc, cabhán, lurga, ard, éadán, mullach, tón, gréach. Many other names too are measures of ecological variety and land potential, such as cluain, eanach, srath, and achadh. Each of them presumably have different chronological horizons and their precise meanings may continue to elude us today. Soil quality is a consequence of the nature of the glacial drift, the underlying rock, slope gradients and drainage, as well as agricultural changes in the past four centuries. The best and most well drained soils are to be found in the limestone lowlands in the north and extreme south. Impeded drainage which
FIG.
Patrick J. Duffy
: Relief map of Co. Monaghan.
is characteristic of drumlin landscapes, is more pronounced in the lowlands and has caused the formation of alluvial flats, marshes and lakes. These kinds of landscape were much more extensive in the pre-plantation centuries: drainage is one of the principal consequences of agricultural husbandry in the intervening period. As evidenced in surveys of Farney in and , it was unlikely that there were extensive forests or woodlands in sixteenth-century Monaghan. In William Smith’s survey of , ‘the woods are all underwoods
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
and there is no timber trees in all the barony’; Raven’s maps of list small clumps of ‘shrubby woods’, all of which give the lie to folkloric images of various lord deputies hacking their way through dense woodlands in south Monaghan. Smith’s survey gives a general profile of the sort of landscape resources which characterised Gaelic south Ulster: There is in Clancarvill [a district in the northwest of Farney] tates of the mountain land containing acres. And in Farney there is tates containing acres the which mountain land in both the places maketh . There is of the better sort of land in Clancarvill tates . . . [ acres] and . . . in Farney there is tates [ acres] . . . there is acres of wood and acres of Bog well dispersed in the country and all good turbaries. There is great Loghs . . . [and] many other small loghs . . . Twenty years later Raven’s survey provides a typical inventory of this same south Monaghan landscape in tabulated references to townland maps, as the following examples show:
A. B. C. D. E.
Monanny Parcel of arable adjacent the bog Small hills of shrubby wood Parcel of meadow with a hill called Knocknowtha Parcel of bog lying adjacent Coolderry An island within it with some shrubby wood
A. B. C. D. E.
Arable and good pasture Shrubby wood Bog Meadow Small meadow
acres
Killabrick Longfield Etra A. Arable B. Shrubby wood
‘A booke of survey of ffarney and Clancarvile in the kingdom of Ireland . . . Wm Smith. ’, Longleat Library, Irish Papers, Box , Bundle , hereafter ‘Smith’s Survey of Farney’. Thomas Ravens’s survey of Farney , Longleat Irish papers. ‘Smith’s survey of Farney ’.
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C. Shrubs, wood, pasture D. Arable by river with meadow E. Meadow by the river
A. B. C. D. E
Longfield Otra Arable shrubs wood pasture within the arable parcel of arable Shrub wood pasture by the river and bog Lower pasture bog Lower pasture by the brook
G A E L I C T E R R I T O R I A L I S AT I O N
The rich legacy of place-names, and the complex and bloody interlordship struggles over lands and territory in the sixteenth century, are confirmation of the social importance of controlling space and the primacy of land in Gaelic Ireland: territorial divisions and the intricate naming of the landscape are manifestations of this. The Tudor surveyors set out to recover this intricate geography from the oral tradition and local memory. Maps and surveys by inquisition were the tools of the colonisers who came from Britain in increasing numbers in the sixteenth century. Gaelic Ireland had a highly spatialised landscape system with a territorial hierarchy from smallest landholding divisions (in Airghialla called tates), through intermediate septlands called ballybetaghs, through ecclesiastical parishes, to baronies. The eclipse of Gaelic political and social order in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century resulted in the loss of much of this structural diversity. The modern townland is a legacy of the pre-plantation, late medieval and possibly the early medieval period (Fig. ). The continuity in these townland spaces and boundaries has been disputed, however. Geographers, in particular, have based their studies of the landscape and its evolution on the comparative endurance of such a fundamental topographical process as territorialisation, or the process of territorial organisation of landscape resources. To what extent are we justified in using the complex network of modern townlands and other units to reconstruct landscapes of half a millennium and more ago? Some historians consider that geographers have been too ready to assume continuity in townlands, parishes and baronies over the centuries, ignoring the ‘environ See T. McErlean, ‘The Irish townland system of landscape organisation’ in T. Reeves-Smyth and F. Hammond (eds.), Landscape archaeology of Ireland (Oxford, ), –; K. Nicholls, ‘Gaelic society and economy in the high middle ages’ in A. Cosgrove (ed.), A new history of Ireland, ii: medieval Ireland, – (Oxford, ), –: .
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
FIG.
: Townlands in parishes.
mental changes’ which resulted from new settlers occupying the countryside. However, it seems to be a universal fact about landscape morphology that once boundaries with important societal significance (such as political or landholding or other property associations) are established they endure, and subsequent changes in the landscape and its inhabitants tend to take place within this See, for example, N. Canny reviewing W.J. Smyth and K. Whelan (eds.), Common ground: essays on the historical geography of Ireland in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., (), .
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established framework. Indeed a comparatively stable territorial template is necessary to facilitate the transfer of land and the transformation of the environment which comes with economic development. The Gaelic units like the tates in Monaghan became the ultimate landholding device in the new world of leases. While some local adjustments were made to larger territorial units by plantation administrators in the early seventeenth century, in all cases these consisted of aggregates of the small local units which today are called townlands. In general, as discussed below, the social, fiscal or ecclesiastical significance of territories like baronies and parishes was such that their traditional or customary limits were well-known locally and continued through the generations before the English cartographers and surveyors set them down on maps. Traditionally Gaelic Ireland has been perceived as containing a highly mobile and fluctuating population, a perception corroborated by reports of sixteenth-century colonial authorities, by the contemporary tendency of lords to move large cattle herds about the country, the appearance of wandering creaghts in the sixteenth century and the tendency for tenants and labourers to abandon oppressive and wartorn lordships. Contemporary maps also tend to provide pictorial representations of fairly transient-looking houses (see Andrews and Horning, this volume). These characteristics have been perceived as being incompatible with an assertion of fixed territories and wellbounded spaces. Therefore when we come to look at the spatial organisation of a sixteenth-century Gaelic lordship, it is important to establish the bona fides of the modern townland network as a source of understanding. Monaghan county is a particularly useful case study. It has a detailed record of territorial denominations in the early modern period. The and divisions of the county contain the names of up to a thousand tates. There is also an extensive record of territorial structure for the first forty years of the seventeenth century in the Essex estate which included most of the barony of Farney. This information can be translated to the modern townland map to help study the morphology of the townlands to see what evidence it provides on the logic of Gaelic spatiality. Raven’s mapping survey of Farney is a comprehensive atlas of the smallest territorial divisions and provides a benchmark to demonstrate the continuity between the modern townland net and the pre-plantation regime of tates for a substantial segment of the county. Raven’s survey was undertaken following a period during which there had been little success in planting the Essex estate. Apart from a small settlement in Carrickmacross, there was little evidence of settlers in the countryside. The territory had continued See note below. See R. Gillespie, Colonial Ulster: the settlement of east Ulster – (Cork, ), –. P. J. Duffy, ‘Farney in : an examination of Thomas Raven’s survey of the Essex estate’ in Clogher Record, / (), –.
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
effectively in the hands of the MacMahons as chief tenants. It is unlikely that there was any modification of the territorial structure of the landscape in the first third of the seventeenth century, so that the survey undertaken by Raven records the landscape as it had been for generations under Gaelic control. Raven mapped the tates in groups of two to six or seven. In some cases hills are shown pictorially, as well as streams, fords, wells, cabins, houses, mills and other buildings. As mentioned above, the maps are also accompanied by a reference list of land-use in each tate. But the interesting aspect of the survey is the detail given on the shape and boundaries of the tates. Though Raven’s maps have a variety of north points, they can be compared with the modern Ordnance Survey maps when the latter are rotated to make them more easily comparable (Figs and ). This exercise was undertaken for a sample of twenty tates. All except nine of the tates in Raven’s maps can be identified in the modern townland maps. Examining the configuration of each tate as mapped by Raven, it is evident that even making allowance for deficiencies in surveying techniques, there is a notable correspondence with the modern townlands. In the cases of the dozen places selected in Figs and , there is a clear correspondence between tates and townlands. There have been some local modifications to many of the boundaries in the past three hundred years. Boundaries occasionally may have been adjusted by local agreement in modern times to accommodate permanent new features such as roads; local streams may have been straightened or widened as part of improvement schemes and here too boundaries would have been adjusted in modern times. Name changes, however, are more common than boundary changes, leading to an impression of much more widescale discontinuity between pre- and post-plantation landscapes. Raven’s tate maps show that in approximately fifty cases, tates corresponding with modern townland areas were differently named in . In a few cases in Monaghan county, a single named unit today is referred to as two tates in or – reflecting a coalescence of units from earlier times. In the modern map, for example, ‘Cloghoge and Tievadinna’ is represented by one townland. Occasionally, the various sources between and refer to tates by name, with ‘alias’ appended, reflecting the possible impact of changing ownership in earlier generations. In terms of size and shape and overall geography, the townlands of Monaghan are essentially the same as the tates which were owned and farmed by the MacMahons and their contemporaries in the rural landscapes of the sixteenth century. Consequently we can assume a high level of continuity between the modern townland net and the pre-plantation regime of tates listed for for Monaghan county. And because the tate spatial order is embedded in a hierarchy of territorial divisions such as ballybetaghs and parishes, the morphology of townlands should provide useful clues about the organisation of Gaelic landscape resources.
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: Tates in (Raven’s Survey), Donaghmoyne parish (by permission of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House), and modern townlands (Ordnance Survey).
FIG.
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
FIG. : Tates in (Raven’s Survey), Magheracloone parish (by permission of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat House), and modern townlands (Ordnance Survey).
Patrick J. Duffy A T O P O G R A P H I C A L G E O M E T RY O F T O W N L A N D S
Even a casual glance at the map of townlands shows a clear environmental logic in the shape and disposition of townland units. The hilly topography and ecological capacity of the land undoubtedly influenced the spatial network, with each unit encompassing one or two drumlins. Referring to Figs and , one can see that the summits of the drumlins or drumlinoid hills normally form the central core of each townland unit. In Fig. , townlands of almost equal size nestle into each other, mirroring a landscape which has been described as a ‘basket-of-eggs-topography’. In the south Monaghan extract (Fig. ) larger areas are elongated in a north-west/south-easterly direction reflecting the orientation of the drumlin topography. In all cases the townlands encompass one or two hilltops. These hilltops are the sites for some of the hundreds of raths or ringforts which dot this south Ulster countryside and would have comprised the effective grazing land in the townland. There is obviously a relationship between the location of these early medieval settlements and the landholding structure, which is manifested in the townland geography. In any process of land division, it would be logical to locate the boundaries to run through the less accessible or useable wetlands between the hills, especially if there was a stream running through them to provide a natural marker. In most cases the townland boundaries follow the course of these small streams which wind in and out around the hills. The lakes which are numerous in many parts of the county also invariably fall on boundaries. Historically, this relationship is evident in the maps of Thomas Raven where more extensive bog lands are all located on or along the tate boundaries, in some cases with fords or passages marked on the maps, and with what Raven called the ‘arable’ lands forming the cores. The later Down Survey described this landscape as it appeared in the Fews of south Armagh as consisting of ‘curraghs’ [marsh or moor] enclosing ‘the small hills wherein the natives live’. The very strong environmental relationship between townlands, hills and intervening wetland boundaries is very evident therefore. This local geometry of townlands also mirrors the range in ecological potential at the larger county or regional level, reflecting the further operation of an environmental logic in territorial order in the former lordship of Airghialla. It was this subtle landscape logic which undid many plantation schemes in sixteenth-century Ireland where surveyors and plantation administrators tried to assign a standard acreage to the small Irish units. But even in Monaghan where there are no Quoted in W.J. Smyth, ‘Society and settlement in seventeenth century Ireland: the evidence of the ‘ census’ in W.J. Smyth and K. Whelan (eds.), Common ground: essays on the historical geography of Ireland (Cork, ), –: . J.H. Andrews, Plantation acres: an historical study of the Irish land surveyor and his maps (Omagh, ), , , ; P. Robinson, The plantation
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
FIG.
: Townland topography, with hilltops shaded, west Monaghan.
great extremes in land quality, there is a clear significance in the smaller units in the better-endowed northern lowlands and the larger units in the central hills reflecting variations in sensitivities to land values within the former lordship territory. Thus for instance, the average townland size in Tehallen and Donagh parishes (Fig. ) in the northern lowlands is and acres, while the average in the central upland parishes of Aghnamullen and Muckno is and acres respectively. Lordships in Gaelic Ireland, however, were separate and largely independent entities and there is little point in extending this environmental correlation to larger regions. The ‘localisation and fragmentation of authority’ means that ‘models of rural settlement may well be regionally specific’ in Gaelic areas in the medieval period. of Ulster (Dublin, ), –. See also map of townlands in Co. Armagh in F.H.A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish rural landscape (Cork, ), . T. Barry, ‘Late medieval Ireland: the debate on social and economic transformation, –’ in B.J.
Patrick J. Duffy
The fact that Monaghan and Fermanagh have the smallest average sizes of townlands in Ireland is not as important as the fact that the townlands in the poorer uplands of Monaghan county are bigger than those in the better-off lowlands. In addition one must take account of possible varying tendencies to fragmentation of tates in different sub-territories within the lordship through the Gaelic period. Thus there are more half tates in Trough barony - (‘Dirrery two half tates’, ‘Gortmony half tate’ etc.). The average townland size throughout the county, therefore, is a combination of ecological contrasts in the landscape as well as variable rates of fragmentation in the period before the time of recording. The spatial organisation of the landscape of each lordship was largely integral to the social and demographic imperatives of that territory and independent of broader regional patterns. McErlean also makes the point that the size of Gaelic units often reflected the size of the lordship, much as the size of fields today often reduces with the size of farm.
T H E G E O G R A P H Y O F B A L LY B E TAG H S
The ballybetaghs are the lost territorial units of Gaelic landholding in Airghialla which are critical elements in the way the MacMahons organised their land resources. Within a generation of the Gaelic landowners losing their lands through plantation, sale or mortgage, the ballybetagh became obsolete as a spatial entity. Only the smaller tate continued, a process which was common throughout Gaelic Ireland where plantation planners or purchasers of land adopted the unit which was most appropriate for consolidation into estates. Island-wide, the leaseholding units were selected at the lower end of the spatial hierarchy, referred to locally as quarters, ballyboes or tates. Most of the plantation schemes allotted land estates according to the putative potential of ‘undertakers’ to invest in their proportions, and the lower levels in the Gaelic territorial system allowed greatest manoeuvrability to make up such estates. In Monaghan and elsewhere, the ballybetagh was too large and unwieldy to allow flexibility to construct individual estates. Apart from programmes of deliberate plantation, however, it was market forces which were more important in shaping the emerging landownership structures. In the early seventeenth century, individual freeholders, formerly cemented into kin-groups with collective ownership of the ballybetagh septlands, hived off and sold their tate portions. Although the ballybetagh structure lost its territorial integrity, analysis of the ultimate estates geography which emerged in the Graham and L.J. Proudfoot (eds.), An historical geography of Ireland (London, ), . See also, M. O’Dowd, Power, politics and land: early modern Sligo – (Belfast, ), . McErlean, ‘Townland sytem’, . See W.H. Crawford, ‘The significance of landed estates in Ulster, –’ in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., (), –: –.
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
nineteenth century still manages to show residual reflections of the older Gaelic septlands. The and divisions describe the ballybetagh geography in considerable detail: the sixteen-tate ballybetagh was the norm, with a small number of units comprising four, eight or twelve tates. In Trough barony (held by MacKennas), there was evidence of considerable numbers of half tates within ballybetaghs in . By , when the Gaelic landholding system was under severe pressure, the ballybetagh structure was very fragmented, as evidenced in the Book of Survey and Distribution (BSD). Fig. shows the distribution of c. of these septland estates in the late sixteenth century. An earlier record for refers to the lordship containing ballybetaghs. The ballybetagh–tate structure was a consequence of the manner in which the land resources were disposed in Gaelic Airghialla in the pre-plantation period. In a system which had parallels elsewhere in Ulster and in the Scottish highlands, the politically dominant families in the lordship or territories within it, divided up their lands among sept branches. In the case of Airghialla, MacMahons were the lordly families and all the lands in most of the baronies were held by MacMahons. Five levels of landownership were identified: the ballybetagh lands of the principal lord’s family (‘The MacMahon’); the lucht tighe or mensal lands assessed for provisioning the lord; the demesne ballybetaghs which accompanied the office of lord and were farmed by him, and the ballybetaghs of freeholders from whom the lord was entitled to a range of dues and services. In addition there were church and monastic lands – often consisting of ballybetaghs or half-ballybetaghs which were traditionally free of service to the lord. The septlands were distributed in ballybetagh estates among sept branches of the MacMahons. Each ballybetagh in turn was subdivided into tates either singly or in groups to form landholding units allotted to individuals or families within the sept. In Farney in , for instance, five ballybetaghs of eighty tates were noted as being divided among nineteen tenants ‘all these being of one sept’. The detailed names in (and ) suggest this kin-linked structure. Thus, for instance, the ballybetagh of Ballymc.gowne in Monaghan barony was divided among Owen McBreine McMahon (four tates), Hugh McCoverbe McCon McMahon (four tates), Con McGilpatrick McMahon (one tate), Hugh McOwen McBreine McMahon (one tate), Patrick McHugh P.J. Duffy, ‘The evolution of estate properties in south Ulster –’ in W.J. Smyth and K. Whelan (eds.), Common ground, –: . P.J. Duffy, ‘The territorial organisation of Gaelic landownership and its transformation in County Monaghan –’ in Irish Geography, (). Outlines of ballybetaghs in the barony of Trough are based on an interpretation by the late Mr Owen Smyth NT of Monaghan. E.P. Shirley, Some account of the territory or dominion of Farney (London, ), . William Smith’s survey, Longleat Irish Papers.
FIG.
Patrick J. Duffy
: Townland topography, with hilltops shaded, south Monaghan.
Roe McMahon (two tates), Rory McHugh Roe McMahon (two tates) and Arte McHugh Roe McMahon (two tates). Balledromgowla in Dartrey barony was divided up as follows: Phelim Skippie McMahon (four tates), Hugh Bane (one tate), Patrick McCollo McShane McMahon (one tate), Shane McMahon McHugh Roe (two tates), Breine McHugh Roe McMahon (one tate), Edmonde oge McHugh Roe (one tate), Melaghlin McBrian McMahon (one tate), Shane McHugh McManus McMahon (one tate), Bryan ballagh McHugh McManus McMahon (one tate), Bryan boy McHugh McManus McMahon (one tate), Hugh McGilpatrick McHugh McManus (one tate) and Hugh McBrian McArt McMahon (one tate). In only eighteen ballybetaghs contained freeholder names other than MacMahon, such as McCabe, McArdle, McQuaide, McKenna, McPhillip, McWard. The ballybetagh, therefore, represented a territorial device of the lord to economically and politically control their territories – by allocating their lands among branches of client septs or followers – with social objectives which, as Dodgshon has suggested for the Scottish highlands, outweighed non-existent or embryonic market imperatives: these were ‘locally-evolving systems of power which bound space through kinship [and] would have provided a
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
territorial bonding that outweighed questions of . . . economic cost.’ The ballybetagh was also what might be designated a primary territorial unit, which was subdivided in accordance with the exigencies of population and kinship expansion, into quarters, halves, eighths, twelfths, sixteenths. The ultimate division into sixteenths (tates) allowed the flexibility of combining or later subdividing to accommodate the economic and demographic requirements of the sept. In , Smith noted the significance of the tate as the ultimate landholding unit (and the absence of any distinctive man-made fencing): ‘all the land in the Barony lyeth in common without any enclosure, but every tate lyeth by itself together with no other landes within it’. It is interesting that in northwest Ulster, including the counties of Donegal, Tyrone, Monaghan, Cavan and Fermanagh, where in pre-plantation times the name ‘baile’ was ubiquitous in identifying these territorial structures of ballybetaghs, as a placename element ‘baile’ is today insignificant. In Monaghan there are only eleven townlands out of more than , containing the element ‘bally’. The term clearly had no settlement significance beyond a territorial or spatial unit of landholding and vanished as the new landownership regime was put in place in the seventeenth century. As noted earlier, one of the biggest problems is to reconcile a hypothesis of a fairly well developed territorial system such as this with a small and thinly populated countryside, where labour and tenants were scarce. But it is probable that this template of boundaries may have been independent of population size or settlement. If, as suggested by O’Dowd and others, control of land was an important aspect of Gaelic lordship, a world of septs assumes a well-defined and well-established network of boundaries and spaces. An emphasis on land control without necessarily an especially large population locked into a market-based economy, might assume a comparatively well developed sense of spatial limits. Strafford’s survey in the west of Ireland in – recorded the detailed territorial claims and divisions of even very marginal lands. The well-established legacy of ballybetaghs and tates in Farney supported a comparatively thin population in ; indeed extensive parts of the barony were uninhabited, with many ballybetaghs having little more than one cabin. R.A. Dodgshon, From chiefs to landlords: social and economic change in the western highlands and islands, c.– (Edinburgh, ), . William Smith’s survey. See T. Jones Hughes, ‘Town and baile in Irish place-names’ in N. Stephens and R.E. Glasscock (eds.), Irish geographical studies in honour of E. Estyn Evans (Belfast, ), –. This was emphasised by Nicholls, ‘Gaelic society and economy’, . K. Nicholls, Land, law and society in sixteenth century Ireland (Cork, ), . M. O’Dowd, ‘Land inheritance in early modern Sligo’ in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., (), –; Dodgshon, Chiefs to landlords, –. J.M. Graham, ‘Rural society in Connacht –’ in N. Stephens and R.E. Glasscock (eds.), Irish geographical studies (Belfast, ), –:. Duffy, ‘Farney in ’, –.
FIG.
Patrick J. Duffy
: Ballybetaghs in Co. Monaghan.
If the evidence of Farney in is to be believed, the settlement pattern and built environment in the Monaghan area was relatively underdeveloped. Tower houses were fewer in south Ulster than in more southerly regions, and rare in the Monaghan area. Raven’s maps show a mainly cabin landscape in Farney, with few stone houses. Ever McColla, one of the chief MacMahons in the late sixteenth century, lived in an undistinguished house, if Raven’s drawing of it is credible. William Smith’s survey of Farney provides a general description of the houses of the Irish as being ‘of no reckoning, but for
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
the most part built of roddes and covered with turves . . .’ Such a landscape of insubstantial houses may have facilitated a mobile population; by the middle of the seventeenth century, for example, there is evidence of considerable local mobility between ‘adjacent townlands, neighbouring parishes or across parish boundaries in an adjoining barony’, a continuation of earlier practices perhaps. Smith’s survey also hints that settlement in the barony was clustered, characterising it as consisting of so many ‘towns’. Magheross parish had twenty ‘towns’ called after twenty ‘gentlemen’ listed by name; Donaghmoyne also had twenty. These were the head tenants of larger landholders, ‘strong’ men who would have been responsible for the rent and cess for their districts and on whom the other inhabitants would have depended economically and socially. In the larger tenancies of Farney, such as those of Ever McColla or Redmond McRory who held large numbers of tates, there must have been many of these head tenants acting as their sub-tenants. Many of the larger tenants may have worked some of the tate ‘farms’ as untenanted grazing properties for cows. The numbers of ‘gentlemen’ listed in tally approximately with the evidence of small cabin clusters in the later survey, few of them with more than a half dozen cabins (see Andrews, this volume). There is no relationship between these settlements and ballybetagh names. The ballybetagh, therefore, identified a territorial unit which had landholding significance only, within which were clustered settlements that were distinguished by the headmen or ‘gentlemen’ of the septs. The early seventeenth-century pardons provide contemporary English terminology which purports to represent the perceived structure of Gaelic landholding: gentlemen (landholding farmers), yeoman (large tenants), husbandmen (small tenants), horsemen and kern (a military service class) and others like labourers. The evidence for corn-growing agriculture is limited – though there were five mills in Farney in . Cows were a principal form of capital and it seems certain that the territorial structure was necessary in the management of these large herds. Herds of – cows were frequently taken as prey in the sixteenth century in Farney and south Ulster territories. While the lordship of Airghialla was divided among the principal branches ‘Smith’s survey of Farney, ’. W.J. Smyth, reviewing S.T. Carleton, Heads and hearths: the hearth money rolls and poll tax returns for county Antrim, in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., (), ; comparison of Thomas Raven’s picture with the details from the hearthmoney rolls shows about townlands which depopulated in the intervening thirty years. I am grateful to Kenneth Nicholls for these observations. This landholding system was adopted and continued by immigrant settlers in Farney into the seventeenth century. See N. Canny, ‘Migration and opportunity: Britain, Ireland and the new world’ in Ir. Econ. Soc. Hist., (), -: . See O’Dowd, Power, politics and land, ; L.P. Murray, The parish of Creggan (Dundalk, ), –; Canny, ‘Migration and opportunity’, discusses the continuance of Gaelic land-use and landholding structures in planted areas of Ulster.
Patrick J. Duffy
of the MacMahons and MacKennas in the sixteenth century, in relation to the land of the lordship it would seem that most of the mobility over the previous century or two was a mobility of ownership. Expansion from the top by the lordly families, displacement of less influential kin-groups down through the landholding structures, and ultimately their marginalisation both economically and literally occurred within the parameters of the ballybetaghs. In this way, a stable – even territorially quite sophisticated – spatial network was necessary, supporting a fair degree of landholding mobility. Apart from the structure or pattern of the sixteen-tate subdivisions of the ballybetaghs, is there any other evidence of a spatial order in the geography of ballybetaghs? Do they, for example, demonstrate any evidence of an equable allocation of land and environmental resources? Even within the limited ecological range in Airghialla, upland, lowland, water sources and river meadows were important resources, as was access to the lord’s chief settlement. Thus, for instance, the ballybetaghs often extended upwards to the highlands and downwards to the lowlands incorporating a range of potential land-uses. This is evident in Farney where the ballybetaghs are arranged in a northwest–southeast orientation extending downslope from the uplands in the centre. Similarly in the central upland region the extensive ballybetaghs run downhill into the well-drained lowlands. In the barony of Trough in the northern extremity of the county, the ballybetaghs extend into the valley of the Blackwater river and upslope to the flank of Slieve Beagh. In the west county districts they stretch down to the meadows of the river Finn.
PA R I S H O R I G I N S
Understanding the parish geography in Airghialla is critically important to understanding the overall evolution of secular Gaelic territorial structures. The parishes represent a structure which was midway between the ballybetagh and barony. And though the parish had no landholding function, its size made it a convenient unit for local administrative purposes ensuring its survival as an important feature in all the surveys of landownership in the seventeenth century. In the BSD for Monaghan, the parishes form the principal statistical unit, within which the residual ballybetagh structures were identified. With a number of minor modifications, the civil parishes represent the late medieval parishes (see Fig. ). Changes made in the eighteenth century by the Church of Ireland echo much earlier established medieval lines in the landscape. For Donegal, see J. Graham, ‘South-west Donegal in the seventeenth century’ in Irish Geography, (), –: . P. J. Duffy, Landscapes of south Ulster: a parish atlas of the dioceses of Clogher (Belfast, ), –.
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
Thus, for instance, while Ematris parish was only created in , it was clearly prefigured in the ballybetaghs of the sixteenth century. Similarly Killeevan and Currin parishes were established in the eighteenth century, but their boundaries follow much older territorial divisions represented in the ballybetaghs. Undoubtedly of course these older units are significant primary divisions which coincide with major streams as natural boundaries. In many ways, the link between religious and secular territories had been a reality for hundreds of years. It was clearly evident in the overall relationship between the parishes and the ballybetaghs in Airghialla. In virtually every case the historic parish boundaries were coterminous with the ballybetagh boundaries as they were recorded in the late sixteenth century. Thus, for instance, the parish of Aghnamullen consisted of eight ballybetaghs in : Ballenlogh, Ballenecrave, Ballereogh, Ballerawer, Balleneveaghan, Ballintamlaght, Ballenney and Balleportnave. Donagh parish consisted of the ballybetaghs of Ballydrombanchor, Balleglaslagh, Balliclanwoyde, Balledromarall, ‘The twelve tates’, Ballilattin, Ballilegacorry, Ballynesmere, Ballyclonard (Fig. ). Ní Ghabhláin suggests that Duffy’s maps of landownership in indicate a close relationship between the septlands and the parishes, which seems tenable for in the sense that parishes often appeared to coincide with groups of kin-linked ballybetaghs. This, of course, would imply that the disposition of lands by septs remained stable for very long periods of time. As a consequence of the link between these two intermediate units of territory, understanding the origins of the parishes might help to shed some light on the genesis of the ballybetaghs. Otway-Ruthven was one of the first to draw attention to the close connection between the Norman manorial process in twelfth-century Ireland and the formation of parishes. This was an extension of a European tradition which found expression in the twelfth-century reforms in Ireland, with the establishment of the dioceses mirroring the political order at the time. Parishes were established after the formation of the dioceses and research is continuing to shed light on this process. That the pace of parish formation was quite rapid in Anglo-Norman areas makes sense, as they were based on already established secular manorial estates. It is possible in turn that the geography of manorial estates was strongly influenced by pre-existing Gaelic units of landholding. The paucity of sources on Gaelic areas makes it difficult to demonstrate a Duffy, ‘Territorial organisation’, ; Landscapes of south Ulster, . For an earlier discussion see P. Power, ‘The bounds and extent of Irish parishes’ in S. Pender (ed.), Féilscríbhinn Torna (Cork, ), –. S. Ní Ghabhláin, ‘The origins of medieval parishes in Gaelic Ireland: the evidence from Kilfenora’ in JRSAI, (), –: . A.J. Otway-Ruthven, ‘Parochial development in the rural deanery of Skreen’ in JRSAI, (), –; see also M. Hennessy, ‘The Anglo-Norman colony in county Tipperary c.–’. Unpublished PhD thesis (University College, Dublin, ).
Patrick J. Duffy
similar connection with Gaelic territorial order in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but such a link must be a viable hypothesis. Episcopal correspondence with Rome is predictably mainly concerned with diocesan business, with parishes being identified by name only. There is no reference to the internal arrangements of parishes. The papal taxation lists the parishes for the diocese of Clogher and the following parishes are recorded for the Co. Monaghan area: Donagh, Clones, Galloon, Kilmore and Drumsnat, Tydavnet, Tyholland, Donaghmoyne, Magheracloone, Magheross, Iniskeen, Killanny, Muckno and Cremourne. Galloon and Cremourne represent primary parishes, in the sense suggested by Ní Ghabhláin, hinting at a further stage of territorialisation with subdivisions along the lines of the ballybetagh boundaries. Whether this suggests that the ballybetaghs developed subsequently in this region, or were simply not used to define smaller parishes at this early stage, is impossible to say. Galloon was divided into the later parishes of Killeevan, Aghabog, Currin, and Ematris; Cremourne was subdivided into Clontibret, Aghnamullen and Tullycorbet. The parish geography is an important indicator, providing circumstantial evidence of the early existence of the ballybetaghs. Claval has adverted to the remarkable stability of territorial structures in traditional societies due to hierarchical structures being linked to the local lord or the church. Most of the parishes, and by implication, their associated ballybetaghs were in existence in the early fourteenth century and it is likely that there was considerable inbuilt inertia in the parish boundaries over the years. Parishes represented important sources of revenue for the church, whose bureaucracy in Ireland and in Rome carefully managed and maintained the system. In view of the practice of twelfth-century parish formation, therefore, it is clear that the ballybetaghs were already an established fact in the landscape and that their boundaries were probably fixed for a long time. As in manorial regions, parishes in Gaelic Irish regions took account of existing political and secular realities (like lordship) as well as existing earlier monastic territories. So parishes were probably formed within a century of the establishment of the dioceses, and like the dioceses they had boundary associations with earlier established units. In this way, the parishes form an important key to the formation and morphology of territorial order in the Gaelic lordship, because in the absence of any information on this process before the sixteenth century, the reasonably definite formation of parishes some centuries earlier is an important clue to its origins.
S. Ó Dufaigh, ‘The Mac Cathmhaoils of Clogher’ in Clogher Record, (), –:, . P. Claval, An introduction to regional geography (Oxford, ), .
Social and Spatial Order in the MacMahon Lordship of Airghialla
C O N C LU S I O N
It is possible to conceptualise an architecture of Gaelic institutional structures in Airghialla, reflected in feudal relations of lord, demesne lands and freeholder estates which were embedded in a territorial hierarchy of tates, ballybetaghs and baronies. Captured in the maps and surveys of the early seventeenth century, the modern townlands are accurate records of the geography of late medieval tates. Boundaries and landed space in the medieval Monaghan area remained stable over a long period of time. Parish geography in the fourteenth century suggests the prior existence of secular landholding units in the ballybetaghs. Some earlier very extensive parishes imply a process of subdivision of earlier territorial entities into manageable septlands, which then remained as the stable currency of the lordship. Continuity of landholding structures is implicit in the continuity of associated parish territories. This nested hierarchy of spaces was, therefore, present for a long time. There probably were changes over earlier generations as the kinship structure expanded and landownership changed hands. When change did take place it is likely that it occurred within the lattice of tates and ballybetaghs which coalesced and divided accordingly. Indeed changes of ownership could only easily occur within a relatively stable territorial structure. The interlinkage between tates, ballybetaghs and parishes guaranteed the endurance of these structures. In Airghialla, stability of landownership under the MacMahons from the middle of the fifteenth century provided further continuity in territorial geography, with change among different branches of septs being suggested in some units having different names at different times. Thus for instance, Ballenecorrely in was also known as Ballimcturlagh in the BSD. Ballenra was Ballycaslane in . Ballevickenally was also known as Balliduffy; the half ballybetagh of Cornebrock alias half ballybetagh of Cargagh; Balleglanka was also known as Balliclerian. As with the smaller tates, spatial expansion or contraction was accommodated in terms of half ballybetaghs (or tates) or quarter ballybetaghs, dividing and coalescing as needed. The integrity of the ballybetagh boundaries, like the tate boundaries, once established in the customary memory of the community, remained stable.
AC K N O W L E D G M E N T
I wish to thank James Keenan, Senior Technician in the Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, for the care with which he produced the accompanying maps.
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland: Some New Evidence
F I O NA F I T Z S I M O N S
The document known as H.C.’s tract consists of pages, comprising four books. The particular focus of this paper is the section in the fourth book ‘Matters touching the Common Weal of the country’, concerning the social customs of fostering, marriage and gossiprid in Ireland in the late sixteenth century. The relevance of the fourth book lies in the wealth of information it provides on the practice and use of fostering and gossiprid by the Irish elite, for political objectives. Although the fourth book also refers to marriage, the author does not treat this in any great detail. Political marriage was commonplace in England and continental Europe, and would not have required the same level of explanation as fosterage and gossiprid to a non-Irish audience. Many scholars have noted in passing the political connections established through fostering but there is little published work on the subject. Fergus Kelly’s account, which draws on the seventh and eighth-century law texts, is probably the most comprehensive account in print. Yet like any social institution, fosterage must have been subject to the internal pressures of political, economic and cultural change that affected Irish society between the ninth and sixteenth centuries. H.C.’s tract describes the practice of fosterage at this later date. The institution of gossiprid has been neglected by Irish medieval historians to an even greater degree. The OED definition is ‘compaternity’ and a ‘spiritual affinity, with particular reference to Irish historical custom’, yet its very function and objectives were overtly political. Historians of medieval Ireland are familiar with the term from the legislation of the Irish parliament. Most PRO, S.P. //. K. Nicholls, ‘Irishwomen and property in the sixteenth century’ in M. MacCurtain and M. O’Dowd (eds.), Women in early modern Ireland (Dublin, ), –; K. Simms, ‘The legal position of Irishwomen in the later middle ages’ in Irish Jurist, (), –. K. Nicholls, Gaelic and gaelicised Ireland in the middle ages (Dublin, ), . For individual cases of fosterage, see H. Morgan, Tyrone’s rebellion: the outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Dublin, ), – (Turlough Luineach O’Neill), (Hugh Roe O’Donnell), (Hugh O’Gallacher alias McCalvach O’Donnell), (Hugh O’Neill); C. Lennon, Sixteenth-century Ireland: the incomplete conquest (Dublin, ), (Shane O’Neill), (Henry Fitzgerald). F. Kelly, A guide to early Irish law (Dublin, ), –.
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland
famously, the Statutes of Kilkenny legislated against alliances between the English colony and the Irish by ‘marriage, fostering and gossiprid’. We know then that gossiprid was used to effect an alliance, but what it actually entailed has never been clearly defined. We must conclude that gossiprid was such an integral part of Irish society in the medieval and early modern period that to contemporaries its meaning was self-evident. However, later seventeenth-century commentators, such as Sir John Davies and the antiquarian Ware, were at a loss to define gossiprid, as the social and political conventions which originally gave rise to it had already disappeared. H.C.’s tract proves that gossiprid was in fact the natural concomitant of marriage and fosterage in creating alliances. Because the political nation in Ireland did not produce such a profusion of sons and daughters to underpin even the most important political connections by blood fosterage and marriage alone, gossiprid had developed in Ireland by the fourteenth century to bridge this gap by providing a form of fraternal association between a lord and his clients. In early modern Ireland, as in continental Europe, kinship bonds provided the framework of society, and many relationships outside the family adopted similar structures. This was clearly what was intended in the practice of political marriage and fostering, but gossiprid too was practised to establish a fraternal association between the lord and his client. The overarching idea was to promote loyalties based on ties of kinship and personal lordship among an extended political family. Wormald has best described the structure of such a following or affinity comprising as follows: the lord’s household; the most important kinsmen, friends and adherents; lesser members of kin; tenants; servants; and kin and friends of his adherents. Clearly the concept of the affinity so defined is applicable to early modern Ireland. Hence H.C.’s preoccupation with marriage, fostering and gossiprid as the means by which the English and Irish of Ireland ‘cometh in kin[d]red, allyance and affynitie of bludd’.
THE TEXT AND ITS CONTEXT
H.C.’s tract is structured as an extended dialogue between two figures, Sylvin acting as interrogator, and the respondent Peregrine, who describes his experience and the experience of others he met in Ireland. The author’s identity is not known. The initials ‘H.C.’ may stand for his actual name or possibly a pseudonym - the name Thomas Wilson appears at the foot of the first page. G. Duby, Love and marriage in the middle ages (Cambridge, ); J. Wormald, Lords and men in Scotland: bonds of manrent, – (Edinburgh, ); C. Parker, ‘The politics and society of Co. Waterford in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’. Unpublished PhD thesis (Trinity College, Dublin, ). Wormald, Lords and men, –. S.P. // (p. ).
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However, the author makes little attempt to identify himself. He was almost certainly English and was familiar with Ireland. He appears particularly knowledgeable about Leinster and the midlands, and had visited King’s County. Other clues to his identity appear in the text. H.C. refers to himself as having been a servant of Sir Richard Bingham until his death, and the tract itself is dedicated to the second earl of Essex, Robert Devereux. H.C.’s tract does not bear a date of authorship, although the reference to Sir Richard Bingham’s death (p. ) indicates the document must have been written after January . Internal evidence would likewise indicate that it was probably completed prior to Essex’s arrival in Ireland as lord lieutenant in midApril. The time frame is significant. Essex’s appointment had been confirmed at court in December but he did not receive his instructions until March . His appointment met with a groundswell of public support in England. By this date, the rebellion in Ireland was the central issue of English security policy, for the rebels’ alliance with Spain after carried the threat of a potential Spanish invasion. In August the combined forces of O’Neill, O’Donnell and Maguire had routed the crown’s Irish army in Ulster at the battle of the Yellow Ford, killing the marshal, Sir Henry Bagenal. In October of that year violence had spread to the south when O’Neill despatched his allies from the midlands, O’More and Tyrrell, into Munster, where they linked up with James Fitzgerald, the sugán earl of Desmond, and laid waste to the English plantation. By November-December the war had reached south Leinster, with Wicklow re-ignited as a rebel stronghold, so that consequently Dublin was threatened with attack from several directions. The seriousness with which the Irish rebellion was regarded at court in the winter of – is evident in the size of the army that was placed at Essex’s command – at , foot and , horse, it was one of the largest ever sent to Ireland. Recent scholarship has proven the importance of H.C.’s heroes, Essex and Sir Richard Bingham, as the focus of a ‘war party’ that was in the ascendant at Westminster by , and which drew heavily on the support of crown servitors in Ireland. Indeed Edwards has concluded that H.C.’s tract not only Ibid., pp. –. ‘Sir Richard Bingham’ in Dictionary of national biography, ii (London, ). Morgan, Tyrone’s rebellion, ch. . For the Essex lieutenancy, see L.W. Henry, ‘The earl of Essex and Ireland, ’ in IHR. Bull., (), –. A.J. Sheehan, ‘The overthrow of the plantation of Munster, October ’ in Irish Sword, (), –. The belated re-emergence of the rebel threat in Wicklow in November is noted in L. Price, ‘Notes of Feagh McHugh O’Byrne’ in JKAS (–), –: . O’Neill’s difficulty in re-igniting Wicklow before that date is discussed in D. Edwards, ‘In Tyrone’s shadow: Feagh McHugh O’Byrne, forgotten leader of the Nine Years War’ in C. O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne: The Wicklow firebrand (Rathdrum Historical Society, ), –: –. C. Falls, Elizabeth’s Irish wars (London, ), –. D. Edwards, ‘Ideology and experience: Spenser’s View and martial law in Ireland’ in H. Morgan (ed.), Political ideology in Ireland, – (Dublin, ), –.
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland
echoes the key concerns of the New English agenda, stated in Spenser’s View of the present state of Ireland () and other associated reform treatises written and circulated after , but that this body of reform literature probably originated as an ‘orchestrated political campaign’ to reinstate martial law in Ireland as the best way of sustaining English security interests. The objectives defined in the New English reform literature of the s are clearly at odds with the views advanced in the reform literature of the first half of the sixteenth century, with its commitment to commonwealth ideology. There are, however, some interesting points of comparison – beyond the merely descriptive – between later documents such as H.C.’s tract and some of the earliest Tudor reform treatises such as the ‘State of Ireland’ treatise of and the ‘Declaration of the evil state of Ireland’. All of these critically relate the extent of crown government in Ireland, outline the Irish lords in their regions, and describe Irish laws and social customs to a non-Irish audience. Of greater significance, all three share a common diagnosis of the cause of political unrest in Ireland, that is, that the power of the affinities intruded on the prerogative of central government. Hence H.C.’s interest in the customs of fosterage, marriage and gossiprid, the mechanisms by which the affinities established ties of loyalty and dependence in the localities.
FOSTERING
H.C. describes five distinct methods of fostering which I have outlined below. In describing these, I have avoided his own system of enumeration. The act of fostering was intended to replicate the familial bond between all parties involved, to a greater or lesser degree, by establishing mutual obligations. The ultimate aim of fostering was to create strong and persistent loyalties, and the greatest benefits necessarily accrued when fostering was practised among the families of the ruling classes. As late as the second half of the sixteenth century this was still the case, when substantial fees could still be charged to maintain a foster child. Certainly, Kelly has stressed the monetary aspect of fosterage and has emphasised the distinction between fostering for a fee, and fostering for affection, for which no fee was paid. However, given the evidence presented in this document, this would appear to be an oversimplification. In four out of the five types of fosterage described by H.C. the foster family provided a fee, yet the lord–client relationship was central to all methods of fostering. The closest connections which could be established
Ibid., pp. –. S. P. Henry VIII, ii, –; BL, Landsdowne MS , no. . Edmund Campion, in Tracts relating to Ireland, ii (Dublin, ), . Kelly, Guide, –.
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through fostering came in two types, disparagingly termed by H.C. as fostering by ‘milk-nurses’ and fostering by ‘kitchen’ fosterers. Milk Nurse Fostering These were not the hired wet-nurses common throughout Europe but women of gentry and aristocratic families. Although not explicitly stated, it is reasonable to assume from the actual term used to describe this method that the foster child was handed over from infancy to a nursing mother, probably with a child or children of a similar age. The child was reared within the foster family, to whom it gave its primary emotional loyalty. The foster family assumed responsibility into adulthood for the child fostered, providing a ‘foster child’s part’ (unfortunately unspecified) on the foster father’s death, and a marriage portion (again unspecified) for a female foster child. Kitchen Fostering In contrast, ‘kitchen’ fostering was explicitly contracted for political purposes. The origin of the term itself may have been originally intended as a loaded commentary on the intermingling of personal and political affairs. Certainly H.C.’s additional comments on the conflict between the interests of personal lordship and of the government would seem to bear out this interpretation. In practical terms the aim of this method was to assimilate the foster family into the lord’s affinity. The author clearly refers to the use of livery as a badge of identity, referring to the individual client as ‘a mean castle of that coat’. In this instance, the lord’s primary obligation to the foster family was maintenance. Annuity Fostering The natural extension of maintenance was of course protection and the associations effected through fostering could also provide the foster family with a basic safeguard against encroachment by their overlord. Indeed H.C. clearly considered this as a particular motive for another type of fostering, describing how the foster family could avoid a potential threat by providing their lord’s heir with an annuity and the promise of a foster child’s portion payable on the death of the head of the foster family. Although H.C. does not designate a name to this type of fostering, perhaps it might be known as ‘annuity fostering’ to differentiate it from the other types he describes.
W. Harris (ed.), Sir James Ware, Complete works, vols. (Dublin, ), ii, –. ‘And if any of these kitchen fosterers come under coram, he master maintainer, will labour very hard, but he will get them at liberty again upon cash bonds’: S.P. // (p. ).
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland
Dry Fostering H.C. describes two further methods of fostering, both of which he loosely classified as ‘dry’ fostering. The very name was probably intended to juxtapose these with fostering by ‘milk-nurses’. At the core of these arrangements was a monetary bond between the foster family and the family of the child fostered. By this method, the lord’s family could accept as many as twelve foster families, each of whom provided a child’s portion. Although not explicitly stated in the text, by implication fostering could occur at any time during the child’s minority. The foster family assumed less individual responsibility for the child fostered. Likewise the lord’s family had fewer and lesser obligations to the foster families. Of course, what these obligations were depended on the social position of the lord and his clients. The author distinguished between the practice of dry fostering by poor tenants who contracted with their landlords for assistance in petty matters and its practice among the gentry and aristocratic classes. The aristocracy in their position as lawgivers and law enforcers could provide substantial benefits for the foster family including preferential treatment of their interests in court. Gossiprid Gossiprid was essentially a pledge of fraternal association between a lord who thereby gained service, and his client who received protection, patronage and, again, preferential treatment of his suits in court. Sir John Davies described the use of gossiprid among the Irish magnates ‘ [who] made. . . strong parties and factions, . . .to oppress their inferiors and to oppose their equals, and their followers were borne out and countenanced in all their lewd and wicked actions’. In effect, as perceived by the government, the problem of gossiprid in early modern Ireland was that it raised the demands of personal lordship over and above the subject’s loyalty to the crown and its servants. H.C. described four types of pledges, as follows. Public gossiprid was used to bring adherents into the affinity. All adherents were subsequently bound to mutual assistance in addition to service to their overlord. In return they received gifts from the lord, probably to emphasise the personal nature of the contract as well as to underpin the continuing connection between them. The arrangement emphasised the role of the affinity as an extended political family. A second type of gossiprid was the symbolic breaking of bread to pledge service. Once more, the person so contracted received a ‘gift’ or salary from their lord. The description of the ninth earl of Kildare’s semi-annual J.P. Myers (ed.), Sir John Davies, A Discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (Washington, ), .
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gifts of chief horses, hackneys and armour was almost certainly associated with the practice of one or both of these two types of gossiprid. A third form of gossiprid was by voluntary oaths to conclude a specific agreement or covenant. The fourth and most elaborate form of gossiprid was effected when all contracting parties received the sacrament of communion in pledge of their continued adherence to the affinity and its current and future objectives: ‘all perties in that league combyned . . . to confirme any thinge, that is or shalbe from thence forth agreed uppon betwene them’. The surviving documentation indicates that there was clearly a close association between the growth of the affinity (earlier the lineage) and the practices of fostering, marriage and gossiprid in Ireland from the fourteenth century. The Statutes of Kilkenny () legislated against any ‘alliance by marriage, gossiprid, [and] fostering’. And as late as , the earl of Thomond entered a recognisance with the crown ‘that he should not marry, gossop, nor foster contrary to the statute in that behalf provided, without the special licence of the lord deputy or governor of the time being’. However, by the early seventeenth century gossiprid appears to have been incompletely understood. Sir John Davies recognised that ‘fosterers and gossips by the common custom of Ireland were to maintain one another in all causes lawful and unlawful’, but he was not able to explain exactly how gossiprid was enacted. In the absence of any known or publicly circulated definition of gossiprid, the continued emphasis on its function and not its practice led to its being confused with fostering. The real value of H.C.’s tract, then, is that it enables us to disentangle our definitions of these two customs.
E X T R AC T S F RO M H . C .’ S T R AC T
[p.] The fourthe and last booke intreateth of matters towching the common weale of the countrie and where it hath contynued in the beste sorte, and how decayed againe, with other necessarie notes concerninge the recovery of the same . . . Sylvyn: Ffirste, that consideringe there hath bene divers parlyaments houlden in that realme of Ireland (by sundry wyse and discreete noble men there governing tendinge to the advancement and furtherance of that comon G. Mac Niocaill (ed.), Crown surveys of lands –, with the Kildare rental begun in (Dublin, ), –. S.P. // (pp. –). Cf. Rot. Canc. Eliz. in Ware, Complete works, ii, . Davies, A Discovery.
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland
wealthe. The acts of which theire severall sessions before them houlden I am suer apereth at lardge; which no doubt if they had bene duly effected from tyme to tyme (according the makers good meaning): the realme of Ireland could never have growne that owt of frame. wherfore I shall desyre you, If you have harde, or came by your small contynuance there, acquaynt me with some efficient causes that hath breadd those calamities, I wilbe very well contented to give you the hearinge. Peregryne: Truly brother those be matters farr overeaching my groass capacitie but yet amongst my noates I will shewe you one, being the opinion of an ould man of the English pale, whose chance it was to come to myne hoasts house in Dublin, acompanied with three or ffower of his neighbours; who after dynner, talkinge of their greate hinderancs in this broken time, and he beinge cock of that company begane in this manner. [p.] I remember sayeth hee that within these three score yeares, it was not tollerable emongst us of the English pale to permit or suffre any of the O Neales, O donells, Maguyers, McMahownes, O Realies or any other Irish borderer to inhabit emongst us: By which meanes wee weare so fast tyed in consanguinitie, alliance and amitie one to another that it was as harde a matter to snapp a sheaf of arrowes in pieces beinge fast bownde together at one instant fource as to seperate our generall resolucons to attempt any daunger in the princes behalf whatsoever: I neeste not to fetch our ensamples so far as Edwarde the secondes tyme (all Irelande yealdinge to the Scot Edwarde le Bruse savinge our awncestors of the Englishe pale, which stuck to the Lorde justice Brimidgham in that manner beinge the last carde in the buntch that by theire meanes the prowde scot and his army was overthrown at Carrickbraddog not far from dundalk, And also in the Lord Leonarde Greies tyme by Ardee, Agaynst ONeale and all his power of the northe: and divers tymes sithence to longe to rehearse. But now within these fewe yeares by the instigacon of the devill, the wicked & covetous personne that had more regarde of his owne private gayne, then respect to the comon wealth, his ofspringe and neighbours, made fosteridg, gossiprid and marriadgs with the Irish aforesaid: which strange monsters (contrary to the statutes and our awncest[o]rs leaste meaninge), once crept in emongst us it became so generall: that glad was hee that might first retayne them to inhabit under them selves but marke, what mischief hath ensued thereof which we and others of latter tymes that have been here established by her majestie and her predecessors doe now to late repent the reasonnes, whereof accordinge to my groase skill are partely as followeth. Ffirst by reasons of combynacon with the Irish as aforesaid in crept theire languadge to be allmost generall emongst us, and that within a shorte tyme [p. ] scorninge our oulde english speech which our awncestors brought
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with them at the first conquest thincking it to base by reasonne whereof we thought our selves mightely well appoynted to be armed with two languadges so that beinge thus furnished we were able to goe into the Irish countries, and truck with them comoditie for comoditie (which they in former tymes were driven to bringe theires unto us and either bought ours againe with the mony they receaved for it or bartered ware for ware for ware, by an interpreter. Now this kynde of intercourse with the Irish breadd such acquayntance, amitie and frendship with the Irish betwene them and us, beinge so furnishet with their languadge that wee cared not, contrary to our duties in ballancinge our creditts, to make fosteredge, gossiprids, and marriadg as aforesaid with them (so that now the english pale and many other places of the kingdome, that were planted with english at severall conquests: are growne to a confusion of septs, moste of the port townes plannisht with merchants of that kynde. Secondly when we were acquaynted with the Irish reteigned emongst us, as a nomeber of others, by reasonne of intercourse into theire countres and for that wee are nyer and better acquaynted with ye estate then they are, we must stand as Advocates for them, they prefer to foster unto us, where there sundry coneicons in that League Fosterers The ffirst is miltch nurses that fostereth upp our children with their children with theire breast and any chylde that is so taken with, must have as good a porcon (lands excepted, as any of the fosterers children, and this Irish mylke worketh such effect in our children, that are so fostered, that moste of them never careth for englishmen or english civilitie ever afterwards, for they make so greate acompt of theire foster father, foster mother, and foster brothers [p. ] and foster sisters that any thinge that is within their reach to be compassed they will not stick to effect (allthough many of them, should bringe themselves within the danger of the halter which many tymes they do by bearinge such affection to that sorte of people who naturally are evill: And as for the ffemynyne foster chylde she must not onely have a foster chyldes part at her foster fathers deathe but a helpe when she is marryed besydes. The seconde kynde of fosterers are of the meaner sorte of people and these beinge poore tenants, cloaze in with theire landlords, and to curry favour with them, take with one of the children, and promisseth him a chyldes porcon, and this is called a dry fosterer (of which sorte one chylde may have a dozen. Theise looke also for some extraordynary kynde of favour at theire landlord and foster sonnes hands (but yet nothinge in measure to the first fosterer, for theise kynd of people desyreth help, but for petty matters. The thirde is much lyke the laste but beinge of a better callinge (combyneth nor taketh with none but with greate mens children, Aswell for that hee must give a lardge porcon, with his foster sonne. And havinge his matters and suites
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland
(in court as otherwyse of greate effect, then the meaner fosterer hath which must be followed (ad omnia quare) by those he taketh with (be the cause good or bad or else he will slipp his headd forthe of the collor and cry a new master a new for a nomeber of those cannot drinck of all waters (yet verry bountyfull if you please their honors (which happely may bringe theire patrones to play the barrysters. The fourthe is a man that by greate industrye and paynes is growne to be wealthy, and willingly if he might would be contented to live honestly of his owne withowt entermedlinge with other mens matters; that beinge so assured and his name in no greate request, beinge [p. ] taught beinge taught* by other mens harmes to be wyse with his wealth; for seinge that warynes cannot serve his turne if envy and covetousnes pry into his estate (and especially when those two capitall synnes are lodged in masters countenance whose nature beinge so armed still shooteth at the inocent to bereave him bothe of lands, goods and lyfe to: If he be not the sooner prevented (and his hungry goarge cramed for speedy redresse) whereof this fourth fosterer: knowinge his neighbour countenance humor ffranckly taketh with my master his eldest sonne and heire and assureth hym of a chyldes porcon after his deathe, and an yearely anuyte duringe his lyfe by which costly shift hee is enrowled in master countenance hec que (as one of his dedre ffrends) and defended in all kyndes of extremytyes. There be a fifth kynd of fosterer: and they take not onely with one chylde but with my master and all his whole houshould and theise pay master maynteigner, contynually with the sweate of other mennes browes (and if any of theise kitchen fosterers come under coram (he master maigntener) will labour verry hard, but he will get them at liberty agayne upon cash bands. And yet careth not a poynte to forfeict twenty pounds, rather then a meane castall of that coate shoulde once come in daunger of the lawe there be of theise kynde of people that bringeth no better stuffe then kitchin matters and they take prisoners to rawnsome for mony apparell, victuall and any other necessaryes as powder, mvnicon [munition] and such lyke (of which ill gotten pelfer master fosterfather maynteigner hath his chyldrens perts and these that much for fosterers Gossipridde Then to say somethinge of gossiprid: a moste pestylent monster to a comon wealth, then fosteridg is (though that be bad enough): And of that therbe fower kyndes: The first and most tollerablest is at the fvnt stoane [font stone] wherein is a shewe of christianyte and called publique gossiprid, and in great reputacon [p. * Error in the manuscript copy.
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] emongste the Irish (whose comon oathe is either by theire lordes or Christian gossips hande (when this sacrament is performede the Irish embouldeneth himself greately uppon any personne yt he hathe so combyned himself with, aswel for the preferringe of his sones, daughters and frends, to service emongst us, as otherwyse we muste be helpinge of any such in any necessary suites: for doinge whereof now and then, some curteous present is sent us, and to confirme the promises the better wee must not showe our selves so unkynde, but make gossiprids with the apertenancs besydes. And so much for the first. The seconde gossipride is by breakinge of breade betwene pertie and pertie: and in this is concluded some smack of mischief intended which when any such matter falleth owt we must doe our best endeavour to remedy the same: for entermedling with which sometymes we are taken up for halting that we never come in danger as wee thinck, till venias mecum.* Conceth: and still for our paines some salary cometh for playinge the bolsterers. The thirde gossipride is, by severall oathes voluntarie taken, betwene pertie and pertie, for the fullfillinge of any covenant betwene them, though it smell as farre as felony and then sometymes we bringe our selves in danger to play the barristers. The fourthe and last poynte of gossiprid cannot be thoroughly effected, but by abusing the holy sacrament of the comunion: which all perties in that league combyned (must receave the same to confirme any thinge, that is or shalbe from thence forth agreed uppon betwene them, yea though it smell of rebellion, murder, threasonne burnyng or any other capitall degree of what nature soever, so that by the illusion [p. ] of the devill whereas that holy sacrament was instituted of chryste to the salvacon of the worthy receavor is by such people as theise converted to the distrucon bothe of body and soule to as many as useth this kynde of gossipride from the which kynde of combinacon the Lord deliver us. Then last of all when we have thoroughly performed, these ceremonies aforesaid, yet that cannot be thought sufficient unles we marry one with another and thence cometh in kinred, allyance and affynitie of bludd and then when this mixture hath taken thorough roote we ffeare not any daunger whatsoever, but when lost we thinck our selves in greatest securitie, out start our fosters gossips and allies, of the Irish pale into rebellion and then some of us, that have traced these galliards aforesaid must adventure our selves in respect of the promisses, to be assistant unto them, aswell private as publique, though we venture both lyfe, goods, lands and perpetuall infamy besydes yet you must understand, I speake not this onely of the English pale, but of all other perts of the realme where englishmen have bene planted well accordinge to our * [come with me]
Fosterage and Gossiprid in Late Medieval Ireland
tenures, we are called to seraes [services] against the enemy: and then not as we were wont to doe in preceedinge tymes (as formerly I repeated beinge compared to a sheafe of arrowes of one makinge: but lyke a field of corne all overgrowne with wieds: being so troubled in our myndes, how to make choyce of our enemies to fight with, many of them being our fosterers, gossips and allies, so that [p. ] whylest we stand amazed with these kynd of fantasies (not tymely considering our duties to our prince), perferringe our owne tradicons, before god and religion, the enemy in whom a kynde of synn or breach of promis is respected, taketh his opportunitie, to murder, burn, prea and spoyle us to our castel walls, wysley (if one may so term it) serving his owne turne, and never lyke to happen otherwyse for there is not a greater hippocrit in the worlde then the mere Irishman is who observeth his fasts and babling with his mouthe, he knoweth not what (as though he were devocon itself), but let his cousen his brother, yea if it were his father cross him in any thinge, then as the english northerne phrase is, ensueth deadly fayde [feud], what hath bene the overthrowe of Munster, Connaght and Ulster to; in ould tyme as english as the best, but the aforesaid three monsters (as they are used) fosteridg, gossiprid and marriadg.
AC K N O W L E D G M E N T S
I would like to thank Kenneth Nicholls for drawing my attention to H.C.’s tract in the first instance, and David Edwards for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
PART II
The Natural and Built Environment: Some Documentary and Scientific Records
The Mapping of Ireland’s Cultural Landscape, – JOHN H. ANDREWS
The following essay is based on a study of several hundred Irish maps from the period c. to . These dates have the advantage of capturing, almost in its entirety, a type of regional cartography for which there is no later equivalent in Ireland until the middle of the eighteenth century, while excluding all but a small fraction of the large-scale property surveys, official and private, that survive in unmanageable numbers from the age of William Petty. Marine charts and architectural drawings are not included, and town plans are considered only for what they tell us about the non-urban scene. Most of the maps under review are manuscripts, distributed among twenty-two repositories. Since hand-drawn copies of the same map are seldom identical, even in geographical content, the study embraces duplicates as well as originals, provided that the duplicates appear to have been made before . There is no comprehensive catalogue of early Irish maps. The nearest approach to a general survey is Robert Dunlop’s list of items published nearly a century ago. Dunlop laboured under several disadvantages. For one thing he confined himself to maps earlier than , a date that few scholars would now see as marking a significant natural break. He was also unaware of two important cartographic collections that have subsequently attracted considerable interest. One of these is a group of twenty-seven Irish maps now in the National Library, Dublin, discovered in and ten years later brilliantly edited in facsimile by Hayes-McCoy. The other, also numbering twentyseven, forms part of the Dartmouth collection at the National Maritime For the historical value of early town maps see J. H. Andrews, ‘Maps and map-related sources’ in W. Nolan and A. Simms (eds.), Irish towns: a guide to sources (Dublin, ), –. R. Dunlop, ‘Sixteenth century maps of Ireland’ in English Historical Review, (), –. Copies of this paper with amendments by the present author have been deposited in several major libraries, and a fully revised version, extended to , is now being prepared for private circulation. G.A. Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, c. (Dublin, ). The twenty-seven maps occupy twenty-two pages. The collection also includes a map of the Scottish island of Lewis, for which see F. MacLeod (ed.), Tógáil Tír; marking time: the map of the Western Isles (Stornaway, ), , .
John H. Andrews
Museum, Greenwich, brought to light in but half a century later still not adequately catalogued in print. Another difficulty for Dunlop was that certain sources ostensibly open to him – in particular the maps in the British Public Record Office – had as yet been incompletely explored by their own curators. Finally and inevitably, several opinions that seemed valid in have now become open to dispute. Dunlop paid little attention to maps showing the whole of Ireland, whether as a unit or as part of a larger geographical complex such as the British Isles or Europe. Among historical geographers, as distinct from cartographic historians, a similar regional bias has probably done little harm: national maps at this period derived from a very small number of original surveys or reconnaissances, and their topographical content, though by no means negligible, was naturally limited by the smallness of their scale. For the landscape specialist, however, maps showing less than the whole country are usually worth the closer attention that Dunlop gave them. They may be classified as fort plans, town plans, battle plans, administrative diagrams and official or private property surveys, and there is also a class of maps which for want of a better word may be called ‘topographical’, though most of its members (within our chosen spatio-temporal limits) are smaller in scale, and therefore less informative, than this term might lead a modern reader to expect (Fig. ). Despite their differences all early maps of Ireland and its regions have certain points in common when compared with the output of more recent cartographers. Most of them were made by strangers to the country working at great speed with inadequate resources in a hostile and uncomfortable environment. However, their apparent errors cannot always be blamed on contemporary circumstances: some are not so much errors as modern misunderstandings of the early cartographer’s aims and methods. The associated problems of historical interpretation may be summarised as follows. (a) Location Before the eighteenth century, latitude and longitude were seldom recorded on regional maps of Ireland. Many cartographers did include marginal scalestatements and compass points, though their units of linear distance are now often unintelligible and the difference between true and magnetic north was
Sotheby and Company, Catalogue of maps, charts, plans, sketches etc., formed by the first Baron Dartmouth, – (London, ), lot . Only nineteen of these maps are relevant to the present chapter. This remained true after the publication of entries – in Maps and plans in the PRO, i. British Isles c.– (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, ), reviewed by J.H. Andrews in IHS, (–), –. An exception is PRO, MPF , a late sixteenth-century map of Carrickfergus, where a marginal note gives what appears to be a latitude value of ° ; the correct value is ° .
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FIG.:
Muskerry, Co. Cork, c., from Pacata Hibernia (London, ), iii, .
John H. Andrews
almost universally ignored. In these circumstances the only topographical details that can be tested against a modern map are such supposedly permanent features as coasts and rivers. Where such tests are inapplicable our judgement must be based, in part at least, on the probable strength of the early cartographer’s desire for locational accuracy. A diagrammatic treatment may have been adequate for his purpose, especially in the recording of background information as opposed to a map’s thematic core. By the same principle, the geometrically central area of an early map-sheet is often more correct than the periphery. The bestowal or withholding of place-names may also show which features were regarded as worthy of careful positioning. If an early map locates a feature incorrectly, how can we now determine where that feature was situated? The answer, which of course can never yield more than a rather low degree of probability, depends on relating the unknown to the known. Suppose our subject is a settlement that appears on a surviving inaccurate early map but not in the present landscape or in any other historical record. A possible procedure is first to identify, in the vicinity of the lost settlement, a number of points that can be found on both old and modern maps. From among these common points select the three that enclose the ‘target’ within the smallest possible triangle, and then reconstruct that triangle on the modern map. On the early map divide each angle of the same triangle by a straight line passing through the mystery object. Divide the corresponding angles on the modern map in the same proportions, and these division-lines will intersect at the required point. To test the probability of this solution, replace one of the three common points by the nearest available alternative common point, and repeat the whole exercise. Given our initial assumption of inaccuracy, the second triangle will almost certainly yield a different location from the first – different, but in many cases not much less credible. In one well-known early Elizabethan map of west Cork, the two most probable locations determined by this method for a randomly chosen cluster of houses are no less than three kilometres apart: here is one lost settlement that must evidently remain lost. Or consider another village in an otherwise fairly accurate early seventeenth-century map of Imokilly, east Cork. In this case the two most probable locations determined on the modern map are only metres apart, but both lose a good deal of cogency by occurring in the middle of an undrained floodplain on the border between two long-established townlands. Perhaps the location of village-symbols was not meant to be taken too seriously on this map. A possible exception is the north indicator on one of Richard Bartlett’s Ulster fort plans (discussed in Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, –), but this may be no more than a conventional indication that the needle in a compass is free to rotate: it errs in showing the magnetic variation as westerly rather than easterly. PRO, MPF , described and reproduced in P. O’Keefe, ‘A map of Beare and Bantry’ in JCAHS, (), –. TCD, MS /.
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(b) Shape The foregoing discussion presupposes that an ‘object’ can be identified as such, but this is not always the case. What look like separate entities may never have been intended to possess a one-one correspondence with reality, a familiar modern example being the conventional tree-symbols on a :, Ordnance Survey map. The same may be true of the various geometrical characteristics belonging to a single object, like the four corners of a schematic building-block. The larger planiform features of a landscape – lakes, islands, bogs, woods – may be generalised to some degree by present-day cartographers but no modern reader would interpret the resulting outlines as altogether arbitrary. On early maps, however, the shapes of quite extensive areas may turn out to be just that. (c) Number Here the same considerations apply. Clustered objects may be too numerous for separate itemisation on a small-scale map – or the surveyor may not have had time to count them. Where an object occurs in isolation this problem clearly does not arise, and it would certainly be against common sense for a single house to be represented by more than one drawing of a house. The converse relationship – several referents sharing the same symbol – is on the other hand easily conceivable, and modern text-book writers have accorded academic respectability to cases where only one ‘representative’ member of a cluster is chosen for mapping. More often, plurality represents plurality, but with the number on the map necessarily made smaller than it should be, as in many early cartographers’ depictions of individual houses along the streets of towns and villages. The conscious exaggeration of plurality seems at first sight less probable as well as less justifiable, but the island-studded lakes and estuaries in Baptista Boazio’s map of Ireland () may be an example of this phenomenon, and even among more conscientious cartographers it remains a possibility not to be ruled out, as we shall see. (d) Three-dimensionality While modern maps are usually as planiform as their scale allows, the buildings on all but the largest-scale early Irish maps almost invariably appear in profile or ‘bird’s eye’ view. Today such non-planiform symbols would be accepted as wholly conventional: they classify an object without attempting to portray it. With early maps this rule was not always enforced and such maps A.H. Robinson, R.D. Sale, J.L. Morrison and P.C. Muehrcke, Elements of cartography (th ed., New York, ), –: ‘Each cluster is classified by a single point symbol, since . . . each dot typifies the cluster but is not placed where a [feature] is actually located’. Below, note . For Boazio and other cartographers who mapped the whole of Ireland see J.H. Andrews, Shapes of Ireland (Dublin, ).
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are often treated by settlement historians as evidence for the true form of a building in every dimension. From an evolutionary standpoint, post-medieval cartographic schematism might plausibly be seen as a progressive development in which symbols become less lifelike with the passage of time. In sixteenthand early seventeenth-century maps, at any rate, the extent of stylisation varies from one cartographer to another but the overall impression is often temptingly realistic – at any rate realistic enough for marginal explanations of conventional map symbols to be generally considered unnecessary at this period. (Boazio’s Irelande is again the exception). Sometimes lack of realism is signalled by supplementing a pseudo-veridical symbol with a conventional dot and circle purportedly defining the exact site of the object in question (Fig. ), but such hints are unfortunately not very common, and distinguishing pictures from diagrams must always remain a major problem for the historical map interpreter. (e) Thematicism A blank space on a map may be seen either as a negative judgement or simply as a refusal to judge. In other words, if a map shows one object of a certain kind, will it also show all other objects of the same kind that might be regarded as equally important? In theory this uncertainty is a major weakness of the cartographic ‘language’, though with modern maps experience has taught most users what to expect. For earlier periods the problem is most acute at fairly large scales. Here the average Irish reader may be encouraged by familiarity with six-inch Ordnance maps to expect a comprehensive portrayal of the landscape, but before the eighteenth century the concept of ‘landscape’ was seldom recognised by cartographers, most of whom saw their subject-matter not as one extensive carpet-like surface but as an assortment of small objects set against a background of empty space. (Perhaps this is why we speak of things being ‘on’ a map rather than ‘in’ it.) The key to early Anglo-Irish cartography is that most of the places represented were sites of military significance, actual or potential. Many of the maps under consideration can to that extent be regarded as thematic. Some of their most important themes will now be noticed individually.
S E T T L E M E N T : G E N E R A L C O N S I D E R AT I O N S
Habitations of some kind appear in almost every map studied, even those of the smallest scale. On maps of wide territorial coverage like those by Robert Lythe, Baptista Boazio and John Speed there may be many hundreds of settlement names, though where the whole country is depicted the only information we can expect to be given about most places is the fact of their existence, not
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their size or character. To the place-name scholar such occurrences must surely be useful enough. The landscape historian will be less easily satisfied. Most of the settlements recorded by cartographers in the period under discussion probably existed before and continued to exist after , and it would be hard to find a single habitation whose date of origin or disappearance has been determined with the help of these maps. Their main relevance, perhaps, is in the study of ‘perception’ – of such facts as that Ballymore was among three or four places in Co. Westmeath that John Goghe in considered worth including in a map of Ireland. Even this apparently modest historiographical function is not without its difficulties. Consider for instance the geographically ignorant small-scale compiler who takes a more or less random selection of names from a much larger source-map which is subsequently lost or destroyed. This seems likely to have happened when an Italian cartographer of the s hit on Brimor (Bremore) and Grenok (Greenoge) for inclusion in east-central Ireland while ignoring such better-known places as Duleek, Kilcullen, Lusk, Maynooth, Naas and Newcastle. Under the heading of settlement we shall be mainly concerned with the form and arrangement of material structures, but first a word is needed about the mapping of socio-economic activity. The clearest distinction here was between urban and rural. Even at small scales towns would be given an especially large building symbol, sometimes set within an encircling municipal wall, and their names were usually written in capitals rather than miniscules. In this respect Irish cartography offers few surprises. There is no symbolism for defunct medieval boroughs as a distinctive topographical phenomenon, for instance, and historical notes in situ, like ‘The Cytye of Downe decayde’ or ‘Here lyeth ye ruynes of ye olde towne of Strabane’ (Fig. ), are disappointingly rare. Nor do provincial capitals, assize towns and customs ports ever appear as such. The only kind of administrative status to be particularised is ecclesiastical, with bishops’ seats marked by crosses and archbishoprics by double crosses. Some crosses are combined with building symbols as if to suggest that bishops necessarily lived in towns, though in mapping central and western Ulster even the less well informed cartographers seem to have accepted that this was unlikely. Among lower grades of settlement functional differentiation was unknown: no house cluster is explicitly identified as a township or village, and no church as a parish church.
PRO, MPF , reproduced in Maurice Craig and the Knight of Glin, Ireland observed: a handbook to the buildings and antiquities (Cork, ), endpapers. Bolognino Zalterius, Hibernia, , reproduced in Andrews, Shapes of Ireland, . PRO, MPF .
John H. Andrews
FIG. : Lifford and vicinity, counties Donegal and Tyrone, , from G.A. Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, c. (Dublin, ), pl. xvi.
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BUILDINGS
Castles Fortified dwellings are perhaps the commonest kind of building found on early Irish maps. Usually little more than a simple upright block, on larger scales they sometimes feature doors, windows, battlements, a pitching roof, and a circular or rectangular bawn (Fig. ). At this level of representation a building may be not so much symbolised as portrayed. In a property map of –, for instance, a marginally depicted plantation castle at Killyleagh, Co. Down, anticipates the later custom among estate surveyors of giving separate ‘scenographic’ representation to a landowner’s mansion. A more common source at this period, however, is the kind of map-view devoted to fortification-works or military actions that survives for Caher, Carrickfergus, Carrigafoyle (Fig. ), Castlemaine, Dublin, Dungannon (Pl. ), Dungiven, Enniskillen, Glin, Limerick, Moyry, Newry and elsewhere. Some of these structures had been medieval castles, others (for instance at the River Blackwater in Co. Tyrone and on the island of Haulbowline in Cork Harbour: Fig. ) were part of more recent defence works. Not every castle-portrait carries conviction, however large: Dunboy, Co. Cork, and Burt, Co. Donegal, both look blatantly unrealistic in the only large-scale representations of them that survive. At the same time a lifelike appearance is no guarantee of truthfulness: some Anglo-Irish cartographers, like Nicholas Pynner in by his own admission, put their castles in an improbably good state of repair, perhaps with a view to illustrating some otherwise unrecorded restoration project. Forts The advent of the low-profile artillery fort in the mid-sixteenth century is well documented. Unlike other man-made structures, these works were most Thomas Raven, ‘A book of survey of lands belonging to . . . Viscount Claneboy’, –, no. , North Down Heritage Centre, Bangor. In Raven provided a similar inset for a house and bawn in Co. Londonderry (map of Goldsmiths’ proportion, , Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, Irish estate records, B.v.). Hatfield House, CPM Suppl. (CP /); Pacata Hibernia (London, ), i, . BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, ii, (c.). This is a general town-view rather than a portrayal of fortifications as such. For maps of Carrickfergus see also note below. Pacata Hibernia, i, ; PRO, MPF ; Lambeth Palace, MS , f. . Pacata Hibernia, i, ; PRO, MPF . Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, pl. xviii. Ibid., pl. v. TCD, MS /; Drapers’ Hall, London, MS +, f. ; Lambeth Palace, MS , f. . BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, ii, ; PRO, MPF . TCD, MSS /, /; Lambeth Palace, MS , f. ; Somerset County Record Office, DD/M, Box ; Pacata Hibernia, i, . Pacata Hibernia, i, ; BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, ii, ; TCD, MS /; BL, Add. MS , ff. –. Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, pl. i. PRO, MPF , MPF . PRO, MPF . TCD, MS /; BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, ii, ; Pacata Hibernia, ii, ; BL, Add. MS , ff. –. Pacata Hibernia, iii, , . PRO, MPF (ii). P. M. Kerrigan, Castles and
John H. Andrews
: Near Castlepark, Kinsale Harbour, , from G.A. Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, c. (Dublin, ), pl. xxii.
FIG.
FIG. :
i, .
Carrigafoyle castle, Co. Kerry, , from Pacata Hibernia (London, ),
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PL.:
Unidentified crannog (above), Dungannon castle (below) by Richard Bartlett, (courtesy of the Council of Trustees of the National Library of Ireland, NLI MS []).
often planiformly mapped even at very small scales, the word ‘fort’ being added to explain what might otherwise be a meaningless worm-like squiggle. Until the Ulster plantation, a fort was almost the only major new landscape feature that cartographers could expect to find in the Ireland of the reconquest – a fact that might well have prompted the inclusion of examples not important enough to be recorded in documentary sources such as Fort Glastalogh on the east bank of the lower Bann in Co. Antrim, or Fort O Donallie in Co. Tyrone. Most forts were mapped at least once on a large scale by military fortifications in Ireland, – (Cork, ), ch. ; M. Gowen, ‘A bibliography of contemporary plans of late sixteenth and seventeenth century artillery fortifications in Ireland’ in Irish Sword, (), –. Both these forts appear in Richard Bartlett’s ‘A generalle description of Ulster’, c. (PRO, MPF ), Fort O Donallie also in Bartlett’s untitled map of south-east Ulster (PRO, MPF ).
John H. Andrews
FIG. : Haulbowline fort, Cork Harbour, c., from Pacata Hibernia (London, ), ii, .
engineers (though many fort-plans mentioned in contemporary correspondence have since been lost), often with enough precision for the expense of walls, banks and ditches to be calculated in terms of cost per unit length. Individual buildings within a fort – lookout towers, soldiers’ quarters, governors’ houses, munition stores etc. – were portrayed with careful realism (Fig. ). On a slightly smaller scale, town walls were often treated with the same
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respect, though unfortified houses inside the walls, being privately owned and without military function, more usually appeared in diagrammatic form. Churches Churches could be indicated by the place-name element ‘Kil’ or ‘Temple’, and by drawing a simple rectangular gabled structure, perhaps topped with one or more crosses, but often identifiable in any case from the steep pitch of its roof. Many churches were drawn open to the sky, and usually this appearance of semi-ruination seems to be deliberate – in north Co. Down Thomas Raven emphasises the distinction by giving one of his churches half a roof – involving as it did not just the omission of the symbol’s uppermost horizontal line, but also the additional trouble of inserting a fourth gable-slope that would normally be hidden by the near-side surface of the roof (Fig. ). Among a random sample of nearly two hundred church symbols in the maps under discussion, three-quarters have walls and gables but no roof. This suggests that it was not so much function as physical character that made a building mapworthy: churches were landmarks for wayfinding, and in a military campaign might also serve as temporary alternatives to forts. A large rural church with nave, chancel, transepts and tower almost always occupied a former monastic site, though cartographically these are seldom accompanied by residential or other outbuildings even when the scale is large enough to accommodate them. Such sites too were sometimes included for their defensibility, though often accompanied by the caption ‘abbey’ long after the official dissolution of the monasteries. Robert Lythe and John Browne are among the cartographers particularly attentive to abbeys. Houses Except in an urban context the maps show very few uncastellated houses as distinct from cabins. A plan for the proposed layout of a Munster seignory in includes the symmetrically-gabled front elevation of an imaginary ‘gentleman’s house’ with large square windows and slender turrets distantly related to those of Longleat or Burghley. But in sixteenth-century maps aspiring to realism such houses do not appear. The most we can say of the period before c. is that a cartographer who habitually uses the word ‘castle’ may sometimes switch to ‘house’, and perhaps ‘chief house’, especially when referring to a native Irish occupant such as McBaron, McWilliam, McSwiney, O’Cahan or O’Doherty. Richard Bartlett in seems to be alone in giving close attention Raven, Clandeboy maps, no. . Lythe’s maps are listed in J.H. Andrews, ‘The Irish surveys of Robert Lythe’ in Imago Mundi, (), –. John Browne, Map of Connacht, , TCD, MS /. PRO, MPF , reproduced in F.H.A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish rural landscape (Cork, ), .
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to this kind of site, most notably in his map of Monaghan, which includes (to quote Hayes-McCoy) ‘a many gabled house of cruciform ground plan with a tiled roof ’, identified by another Elizabethan cartographer as the house of MacMahon. Elsewhere some Bartlett houses have two storeys and a chimney but otherwise resemble the cabins considered below. Other cartographers’ building-symbols may be alike in almost every respect, yet with a pronounced difference in size that only a change of category can adequately express (Fig. ). In rural Ireland ‘Englishlike’ houses make their cartographic debut with the Ulster plantation. Raven in distinguished gables, chimneys, upper and lower storey windows, doors, roofs, finials, turrets and porches. Even where obliquely viewed, his houses can often be visualised in ground plan, though actual dimensions are seldom numerically specified except in overtly architectural drawings, a notable exception being at the street village of Macosquin in Co. Londonderry in c.. Raven often gives details of half-timbering or cagework, some of it in an unfinished state, but where his maps exist in two versions, as with the Phillips survey of , they are liable to contradict themselves on questions of carpentry. The authenticity of such minor constructional features requires expert adjudication from architectural historians, especially as none of Raven’s houses survives on the ground. Cabins Though seldom spelt out by Anglo-Irish cartographers, the word ‘cabin’ seems apt for a very large number of apparently residential buildings drawn as small rectangular blocks of not more than one storey. Just as Irish churches normally lack roofs, so the Irish cabin normally lacks a chimney, unlike its nearest equivalents in contemporary maps of England. Here again Raven is unusually specific: around Bangor and Holywood most of his cabins do have chimneys, but not in the less developed parts of the Clandeboye estate adjoining Strangford Lough. The exact placement of other architectural details probably has little significance, especially as early maps so often show a window in the end wall, which seems improbable considering that in modern Irish cabins this wall is nearly always blank. At any rate cabins, since they presented no kind of Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, . Other examples are the buildings mapped at Passage West, Co. Cork in c. (Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, pl. xxi). Raven’s maps of London companies’ lands and buildings exist in two contemporary versions, Drapers’ Hall, MS + and Lambeth Palace, MS , the former being regarded as more faithful to the original survey. Tracings from the Lambeth set are reproduced in D.A. Chart (ed.), Londonderry and the London companies – (Belfast, ). See also P.S. Robinson, The plantation of Ulster: British settlement in an Irish landscape, – (Dublin, ), –. Guildhall Library, London, M.T. Misc. Doc., box , reproduced J.S. Curl, The Londonderry plantation, – (Chichester, ), pl. .
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military threat, are unlikely to have taken up much of a cartographer’s time. Unless the cartographer happened to be Richard Bartlett, that is. As Ó Danachair has shown, Bartlett in recorded with every sign of verisimilitude the angularity of house corners, the pitch of each roof on all four sides, the shape of the wooden couples supporting it, the roofing material (usually yellow thatch), the positions of doors and windows, the thickness of walls, and the presence of wattling and whitewash (Pl. ). Certainly Bartlett has a stronger claim than any other early cartographer to a place in the study of vernacular architecture: for instance note must be taken when he carries hiproofed houses well beyond the northern limit of this roof-type as defined by twentieth-century scholars. None of Bartlett’s Ulster houses looks anything like a beehive: however rounded their corners, they all have a long and a short axis. But beehive or conical huts do occur elsewhere, notably in three apparently independent representations of Elizabethan Carrickfergus and beside Burt Castle in . At the opposite end of the country are the wigwam-like huts without doors or windows recorded in the neighbourhood of Bantry Bay in , which might be interpreted as stacks of corn but for the fact that several of them are remote from any other habitation. These hut-symbols have been dismissed as propagandist inventions of English cartographers trying to make the natives look uncivilised, but the south-western examples gain credibility by reappearing in more rounded form - and this time with doors - on maps of forty years later (Fig. ).
S E T T L E M E N T G RO U P I N G S
The forms of clustered rural settlements are seldom recorded by Anglo-Irish cartographers with any degree of conviction. In Co. Londonderry Raven usually arranges his houses along one or more recognisable village streets, but regrettably without providing a scale (the Macosquin map of c. is unusual in this respect). Elsewhere the most we can expect is a distinction between dispersal and agglomeration, with seldom more than five or six houses in any one C. Ó Danachair, ‘Representations of houses on some Irish maps of c.’ in G. Jenkins (ed.), Studies in folk life: essays in honour of Iorwerth C. Peate (London, ), –. Aalen, Whelan and Stout, Atlas of the Irish rural landscape, . BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, ii, (c.); TCD, MS /; PRO, MPF ; all reproduced in P. Robinson, Carrickfergus (Royal Irish Academy, Irish historic towns atlas, i , Dublin, ), maps –. PRO, MPF (ii). PRO, MPF . Pacata Hibernia, iii, , . Much of the following section is abstracted from an essay on villages in pre-plantation Ireland previously announced as forthcoming (W. Nolan and T.P. O’Neill (eds.), Offaly, history and society: interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish county (Dublin, ), , n. ) but not now intended for publication.
John H. Andrews
FIG. : Near Dunboy castle, west Co. Cork, , from Pacata Hibernia (London, ), iii, .
group and often fewer. Clusters can appear at a surprisingly small scale: for instance in c. there are a dozen at little more than :, on a map of eastern Ulster associated with the Irish master-general of musters, Ralph Lane. Obviously such representations make no claim to completeness, either in the number of settlements within a region or in the number of houses within each settlement. As for the contrary process of numerical exaggeration, at Ardmullan, Co. Down, we can compare Raven’s pencilled cluster with what he subsequently drew in ink on the same site: the inked cabins are smaller and National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, MS P./.
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more closely spaced than their underlying models, and there are twenty-six of them instead of only about sixteen. Another aspect of settlement portrayal is illustrated by the entirely schematic dots or small circles drawn by Robert Lythe () and a number of other cartographers (Fig. ). Most of Lythe’s dots are attached to settlement names which are also the names of modern townlands. In a townland with one prominent church or castle, he would presumably have placed his circle on the site of that particular building, regardless of how the other buildings in the vicinity might be arranged. But not every townland provided such an obvious focal point. Of Co. Meath townlands named on Lythe’s maps, ninety-five probably contained a church or castle. In his remaining sixty-seven Meath townlands there is no evidence of any conspicuous building to catch the surveyor’s attention. In a separate map of Idrone, Co. Carlow, Lythe’s own caption refers to villages or townships of which he says only ‘some’ had any church or castle. If the ordinary farmhouses of these townlands were dispersed rather than grouped, there would be nowhere in particular to place a dot, and townland names might be expected instead to ‘float’ like those of a one-inch Ordnance Survey sheet. In short, the very choice of single point-symbols as distinct from floating names can perhaps be taken as proof of clustering, at any rate where no churches or castles are present. As for the classification of house clusters, one weakness in a purely cartographic analysis is that its results cannot always be harmonised with those of previous researchers. Take for example the kind of settlement in Tyrone that Robinson calls a ‘local centre of importance’ as opposed to a clachan. Granted that for the purposes of this chapter nothing can be deduced from what is not shown on an early map, none of the half-dozen clusters to be seen in maps of Tyrone can be pronounced ‘important’. No doubt it is interesting that the five-house village of Balle Doile on Richard Bartlett’s ‘Generall description of Ulster’ does not share the name of any recorded townland, because post-plantation settlements with non-townland names do often function as ‘centres of local importance’. That much might also be said of Balleneslee and Ballycleran in Co. Monaghan on the same map, especially since, as Duffy has shown, ‘Bally’ in Monaghan generally refers to a territorial Raven, Clandeboy maps, no. . Most of the pencilling on Raven’s maps has been fairly thoroughly erased. What remains legible can generally be distinguished from the annotations of later map-users. Lythe’s settlement-symbols are illustrated in Andrews, Shapes of Ireland, . They are remapped for the whole of Ireland in Aalen, Whelan and Stout, Atlas of the Irish rural landscape, . M. Moore, Archaeological inventory of County Meath (Dublin, ). PRO, MPF , reproduced in E. McCracken, The Irish woods since Tudor times: their distribution and exploitation (Newton Abbot, ), . This copy of the Idrone map is not in Lythe’s hand, but he is the only Elizabethan cartographer known to have surveyed Idrone. P. Robinson, ‘Irish settlement in Tyrone before the plantation’ in Ulster Folklife, (), .
John H. Andrews
level above that of the tate or townland, though not apparently a level at which historians have yet identified any particular settlement form. Unfortunately ‘local importance’ involves a functional component for which, as we have seen, maps can provide no assistance. Matters might have been different if nonmilitary road networks were well represented in pre-plantation maps of Ireland. What the maps do help to elucidate is Smyth’s distinction between clustering and nucleation. A nucleated settlement includes an element other than an ordinary dwelling house, to which the rest of the cluster is presumably linked by some relationship that goes beyond mere proximity, though of course no early cartographer said what this relationship is. Mapped nucleations in rural areas can be classified under six heads according to the proximity of churches, castles, houses, adjacent forts, circumjacent forts, or waterside landing places. Among a sample of clustered settlements (excluding monastic prototowns as not genuinely rural) there are twenty cases in which the nucleus is a church. In the literature of Irish historical geography, most church clusters are large Anglo-Norman parish centres situated in or near the English Pale. The present selection, which totally excludes the Pale, can offer an alternative view. Only six of the twenty church-clusters are known from other evidence to have been parish centres, and only two of these six clusters exceed the average size for their respective maps. These are Ballyaghran in Co. Derry, which has a church and five houses on the Lane map of and which had actually been an Anglo-Norman manorial village, and Killeagh in Imokilly, which according to an anonymous map of was more than twice as large as any other cluster in the barony. Church-clusters also occur in more westerly locations, for instance at Kilcatherine in west Cork. The most widespread of the six nucleated cluster-types is the castle cluster, providing strong evidence for Smyth’s opinion that tower houses were not necessarily a mark of dispersed settlement. Our sample yields sixteen specimens in Ulster, four in Louth and two each in Carlow, west Cork, Limerick and Sligo. Some stood alongside major strongpoints like Dundrum and Greencastle in Co. Down; others, like Belfast, with three mapped houses in , themselves grew into important towns. One may have special resonance for Irish historical geographers, and that is Whitestown or Whitescastle in the Cooley peninsula, minutely anatomised by Jones Hughes at a period when its castle had ceased to exist. Three castle-clusters were mapped on a large enough scale to give at least P. J. Duffy, ‘The territorial organisation of Gaelic landownership and its transformation in County Monaghan, –’ in Irish Geography, (), –. W. J. Smyth, ‘The dynamic quality of Irish “village” life – a reassessment’ in Campagnes et littoraux d’Europe (Melanges offert à Pierre Flatres) (Lille, ), –. PRO, MPF . T. Jones Hughes, ‘Landholding and settlement in the Cooley peninsula of County Louth’ in Irish Geography, (), –.
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some hint of their internal structure. Pilltown in west Waterford had ten houses in , scattered across what looks like a village green. Glin in Co. Limerick, expressly described as a ‘town’ on a map of , had seven houses formlessly grouped near, but not alongside, the approach road to the castle (Fig. ). Lacking individual gardens, the houses at both places had an air of impermanence – those at Glin were actually on fire when the cartographer saw them – and their irregular disposition finds no echo in later maps covering the same areas. Modern Glin, as O’Connor points out, has all the symmetry of an eighteenth-century estate village. Caher in south Tipperary is more spectacularly a castle-cluster. The military detail on the Pacata Hibernia picture-plan of the castle under siege in has been pronounced generally accurate; and its military and civil elements are so closely intermeshed that this favourable judgement must surely apply also to the houses and enclosures, and to streets identifiable with the modern Castle Street, Church Street and Chapel Street. The gaps among the twentysix houses may be evidence of post-medieval shrinkage, but the Caher mapview is as near as pre-plantation cartography brings us to a close-up of the ‘classic’ medieval village of Irish historical geography, even if the church in this case happens to lie outside the artist’s field of vision. Clusters adjoining non-castellated houses are comparatively rare. Perhaps the best source is the map of Beare and Bantry cited above. Here, besides the huts already mentioned, there are many rectangular gabled buildings, some of them topped with crosses to denote a church, others evidently dwellings. The map shows a variety of spatial relationships – single castles, single churches, church-clusters and castle-clusters. The houses, like the churches and castles, are never conjoined with their own kind, but are often accompanied by groups of from three to eleven huts. Another unregarded and much less numerous symbol-type appears in several large-scale plans from Ulster. Buildings inside a campaign fort may perhaps be ignored here as not genuinely rural (Fig. ), but note should be taken of clusters depicted outside the ramparts at Blackwater, Monaghan and elsewhere. These settlements are generally ignored by historians, presumably discouraged by the aura of transience and abnormality that surrounds the camp follower. Yet it has been argued that transience and abnormality were more permanent and normal features of the Irish landscape than earlier settlement historians were willing to admit. The fort-cluster is included among our six types in deference to this shift of opinion. TCD, MS /, non-photographically reproduced in R. Caulfield, The council book of the corporation of Youghal (Guildford, ), frontispiece. P.J. O’Connor, Exploring Limerick’s past: an historical geography of urban development in county and city (Newcastle West, ), –. Pacata Hibernia, i, ; D. Newman Johnson, ‘A contemporary plan of the siege of Caher castle, , and some additional remarks’ in Irish Sword, (–), –. K. Nicholls,
John H. Andrews
FIG. : Near Glin castle, Co. Limerick, , from Pacata Hibernia (London, ), i, .
A different kind of nucleus, not often explicitly mapped at this period but surely capable of being inferred, is the non-urban coastal or riverside landing place. In the map of Imokilly a number of the stipple patches representing settlement abut directly on to the coastline, for instance at Corkbeg, Ballinacurra and elsewhere. For a surveyor, the topological difference between contiguity and non-contiguity presents none of the problems involved in the measurement of bearings and distances, and there is no reason why a symbol on the mapped coast should not denote a settlement on the real coast (Fig. ). The places in question probably depended to some extent on fishing, coastal trade or ferry traffic: villages of purely agricultural origin and function are usually set back from the waterfront. Cartographically the best example of the type is Ballyhack on the Wexford side of Waterford Harbour as mapped by Francis Jobson in , with eleven of its twelve houses fronting the street that connects the castle with the estuary. The inverse form of the nucleated cluster is the enclosed cluster. Raths and ‘Gaelic society and economy in the high middle ages’ in A. Cosgrove (ed.), A new history of Ireland, ii: medieval Ireland – (Oxford, ), . TCD, MS /, reproduced in R.A. Butlin (ed.), The development of the Irish town (London, ), .
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: Near Caher castle, Co. Tipperary, , from Pacata Hibernia (London, ), i, .
FIG.
crannogs appear on several Elizabethan maps, but only Bartlett chose a large enough scale to show the buildings inside them (Pl. ). Two of his crannogs contain three cabins each, while his large Irish fort at Inishloughan, Co. Antrim, encloses five small cabins and a substantial house. Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, pls v, vi, xi.
John H. Andrews
We come finally to the non-nucleated rural house cluster once known as a clachan. Smyth has divided this category into four sub-types, but all the examples on the maps under review must by definition count as archaic in his scheme, and there is no cartographic method of distinguishing his western from his feudal sub-type except by their geographical situations, with seventeen examples mapped in west Cork, six in Imokilly and no less than fifty-six in Idrone. Unfortunately none of the west Cork specimens is given a name, so that they cannot be individually identified with any of the numerous modern clusters in the same area. The cluster-names recorded in other regions form an interesting mixture, which includes elements of non-habitative origin such as Seskinryan, Knockullard and Rosslee in Carlow as well as the more predictable ‘towns’ and ‘ballys’. What they all have in common, unfortunately, is that no modern clusters can be found in the townlands that still bear these names. To that extent the maps confirm what Desmond McCourt once called the ‘dynamic quality’ of Irish rural settlement.
O T H E R L A N D S C A P E F E AT U R E S
Relatively unusual items of non-military significance in early Irish regional maps include ancient earthworks, barns, boundary stones, brewhouses, cairns, cranes, docks, dovecots or pigeon-houses, fishing weirs, gallows, inn-signs, iron furnaces, lime kilns, malthouses, market-places, may-poles, memorial crosses, mills (both water and wind), parley hills, piers or breakwaters, pumps, raths, round towers, signal fires, sites of inauguration ceremonies, smiths’ forges, and wells. Some of these less common features, it must be admitted, may not appear more than once or twice but there are two – roads and land cover – that occupy sufficient map-space to justify further consideration. Roads Nobody knows why so few roads were recorded by Europe’s sixteenth and early seventeenth-century land surveyors, considering how much time these men must have spent riding along the public highway. This is true even at scales between :, and :,, where later maps would almost always show roads as a matter of course. In fact there seem almost to be proportionately more roads on medieval than on renaissance maps, so perhaps it is no coincidence that the only pre-Cromwellian all-Ireland map to show them is also the oldest. Thenceforth the representation of journeys seems to have D. McCourt, ‘The dynamic quality of Irish rural settlement’ in R.H. Buchanan, Emrys Jones and D. McCourt (eds.), Man and his habitat: essays presented to Emyr Estyn Evans (London, ), –. BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, , . The roads on this map are too faint to be easily seen in a photograph. It is copied diagrammatically in Andrews, Shapes of Ireland, .
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been more popular than that of roads as such. The routes followed by military forces appear on James Grafton’s map of Mayo and Sligo in and in south-east Ulster as mapped by Bartlett in , while John Baxter may have had a similar motive for his highly selective mapping of the roads around Donegal Bay at about the same period. Many large-scale plans include short stretches of road connecting a town or fort with the margin of the map, occasionally with a directional note such as ‘The Waye to Kinsale’ or ‘The highe way by which we came to the Castle’ (Fig. ): these may at least be long enough to distinguish an early road’s alignment from those of its modern successors in the immediate vicinity. Only occasionally, as in Bartlett’s map of the Blackwater forts, do military cartographers commit themselves to any kind of network. More often a road through open countryside seemed worth a cartographer’s notice only where it met some special obstacle: examples are river crossings by ford or bridge, causeways over bogs, and passes through woods. Passes are common in the regional maps of Francis Jobson and Richard Bartlett but only at scales too small for exact planimetric representation. On the anonymous Leix-Offaly map of c. , however, they are located unambiguously enough to be identifiable in the modern road network. Occasionally a pass may carry its own name, another sign of verisimilitude: an example is ‘The pace in Baloghe Newrye’ as mapped by Lythe in east Co. Down. For ordinary road networks the earliest major cartographic source-type is the estate survey, though until the eighteenth century its coverage can seldom be regarded as complete. Raven for instance in – gives many examples radiating from Bangor and Holywood, but very few in the hinterlands of Comber and Killyleagh. A number of his causeways have no roads leading to them. Land cover Ireland’s man-made vegetation cover received little attention on early maps. Our one good English-style sixteenth-century estate survey, of Mogeely (Co. Cork) in , depicts apparently with great precision a patchwork of true-toscale enclosures (including fences and gates), albeit rather large ones of around – statute acres each, but to judge from their still uncorrupted English names these fields were only as old as Sir Walter Raleigh’s plantation. They PRO, MPF . The routes of the Scottish and government forces are shown in red and black respectively. See G.A. Hayes-McCoy, ‘Ballyshannon: its strategic importance in the wars in Connacht, –’ in JGAHS, (), –; C. O Lochlainn, ‘A campaign map of Connacht, ’ in Irish Sword, (), . National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, MS P./. Hayes-McCoy, Ulster and other Irish maps, pl. viii. BL, Cotton MS Aug. I, ii, ; TCD, MS /; National Maritime Museum, MS P./; J. H. Andrews and R. Loeber, ‘An Elizabethan map of Leix and Offaly’ in Nolan and O’Neill (eds.), Offaly: history and society, -; –. M.B. Ó Mainnín, Place-names of Northern Ireland, volume three: County Down III, The Mournes (Belfast, ), –, which lists a number of other maps showing this feature. NLI, MS , reproduced in N. Kissane (ed.), Treasures from the National
John H. Andrews
are Spring field, Bromefylde, The Parke Close, The Warren Close, The Lyme Fielde, The Oxelease, The Bridge Close – only Glanetoyre looks Irish. In the present state of knowledge this highly effective landscape portrait must be regarded as a freak. The future of Irish estate mapping lay rather with Thomas Raven, whose surveys anticipated those of William Petty by noticing woods, bogs, and land quality (arable, pasture, meadow or waste) but seldom any field boundaries except for those that separated one townland from another. On topographical maps the evidence is even more impressionistic. Lythe’s references to ‘good arable ground’, pasture and meadow are verbal rather than graphic. In the wilds of west Co. Mayo John Browne drew numerous tree symbols and, more unusually at this scale, gave a distinctive colour to what he called bogs and waste grounds, implicitly classifying the blank parts of his map as productive land. But how was the productive area divided between crops and grass? It is here that Bartlett’s Ulster landscape portraits disappoint. His detailed fort plans show approximately one statute acre of ripe corn in lazy beds half-way between present-day Lisburn and Lurgan – a mere . per cent of their total land coverage but evidently implying that if there had been any other arable land Bartlett would have said so. Outside the bogs and woods, in the high summer of , he has nothing to offer but green grass. There had once been enough corn to thatch almost all the buildings shown on Bartlett’s Ulster maps, but now the English army had either burnt the corn or prevented farmers from planting it in the first place. Things had been different four years earlier, when another artist had depicted eight drumlins to the west of Armagh city, each of them described (in a marginal key) as being occupied by corn fields. The rest of our cartographic evidence for land cover comes mainly from the neighbourhood of individual towns, villages or buildings. The most minimally helpful map, perhaps, is one of Trinity College, Dublin, where in c. the single word ‘feelds’ describes a seemingly undifferentiated area immediately outside the college’s eastern wall. Elsewhere there are blocks of from a dozen to sixty-odd separate enclosures, all of them highly diagrammatic. Examples appear in military maps of Galway by Brian Fitzwilliam, the Blackwater battlefield by John Poley, Pilltown and Glin by William Jones, and Kinsale by Paul Ivy. Hardly any of these divisions are narrow enough to be called strips,
Library of Ireland ([Dublin], ), –. PRO, MPF . PRO, MPF . Woods appear in many of the maps under review, but in this chapter they are regarded as a relict feature rather than as parts of the cultural landscape. See K. Nicholls, ‘Woodland cover in pre-modern Ireland’ in this volume. TCD, MS /. Hatfield House, CPM I.; reproduced in J.P. Mahaffy, An epoch in Irish history (nd ed., ). BL, Cott. MS Aug. I, ii, . TCD, MS . This map was kindly brought to the author’s attention by Stuart Ó Seanóir. TCD, MS /, but not in other copies of this map. Hatfield House, Maps II, .
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and at Pilltown they are separated by double lines more suggestive of banks than balks. Substantial field boundaries, including some wattle fences, are also shown in the islands and on the east bank of the River Suir at Caher in , whereas the hatching that divides the fields on the other side of the river has been deliberately made to look level with the ground (Fig. ). Furrows or cultivation ridges are another interesting feature of the fields at Caher, but this map, it should be remembered, is known to us only through the medium of an engraving executed outside Ireland.
TERRITORIALITY
Territorial and familial organisation as such is not normally regarded as a landscape feature, but it certainly falls within the spirit of this book. Throughout Ireland geographical differences in power and influence were especially interesting to users of Tudor and early Stuart maps on every scale, as is clear from the numerous additions made to them in a variety of non-cartographic hands. Admittedly English mapmakers could not be expected to record or even understand the intricacies of Gaelic social organisation. Apart from names and boundaries, the most they can generally tell us is where some prominent chief was inaugurated or ‘made’ – MacMahon at Mullogh Lest, Magennis at Lis-neRee, O’Donnell at Kilmacrenan and so on. Here, as in other respects, Richard Bartlett managed to strike an original note. Among his inscriptions in southeast Ulster were: ‘The Lotie, wch is the houshold or demesne land of the ONeales’, ‘McCahel one of the farmers of the Lotie’, ‘Patrick McToole, now McKennan lord of heise landes’, ‘this contrie [Clankernie] the O-Neales have used to give unto the Capt. of their Galliglass for their interteinement & bonage’, and ‘Killeene the chanter of Armagh’. The boundaries of native Irish territories appear on many topographical maps as a broken line, sometimes with a parallel band of colour and matched by the name of either a territorial division or some dominant local family. A stranger to Ireland, like John Norden, might well admit himself unable to distinguish these two kinds of name, and it must sometimes have seemed easier to trace the counties and baronies created by the Dublin government. Most burdensome to the surveyor, but most interesting to the settlement historian, was the delimitation of townlands, first seriously undertaken in the s. But here it must be noted that until the nineteenth-century, Irish townland boundaries almost always appear in their capacity as property divisions rather than as objects of interest in their own right. Pacata Hibernia, i, . PRO, MPF . PRO, MPF , an index and commentary to Norden’s map of Ireland, .
John H. Andrews
Morphologically the early cartographer’s boundary symbols were of five kinds. () Most run in improbably smooth curves of large radius, as if the draftsman knew no more than which settlement belonged to which territory and interpolated the border accordingly, as a modern climatologist might interpolate an isotherm between weather stations. () Or a cartographer might just know the names of territories abutting on to a given territory, which seems to be how the balliboes, quarters and tates of Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh and Tyrone – and by aggregation the baronies and ‘proportions’ of these counties – were delimited under the direction of Josias Bodley in –. Here too the curves may be unconvincingly regular, but given a large number of small units the abutment method can yield surprisingly good results. Its practitioner needs a modicum of independent topographical knowledge, however: otherwise his map may be no more than a mirror image of the truth. () Boundaries might partly coincide with rivers or with the shores of seas or lakes, and some mapmakers found it hard to decide whether the physical and political lines should be made distinguishable or whether a watercourse with different territorial names on either side should be allowed to speak for itself. If a river had been surveyed independently, its alignment would lend additional cartographic authority to any concurrent territorial border, though in the case of minor streams the two features may have been sketched as a single operation without necessarily authenticating each other. In wide rivers the exact position of a boundary ‘thread’ might eventually give trouble to property lawyers, but it was not until the nineteenth century that the division of water surfaces between counties and baronies became an issue in Irish cartography. () Public boundaries of strict geometrical form were comparatively rare in Ireland until the time of the Ordnance Survey. The only examples noted in our period are the liberties of Coleraine and Londonderry, both defined as circles centred on a town. () Finally there are irregular boundaries that were ‘trode with the chaine’ from the time of the Munster plantation onwards. Two official plans of properties near Youghal survive at the kind of scale that is likely to have been used for calculating the areas of forfeited land, one of Inchiquin, and one of Molanna; while in a smaller but remarkably accurate map delimiting the manor of Tralee gives some idea of what might have been shown by largerscale surveys that no longer exist. But the best evidence for townlands is Andrews and Loeber, ‘An Elizabethan map of Leix and Offaly’, . J.H. Andrews, ‘The maps of the escheated counties of Ulster, –’ in PRIA, C (), . Thomas Raven, map of Clothworkers’ lands, , Guildhall Library, London, Box . Raven, map of Goldsmiths’ proportion, . PRO, MPF /. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, MS P./. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, MS P./. Two copies: PRO, MPF (reproduced non-photographically in M.A. Hickson, ‘Notes on Kerry, ancient and modern’ in JRSAI, (–), ; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, MS
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estate cartography, and the best source of early estate maps is Thomas Raven, partly in Co. Londonderry and partly in north Co. Down. Raven’s townland boundaries have been pronounced ‘very erratic’. They appear however to have been mapped by instrumental traverse, though lack of time probably caused his stations to be more widely spaced than might have been acceptable to surveyors of a later generation. Another reason for this criticism may be that Raven sometimes identified parcels by naming their tenants instead of by a genuine townland name - ‘Jane Anderton’ near Bangor instead of ‘Cotton’ for instance - but this seems not so much erratic as realistic: it was by the same process of ‘personalisation’ that many of Ireland’s traditional townland names had originated in the first place.
C O N C LU S I O N
A striking feature of the maps discussed in this chapter is their variety. They show wide differences not only in authorship and archival history but also in format, scale, cartographic sophistication and geographical merit. Almost the only general statement it seems safe to make about them is that Tudor and early Stuart Ireland yields no trace whatever of the contemporary English cartographic norm, which was a printed county map by an author of national reputation. This means that early Irish maps are hard to find and, when found, by no means easy to interpret: for instance no cartographic historian of this period, however experienced, can be sure of distinguishing realism from schematicism in the representation of individual landscape features. Whatever their exact interpretation, such features reveal themselves as full of interest and as reasonably abundant when the evidence is studied in quantity and at close quarters. But on a broader view the impression given by these maps is rather bleak. At large scales their cartographers’ principal concern was with fortifications, sieges and battles. In a regional context it was with the placement and territorial extent of political power, the alternation of good and bad neighbours, and the strategic value of mountains, lakes, bogs and forests. Even in maps of fertile lowland country, most building-symbols denoted not a parishvillage or other rural community but simply a stone structure that might be capable of resisting violent assault. Nor does the typical early Irish estate map have much to show of comfort or prosperity. Townlands might be carefully named and bounded in this kind of map, but to all appearances their principal P./a. For the Londonderry maps see Curl, Londonderry plantation, plates , , , , and associated documentation in the text. Raven’s surveys in Co. Monaghan lie outside the period of this essay. They are described by P. J. Duffy, ‘Farney in : an examination of Thomas Raven’s survey of the Essex estate’ in Clogher Record, , (), –. M. Perceval-Maxwell, The Scottish migration to Ireland in the reign of James I (London, ), .
John H. Andrews
function was as a repository of movable wealth in the shape of herds and flocks. All in all, the main historical value of Irish cartography before is to define a quasi-medieval base level for the assessment of later landscape change.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
KENNETH NICHOLLS
The question of the extent to which Ireland was wooded in the late medieval–early modern period (c.–) has been a vexed one. The view that the country was still heavily wooded before c. has been assailed by an argument that Ireland’s woodland cover had been largely removed before the Anglo-Norman invasion in . Yet this minimalist view remains unpersuasive. As the present writer has contended elsewhere, historical evidence suggests that the limits of Anglo-Norman occupation and settlement were determined by the existence of woodland which both afforded effective cover for a native resistance and required clearance to be converted into the farmland desired by the settlers. By the time that increasing population pressure in the colony would have impelled the large-scale assarting of woodland the Gaelic Irish had become too well organised and too militarily effective – in contrast to their earlier weakness – to allow this to happen. Extensive, if localised, woodland must have survived. To deny, as a recent writer has done, the existence of extensive woodlands fringing the bogs of the central plain, flies in the face of extant sources such as the famous Leix-Offaly map of , on which they figure so prominently, or the observations of Elizabethan soldiers, who were in no doubt that bogland was ineffective for Irish guerrilla activity in the absence of woodland or scrub to afford cover. Admittedly, the argument that the areas that had been occupied only superficially, or not at all, by the Anglo-Norman invaders were those which possessed a heavy forest cover can be a dangerously circular one: nevertheless it still seems convincing to the present writer, and it is otherwise difficult to explain the actual limits of Anglo-Norman settlement. Arguments about forest cover have in the past tended to be based on the premiss that forest cover must be ‘primeval’, and some of the arguments put forward against its existence on a large scale in the early modern period undoubtedly reflect a basically political motivation, a fear that to do so would be to present the Gaelic Irish as somehow ‘primitive’, a view of woodland The classic exposition of this minimalist view was A.C. Forbes, ‘Some legendary and historical references to Irish woods and their significance’ in PRIA, B (), –. K.W. Nicholls, ‘Anglo-French Ireland and after’ in Peritia, (), –. J. Feehan, in his preface to G. Cunningham, The Anglo-Norman advance into the south-west midlands of Ireland, – (Roscrea, ), xvi. For the map see n. , below. Cal S.P. Ire., –, .
Kenneth Nicholls
which indeed was universal in medieval attitudes: sylvaticus, synonymous with sylvestris, ‘belonging to a wood’, is the root of our word ‘savage’, and Hibernici sylvestres can be translated either as ‘wild Irish’ or ‘woodland Irish’, in either case the Gaelic enemies of the civilised English colony, and the salvajes who sheltered the shipwrecked Captain Cuellar. Of late, however, the progress of palynology has shown that in the past Ireland has experienced both periods of large-scale clearance and widespread regeneration, as in the period following the collapse of the Anglo-Norman colony and the Black Death – itself only the first of a series of epidemics (see Hall and Bunting, this volume). Such a cycle was indeed well known to native tradition, being encapsulated in a saying: Teóra h-uaire do cuir Eire, Teóra monga, agus teóra maola dhí (‘Three times Ireland was cultivated: thrice wooded, and thrice bare’).
WO O D L A N D FAU NA
None of these earlier deforestations, however, was so drastic as to prevent the survival of a specifically woodland fauna, as was to be the case with the documented clearances of the seventeenth century. While a bird such as the goshawk, dependent as it may be on undisturbed woodland for nesting sites, could have re-colonised Ireland from outside – as it has re-colonised English forestry plantations in the present century – this could not have been the case with, say, the capercaillie and the squirrel. Such woodland creatures as the pheasant and the fallow deer were certainly introductions of the AngloNorman invaders, while the wild pigs of the early modern period – whose presence is authenticated by many observers – may have been the descendants of feral domestic stock. But the presence of all three implies the existence of a considerable degree of woodland cover. Indeed, it is the existence of a specifically woodland fauna that, side by side with palynology, affords clear scientific proof of the existence of woodland. To take the squirrel: squirrel skins occur as an export item in customs accounts from the thirteenth century, although one must beware of taking the continuing occurrence (down to ) of squirrel skins in custom rate lists as indicating they were still an actual article of trade. Longfield, finding a total absence of squirrel skins and a decline in the number of marten pelts in the late sixteenth-century records of Anglo-Irish trade, queried the actual existence of the squirrel in Ireland and postulated a decline in marten numbers The same notion is present in the present-day pejorative Irish term ‘Culchie’, undoubtedly – in spite of journalistic folk etymologies – from coilteach, ‘man of the woods’. Quoted by Hardiman in his notes to Roger O’Flaherty, A chorographical description of West or h-IarConnaught (Dublin, ), .
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
through hunting. The latter may possibly be true, but an alternative explanation might lie in the development of English trade with Muscovy, even before the great Russian movement into Siberia began in the s. Irish squirrel and marten pelts, then, may simply have been displaced by better furs from Russia. In any case, the existence of the squirrel in Ireland is sufficiently documented. In an annual rent of squirrel skins was recorded as payable to the de Verdons, lords of a half of Meath, out of the Gaelic territory of Clanarwy – probably Clann Fhearmhaighe, the district comprising the parishes of Killerry and Killanummery, in counties Sligo and Leitrim (the location obviates any suggestion that the squirrel was an Anglo-Norman introduction, like the pheasant or fallow deer!). Its presence in the Irish woods of the sixteenth century is attested by Philip O’Sullivan Bere, who seems to know a good deal about its ecology (as well as the use of its skin for purses!), while Roger O’Flaherty notes it as living in Iar-Connacht (the region to the west of Loughs Corrib and Mask) in . It is generally accepted that the squirrel died out in Ireland not long afterwards, and that the populations which were so abundant in some regions, especially Leinster, in the nineteenth century were descendants of introduced stock. There is a remote possibility that a few native squirrels locally survived to share with the immigrants in the abundant food supply provided by the wholesale planting of beech in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Ireland (as they did in one part of the Scottish Highlands, where again the squirrel population was predominantly an introduced one), but it seems unlikely. In the absence of the beech and the rarity or local occurrence of the pine, the basic food source of the Irish squirrel must have lain in the abundant growth of hazel. The evidence for the former existence of birds specific to a woodland habitat, such as the goshawk (Accipiter Gentilis), the capercaillie (Tetrax Urogallus), and various species of woodpecker, has been recently collected by D’Arcy, and it would be unnecessary for me to recapitulate it in detail here. Eyries of goshawks, which were in constant demand for falconry, were an important economic resource and so were recorded in surveys and similar documents. From these we can attest breeding in every county of Munster and Connacht (except, perhaps, Sligo), and in Offaly, Kilkenny and Antrim. It probably A.K. Longfield, Anglo-Irish trade in the sixteenth century (London, ), –, . My colleague, Mr A.F. O’Brien, confirms this absence of squirrel skins from sixteenth-century trade records. T.S. Wilan, The early history of the Russia Company, – (Manchester, ). J. Otway-Ruthven, ‘The partition of the de Verdon lands in Ireland in ’ in PRIA, C (), . Uppsala University Library, MS H. , §. O’Flaherty, Chorographical description, –. R.M. Barrington, ‘On the introduction of the squirrel into Ireland’ in Scientific Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society (n.s.), (), –; and the note by James Fairley to his edition of Arthur Stringer, The experienced huntsman (Belfast, ), . I owe these references to Mr Seán Ryan. R.S. Fitter, The ark in our midst (London, ), . G. D’Arcy, Ireland’s lost birds (Dublin, ).
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occurred in most other counties (outside those of the Pale) as well. It seems never, however, to have been a common bird – the survey of the O’Connor lordship of Offaly (corresponding to the eastern third of the present county) in could discover only three nesting sites – and was peculiarly sensitive to the presence of humans. In it was reported to the bishop of Meath that although the hawks had bred that year in the woods of Clonfinlough near Clonmacnois, ‘they are like never to breed there, for Mr. Malone [the tenant] has set the land . . . and the hawks will not breed where there is habitation’. Similarly, at Clorhane west of Clonmacnois there was ‘a tuff [sic] of trees called Cloynduff where was an eyrie of hawks, now banished by habitation’. The presence of the capercaillie (Fig. ) or, as it was called in Ireland, ‘Cock of the wood’ (Coileach Fheadha), which early modern observers note as a particularly Irish bird, was established on a firm basis (against some quite unjustified doubts) by Hall in , and his findings have been physically confirmed by the discovery of capercaillie bones in twelfth-century sites in Dublin and Wexford. There are definite references to its presence in Antrim, Leitrim, Galway (Connamara), Tipperary, Kilkenny and Wicklow, but it is probable that it was widespread in all upland woods. An important testimony which has been overlooked is that of Col. Edward Cooke, who killed one while hawking near Arklow in , ‘a lovely bird as big as a turkey’, and had it for dinner, ‘the best bird I ever ate’. On the other hand, O’Sullivan Bere seems to have been personally unacquainted with the bird, although he knew of it by repute: that such a careful observer as he did not know such a large and conspicuous bird suggests that it was absent from the forests of his native southwest, which were perhaps too wet to have been a suitable habitat. It has been conventionally assumed that the presence of pine-woods was a necessary pre-requisite for the capercaillie, but Hall and D’Arcy have pointed out that in parts of Spain and Russia the bird has adapted itself to living in hardwood forests, and suggested that the same may have been the case in Ireland. Without discounting this suggestion, I must survey the evidence for the continuous existence of the pine (Pinus Sylvestris) in Ireland into the early modern period. Palynology has been invoked to support the view that it had become extinct before the later medieval period, in spite of the literary evidence to the contrary, and the fact that certain trees surviving into modern E. Curtis (ed.), ‘The survey of Offaly in ’ in Hermathena, (), . Public Library, Armagh, MS ‘Orders of council and other documents relative to the diocese of Meath in the seventeenth century’, –. Cloynduff may be the modern Cloniff. J.J. Hall, ‘The cock of the wood’ in Irish birds, / (), –. D’Arcy, Ireland’s lost birds, –. Col. Edward Cooke to Lord Bruce, Nov. (HMC, rep., app. vii, –). Uppsala MS H. , § describes it as tetrax or stupida; and as being the size of a guinea-fowl (meleagris): in § its Irish names, Collech Dubh, Cearc Dhubh, Coileachfeagh, Kiarc-fheagh, are entered in the margin. Cf. Christopher Lever, The naturalised animals of the British Isles (London, ), . I owe this reference to Mr Seán Ryan. The evidence was collected by Augustin Henry
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
Fig. : The Capercaillie or Coileach Fheadha (T. Rymer Jones, Cassell’s book of birds, vols, vol. , London, -, ).
times – as at Doneraile, Co. Cork, Dromana, Co. Waterford, and Ballyarthur, Co. Wicklow, have locally been known as ‘Irish Pines’. Recently, however, pine pollen has been discovered in late medieval horizons, while it may be noted that there are no published pollen cores for any of the mountain forest regions of the south where one might, as I will suggest, have expected the tree to survive, if anywhere. O’Sullivan Bere refers to the existence of pine-trees (ochtach) in Ireland, ‘especially in the woods of Conkein’ [Glenconkeen, in the southeast of Co. Londonderry] and Charles Smith, in his Ancient and present state of the county of Kerry (), also refers to the survival of isolated pine trees on the hill-sides. It is in such situations, on the drier slopes of mountains, that one would expect the last remnants of native pinewoods to have in H.J. Elwes and A.H. Henry, The trees of Great Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, ; repr. Wakefield, ), iii, –. Doneraile: Elwes and Henry, Trees, iii, ; Dromana: (an old tree referred to by estate workers as an Irish Fir, c. ), information Mr. J.H.I. Villiers-Stuart; Ballyarthur, information Mr. E.A.R. Bayly (letter to author, June ). It is difficult to see, given the ubiquity of the terms ‘Scots Pine’ or ‘Scots Fir’, why Henry was sceptical of accepting the term ‘Irish Pine’ as evidence, if not quite proof, of native stock. Hall and Bunting, ‘Tephra-dated pollen’, this volume. D’Arcy, Ireland’s lost birds, . In a ridiculous blunder, working from a bad negative photostat, I myself in the past misread Conkeini as Corlevii and interpreted it as the Curlews (County Sligo)! Elwes and Henry, Trees, iii, .
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survived. It is to be noted that certain old woods of the south whose existence can be clearly documented from the early seventeenth century, such as Keanogue Wood in the south of Co. Carlow, some small scattered woods of the Sheen valley south of Kenmare, and, on a much larger scale, Bansha Wood and some neighbouring mountain woods on Slievemuck in south-western Tipperary, the last relics of the great forest of ‘Arlagh and Muskerry Quirke’ of the sixteenth century, are shown on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map as having a random scattering of conifers among the broad-leaved trees. This might represent, of course, eighteenth-century planting (although none of these woods is within a demesne or great estate), but could, alternatively, these represent the last refuges of the native Irish pine? (I know of no pollen cores from these areas I have just mentioned.) It is also perhaps significant (if not indeed a mere coincidence) that these woods of Slievemuck appear to have been the last recorded Irish habitat of the capercaillie. This last reference to the capercaillie as an Irish bird is a note which the naturalist Thomas Pennant wrote into his own copy of the edition of his British Zoology, and which was embodied in the posthumous edition of , that ‘About the year , a few were to be found about Thomastown, in Co. Tipperary’. Pennant may have derived his information from some member of the Mathew family, earls of Llandaff, whose seat Thomastown was, and the only suitable habitat in the neighbourhood would have been the Slievemuck woods, less than a couple of miles distant.
T Y P E S O F WO O D L A N D
But the presence of a woodland fauna begs the question: what kind of woodland? Land surveyors were interested in woodland as an economic resource and tended either to ignore degraded or scrubby woodland, to lump it in with pasture, or even to class it with bog as ‘unprofitable’. Such woodland was obviously regarded as fit at most for the grazing of livestock, a use which if sufficiently intense would lead to its ultimate disappearance through preventing regeneration. It is likely that it was this, rather than deliberate clearance, which led to the disappearance of many Irish woods. Small woods might be ignored completely by surveyors: the boundary descriptions in those parts of the Civil Survey where they are given in detail sometimes mention woods which were not thought important enough to be recorded in the acreage columns, being presumably lumped in as pasture. That much of the Irish woodland cover in the early modern period was of Hall, ‘Cock of the wood’, . D’Arcy, Ireland’s lost birds, , seems to confuse Thomastown, Co. Tipperary, with Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
a degraded nature appears from the sources. The Desmond Survey of Co. Kerry () records that the woods of Glanageenty were ‘filled with oak-trees fit for house timber but not large enough for the making of ships or castles. But the greater part of the said wood consists of underwood of the age of fifty or sixty years, filled with doted [decayed] trees, ash trees, hazels, sallows, willows, alders, birches and whitethorn and such like’. In the coastal regions of Co. Down a little earlier the map-maker Robert Lythe recorded that the woods were only ‘underwoods as hasell, holye, alder, elder, thorne, crabtre and byrche with such lyke. But no great hoke neyther great buylding timber’, a description recurring in the Civil Survey of , where the baronies of Kinelarty and Dufferin are said to be ‘covered with scrubby wood without any timber fit for building’. And in Sir William Brereton, looking with the eye of a potential investor, noted that in the woods on the Ormond manor of Hacketstown in Co. Carlow there was ‘very little good timber, the most small, old and decayed, and those trees which seem best are shaken and unsound at heart’. Such woods were of little economic value, although they served as a useful source of firewood for the locals and, if of the right kind of trees, could be turned into charcoal for the iron smelter. But such degraded woodland, if it was decried by the English land-surveyor, was keenly appreciated as a significant strategic obstacle by his military compatriots, and in this may be the clue to many of the apparently contradictory statements regarding Irish woods. Degraded or shrubby woodland could in fact pose a much greater obstacle to invaders, and afford much greater shelter to native resisters, than stands of tall timber trees. It could also afford an acceptable habitat to most woodland fauna. The woods in O’Boyle’s country – which stretched from near Donegal town northwest to the Rosses – where Caffar Óg O’Donnell was ‘lurking’ with a hundred men in need not have been such as would have attracted the timber merchant. They may perhaps have been like the woods near Derry and Strabane of the same date, ‘mostly small bush and hazel’, with, on the higher ground, ‘great woods of birch’. However, not all Irish woodland in the early modern period was of that sort. There is plenty of evidence for stands of tall timber trees. Robert Payne, writing in what was in effect a brochure to attract immigrants, may not be For references to timber castles and their construction see K. Nicholls, ‘Gaelic economy and society’ in A. Cosgrove (ed.), A new history of Ireland, ii: medieval Ireland – (Oxford ), ; J. H. Andrews and R. Loeber, ‘An Elizabethan map of Leix and Offaly: cartography, topography and architecture’ in W. Nolan and T.P. O’Neill (eds.), Offaly: history and society (Dublin, ), -. Desmond Survey of Co. Kerry (NAI, M. ), . R. Dunlop, ‘Sixteenth-century maps of Ireland’ in English Historical Review, (), ; R.C. Simington (ed.), The Civil Survey (Dublin, –), x, . C. Litton Falkiner, Illustrations of Irish history and topography (London, ), . Cal S. P. Ire., –, . Ibid., –, –.
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exaggerating when he speaks of the ‘greate woodes, the trees of wonderfull length’, on the Becher plantation around Bandon (an area of heavy clay which would grow good timber). Between and we find the chapter of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, requiring the tenants of their wood at Killahurler, near Arklow, to deliver them an annual quota of oak piles, either foot long by inches square, or foot by inches. Twice in the seventeenth century there were attempts to procure Irish timber on a large scale for the English navy. The first of these was in –, when the shipwright Philip Cottingham was sent over to inspect the woods of the south of Ireland, and succeeded in marking at least , trees as reserved for naval use in the woods of Co. Cork and Wexford alone. Cottingham ran into opposition from those involved in the timber trade, especially Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, who however we find in – supplying timber for the navy, perhaps as a matter of political expediency, from his woods near Clonakilty and Enniskeane in west Cork as well as those on the Blackwater. The second major initiative was in –, when Peter Bronsdon was sent over to report on Irish woods, both in Ulster and in the South, as a source of shipbuilding timber. His reports are of extraordinary interest both as regards the nature and location of Irish woods, and the great difficulties involved in extracting their timber. Both these initiatives reveal that there were many good quality timber woods in Ireland: the second shows, that by , nearly all those that survived were in inaccessible locations. But the best proof of the existence of large trees of high quality in Ireland is afforded by the fact that down to the seventeenth century the normal method of transport on Irish inland waters was the cott or dug-out canoe. For the making of large dug-outs (and we are told that some of those in use on the Shannon could carry sixty or eighty men, though R. Payne, A brief description of Ireland (London, ) in Tracts relating to Ireland (Dublin, ), i, . Newport B. White (ed.), Irish monastic and episcopal deeds, A.D. – (Dublin, ), –; ‘Calendar of Christ Church deeds’ in Twenty-fourth report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland, App., nos. , . Cal S. P. Ire., –, –, , –, , , , ; PRO, S.P. //, ; Cal. Carew MSS, –, –. A. B. Grosart (ed.), The Lismore Papers, st ser. (privately printed, ), i, , –. Cal. S.P. Dom., , , –, –; Cal. S.P. Dom., , , –, –, , , , . Bronsdon’s mission followed on the negotiation of a very dubious contract to supply Irish timber by a naval captain, Sir Frescheville Hollis, ‘a faithful creature’ of Roger Boyle, earl of Orrery, who may have been its real beneficiary, Cal. S.P. Dom., , –, –, . Cal. S.P. Ire., –, , , : Edward MacLysaght (ed.), Cal. Orrery Papers (Dublin, Irish MSS Comm., ), , , –, –). For Hollis see Dictionary of National Biography. A.T. Lucas, ‘The dug-out canoe in Ireland: the literary evidence’ in Särtryck ur Varbergs MuseumArsbok, , –. In it was complained that twenty ‘great Cotts’ had been illegally made in the woods of Clonfadda (Killaloe Parish, Co. Clare) and sold to the fishermen of Limerick and others (Petworth House Archives, Bundle C. .a, Walter Longe to Sir Barnaby O’Brien, June .) N. Dowdall, ‘A description of the county of Longford, ’, JACAS, / (), .
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
this seems hard to credit) required trees of very considerable girth, length, straightness and soundness. With the disappearance of the woods the dug-out vanished from the Irish scene.
MAPS
Turning from the indirect – although important – evidence for woodland, which I have discussed above, to the more direct documentary sources, the first place must of course be given to maps. I do not intend to attempt to catalogue even those maps which are most important in determining the extent of forest cover in early modern Ireland: a few remarks on particular maps may not be out of place. First of all might be mentioned the magnificent map of Leix and Offaly which has been frequently reproduced, and which gives great prominence to the woodlands of the region and, perhaps more importantly, their intimate relationship with the bogs. Nevertheless, even this map, in certainly exaggerating the depth of the woodland fringes that skirted the bogs and occupied the strips of dry ground along the banks of the rivers of the bog country, illustrates a problem created by the existence of tree symbols on maps. It is clear that their presence, where areas of woodland are not precisely marked or delineated, represents only the impressionistic view of the mapmaker, and may indicate no more than a very narrow strip of woodland, or even a conspicuous scattering of trees in otherwise open ground. They can, however, indicate the precise location of woods known to us from surveys or similar sources. It is rare for a mapmaker to add to his map precise descriptions of the nature of the woodlands that he mapped. Robert Lythe, whose description of the scrubby woods of eastern Down I have already cited, is an exception. On his map of Carrickfergus and its district (c. ) he notes on the River Lagan ‘Alonge this river bi ye space of miles groweth muche woods, as well okes for timber as hother woods, which maie be brought in the baie of Cragfergus with bote or by drage’. In his great map of Ireland, now at Petworth, he records that, just west of Athlone, ‘this woodes being most parte greate okes’ and further north, near Athleague, ‘thys woodes is greate okes and muche small woodes as crabtre, thorne, hazel with such-like’. A series of four small-scale provincial maps prefixed to a tract of c.– which survives in a number of copies may be based on Lythe. They are useful in indicating the areas that were then conceived of as having a large amount of woodland. The Leinster map, for Andrews and Loeber, ‘An Elizabethan map of Leix and Offaly’, –. Dunlop, ‘Sixteenth-century maps’, . Petworth House Archives []. I have used those in NLI, MS and TCD, MS . There is another copy at Alnwick Castle, Duke of Northumberland Papers, MS (GC ). I am grateful to my colleague Dr Hiram Morgan for bringing this tract to my attention.
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instance, shows extensive woodlands in south Kilkenny, a fact confirmed by the Civil Survey boundary description of Iverk Barony, which mentions ‘timber wood with some underwood [and] shrub’ in that barony. The general treelessness of the Pale is confirmed by the fact that ‘The Wood of Belgard’ near Tallaght, Co. Dublin, is thought worthy of being marked, but woods are also indicated in the north of Co. Meath, near the Cavan border. The Connacht map indicates the presence of woodland along the southern shore of Galway Bay, in Corcomroe and Burren, but it is unfortunate that its crudity for the northern sector of the province (where Lythe did not venture) prevents certainty as to the exact location of two major forest areas – ‘the woods and marsh of Kilbigher’ and ‘the forest of Kiltellow’ (or Kiltalow) – which appear on it and recur in subsequent lists of Irish ‘woods and fastnesses’. The woodlands of Connacht present a particular problem: although English observers agree that it was one of the most heavily wooded provinces, there is remarkably little evidence to locate its woodlands, beyond those of Co. Roscommon (to which I will return). While for Roscommon and Clare – the latter administratively part of Connacht from to , and included in the Plantation schemes of the s – the Books of Survey and Distribution (BSD), based on the Strafford Survey of the s, give a detailed breakdown of land qualities which would allow a detailed map to be made not only of the actual location of woodland at that date but of its precise nature. For about half the baronies of Co. Galway and three of those in Co. Mayo we have less detailed information, and for the remainder of these counties no information on land quality at all. The Connacht provincial map appears to show ‘Killighti’ or ‘Kilbigher’ as lying in the north of Co. Galway, close to ‘Lord Bermingham’s Country’ (the Barony of Dunmore) and ‘Kiltellow’ to the east of that, west of the River Suck. If their location is at all plotted correctly they would then correspond to the bog and bog-island regions which could be defined in modern times as lying respectively to the southwest and southeast of the village of Glennamaddy, separating the barony of Tiaquin from those of Ballymoe and Killian. John Browne’s map of Connaught (below, p. ) shows large woods in both these areas, as well as others slightly further north. On Civil Survey, ix, . Also written ‘Killighti’ (NLI, MS map, but Kilbigher in the text, p. ) and Kilbuigher (Lambeth MS , f. v). John Norden’s map of Ireland () marks the ‘Foreste of Kellelon’ in the same area. It may be the ‘Kilcallain’ in MacWilliam’s Country (Co. Mayo) in the lists of ‘woods and fastnesses’. It is impossible to know the correct Irish forms of many of these obsolete forest names, given in Elizabethan phonetic rendering. The Books of Survey and Distribution (henceforth BSD) for Connacht (except Sligo) have been published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission. BSD, i, Roscommon (); ii, Mayo (); iii, Galway (); iv, Clare (in facsimile) (). The baronies of Co. Galway where there is some information on land quality are Athenry, Ballinahinch, Clare (at least in part), Clonmacnowen, Dunmore, Killconnell, Kiltartan, Leitrim, Moycullen and part of Tiaquin: for Mayo, Carra, Clanmorris and part of Kilmaine.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
account of the deficiencies of the seventeenth-century surveys, the existence of woodland in this area has been ignored, but it is the kind of terrain that everywhere else in Ireland was heavily forested, and there is in fact some evidence. The BSD for Co. Galway records a wood of plantation acres ( ha.: in fact certainly an underestimate) in the northwest of Killian parish, which belonged in common to the surrounding townlands, while the Co. Galway map in Petty’s Hiberniae Delineatio () shows a dense marking of tree symbols in the west of the two very large but now obsolete townlands of Leacarrow and Lecarrowmonterdony. The very low fiscal rating of these latter, reflected in their names (Leathceathramha, ‘half-quarter’), is characteristic of woodland areas, reflecting the fact that when the ratings were drawn up (perhaps, in Connacht, as early as ), the greater part of the area was yet uncleared and unprofitable woodland. Similarly, the present townland of Cloonnabricka, a little to the southeast, is recorded in as woodland in common. It is on such scraps of information that the location of some of the major forest regions of early modern Ireland must be determined. A map specifically concerned with woodland is that of showing the principal forests in Munster, marked as Glangaruf, Glanrought, Glanflesky, Leanmore, Glenglas, Arlo Wood, and Killhuggy. These are the forests which were regarded as being of strategic importance, large enough to give effective shelter to rebel forces, and lists survive showing their approximate dimensions. Glengarriff forest in Beare, Co. Cork, was four miles long by two broad: in it was recorded that Richard Boyle, as part of his timber dealing, had acquired the woods growing in Glengarriff and Clanlauras – the coastal district extending west from Glengarriff. Glanaroughty forest was six miles by two: in the survey of the MacCarthy Mór lordship in it is described as ‘goodlie timber woods . . . fit for ships, timber, pipestaves and clapboard’, and convenient for water transport: the accompanying map shows the precise location of some of these woods. Glanflesky was four miles by No woodland is marked in this area in the map of ‘Woodland, c.’ in E. McCracken, The Irish woods since Tudor times (Newton Abbot, ), . BSD, iii, . Cappagh, Cloonkeen, Cloonfinnoge, Boherbannagh, Kilclogh and Kilcoose survive as townland names. The other names given are obsolete, but the townlands of Boggaun and Toomard fall within the limits. BSD, iii, . They contained respectively and plantation acres, now divided up into a large number of modern townlands. For the old system of assessment rating see Nicholls, ‘Gaelic economy’, –. NAI, R.C. /, Inquisition p.m. on Richard Betagh, August . PRO, London, S.P. /I, no. ; Dunlop, ‘Sixteenth-century maps’, . It is of further importance as showing the precise location of Leanmore, which has been misidentified: Michael H. O’Connor, in his important article, ‘An Leana Mór: from woodland to townland on the Trinity College Dublin estate’ in JKAHS, (), –, wrongly identifies Leanmore with the townland of Lenamore in Iraghticonnor barony, where considerable woodlands survived (as he demonstrates) into the eighteenth century. In one list (Lambeth f. ) Leanmore is indeed written Lenamore. Lambeth MS , ff. , . PRO, SP //. Lambeth MS , ff. , v, .
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two: the MacCarthy Mór survey mentions its ‘excellent ashen trees for pikes’ and ‘an eyrie or two of Goshaukes’. It appears to include the woods around Killarney, called Kyllonaughte (Coill Eoghanachta) in the Desmond Survey of , which says that they measured three miles by one, and consisted of large and small oak trees. The small scale and lack of detail of the map makes it difficult to locate exactly the forest of Leanmore, shown as midway between Newcastle West and Castleisland. The list, which says that it was three miles each way, describes it as in Desmond (that is, the MacCarthy lordship), but it is probably to be identified with the woods which we know to have existed in the east of Co. Kerry bordering on Limerick and Cork. Only its southern end would have been in Desmond properly so called. ‘Glenglas’ is the great forest district of Claonghlaise in the far southwest of Co. Limerick: in the lists it is called ‘Clenglas and Kilmore’, extending it into Kilmore (an Coill Mór, the northern part of the barony of Orrery and Kilmore in Co. Cork), and said to be twelve miles long by seven broad. It probably extended to cover the northwestern part of the adjacent Duhallow Barony, Co. Cork, where there is no evidence of actual settlement at this date. ‘Arlo Wood’ is of course Aherlow (Eatharla): the lists give it as ‘Arlagh and Muskery Quirk’, nine miles long by three broad, extending down the Glen of Aherlow and the hills west of the Suir between Bansha and Cahir. This, as I have said, was the last known Irish habitat of the capercaillie. The forest of Killhuggy (Coill an Chuigidh) ten miles by seven, lay in the hills along the Tipperary–Limerick border: as late as no less than % of the area of the parish of Doon, and % of that of Castletown, in Coonagh Barony, are recorded as ‘timberwood’. The forest of Dromfynin (Druim Finghín), six miles by two, lay along the ridge between the Blackwater and Bride rivers, in counties Cork and Waterford. Parts of its eastern end can be seen on a detailed map of part of the lower Bride valley, made in . The forests marked on this map did not, of course, comprise all the major wooded areas of Munster, but only those which, because of their size and continuous nature, were of significant strategic importance. We know, for example, that the woods of the upper Blackwater valley, O’Callaghan’s and MacDonagh–MacCarthy’s countries in the barony of Duhallow, sustained an enormous export trade in cask staves in the early seventeenth century, and were apparently not exhausted as a timber source in , but presumably they were too discontinuous to constitute a major refuge for rebels. Returning to Connacht, three maps are an exception to the general dearth Ibid., f. v. NAI, M. , f. . Lambeth MS. , f. . AFM, v, –, where O’Donovan’s identification is erroneous, a rare occurrence. Civil Survey, iv, –. J. H. Andrews, Plantation acres (Belfast, ), . Lismore Papers, st ser., i, , –, ; ii, , , –, , , , ; rd ser. (), i, –. Sir Richard Kyrle, one of Hollis’s proposed suppliers in (above n. ) had received a grant of confiscated O’Callaghan lands (Ir. Record Comm. Rep., –, , ).
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
of accurate information on the woods of that province. The first of these, a map of by John Browne covering most of Co. Mayo, marks the woodlands clearly. It shows Joyce’s country (the barony of Ross in Co. Galway) as heavily wooded, with a range of woods extending northwards along the eastern slopes of the Partry Mountains west of Lough Mask. There were other extensive woods east of Clew Bay and in the Moy valley, as well as many smaller ones. The others are James Grafton’s map of northern Connacht, showing the routes taken by the Scottish and English forces to the battle of Ardnaree () and Browne’s map of the entire province (including Clare) although this gives little information for the southern portion. The surviving maps of the Strafford Survey of Connacht (), covering south Roscommon, are quite different from those made for the plantations of James I in Ulster and the midlands, and foreshadowed those of the Down Survey of the s. When used in conjunction with the BSD (derived for this region from the text which had accompanied them), they enable us to plot precisely the still extensive woodlands of this area, which Robert Lythe had described seventy years earlier. Notable were the extensive ‘Woods of Bryall’ (Braoiel or Bruighel), along the east–west ridge in the south of Athlone Barony, but it is to be noted that most of the woodland here, as elsewhere in Co. Roscommon, is classed as ‘woody pasture’ or ‘pasturable wood’, indicating that it was in process of degradation. There is also an almost complete equation between the areas which the map shows as woodland and those indicated as rocky or broken ground by the Ordnance Survey two centuries later; in other words, the ground fit for tillage had already been cleared by this date, probably in the years since the imposition of peace in . The Down Survey maps of the s also record the presence of surviving woodland, and sometimes enable us to identify those patches of ancient woodland which were to PRO, S.R. /, no. , reproduced in colour in M.J. Blake, ‘A map of part of the county of Mayo in ’ in JGAHS, (), –. There was an eyrie of goshawks in at Kinlevy to the northwest of Lough Mask, probably in the present townland of Derrinascooba (NAI, R.C. /, inquisition p.m. on William McEvily, December ). In there were woods, variously stated to be worth £, and £,, on Sir Henry Lynch’s estates in this area. See K.W. Nicholls (ed.), ‘The Lynch Blosse Papers’ in Anal. Hib., (), , –. SP ⁄ no. (= MPF ). TCD MS ⁄. This map and the preceding one are discussed in J. H. Andrews, ‘The mapping of Ireland’s cultural landscape, -’, this volume. Published along with BSD, i. For a discussion of these maps see Andrews, Plantation acres, . These include the highly inaccurate series for Ulster (Maps of the escheated counties in Ireland, : Southampton, Ordnance Survey, ), apparently compiled from verbal boundary descriptions (see J. H. Andrews, ‘The maps of the escheated counties of Ulster, -’ in PRIA, C (), -) and the much more accurate set for Co. Longford, as well as a few minor fragments (Andrews, Plantation acres, –). All are of use for determining tree cover. In quarters of land out of the / in Athlone Barony were ‘waste’, that is, without habitation or tillage and used for pasture only, which does not suggest much pressure to clear by that date (Inquisition on boundaries of Co. Roscommon, July : NAI, R.C. /).
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survive into the twentieth century, such as Keanogue Wood in Carlow, but the fact that the vast acreages in Protestant hands were left unsurveyed reduces their value for this purpose.
W R I T T E N S U RV E Y S
Turning from maps to written surveys, the survey of Offaly made in records the presence of small woods in many places, but of very large areas of continuous woodland only in the south–east of the territory, in the districts of Ferranymorchan and Moley (Muiligh: Magh Leith) adjoining the Kildare border. These are no doubt ‘the great woods of Ophalia’ which Fynes Moryson found exceptional in his journey across Ireland. The corresponding survey of Leix was destroyed in , but there survives a full transcript of the portion relating to Slievemargy. This records, among others, a great wood a mile by a mile and a half in extent, called Kildownan, around Doonane on the present Kilkenny border (probably, as is usual at this period, the mile used in the Pale, of yards (. km) is that intended). The grants made under the Leix–Offaly Plantation in many cases record acreages of woodland, derived from this survey (or a later one), although this information has been omitted in the printed Calendar of Fiants. The surveys made in for the Munster Plantation, the Desmond and Peyton Surveys, preserved to us only in partial calendars and a few transcripts and translations, are a most important source for the presence of woodlands, although without recording their exact extent. An abstract of the portion covering the old barony of Connelloe in Co. Limerick, made before the destruction of the original in , was published by Canon Begley in . The surveys show the presence of woodland throughout the area, often giving (a rare detail) the names of individual woods, and record in places the presence of eyries of goshawks – a good indication, as I have noted, of deep undisturbed woodland. The survey of the manor of Mallow, Co. Cork, also shows the presence of many small woods, with very many timber trees, and red and fallow deer. The survey for Co. Kerry, of Curtis, ‘Survey of Offaly’. Fynes Moryson, An itinerary (repr. Glasgow, ), iv, . St Kieran’s College, Kilkenny, Carrigan MSS, unnumbered volumes (a). Canon Carrigan also copied the boundary descriptions, and excerpted the place-names, from the remainder of the Leix Survey. They are to be found in NAI, Lodge MSS, Records of the Rolls, vol. i, –. In the same source () a lease of Monastereven in gives acreages of woodland for each townland. Besides those mentioned, see NAI, M. , M. and M. . Now divided into the baronies of Connelloe Upper and Lower, Shanid and Glenquin. J. Canon Begley, The diocese of Limerick in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Dublin, ; repr. Limerick, ), –. Published in translation in H.F. Berry, ‘The manor and castle of Mallow in the days of the Tudors’ in JCHAS, st ser., (), –. A copy of that for Kilcolman manor, in my possession, also records shrubby wood.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
which we possess a full translation, has less information on small woods, but records a number of large ones. From this it appears that the Kerry plain around Castleisland was ringed by a series of forests on the hills: the wood of Glannageenty on the north, four miles by two in extent, that of Glannecloghnaig on the east, three miles by a mile, and those of Kylterhong (Kilsarkan), affording good timber wood, on the south. These probably formed part of the forest of Leanmore, mentioned above. There were also extensive woods in Cangullia and Dromaltan in the valley of the Brown Flesk. These latter extended, as the woods of Cosmaigne (Cois Maing), into the boggy lowlands on both sides of the lower River Maine, forming in effect a physical barrier between the Desmond palatinate of Kerry on the north and the MacCarthy Mór lordship of Desmond to the south. A further reference in the survey is to the woods of Glanclossaugh (or Glanelossaugh) in the manor of Tarbert in north Kerry, part of a large wooded area which extended westward into the unforfeited area of Aghavullen parish. The detailed surveys made for the plantations of James I in the midlands have not survived, apart from some barony totals which I will discuss below, so that the next survey to be discussed as a source is the Strafford Survey, made for the projected Plantation of Connacht, which does not survive but which served – as I have already remarked – as the basis for the BSD for Connacht and Clare. Of all seventeenth-century surveys, this, based on precise measurements, seems to have been the most detailed of all as regards the quality of the land: where it is reproduced in full, as in Roscommon and Clare, it provides a reliable guide not only to the presence of woodland but to its type. Thus, for example, we have in Co. Roscommon such descriptions as ‘tall thick wet woods’, ‘tall thick woody pasture’, ‘thick mountain woods’, and so on. It enables us to accurately plot the surviving woodlands of Co. Roscommon in the s, showing that a belt of woodland extended along the west of the Shannon from near Roscommon to Lough Key, with extensive woodlands north of the latter to the Sligo and Leitrim borders, and further woodlands towards the Mayo border to the west. But for some parts of Galway and Mayo, as noted above, the BSD give no such information. Whether this was because their compiler decided it was unnecessary, or because the Strafford Survey had not in fact been completed before the abortion of the plantation project in , must remain doubtful until fresh evidence comes to light. Another survey drawn up in connection with the Strafford plantation was that which survives for Co. Sligo, probably a preliminary survey, which gives for each townland its proprietors, its rental (largely in kind) and the number of cattle NAI, M. , , , . Ibid., ; O’Connor, ‘An Leana Mór’. See BSD, i, lxxv-xl. There are some extracts from the Strafford Survey, which I have not been able to inspect, in the Petworth House Archives. Andrews, Plantation acres, –. Above, n. .
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which it will graze: it also notes the presence of woodland, usually as either a source of firewood or as providing shelter for cattle. The Civil Survey of is too well known to need much discussion here, but perhaps has been under-exploited as a source for determining the presence of woodland. Woods on common land can, however, be overlooked. For instance, in the parish of Ardkill (including the present parish of Kilpatrick) in Carbury Barony, Co. Kildare, there is mention of unmeasured underwood held in common by the adjacent townlands, and perhaps of large extent. Not far away, the Civil Survey shows the existence of a great wood in Allen, containing plantation acres of shrubby wood, now represented by the three modern townlands which – although treeless by – retain the name of Allenwood, and which in the seventeenth century formed an island in the Bog of Allen. The brief barony descriptions, which survive from the lost Civil Survey of many counties, and from which I have already quoted, also contain information on woodland. That of Massereene Barony, Co. Antrim, mentions woods of oaks, some fit for timber, lying near Lough Neagh. This included the district of Killultagh, described as ‘a fast boggy and woody country’ in the lists of ‘woodes and fastnesses’. Killultagh had capercaillies ‘on the higher ground’ and goshawks (who gave up nesting in ). The barony descriptions for Co. Leitrim mention ‘great store of underwoods and shrubby woods’, and of ‘oaks and other timber trees’ in every barony except Rosclogher. Leitrim was to be one of the last heavily wooded counties in Ireland, the densest concentration of woodland being along the western shore of Lough Allen, extending also into Co. Roscommon. This may be the wood of Killalon (Coill Aillinne, the wood of Lough Allen?), located to Co. Leitrim in the lists of ‘fastnesses’. From the commencement of ‘measured’ surveys in the early seventeenth century it is possible in some cases to offer estimates of woodland in percentages of the total land area which, if certainly with a wide margin of inaccuracy, reflect at least the perceptions of the surveyors who compiled them. The surveys for the plantations of James I are lost, but there survive some lists of barony totals divided according to land quality, in which acreages are given for the two categories of ‘profitable wood’ and ‘unprofitable wood and bog’. Since ‘unprofitable bog’ is another, distinct, category we can safely assume that ‘unprofitable wood and bog’ refers to underwood growing upon boggy or rocky ground, of no use for either timber or grazing, but of importance for our purpose. In order to convert these into percentages of the total area it is necessary to first deduct from the total two further categories found in the lists: ‘Patent land’ (that already held under grant from the crown) and ‘Abbey land’, BL, Harleian MS , which also contains other lists connected with the proposed Connacht Plantation. Civil Survey, viii, , –. Civil Survey, x, . Lambeth MS , f. v. Hall, ‘Cock of the wood’, ; Cal S.P. Ire., –, , , . Civil Survey, x, –. J. MacParlan, Statistical survey of the County Leitrim (Dublin, ), –.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
in which the proportion of woodland is not distinguished. Having done this, we find that in Co. Longford the two categories of woodland – profitable and unprofitable – represent respectively .% and .% of the total area, a total of .%, largely concentrated in the northern baronies. In the territory of Ely O’Carroll, containing the later baronies of Ballybritt and Clonlisk in Co. Offaly, the proportions are .% and .%, giving the high total of .%. Unfortunately in the rest of King’s County and in Co. Leitrim, the categories of ‘bog’ and ‘unprofitable wood and bog’ are merged together. As for the exact location of these woods, beside the surviving maps, the grants made in the plantations set out precise acreages under the two headings of profitable and unprofitable, specifying the latter as ‘wood and bog’, ‘wood and underwood’, ‘bog and moor’ or simply ‘bog’. These latter descriptions vary sufficiently for us to be able to assume that they accurately describe the nature of the land, while in a number of places specific woods (probably wooded islands in the bogs) are granted by name. Unfortunately, while the printed Calendar of the Patent Rolls of James I gives these descriptions in full, for the succeeding reign of Charles I, in which took place, among others, the plantation of Ranelagh in Co. Wicklow, listed as one of the great wooded fastnesses of Leinster, we are dependent on John Lodge’s manuscript calendar, which gives only the two sets of acreages without reproducing the attached descriptions of their nature. A comparable set of percentages can be extracted from the Civil Survey of , with acknowledgement of the high margin of error arising from the rough and approximate nature of the acreages involved. In the Barony of Muskerry, Co. Cork, we find a total of plantation acres of timber and acres of shrubby wood, together amounting to .% of the total area. In Co. Tipperary, the only baronies to approach this percentage are Slieveardagh, where the woods (on the Coal Measures) amount to almost %, and Lower Ormond with .%, almost entirely shrubby wood. The little territory of Ileagh, corresponding to Glankeen Parish, has .%. The barony of Kilnamanagh has .% and no other barony reaches %, although it seems on examination that in Eliogarty and Ikerrin a large quantity of shrubby and boggy wood, categories that are otherwise (and incredibly) absent there, may Cal. Carew MSS, –, . Ibid., . NLI, MS (). Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I. NAI, Lodge MSS, Records of the Rolls, vols v and vi. I have taken the barony totals for acreages as given, without checking their arithmetic: in the case of Muskerry, where no total is given, I have simply added up the parish totals, but some of these are certainly incorrect: that for Aghabullogue Parish (Civil Survey, vi, –) is acres short on the townland totals given, and these themselves are defective: cf. Clonteadbeg (Ibid., ). A writer of , writing a comment on the manuscript of the Civil Survey of Muskerry, makes the total a (ibid., vi, ). There are omissions in the surviving text; an annotator notes one in Aghabullogue Parish (ibid., vi, ), but there is another in Inchageelagh which has led to the boundary descriptions being wrongly assigned (ibid., vi, ).
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be lumped in as pasture or bog. In Co. Limerick, the baronies of Owneybeg and Coonagh are exceptional in having .% and .% respectively, almost entirely in their northern upland part, the former forest of Kilhuggy. The district of Duffry in Co. Wexford, a famous forest but one that had already been heavily exploited for timber, still had % under trees. Some other parishes in this area also had high proportions of woodland. For Co. Carlow, where, as the county description records, the timber woods were ‘not as considerable as they were some years past being very much wasted and spoyld’, Forth barony still had % under wood, Idrone .% and St Mullins %. Finally, to complete this set of entirely impressionistic statistics with one which is probably a little more accurate, a survey made of the Earl of Strafford’s Irish estate in , which treats Shillelagh as a single unit, gives the acreages of each category of land. After deducting the two great hunting parks and some other land measured ‘without distinction of woods’, the proportion under woodland of the remainder amounted to .%, illustrating why the Shillelagh woods, growing largely upon heavy clay in a lowland, were regarded as exceptional. Regrettably the remainder of the survey dealing with the enormous estates elsewhere in Co. Wicklow, in the Cosha (Cois Fheadha, ‘the Forest Side’), around Rathdrum, and in the manors of Wicklow and Newcastle, only gives the acreages under the two headings of profitable and unprofitable, while we lack completely any statistical information on the undoubtedly extensive woods in the Ormond lordship of Arklow.
THE TIMBER TRADE
A further source of information on the extent of Irish woods in the early modern period is, of course, provided by references to the timber trade. The Irish timber trade, and the significance of its place in the international timber trade of the period, still awaits a historian. In the mid-sixteenth century the Irish timber trade seems to have been largely confined to the southeast, with a small extension in eastern Ulster, and to have been in the hands of the native merchants of the ports, especially Arklow, Wexford and New Ross, all situated at the mouths of rivers which drained abundantly forested regions and which Ibid., i-ii. Ibid., iv. Ibid., ix, –. The great wood of Killoughrim, which survived into modern times, was part of this woodland, but the name does not occur in the Civil Survey, where the modern townland of Killoughrim is included under the lands of ‘Remnespirine’ (read Keimnespirine, as in the Index (ibid., ) the modern Caim). ‘The wood of Killaghran’, however, occurs among the Duffry woods in (Cal. Carew MSS, –, ). Civil Survey, x, , . Sheffield Public Library, Wentworth Woodhouse MSS, WWM Str. P. (unpaginated). The total acreage given for Shillelagh is not far from the actual one.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
could be used for floating down the timber. The English settlers and planters who moved into Ireland in the later Elizabethan period quickly saw the potentialities, and the very large trade from Munster which commenced in the s seems from the beginning to have been in the hands of the New English. The increase in naval activity, and above all in the long-distance trading and colonising voyages of this period of European expansion, created a dramatic upsurge in the demand for casks, and the English settlers, such as Sir Henry Wallop at Enniscorthy and Henry Pyne in Munster, seem to have been the first to realise this and organise the trade in cask-staves. By the opening years of the seventeenth century almost the entire Irish export trade seems to have been in staves for cask making, and contemporaries – who designate France, Spain and the Spanish colonial possessions as the principal consumers – suggest that Ireland was a major, if not the largest, source of supply in the period. How correct this assumption was, and the question of which alternative sources of supply in the Baltic or the Americas, took over when the Irish export trade ended with the exhaustion of the woods in the last quarter of the seventeenth century (by which time England and Scotland had replaced France and Spain as the principal markets) must await a definitive study of the trade. What is relevant here is that the magnitude of the trade, largely confined as it seems to have been to the south of Ireland, indicates the amplitude of the forest resources which were being destructively exploited. I have noted above that it is the scale of the trade in pipe-staves from the upper Blackwater valley in Co. Cork that enables us to identify it as a heavily forested region. However, while a trade in timber implies the existence of substantial stands of merchantable timber in the regions where it existed, its absence does not imply their absence. Because of timber’s bulkiness and weight, the timber trade was in effect confined to those regions within easy reach either of rivers which could be used to float the timber, or of the sea itself. Reports in the s of timber being loaded directly at a ‘wild bay’ near Courtown in north Wexford, demonstrate that the heavy clay soils of this area must have still carried substantial stands of timber close to the coast. The shipwright Peter Bronsdon, in –, settled on the woods along Kenmare Bay as his source for timber, since the timber would only need to be dragged a mile or two to the harbour. Elsewhere, in his reports to the Navy Board, he describes the difficulties of extracting timber from the woods. Even when a river was available, floating could be difficult: each of the two sets of falls on the Lower Bann involved a portage overland of a quarter-mile before the timber could be Cal. S.P. Ire., –, –; H.F. Morris, ‘The Pynes of Co. Cork’ in The Irish Genealogist, / (), –. Staves came in three sizes: pipe-, hogshead- and barrel-staves (McCracken, Irish woods, –). [Richard Hadsor], Advertisements for Ireland, ed. George O’Brien (Dublin, ), –. McCracken, Irish woods, –. Above, n. . NAI, Salved Chancery Pleadings, Bundle O, no. . Cal. S.P. Dom., , –.
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committed again to the water, with the added difficulty that owing to the shallowness of Coleraine harbour, no large ship could load there. Extracting the timber from Glencar Woods, Co. Kerry, would mean dragging it two miles over rough ground, floating it down the lough, then dragging it a mile over bog before it could be finally floated to the awaiting ship. Glenflesk, in the same county, had fine timber trees, but the timber could not be extracted in any larger form than pipe-staves, since the only mode of transport was by packhorse. Such difficulties of transport explain why neither Bronsdon nor his predecessor Cottingham, in –, bothered visiting the woods of the Shannon basin: bringing the timber to where it could be loaded for England would, in terms of cost, have been an impossibility. Even floating timber could be very intensive of labour: Sir William Brereton noted in that it required the services of a hundred men – no doubt stationed at intervals – to ‘conduct and guide’ the timber from Shillelagh down ‘the narrow, shallow and crooked river’ of the Derry on its way to the Slaney and Enniscorthy. By the Shillelagh timber was being drawn overland to Enniscorthy. The uselessness of timber which could not be economically extracted, and where there was no iron-smelting industry to consume it as charcoal, is illustrated by the anonymous author of a pamphlet of who records that in such cases the trees, after being stripped of their bark (for use in tanning) would be left to rot, or even burned to clear the ground. The destruction of woods by the barking of the trees is also referred to by Bronsdon. The subsequent presence of grazing livestock would ensure that no regeneration took place. Given the difficulties of transport, as well as the external demand, it is small wonder that the majority of Irish timber was converted into a more easily portable form such as cask-staves. In an article published in which has been surprisingly neglected, Andrews traced the history of the Irish charcoal iron industry and proved convincingly the accuracy of the old-established view which held that it bore a major responsibility for the destruction of the Irish woods or, perhaps one could say, for the final stage of their destruction from onwards. Andrews has demonstrated that its activity fell broadly into two periods; an earlier one commencing almost immediately after the conclusion of peace in and brought to an end by the Rising of , and a later one which did not commence until around and continued in various areas until the available wood supplies were exhausted. In Co. Leitrim at least, this coincidentally Ibid., , –. Ibid., , . Falkiner, Illustrations, . Cal. S.P. Dom., , . Considerations on the Act for incouraging inland navigation in Ireland. In a letter from a country gentleman (Dublin, ), –. On the bark trade see McCracken, Irish Woods, –. Cal. S.P. Dom., , –, . J.H. Andrews, ‘Notes on the historical geography of the Irish iron industry’ in Irish Geography, / (), –. This is demonstrated very clearly by the figures for exports and imports given by Andrews (ibid., ).
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
happened just before the final demise of the charcoal iron industry as a result of the inventions of the Wood brothers and of Henry Cort, which enabled good quality wrought iron to be produced from coke-smelted ore. Although charcoal burners could make use of stunted and malformed trees which were useless for the timber trade, such as those oaks near Belfast which Chichester described as ‘so crooked and shrubbed that no man fells them for timber’, they did not confine themselves to such: Richard Boyle was shocked to discover () that the charcoal-burners in his own woods of Kilbarry were about to burn trees which had been marked to be felled for large timber. The fact that Irish woods were being destructively rather than sustainably worked made Irish charcoal very cheap, its cheapness offsetting the cost of importing ore, a necessity even in those few areas such as counties Leitrim and Fermanagh, which possessed abundant reserves of iron ore. The need to import ore, however, and the fragility of charcoal which made its transport over long distances impossible, imposed the same restraints on the iron industry as operated on the timber trade: a need for proximity to navigable water. Where ore could be brought in by water, iron could be made in remote areas where there was an abundant timber supply, such as Connamara, or Gairloch in the northwest Highlands of Scotland. Nathaniel Udward, an Edinburgh entrepreneur, who was also involved in iron-making in Scotland, established ironworks at Stranmillis near Belfast in : his lease from Chichester entitled him to take all necessary wood from that growing on the lands of the Falls and Malone. This however, must have proved insufficient: in the following year, in partnership with a Staffordshire ironmaster, Walter Colman, he acquired from Sir Hugh Montgomery the right to exploit all the woods of sixty townlands in Slught Mic O’Neill and elsewhere. The ore for Stranmillis was presumably brought in by sea. Where easy transport facilities were not available, desperate attempts were made to locate iron-mines, as by Calcot Chambré in Shillelagh in . The second phase of exploitation, after , seems to McParlan, Statistical survey, ; J.R. Harris, The British iron industry – (Economic History Society, ), –. Cal. S.P. Ire., –, . Lismore Papers, st ser., i, . Andrews, ‘Irish iron industry’, –. Ibid., –; McParlan, Statistical survey, ; T.C. Barnard, ‘Sir William Petty as Kerry ironmaster’ in PRIA C (), -; Idem, ‘An Anglo-Irish industrial enterprise: ironworking at Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, -’ in PRIA C (), -. Alexander Nimmo, quoted in O’Flaherty, West or hIar-Connaught, –n (cf. Nicholls, ‘Lynch Blosse Papers’, –, where the wording should read, ‘dig, dust and coal’); J.M. Lindsay, ‘The iron industry in the Highlands: charcoal blast furnaces’ in SHR, (), –. Curraghmore, Co. Waterford, MSS of marquis of Waterford: Ulster Deeds, no. (provisional classification). Udward and Colman sold out in to Sir Foulke Conway. In the early eighteenth century one has movement in the opposite direction, Ulster ironmasters establishing themselves in the Highlands (Lindsay, ‘Iron industry’, ). Shrewsbury, Shropshire Record Office, Sandford of Sandford Correspondence, //; Calcot Chambré to Francis Sandford, September . I owe this reference to Dr David Edwards.
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have been both more extensive and more destructive than the first. Although in Bronsdon did not mention charcoal-burning along with bark-stripping and the manufacture of pipe-staves as a cause of the destruction of good timber, by the ironworks established in by Sir William Petty seem to have destroyed much of the woods surrounding Kenmare Bay which Bronsdon had regarded as a suitable source of naval timber and intensive exploitation of the woods of this area for charcoal continued until the s.
C O N C LU S I O N
In conclusion, so far as fifteenth and sixteenth-century Ireland was concerned, though many regions were already largely treeless or possessed only sparse and scattered tree cover, there were others which possessed extensive woodlands. While palynology is decisive in establishing both the presence of woodland and the existence of periods of deforestation and of regrowth, the highly localised distribution of the heavily forested regions revealed by the documentary sources means that, until a much wider sample of cores with a more varied geographical distribution becomes available, they are unfortunately of little value for distinguishing the distribution or extent of woodlands. There seem to be no pollen cores, for example, from any of the major forest regions of east Munster or south Leinster. It must be hoped that this situation will be remedied in the near future, perhaps with the result of modifying or even invalidating some of the conclusions reached in this paper. The collapse of the intensive colonial economy of the thirteenth century and of the population of Ireland as a whole, following on the climatic deterioration which began in the early fourteenth century and the series of recurrent epidemics which commenced in and continued at short intervals down to the sixteenth century, meant a considerable regrowth of woodland on the abandoned lands and especially in the fasaigh, the ‘wastes’ or no-man’s lands which lay on the frontier between the contracting colony and its Gaelic neighbours. It seems likely, for example, that the extensive woodland which existed in the early seventeenth century on the slopes of the mountains in northwest Wicklow may have grown up or at any rate greatly extended itself in this period when that area was largely devoid of inhabitants. With the emergence Cal. S.P. Dom., , –, –. By that year the great wood which had formerly existed on the lands of Dromfeaghnagh, in the upper Sheen valley, had been completely destroyed for charcoal; T.A. Lunham (ed.), ‘Bishop Dives Downes’ visitation of his diocese, ’ in JCHAS, n.s. (), . Marquess of Lansdowne, Glanerought and the PettyFitzMaurices, quoted in G.J. Lyne, ‘Dr Dermot Lyne: an Irish Catholic landholder in Cork and Kerry under the Penal Laws’ in JKAHS, (), –, n. . The Pettys, to give them credit, did endeavour to replant (see below).
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
in the fifteenth century of a political stasis, followed by a process of cultural synthesis, this re-growth may have been halted or at least hindered by the reoccupation of these areas by graziers and their herds. It seems clear from the sixteenth-century evidence that much of the then woodland similarly lay along the borders of the autonomous lordships: this appears very clearly in a map of Monaghan from c. which shows considerable woodlands along the borders, but – apart from the wooded barony of Trough – only a single large woodland area, ‘Onaghe Woods’ in Cremorne, within it. Small-scale clearances for agriculture are recorded as early as the s and must have continued, at least intermittently, thereafter, but their extent was probably small: the effects of intensive grazing were probably much more significant. The revival of the Irish economy and the growth of foreign trade which occurred from the late fifteenth century on may have led to pressure on those woods in the immediate neighbourhood of the port-towns: in local shortage of timber induced the Corporation of Galway to forbid the export of timber, other than firewood and the materials needed for the repair of visiting ships. It is notable that a deed of listing the estates of Nicholas Lynch fitz Stephen in the Galway area, which gives seemingly reliable estimates of the quantities and quality of land in each townland, records virtually no woodland, except for some underwoods in Annaghdown parish, east of Lough Corrib. The Tudor reconquest of Ireland and the settlement of the New English brought in a new and intensive phase of destruction, impelled by the international demand for cask-staves and the introduction of the iron industry. It is clear from the evidence of contemporary observers, as well as by our own deductions from the evidence, that this exploitation of the Irish woods was of an unsustainable kind, unaccompanied by any concern for the future. Andrews has observed that both the abundance of natural woodland in Ireland and the speed with which it was destroyed show the ‘colonial’ nature of the Irish economy, the sort which we can observe at the present day in so many regions of the so-called developing world. The Palesman Richard Hadsor, writing his tract on the administration of Ireland in , was concerned at the devastation being caused by uncontrolled cutting with no allowance for regeneration; he recommended the system of coppicing and rotational felling used in England. PRO, S. P. /, no. . S. O hInnse (ed.), Miscellaneous Irish Annals, – (Dublin, ), .. Small-scale clearances in the woods of Cloonona (Co. Offaly) are recorded by Mathew de Renzi (PRO, S.P. /, f. v). HMC, rep. , app. v, . Nicholls (ed.), ‘The Lynch-Blosse Papers’, –. [Hadsor], Advertisements for Ireland, –. It was of course, the unmanaged state of the Irish woods which made them attractive to a shy bird like the goshawk: that Ireland exported goshawks to England probably reflected less the relative amount of forest cover in the two countries than the fact that, until the great devastation began in the s, Irish woods were less invaded by humans, especially humans with a low tolerance of predators, than the carefully managed woodlands which covered
Kenneth Nicholls
But unmanaged unsustainable exploitation remained the norm. In Sir William Brereton noted that while ‘there hath been store of good timber’ in Sir Morgan Kavanagh’s woods on the Carlow–Wexford border, now little remained in the accessible parts towards the river, although there was still good timber further back from it. There is no suggestion that Sir Morgan was doing anything to manage his woods to ensure their future. Given his apparent financial difficulties – he was hoping to lease all or most of his lands to Brereton – this is hardly surprising. By this time the woods were already beginning to disappear from many areas. Boate, writing in , noted that while there were still extensive forests in many parts of Ireland, others had already been denuded since : ‘The great woods which the maps so represent unto us upon the mountains between Dundalke and the Nurie are quite vanished, there being nothing left of them these many years since, but one only tree . . .’ Woods, as Boate noticed, were perceived as affording shelter to rebels and bandits and a late Elizabethan commentator declared that ‘it would have been a better course to have burnt down all the woods’. Bandits were still active in the woods of the southeast in . The financial difficulties of the native Irish lords and gentry and the wish of the New English settlers to turn a quick profit in a land where their future was far from assured combined with a tendency to regard woods as an undesirable encumbrance on the land to ensure that sustainable exploitation of the kind advocated by Hadsor seems hardly to have been considered by contemporary landowners. In the light of what is happening in so many parts of the world at the present day, we should not be surprised at their attitude. A well-documented series of clearances of timber for quick profit were those which occurred later in the century on the estates confiscated after the Williamite Wars. The Report of the English Parliamentary Commission on the Irish confiscations in found that ‘vast numbers of trees have been cut and sold for not above six pence a piece’ – half the price, incidentally, that Boyle was paying the O’Callaghans for their trees in . On the Killarney estate of Sir Valentine Browne (Lord Kenmare) timber to the value of £, had been cut down and destroyed; the damage to the woods on the earl of Clancarthy’s estate (almost all in the barony of Muskerry, Co. Cork) was estimated at £,; while the timber on the O’Shaughnessy estate in Co. so much of southern England down to the late eighteenth century. Falkiner, Illustrations of Irish history, . Gerard Boate, Ireland’s naturall history (London, ), repr. in A collection of tracts and treatises illustrative of the natural history, antiquities and the political and social state of Ireland (Dublin, ), i, –. For confirmation of the existence of these woods in , see Cal. S.P. Ire., , ; Moryson, Itinerary, ii, , –. They are shown in detail on the map cited in n. above. Cal. S.P. Ire., –, n. Falkiner, Illustrations of Irish history, . Report of the commissioners appointed by Parliament to inquire into the Irish forfeitures (London, ), –. Lismore Papers, nd Ser., i, –.
Woodland Cover in pre-Modern Ireland
Galway, valued at £,, had been sold for £, to Toby Butler, who quickly set about converting it into cash. In all these cases insecurity of possession was a major incentive to hasty exploitation: the Kenmare estate had to be restored eventually to the heir, after the determination of the two life interests which were all that could be legally confiscated, and while neither the Clancarthy nor the O’Shaughnessy estates were ever restored, in both cases there is reason to think that the same thing should have happened. Given the destruction on the Clancarthy estate, which presumably continued after the Commission had reported, it is not surprising that a writer of should have noted that of over five thousand acres of timber wood which had existed in Muskerry in , ‘there’s not in the Barony of standing timber trees one acre’. The evidence suggests that already by the s, apart from some areas of heavy clay, such as Shilelagh, the Irish woods were largely confined to the rougher and rocky ground, as I have noted above for southern Roscommon. Peter Bronsdon, surveying the woods for naval timber in –, makes this clear. In the woods near Lough Neagh in Co. Londonderry he found that ‘the best timber grows in the midst of boggy ground, upon little rocky hills, and is very good, if not too old and crooked. Another part grows on sandy grounds, mixed with reddish earth’. In south Kerry the location of the best timber woods was ‘on the sides of mountains, and in glens between them. [The] land is rocky, mountainous and wild; [the] soil chiefly rocks with boggy mould lying between’. This being so, while deliberate clearance for agriculture may have been a factor in the earlier stages of removal, it would not seem to have been a significant one in the final period: in such mountainous and rocky areas, and also in that other characteristic site of the Irish woodlands, the bog-fringes and bog-islands of the central plain, deliberate clearance was probably a much less significant factor in the disappearance of the woods than their use for the grazing of stock which, at anything but very low densities, would have effectively prevented regeneration. And the disappearance of the Irish woods predated by two or three generations at least the population explosion of the late eighteenth century which was to reclaim much of the mountainous and rocky ground for the creation of subsistence holdings based on potato culture. By the early eighteenth century the perceived destruction of the woods had provoked measures to try to arrest the decline, both in the form of statutes to encourage and enforce planting and in the measures of such private landlords as Henry Petty Cf. Toby Butler, ‘The O’Shaughnessy woods’ in JBS, / (), –. For the O’Shaughnessys see T. de Burgo, Hibernia Dominicana (Cologne [false imprint], ), -; J. O’Donovan (ed.), The genealogies, tribes and customs of Hy-Fiachrach (Dublin, ), –. Civil Survey, vi, . Cal. S.P. Dom., , . Ibid., , . J.H. Andrews, ‘Limits of agricultural settlement in pre-famine Ireland’ in L.M. Cullen and F. Furet (eds.), Ireland et France, XVIIe-XXe siècles: pour une histoire rurale comparée (Paris, ), –.
Kenneth Nicholls
(afterwards st earl of Shelburne) son of Sir William, whose lease of the Kenmare area to Richard Orpen in obliged Orpen to plant , oak trees. Orpen passed on the obligation to his sub-tenants, but in the absence of any real means of enforcement, and of adequate protection for the saplings if they were indeed planted, such a clause would have proved as ineffectual as most other covenants inserted in leases. Although the eighteenth century saw a new era of demesne planting, largely with imported species such as beech, and itself to be largely reversed in the twentieth, the native forest cover, with the exception of a few insignificant fragments which I have noted above, had vanished forever. Its disappearance, and that of the woodland fauna which it supported, parallels – if on a smaller scale – that which we see proceeding apace today in India, Tibet and Indonesia, as well as in Africa and South America.
Lyne, ‘Dr Dermot Lyne’, –. A number of the maps cited in this article have now been reproduced in colour in M. Swift, Historical maps of Ireland (London, ).
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
VA L E R I E A . H A L L A N D LY N DA B U N T I N G
Pollen analytical investigations of peat and lake sediments have provided the archaeologist with sound evidence for the reconstruction of prehistoric Irish landscapes but have not, however, been similarly applied to tracing historic landscape change in Ireland. This neglect of the recent period has been due partly to assumptions made by both historians and palynologists about the nature of that landscape, assuming there was sufficient evidence for woodland and agriculture in the documentary record. Additionally, comparing the pollen record with historical documents was problematic because of insufficient chronological precision when dating natural deposits due to limitations in isotopic dating techniques. Pollen analysis of peats and lake sediments that accumulated over the last two millennia, but especially over the last thousand years, provides a picture of an integrated landscape with woodland and areas where agriculture was practised. The wooded aspect of the historic Irish landscape has been particularly emphasised by historians (see Nicholls, this volume) who argue that the sixteenth and seventeenth-century records contain copious accounts of the extent and exploitation of oak woodland, and that this plethora of evidence provides a strong circumstantial case for extensive oak-wood cover both then and in the previous years. There may be bias in these famous accounts as they were not written solely as descriptions of landscape, being composed at times by those with an interest in subjugating local insurrection or hoping to gain financial profit. For example, money was to be made from oak timber products, both locally and G. F. Mitchell and M. Ryan, Reading the Irish landscape (Dublin, ). J.R. Pilcher, ‘Radiocarbon dating and the palynologist; a realistic approach to precision and accuracy’, in F.M. Chambers (ed.), Climate change and human impact on the landscape (London, ), –. E. McCracken, The Irish woods since Tudor times, their distribution and exploitation (Newton Abbot, ); V.A. Hall, ‘The woodlands of the Lower Bann valley in the seventeenth century’ in Ulster Folklife, () –; E. Hogan, The description of Ireland and the state thereof as it is at present [] (Dublin, ); H.F. Hore, ‘Woods and fastnesses in ancient Ireland’ in UJA, (), –.
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
through export to Great Britain and Europe. The documents that contain extravagant descriptions of extensive oak woodland ripe for the axe are strangely silent on woods in which other less valuable tree species predominate. Descriptions of places where birch or hazel were dominant are rare even though these trees also produced useful timber products, especially when coppiced. Oak woodland was undoubtedly an important feature of the lowlands but so also must have been agricultural land used for pasture and tillage, with the frequent references to cattle taken in combat and clothing made of finest wool and linen testifying to agricultural diversity in the lowlands. Of the uplands, however, much less is recorded and where scant records exist, the accounts are disappointing. It is not stretching circumstantial evidence beyond its elastic limits to speculate that the scarcity of comment on coppicing in the written record for Ireland has led to the widespread assumption that woodland management was hardly practised, save for the occasional reference to local people ‘plashing’ or interweaving thin, pliable branches to deter unwanted military incursions into woodland. With the exception of an over-emphasis on the extent and density of oak woodland, the written record provides little detail on the regionality of any aspect of the Irish landscape during the medieval period. Pollen analytical studies of peats or lake muds, which accumulated over approximately the last fifteen hundred years, hold the landscape’s own record of change during this period. It is through the analyses of these deposits that the varied and poorly recorded landscape may speak for itself through very large numbers of pollen grains from the trees, shrubs, crops and weeds which grow on the dry land around the lake or bog. It has been stated that there is some bias in the written record, and likewise, the palynological record also contains bias. Pollen productivity is not uniform from species to species and recruitment processes, which carry pollen grains to the peat or lake mud, favour some species more than others. For example, pollen of hazel is usually well represented as it is produced in copious quantities and travels easily in the wind but a flax crop close-by the site may be represented by only a few pollen grains in each peat sample analysed. The documentary evidence, with its superb chronology but lack of detail regarding the elements which comprise the landscape, may be combined with the detailed sub-fossil pollen record from peats or lake muds, where good
Hall, ‘Lower Bann’ , . Additionally there are references to birch wood in south Tyrone in AFM, iv, []. Charles Coote, Statistical survey of the county of Armagh (Dublin, ). There are additional comments in Pynnar’s Survey describing the wild and unproductive state of the Armagh uplands: see G. Hill, An historical account of the plantation of Ulster, – (Belfast, ). Hall, ‘Lower Bann’, . V.A. Hall, ‘A study of the modern pollen rain from a reconstructed th century farm’ in Irish Naturalists Journal, (), –.
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
chronological control can be established, to produce an enhanced reconstruction of Ireland’s changing historic landscape and also to challenge long-held beliefs. This interdisciplinary approach which combines the best of research in the humanities and the palaeoenvironmental sciences will reveal a landscape at least as rich in variety as that of today. The purposes of this paper are to describe new approaches to dating pollen profiles from peats which accumulated over the last millennium and to use the sub-fossil pollen record contained within the peats to form a basis for a closer understanding of the regionality of the landscape of the north of Ireland during that time. Aligning the documentary and palynological evidence for landscape change over this lengthy period, when the Irish landscape underwent alteration resulting from human impact, would greatly enhance our understanding of regionality at any chosen time – but these comparisons depend on achieving good chronological control over the peats or muds. The securely dated pollen profiles for each site investigated will describe complex woodland and agriculture. The promises and problems of the applied techniques will receive comment and their potential to rationalise the pollen record for landscape change with the contemporary documentary evidence will be evaluated.
SITE SELECTION AND SAMPLE COLLECTION
Four sites were selected to give a representation of the north Irish lowlands during the medieval period, with more recent landscape development described through further pollen analytical study. Chronological control over the pollen profiles in these studies is innovative and so site selection has been constrained by earlier volcanic ash studies. A small area of wood near one site was ideal for investigating this woodland’s pollen signal. In addition, the sites were all substantial lowland raised bogs with rapid peat accumulation rates, thus facilitating the high temporal resolution sampling regime needed to obtain a detailed study of the nature of vegetation change through time. None of the sites were close to human settlement during the medieval period so the data derived from these studies represent the general pattern of woodland and agriculture over a wide area. At each site, sufficient peat was extracted to provide samples for pollen and tephrochronological analyses. Vertical cores, each approximately .m long, were obtained from uncut peat surfaces in Garvaghullion bog (Co. Tyrone) and nearby Claraghmore bog (Co. Tyrone), as well as Annagarriff bog (Co.
V.A. Hall, ‘Landscape development in northeast Ireland over the last half millennium’ in Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, (), –.
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
Armagh). This technique allows extraction of recent peats without causing harm to the living bog surface. At Garry bog (Co. Antrim), a long vertical column or monolith was cut from a previously excavated peat face. Site details are as follows: Garvaghullion bog, Lat. N, Long. W, altitude m, Grid Ref. H. Claraghmore bog, Lat. N, Long. W, altitude m, Grid Ref. H. This extensive raised bog is designated an Area of Special Scientific Interest. Annagarriff bog, Lat. N, Long. W, altitude m, Grid Ref. H. This bog is in a national nature reserve. Garry bog, Lat. N, Long. W, altitude m, Grid Ref. C. The uncut remnant of this bog is designated an Area of Special Scientific Interest.
DAT I N G T H E D E P O S I T S
Radiocarbon dating has been used to great advantage by palaeoenvironmentalists investigating Irish landscape change throughout the prehistoric and early medieval period as dates can often be calibrated to a narrow span of calendrical years. The deposits which accumulated over the last one thousand years, however, are problematic as the radiocarbon calibration curve for this period produces dates which are not sufficiently precise to allow close comparison of pollen analytical and written evidence for the vegetated landscape. Work pioneered in Belfast has produced an alternative means of dating recent deposits. Research on Icelandic volcanic ash or tephra, found as thin layers of microscopic glass within peats, has shown that the top metre of lowland raised bogs throughout Ireland regularly contain sparse amounts of this material. Each tephra layer has a unique geochemical signature and in some instances identical layers are found in more than one bog, thus providing good chronological control even where considerable distances separate sites. Exact chemical matches of tephra layers in Irish peats with Icelandic type material of known historic age provide greater chronological precision than calibrated radiocarbon dating. Tephra from the eruptions of the volcano Hekla in AD , and and of Oraefajokull in AD have been detected, J.R. Pilcher and V.A. Hall, ‘Towards a tephrochronology for the Holocene of the north of Ireland’ in Holocene, (), –; J.R. Pilcher, V.A. Hall and F.G. McCormac, ‘An outline tephra chronology for the Holocene of the north of Ireland’ in Journal of Quaternary Science, (), –.
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
making historic tephrochronology a powerful new tool for precisely dating previously obdurate deposits. Presently the technique is used only in Ireland for pollen analytical research of the historic period. This is not to say that the technique is applicable only in Ireland, but merely that the necessary tephrochronological studies are sufficiently advanced here. Unlike the sub-fossil pollen grains which are well preserved in copious quantities in peats and which have anatomical structures unique to individual species, tephra shards in Irish peats have similar anatomy and vary only slightly in colour. It is, therefore, not possible to attribute a date to a tephra layer solely on the basis of its morphology and colour, although these may provide helpful clues to its origin and possible eruption date. Precise chronological confirmation can only be achieved if the geochemistry of the volcanic glass is known. So far all geochemical confirmation of the tephra from Irish peat sequences shows that these all come from Iceland. Most tephra layers detected microscopically comprise varying amounts of colourless, bubbly shards. In the historic sequence, the glass with the most distinctive morphology and colour comes from the eruption of Hekla in AD . This layer is always sparsely represented and composed of colourless and light brown glass shards with a size range from about micrometres to occasional shards approaching micrometres. The other tephras from historic Icelandic eruptions which have been detected in the lowland raised bogs of the north of Ireland are of much the same size range as the products of the Hekla AD eruption but are colourless, and with percentages of silicon, aluminium, iron, potassium, sodium and titanium unique to each eruption.
S A M P L E P R E PA R AT I O N
Small peat samples were cut from the vertical faces of the parent monoliths for both tephra and pollen analyses. In the case of the tephra analysis, samples cm thick were used initially. The peat samples were burnt and the resultant ash cleaned before mounting for microscopic examination. The number of glass shards per sample were recorded and where numbers of shards greater than the background average were seen, further cm peat samples chosen to isolate potential tephra layers were prepared for microscopic examination. Further identical samples were prepared for wavelength-dispersive electron microprobe analysis. This exacting technique is internationally accepted as an ideal means of deriving precise data from the products of distal volcanism and the technique has been used throughout this study. The results of the tephra analyses have been registered on an internationally recognised tephra database held in the Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh. In the case of the pollen analysis, samples were taken at contiguous cm
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
intervals. Standard techniques for the preparation of sub-fossil pollen grains from peats were used throughout this study. The technique relies on the extremely inert material that comprises the walls of pollen grains. When in wet, acidic and oxygen-depleted environments such as peats, pollen grains remain unaltered for many thousands of years. They still maintain their surface features when exposed to concentrated acid and alkali solutions and it is these which are used in the laboratory to destroy the chemically less-resistant peat, leaving the pollen grains undamaged. The pollen grains, freed of their surrounding peats, were mounted in a silicone medium prior to microscopic examination. Approximately pollen grains per sample were identified and counted. The values for each genus or species of pollen grain identified were calculated as a percentage of the total pollen sum counted and the results expressed as the series of graphs that comprise the pollen diagrams. The small area of woodland at Claraghmore bog was used to provide samples containing modern pollen grains produced by the trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants near and within the wood. Moss samples, each about a handful in size, were taken from within the wood and from the surface of the nearby bog. These were prepared for analyses in the same way as the peat samples. The modern pollen and sub-fossil pollen profiles are presented in Figs –.
D I S C U S S I O N O F R E S U LT S
Geochemically confirmed historic tephras were found at Garry bog, Garvaghullion bog and Annagarriff bog. At Claraghmore bog a minute amount of tephra whose morphology and colour were very similar to that of the AD eruption of Hekla was detected in the optical microscope analysis but insufficient material was obtained for geochemical confirmation. It is suggested, on the circumstantial evidence of stratigraphic and pollen analyses that this poorly represented layer marks the AD chronozone. The suggestion is tentative, as there is no substitute for geochemical confirmation. On the basis of this reserved assumption, some comment will be made on the landscape near Claraghmore bog. The results from modern pollen rain samples from the woodland provide interpretative base lines for the fossil pollen profiles as these data and field observations will be used to interpret the medieval landscape record. The wood contains much hazel (Corylus) and oak (Quercus) with lesser amounts of birch (Betula) and holly (Ilex). There are some recent conifer and deciduous A full site description is given in L. Bunting, ‘A tephra-dated palynological and documentary study of the medieval landscape for two sites in the north of Ireland’. Unpublished M.A. thesis (Queen’s University of Belfast, ).
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
: Percentage pollen diagram for modern pollen rain spectra from woodland adjacent to Claraghmore bog, Co. Tyrone. + = less than %.
FIG.
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
: Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Garry bog, Co. Antrim. + = less than %.
FIG.
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
: Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Garvaghullion bog, Co. Tyrone. + = less than %. FIG.
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
: Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Claraghmore bog, Co. Tyrone. + = less than %.
FIG.
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
: Percentage pollen diagram of selected plant species from Annagarriff bog, Co. Tyrone. + = less than %.
FIG.
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
hardwoods planted at a distance, for example, spruce (Picea), fir (Abies), pine (Pinus) and beech (Fagus). The nearby heather-covered bog surface is represented by fluctuating values for heather pollen (Ericaceae) with grasses (Gramineae) and the common weed, ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) well represented in some samples. The results of this study demonstrate that the main trees within the woodland are clearly visible in the pollen record, with oak under-represented in the modern pollen rain percentage data. Oak values of % or under are less than expected from the environs of a woodland where oak is well represented. The more distant trees and the nearby shorter grasses and weeds also show clearly in the modern study. In all of the pollen diagrams, bog mosses (Sphagnum), heathers (Ericaceae) and sedges (Cyperaceae) are well represented. These plants play no further part in our interpretation, as they are the dominant vegetation of the bog and not that of the surrounding landscape. At all sites investigated the wooded landscape is dominated by pollen from hazel and oak with contributions from alder (Alnus), birch (Betula), willow (Salix) and occasional grains of ash (Fraxinus) and pine (Pinus). Rare grains from these less well-represented trees in the diagram means either that they were growing at a distance or are present occasionally on the site. The significance of occasional pine pollen grains in Irish historic pollen sequences has been the subject of contention between pollen analysts and historians for some years. In the twelfth century Giraldus Cambrensis wrote that ‘the forests of Ireland . . . abound with fir-trees, producing frankincense and incense’. Further evidence for pine is found in the eighth-century legal tract Bretha Comaithchesa (‘The Laws of Neighbourhood’), which state that pine was one of the seven principal trees or ‘nobles of the wood’ (airig fedo). Pine cones have been recovered from various sites including Viking Dublin, but there is the possibility that this material was imported. In contrast, the pollen and dendrochronological record for Ireland shows a near extinction of pine almost four thousand years ago, although radiocarbon dates of pine stumps from upland sites throughout the country show that, in some places, pine remained in small outlier populations until the first millennium AD. Occasional findings of pine pollen do not conclusively demonstrate that pine continued to grow in Ireland during the historic period. The documentary records speak of fir and pine although they were the same species
I. Vourela, ‘Relative pollen rain around cultivated fields’ in Acta Botanica Fennica, (), –; I. Vourela, ‘Pollen grains indicating culture in peat, mud and till’ in Grana, (), –. T. Forester (ed. and trans.), The historical works of Giraldus Cambrensis containing the topography of Ireland and the history of the conquest of Ireland (London, ), . F. Kelly, ‘The Old Irish tree-list’ in D. Greene and B. Ó Cuív (eds.), Celtica, : Myles Dillon memorial volume (Dublin, ), –: –.
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
and this has been used to support an assertion that pine remained in remote mountain areas. While this is possible, pine pollen is known to travel great distances and the occasional grains which occur regularly in pollen diagrams from the historic period in Ireland could have come from trees growing in Scotland, where the great Caledonian pine forests remain to this day. Unless radiocarbon or dendrochronological dating of in situ Irish pine stumps shows without doubt that the species remained well into modern times, the debate will continue. Of the four sites investigated Garry bog, north of Ballymoney in Co. Antrim, had the least wooded landscape for about the last thousand years, as the presence of the AD Oraefajokull tephra confirms. Values for all tree and shrub species are consistently low, with hazel more common than it is today. Pine is represented throughout the pollen diagram from Garry bog at consistently low levels and even at the top of the pollen diagram it does not appear in significant levels. Garry bog was once the largest lowland raised bog in the north of Ireland before most of the bog was drained for pasture. The wet remnant which remains is all that is left of the huge bog which formerly dominated the flat landscape of this part of north Antrim. Where there was betterdrained land at the edges of the bog this was lightly wooded, mostly by the ubiquitous hazel as the other tree species are poorly represented in the pollen diagram. The pollen record from this site shows a landscape that has changed little for a very long time. The sites in counties Armagh and Tyrone had more extensive woodland, again dominated by hazel. Annagarriff, in Co. Armagh, had some densely wooded landscape notably of hazel, oak and birch with some alder. Some comment from the historical records for an earlier period () describes woodland in north Armagh and states that there were available in Armagh, ‘. . . acorns of brown oak . . . nuts of the fair hazel hedge’. We are not told the source of this woodland bounty. At Annagarriff, damp mixed oak and hazel woodland with alder in the wettest places contrasts with a much more scrubby landscape dominated by hazel at the two Co. Tyrone sites examined. The presence of geochemically confirmed Hekla AD tephra dating for the pollen diagram at Annagarriff, and the circumstantial evidence for this tephra layer in the Claraghmore profile, allows comparison of these and Garvaghullion’s landscape in the mid-sixteenth century, when it is said that so much of the lowland landscape of the north of Ireland was dominated by huge tracts of dense oak woodland. These studies show that there was variation in the density of
V.A. Hall, ‘Recent landscape change and landscape restoration in Northern Ireland: a tephra dated pollen study’ in Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, (), –. AU, i, , fn. [].
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
woodland with hazel being the dominant tree species rather than oak and that there was further local variation in woodland within this relatively small region. The increasing percentage of pine pollen towards the top of the Garvaghullion pollen diagram marks the first appearance of re-introduced pine in the late eighteenth century. Agriculture in the historic Irish pollen records is detected through the presence of pollen grains of cereals (Cerealia), grasses (Gramineae), and weeds such as plantains (Plantago lanceolata) and docks (Rumex species). Grasses, docks and plantains all point to a pastoral landscape whereas cereals are arable products. But caution must be exercised in attributing any weed species to a particular type of farming, as, in Ireland, the weeds of the meadow are also the weeds of the tilled field. In the profile for Garry bog, low values of cereals are present in many samples. Such values for cereal pollen are common in lowland raised bog pollen profiles and should not be taken as evidence for an insignificant arable contribution to the agricultural economy. The almost continuous cereal record indicates a long history of possibly small-scale arable agriculture in this region but there is a noteworthy break in the cereal and dock record from the mid-fourteenth century until possibly the early sixteenth century. Land such as that in the environs of Garry bog is better suited to pasture than the plough, so the break in the cereal record after the Black Death () may be in response to a fall in population or perhaps abandonment of cereal growing on difficult land. Further pollen studies of deposits of similar age at sites throughout Ireland are currently underway and, when combined with these new findings, a better picture of historic arable agriculture at the time of plague and pestilence in Ireland will emerge. At Annagarriff, Claraghmore and Garvaghullion, cereals hardly figure in the pollen record. Occasional grains are detected at Annagarriff but the cereal record for Garvaghullion and Claraghmore in the sixteenth century implies no arable agriculture in this area, either at that time or in previous years. Agriculture in these parts of Tyrone seems to have been pastoral as testified by evidence for grasses and plantains. At Annagarriff, however, low values for grasses and weeds, taken with the very weak evidence for cereal cultivation, indicate a landscape where agriculture played little or no part. The synthesis of the findings from these sites presents a regionally diverse picture. Large open bogland in Co. Antrim with some mixed agriculture in the lightly wooded, better drained areas predominated in the last thousand years, in contrast to the wooded landscape of north-west Armagh in the late medieval period or parts of Tyrone where there was scrubby woodland in which stock grazed. Tyrone and Armagh have changed considerably with the removal of scrub and woodland and later enclosure by hedges for stock management, in contrast to north Antrim where the boggy landscape of former times is an expanded version of that of today.
Tephra-dated Pollen Studies of Medieval Landscapes in the North of Ireland
We must take heed of the words of Fynes Moryson who in his day gave a useful indication that the Irish landscape was more varied than some earlier descriptions implied. He was in Ireland from November to May and, unlike Cambrensis, travelled extensively. In his Description of Ireland he writes: Ulster and western parts of Munster yield vast woods in which Rebels cutting up trees, and casting them on Heaps, used to stop the Passages, and therein, as also upon fenny and boggy places fight the English. But I confess myself to have been deceived in the common fame that all Ireland is woody, having found in my long journey from Armagh to Kinsale few or no woods excepting the great woods of Ophalia and soe low shrubby places which they call ‘Glins’.
C O N C LU S I O N
The secure dating provided by historic tephra layers in Irish peats permits much closer comparisons of the palynological and documentary evidence for historic Ireland than had previously been possible. Indeed this may be the last place in Europe where this type of interdisciplinary study may be attempted. Although the written records for landscape change in some parts of the British Isles may be excellent, most of the contemporary bog once extensive in lowland England and along the Atlantic coast of Europe has long been sacrificed for fuel. Even in Ireland where boglands are still extensive, the vulnerable top metre of peat, which holds the landscape record of the historic period, is now being damaged beyond retrieval by drainage or stripping. In places where tephra-containing bogland remains, a careful examination of the regional historic documentary evidence for landscape change, combined with the pollen analytical record will allow more detailed landscape reconstruction. Fortunately such sites are available and investigations of the effects of monasticism on the Irish landscape are underway through analyses of peats from bogs near Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Monaincha and Clonenagh. The secular landscape has not been neglected either as studies have been undertaken of bogs near places which were the focus of Anglo-Norman advance or which remained in Gaelic holding. Preliminary findings from these studies show that the rural landscape of medieval Ireland was at least as diverse as its modern
Fynes Moryson, An history of Ireland from the year to . With a short narration of the state of the kingdom from the year , vol. (Dublin, ), .
Valerie A. Hall and Lynda Bunting
counterpart. It is encouraging to end this paper on the optimistic note that through exacting research in historical studies, archaeology, dendrochronology and palynology, Ireland leads the way in interdisciplinary study of the historic period.
V.A. Hall, ‘Tephra-dated lowland landscape history of the north of Ireland, AD –’ in The New Phytologist, (), –. In addition historical pollen studies for other areas with varying degrees of chronological precision are published as follows: J.A. Fossitt, ‘Lateglacial and Holocene vegetation history of western Donegal, Ireland’ in Biology and Environment, PRIA, B (), –; L. Jelicic and M. O’Connell, ‘History of vegetation and land use from B.P. to the present in the north-west Burren, a karstic region of western Ireland’ in Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, (), –; F. J.G. Mitchell, ‘The vegetational history of the Killarney oakwoods, SW Ireland: evidence from fine spatial pollen analysis’ in Journal of Ecology, (), –; F. J.G. Mitchell, ‘The impact of grazing and human disturbance on the dynamics of woodland in SW Ireland’ in Journal of Vegetation Science, (), –; B. Van Geel and A. Middledorp, ‘Vegetational history of Carbury bog (Co. Kildare, Ireland) during the last years and a test of the temperature indicator value of H/H measurements of peat samples in relation to the historical sources and meteorological data’ in The New Phytologist, (), –.
Settlement and Place-names
NOLLAIG Ó MURAÍLE
Throughout most of human history, the presence of place-names implies some degree of at least temporary settlement (usually somewhere in the vicinity of the names). Conversely, the absence of toponymy can usually be taken as indicative of the absence of human habitation: for it is a fact that there is no known human society which does not append names to both places and people. The earliest traces of human settlement on this island are commonly held to date back some nine millennia, and it is therefore to be expected that such settlement should have left some impression, however slight, on the toponymy of Ireland. However, the linguistic inheritance of those who inhabited the island for more than two-thirds of the period in question (including the people who have left us the great tumulus at Newgrange and the other passage-tombs of the Boyne Valley or farmed the Céide Fields) appears to have been comprehensively overwhelmed by the culture, and most particularly the language, of the Celts. As an index of just how thoroughly the pre-Celtic languages (the plural being almost certainly justified) were obliterated, we may note the fact that there is scarcely more than a handful of early Irish place-names which scholars would agree to be – just possibly – of non-Celtic origin. These may include, besides the river-name Febal, Samaír and Suca, and that of the southern province of Muma and, perhaps, even the name of the island itself, Ériu, but virtually any name suggested to belong to this tiny category has at some time been controverted by some Celtic scholar or other. One category of Irish place-name which, it has been suggested, may very well be pre-Celtic, is the This chapter is an amalgam of a paper read to the GSIHS special conference and a revised version of my article, ‘Late medieval Gaelic surveys of counties Mayo and Sligo’ in GSIHS Newsletter, (), –. P. Woodman, ‘Prehistoric settlers’ in P. Loughrey (ed.), The people of Ireland (Belfast, ), –; L. de Paor, Portrait of Ireland: Ireland - past and present (Bray, ), –; idem, The peoples of Ireland: from prehistory to modern times (London, ), –. One scholar who wrote quite extensively, and not altogether consistently, on this subject was Michael O’Brien who, towards the end of his life, declared himself ‘convinced that a large proportion of our place-names originated in languages of which we know absolutely nothing’. M.A. O’Brien, ‘Place-names’ in J.A. Meenan and D.A. Webb (eds.), A view of Ireland (Dublin, ), –: . By Art Ó Maolfabhail, former Chief Place-names Officer, Ordnance Survey of Ireland, in a private communication.
Nollaig Ó Muraíle
collection of island-names from around our coast whose Irish forms end in either -ra or -re: names such as Rechra [Rathlin and Lambay], Cliara [Clare Island, Co. Mayo], Cléire [Cape Clear Island, Co. Cork] and perhaps the various islands called Ára [Aran Islands, Arranmore Island, etc.], and possibly Dairbhre [Valentia Island, Co. Kerry]. The names I have just mentioned, however, would appear to be very much the minority. The vast majority of early Irish toponyms seem to have their origin in the Irish language and most of them are transparent, that is to say, they consist of elements whose meaning, if not immediately apparent to the average speaker of Irish, can fairly readily be established. Many of them represent well-attested Irish words while others are to be found in more specialised use and their meaning may be gleaned from glossaries or other early Irish texts.
V I K I N G S, N O R M A N S, A N D E N G L I S H
The Viking period, mainly the ninth and tenth centuries, saw the establishment of numerous settlements, particularly in the eastern and southern coastal regions of Ireland. The most notable of these included what later became the cities of Dublin, Limerick and Waterford. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable fact that the Vikings left behind them in Ireland a mere handful of Norse placenames, including some which were merely Norse [or Anglo-Saxon?] renderings of Irish names, of which the most celebrated of all was Dyflin (for Irish Duiblinn, meaning ‘black pool’). Moreover, almost none of these Norse names was located more than about a dozen miles inland – Leixlip being one of the furthest from the coast. This is in marked contrast to another area of the Gaelic world, the Western Isles of Scotland (known in Irish as Innse Gall, ‘the islands of the Vikings’), where the Gaelic and Norse traditions became closely intertwined and Norse left a marked imprint on the Scottish Gaelic language. The coming of the Normans in the twelfth century brought the NormanFrench language and also, in due course, the English language. Not surprisingly, over the turbulent centuries that followed, English had an enormous impact on Irish toponymy. What seems rather more surprising is the comparatively slight impression made by Norman-French. While early post-Norman documents contain a fair proportion of Norman-French place-names, very few of them have survived down to recent times. And where they have survived, it M. Oftedal, ‘Scandinavian place-names in Ireland’ in D. Greene (ed.), Proceedings of the seventh Viking congress, Dublin, (Dublin, ), –; D. Ó Corráin, ‘A future for Irish placenames’ in A. Ó Maolfabhail (ed.), The placenames of Ireland in the third millennium / Logainmneacha na hÉireann sa tríú mílaois (Dublin, ), –: –. On the early immigration of ‘plebeian English’ – and, no doubt, English-speaking – settlers, see R. Frame, Colonial Ireland, – (Dublin, ), , , .
Settlement and Place-names
is usually in strongly anglicised form, reflecting, no doubt, the way one language gave way to the other. In some instances the names are further disguised, appearing to be anglicised forms of Irish names. The foregoing remarks on the linguistic dimension of Irish place-names are intended to emphasise that the predominant languages in relation to Irish toponymy are Irish and English and, apart from the former English Pale and south Wexford, the Irish language continues to dominate. In other words, the majority of Irish place-names, particularly what are or were formerly administrative names (of provinces, counties, baronies, parishes and townlands), consist of more or less thinly disguised Irish forms.
M I C RO T O P O N Y M Y
When one digs below the level of the townland, particularly in areas of the west where the Irish language is still, or was until recently, the vernacular, one finds an astonishingly rich substratum of microtoponymy still surviving, albeit precariously, and in most cases the forms are utterly undisguised and undistorted. We get some idea of the scale of this heritage of microtoponyms from a consideration of those collections of minor place-names that have found their way into print over the past few decades, in most cases for the first time ever. There are some , such names from Co. Kerry, from the three most westerly parishes of Co. Cork, from the Gaeltacht parish of Ring (Co. Waterford), over from two parishes in west Donegal, from a single townland in northwest Mayo, and from the vicinity of the recently faded Gaeltacht of west Clare. Some are known from Rathlin Island (Co. Antrim), from Tory Island (Co. Donegal), from a now lost Gaeltacht in south Tipperary, from the now-deserted island of Inishmurray (Co. Sligo), and from the Erris Gaeltacht of northwest Mayo, not to mention the hundreds that Tim Robinson has made available in his maps and gazetteers of the Aran Islands, south Connemara and the Burren area of northwest Clare. See the interesting comments by K.W. Nicholls in ‘Anglo-French Ireland and after’ in Peritia, (), –: –, on the terms gráig and grangia which so often ‘appear side by side both in medieval records and in place-name nomenclature’; he gives their respective primary meanings as ‘a stock farm or cattle-steading’ and ‘a tillage establishment.’ For example, the townland of Bey Beg, parish of Colp, barony of Duleek, Co. Meath, which would appear to represent Irish Beitheach Bheag, but is in fact a back-formation from French Beaubec (from a place of the same name – Lat. Bellus Beccus – in Normandy): see A. Gwynn and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval religious houses: Ireland (London, ), . This renders the complementary townland name Bey More especially ludicrous. I owe this example to the kindness of Kenneth Nicholls. Four provinces, thirty-two counties, baronies ( if we count the later – early-nineteenth-century – subdivision into East/West/North/South/Lower/Upper, etc.), civil parishes and about , townlands. Co. Kerry: An Seabhac (Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha), Tríocha céad Chorca
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I have recently collected evidence of more than names from Clare Island, at the mouth of Clew Bay, Co. Mayo, while a quarter of a century ago I collected over from a dozen then Irish-speaking townlands in the vicinity of Tourmakeady on the western shore of Lough Mask, Co. Mayo. About ten years ago I was given a collection of more than similar names from Achill. While many of the foregoing remarks may be deemed a digression from the late medieval theme of this book, it is necessary to emphasise strongly just how central the Irish language dimension is to a study of Irish toponymy in any period of this island’s recorded history. Neither should it be forgotten that a great body of Irish toponymy is attested from a period of several centuries before the coming of the Normans.
E A R LY NA M E S
The earliest collection of Irish place-names is that preserved by the secondcentury Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy, and from the seventh century onward numerous names occur in the writings about St Patrick by the hagiographers Muirchú and Tírechán and in the early Irish annals. Dhuibhne (Dublin, ); ibid., Uí Ráthach (Dublin, ); B. Ó Cíobháin, Toponomia Hiberniae, vols. (Dublin, –); Co. Cork: M. Mac Cárthaigh, ‘Placenames of the parish of Kilcatherine’ Dinnseanchas, / (), –, / (), –, ‘Placenames of the parish of Kilnamanagh’, / (), –, / (), –, ‘Placenames of the parish of Killaconenagh’, / (), –; Co. Waterford: An Coimisiún Logainmneacha, Logainmneacha as paróiste na Rinne, Co. Phort Láirge (Dublin, ); Co. Donegal: J. O’Kane, ‘Place names of Inniskeel and Kilteevoge’ in ZCP, () –; Co. Mayo: S. Ó Catháin and P. O’Flanagan, The Living landscape (Dublin, ) –, –; Co. Antrim: D. Mac Giolla Easpaig, ‘The place-names of Rathlin Island’ Ainm, (–), –; Co. Clare: B. Ó Cíobháin, ‘Logainmneacha - bharúntacht Mhaigh Fhearta, Co. an Chláir’ in Dinnseanchas, / (), –, / (), –, / (), –, / (), –, / (), –; Co. Donegal: N. Ó hUrmoltaigh: ‘Logainmneacha as Toraí, Tír Chonaill’ in Dinnseanchas, / (), –; Co. Tipperary: B. Ó Cíobháin, ‘Logainmneacha - dheisceart Thiobraid Árann’ Dinnseanchas / (), –; Co. Sligo: M. Mac Cárthaigh, ‘Placenames of Inishmurray’ in Dinnseanchas, / (), –; Co. Mayo: É. Mhac an Fhailigh, ‘Some Erris placenames: pronunciation’ in Dinnseanchas, / (), –; Co. Galway: T. Robinson, Oileáin Árann, The Aran Islands, Co. Galway: A map and guide (Roundstone, ); ibid., Connemara: map, introduction and gazetteer (Roundstone, ); Co. Clare: T. Robinson, The Burren: A map of the uplands of north-west Clare (Roundstone, ). For the first of these collections, see N. Ó Muraíle, ‘The place-names of Clare Island’ in C. Mac Cárthaigh and K. Whelan (eds.), New survey of Clare Island, i: history and landscape (Dublin, ), –; the other two await proper editing and annotation. An interesting aspect of the subject of microtoponymy is the question of age: my impression is that much of it is quite recent with a particular stratum of names being quite transient. See T.F. O’Rahilly, Early Irish history and mythology (Dublin, ), –; A. Mac an Bhaird, ‘Ptolemy revisited’ in Ainm, (–), –. See, for example, D. Flanagan, ‘The Christian impact on early Ireland: place-names evidence’ in P. Ní Chathán and M. Richter (eds.), Ireland and Europe: the early church (Stuttgart, ), –.
Settlement and Place-names
The Collectanea of the late seventh-century Tirawley bishop Tírechán is the work of a man who may be deemed, despite the anachronism, ‘the first Mayo writer’. He is at least the first writer from that area whose name is known to us – some centuries prior to him we have the anonymous individuals who carved cryptic inscriptions in Ogam on some ten pillar-stones in the east Co. Mayo–northwest Roscommon area. Tírechán, writing a Latin text heavily influenced by Irish, some time about the years –, gives the names of almost places and peoples said to have been visited or otherwise contacted by Patrick during a number of clockwise tours of the northern half of Ireland. About a sixth of those names were located in what is now Co. Mayo. Many of the names preserved by Tírechán are now obsolete and therefore difficult to identify or locate with certainty, which is scarcely surprising given the lapse of some years since they were first recorded. There is a small measure of assistance to be had from a redaction of Tírechán’s work incorporated in the Old Irish Tripartite Life of St Patrick, which was compiled perhaps two centuries after the time of the Tirawley bishop. At least some of the names in the later work are rather more readily recognisable or less impenetrable. What is surprising is how many of them can, in fact, still be pinpointed with a considerable degree of certainty. A number of names that occur in Tírechán and related texts have managed to survive despite not having been recorded again for many centuries. A particularly striking example is Mons Cairnn which the eighth-century Patrician Additamenta in the Book of Armagh mention as one of the boundaries of the territory occupied by the most westerly branch of the Ciarraige of Connacht – a people last mentioned in the annals at the year . The name would seem not to have been written down again for more than eleven centuries, when it was recorded as Slieve Carna by the Scottish mapmaker William Bald in his fine map of Mayo completed in the year . This small mountain, lying just southwest of the town of Kiltamagh in east Mayo, is still known locally as Sliabh Chairn (often pronounced roughly Slieve Horn). This name-form has clearly survived in R.A.S. Macalister, Corpus inscriptionum insularum Celticarum I (Dublin, ), –. L. Bieler (ed.), The patrician texts in the book ofArmagh (Dublin, ), –. (The direction of the itineraries is significant – it was considered lucky in early Irish belief to follow the course of the sun; see O’Rahilly, Early Irish history, –.) Kathleen Mulchrone (ed.), Bethu Phátraic. The tripartite life of Patrick (Dublin, ), especially – and for more than a score of place-names in the vicinity of Tírechán’s native area around Killala in Tirawley. See also E. Mac Néill, ‘The vita tripartita of St. Patrick – I. Later accretions; II. Topographical importance’ in Ériu, (), – [reprinted in John Ryan (ed.), Saint Patrick, by Eoin MacNeill (Dublin and London, ), –]. Bieler, Patrician texts, –. On the Ciarraige of Connacht, see N. Ó Muraíle, ‘Some early Connacht population-groups’ in A.P. Smyth (ed.), Seanchas: studies in early Irish archaeology, history and literature in honour of Francis J. Byrne (Dublin, ), –, especially –. Map of the maritime county of Mayo in Ireland . . . executed by order of the grand jury . . . commenced in , and terminated in [sic]. By William Bald, FRSE . . . Engraved by Pierre Tardieu, .
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local oral tradition over a period of well over a millennium down to and beyond the time of Bald’s Map – for the latter work, however admirable its execution, never really impinged on popular consciousness in Mayo. For some strange reason the name was altogether missed by the Ordnance Survey in the s. Even the most recent OS :, maps, in ‘The Discovery Series,’ leave this quite significant feature of the east Mayo landscape utterly nameless. In the context of place-names occurring in Gaelic sources, attention must be drawn to a great work that is quite indispensable to anyone dealing with such names. This is Edmund Hogan’s magnificent, if often infuriating, Onomasticon Goedelicum, a kind of ‘dictionary’ of early Irish place-names found in Gaelic and Latin sources. It lists alphabetically, under mainly Middle and Old-Irish name-forms, an estimated , names from such sources and offers a suggested identification (or sometimes a series of possible identifications) of each name.
J O H N O ’ D O N OVA N A N D H I S S U C C E S S O R S
A large proportion of the suggested identifications offered by Hogan and his team was indebted above all to the Herculean labours of one man, probably the most remarkable individual ever to work in the field of Irish toponymy. This was the Kilkenny man John O’Donovan (–) whose pioneering achievements still leave one lost in admiration. Anybody working on virtually any aspect of Irish place-names has, at the very least, to take O’Donovan’s views into account. This is not to say that he was always right: far from it! No one was more ready than himself to admit that he was far from infallible, but the great surprise is not that he was sometimes wrong but that he was so often right. Again and again when one is working on a name, one finds that O’Donovan has got there first. Working without such basic tools as proper Irish dictionaries (especially of the older forms of the language) or printed editions of Irish texts (which he had to consult in manuscript), but with a flash of intuition and the assistance of his astonishing photographic memory, he might hazard a guess at the meaning or location of a name and, in most cases, he got it brilliantly right. This is what makes so very valuable his voluminous and clearly written notes in his various editions of Irish texts such as the annals and genealogies. Most of those notes have not been superseded and many will never go out of date. Of how many other scholars can this be said – especially after a century and a half? This is all the more astonishing when one recalls For some details of the background to Bald’s map, see Ó Muraíle, ‘Place-names of Clare Island’, –. In relation to Sliabh Charna, see idem, ‘Some Connacht population-groups’, . E. Hogan, Onomasticon Goedelicum locorum et tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae (Dublin, ; reprint ).
Settlement and Place-names
that much of this detailed and accurate annotation was executed in great haste and in very unsatisfactory and uncomfortable conditions. Of course O’Donovan’s great knowledge rested on a number of solid foundations – most notably his unrivalled knowledge of sources in various languages, particularly Irish, Latin and English. His acquaintance with the Irish annals and genealogies derived from his editorial work which began when he was still in his mid-s, and came to fruition in his numerous fine editions, the most breathtaking of which was his magisterial edition of the so-called Annals of the Four Masters. His wide-ranging knowledge was supplemented during his decades working either fulltime or part-time with the Ordnance Survey and in particular the seven years he spent travelling the Irish countryside, often on foot and in all kinds of weather, searching out the very last speakers of Irish in areas from which the language would disappear forever within a few short years, in the wake of the Great Famine. An interesting and sometimes controversial study by Cathy Swift makes a number of valuable observations on aspects of O’Donovan’s work and illustrates how some possibly mistaken deductions of his in relation to certain place-names have been accepted down to our own day. The principal example she cites relates to his location of St Patrick’s supposed lighting of the first paschal fire at Slane. Very debatable, however, is her criticism of O’Donovan for his frequent and very severe strictures on the often ludicrous pseudoscholarship of the likes of Charles Vallancey and his rivals Edward Ledwich and William Beauford, as well as of Dr Charles O’Conor, grandson of the celebrated Charles of Bellanagare. The fact that on no more than one or two occasions the younger O’Conor may have been more correct than O’Donovan in identifying certain place-names must be seen as the merest of lucky accidents rather than indicating any greater knowledge or erudition on his part. Dr Swift criticises what she deems to have been O’Donovan’s too credulous acceptance of the supposed early history of the Uí Fhiachrach dynasty in late fourth-century north Connacht, whereas the text on which she bases this accusation is merely an annotated edition and translation by him of a work penned in the seventeenth century by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh, and even then Mac Fhirbhisigh was simply furnishing a somewhat updated recension of a work originally composed early in the fifteenth century. As I see it, O’Donovan’s only fault here would seem to be that he does not clearly indicate that this work was not to be taken as reliable history. But then we should remember that it was only well into the twentieth century that the likes of Eoin J. O’Donovan (ed. and trans.), Annals of the kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters from the earliest period to the year ( vols, Dublin ). C. Swift, ‘John O’Donovan and the framing of early medieval Ireland in the nineteenth century’ in Bullán, / (), –. For a recent critique of aspects of Dr Swift’s approach see K. Hollo, ‘Cú Chulainn and Síd Truim’ in Ériu, (), –: –, n. .
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Mac Neill and, more especially, T. F. O’Rahilly began to adopt a critical and even sceptical approach to such supposedly early records as the Book of Rights or the ‘pre-Patrician’ annals. It is, therefore, surely a little unfair on O’Donovan to expect him to behave like a twentieth-century scholar rather than the great nineteenth-century scholar that he was. In fact, his pioneering approach left him light-years ahead of the Celtomania of Vallancey and his disciples or the even dafter ideas of the likes of William Betham, Edward Ledwich and others. It is an undeniable, and most regrettable, fact that the amount of additional work done since O’Donovan’s time on the tens of thousands of place-names that were first studied by him has been, to say the least, disappointing. For example, the classic work of P.W. Joyce, The origin and history of Irish names of places, in three volumes (, , ), though useful as a survey of some , names, is heavily reliant on O’Donovan’s original work. Only a handful of Irish scholars have endeavoured to throw additional light on at least some of those names for which O’Donovan suggested (or sometimes failed to suggest) possible identifications. The three scholars who have made the most substantial contributions in this field have been Fr Paul Walsh, who died nearly sixty years ago, and in more recent times Kenneth Nicholls and Diarmuid Ó Murchadha. The last-mentioned is associated with an exciting research-project, known as Locus, based in the Department of Old and Middle Irish in UCC, to update Hogan’s Onomasticon, while for over thirty years Nicholls has made a most significant contribution to the study and identification of placenames occurring in medieval Irish sources, in various languages. One small example of his work in this field is to found in the ‘Index of Place and Tribal Names’ at the end of Ó Riain’s edition of the genealogies of early Irish saints. New and usually convincing identifications are suggested for some dozens of names in that index, the person responsible being identified simply by the initials ‘K.W. N.’ after each name. Ó Murchadha has been active in the onomastic field over an even longer period, but in recent years has done some particularly important work in reassessing place-names from various editions of the early Irish annals. In a series of articles published over the past decade, he has suggested identifications, or in some cases re-identifications, for almost place-names occurring in the Misc. Ir. Annals, AI, AC, and Ann. Tig., with a further article forthcoming on the names in the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, and another already For a further critique of some aspects of Dr Swift’s article, see N. Ó Muraíle, ‘Seán Ó Donnabháin, “An cúigiú máistir”’ in R. Ó hUiginn (ed.), Scoláirí Gaeilge, Léachtaí Cholm Cille, (Maigh Nuad, ), –: –. For a brief assessment of some of Walsh’s achievements see N. Ó Muraíle, ‘Pól Breathnach (–), sagart, saoi is seanchaí’ in P. Ó Fiannachta (ed.), Maigh Nuad agus an Ghaeilge, Léachtaí Cholm Cille, (Maigh Nuad, ), –. P. Ó Riain (ed.), Corpus genealogiarum sanctorum Hiberniae (Dublin, ), –.
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in draft-form on Chron. Scot. He has also recently published an invaluable index-volume to Ann. Tig. containing close on , names, including more than place and tribal names which he endeavours to locate and identify. This work represents a new and very welcome departure in the field of Irish name-studies. Various other Irish name-collections that merit further study, particularly with a view to establishing as far as possible the location and extent of the place to which each name applies, include the following: the genealogical tract on Corca Laígde, the text called Críchad an Chaoille, the Early Modern Irish tale Táin Bó Flidhaise, the Uí Fhiachrach tract preserved in the Book of Lecan and in Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh’s Book of Genealogies, the work known as Senchas Búrcach, as well as partly English or Latin sources such as the Registry of Clonmacnoise, Compossicion Booke of Conought, Maps of the Escheated Counties of Ulster, Fiants, Chancery Inquisitions, Patent Rolls, Strafford Inquisition of Co. Mayo, Books of Survey and Distribution (BSD), Down Survey Maps, and so on. The following are some brief preliminary observations on the first few of these collections.
S O M E L AT E M E D I E VA L G A E L I C C O L L E C T I O N S
The genealogical tract on the southwest Munster people called the Corca Laígde, edited a century and a half ago by John O’Donovan, includes, from the late fourteenth-century Book of Lecan (with variants from the contemporary Book of Ballymote), a survey of the ‘hereditary proprietors’ of their territory which lists some two dozen identifiable place-names and almost eighty familynames. It has recently been the subject of a valuable study by Ó Corráin who shows that the territory in question does not represent the whole of the diocese of Ross, in west Cork, as has been suggested by O’Donovan and others, but rather that portion of the diocese consisting of the deaneries of Ross and ‘Collimore et Collibeg’ [=Corcu Loígde Mór and Corcu Loígde Becc]. The tract, says Ó Corráin, ‘gives a geographical description of a portion of an Irish kingdom in the twelfth century, lists the lords and landholding gentry Miscellaneous Irish Annals: Ainm, (–) –; Annals of Inisfallen: (–), –; Annals of Connacht: (–) –; Annals of Tigernach: (–), –. D. Ó Murchadha, The Annals of Tigernach: index of names (London and Dublin, ). J. O’Donovan, ‘The genealogy of Corca Laidhe’ in Miscellany of the Celtic Society (Dublin, ) –, at –. D. Ó Corráin, ‘Corcu Loígde: land and families’ in P. O’Flanagan and C.G. Buttimer (eds.), Cork: history and society: interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish county (Dublin, ), –. The identification of the place-names in the tract is heavily indebted (as the author acknowledges) to the work of my former colleague in the Place-names Branch, Ordnance Survey of Ireland, the late Pádraig Ó Niatháin: ‘Tuath Ó bhFithcheallaigh’ in Dinnseanchas, / (), –; ‘Tuath Uí Dhuibhdáléithe’ in Dinnseanchas, / (), –.
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families of seven local lordships and gives some idea of the social structure of the aristocracy.’ The late-medieval tract called Críchad an Chaoille (meaning ‘the delimitation of the boundaries of An Caoille’) delineates an ancient territory corresponding to the modern baronies of Fermoy and Condons and Clangibbon in northeast Co. Cork. The tract is preserved in two late medieval Irish manuscripts, but its date of composition is uncertain. Its principal editor, Canon Power, thought it antedated the beginning of the twelfth century and even hints that it may be ‘of no later date than th century.’ He is undeterred by the fact that the language of the tract is Early Modern Irish (that is, post- or thereabouts), as he thinks that ‘each successive scribe or redactor would naturally transliterate more or less to forms and manner of his own period’. The tract strikes me as probably belonging to the later medieval period, although admittedly the compiler may have used materials dating from somewhat earlier than that. It catalogues the ten tuatha or sub-territories into which the territory was divided, lists the ruling family and other leading families in each tuath and also details the boundaries of each tuath and the specific place with which each family was associated. The boundaries of each tuath are set out in detail and the place (frequently representing a present-day townland) with which each family was associated is indicated. In all, there is mention of families and about place-names. Power was able to locate, if not to identify, with a degree of certainty most of the place-names. He also claimed that the tract ‘is a document of unique character and scope’ and emphasised the significance of this ‘intensive study of a single petty princedom.’ It is a work crying out for a modern re-edition and a thorough analysis, like Ó Corráin’s treatment of the Corcu Loígde tract, to set it in its proper context. The Early Modern Irish version of the tale Táin Bó Flidhaise, running to about pages of print, is preserved in a manuscript in the National Library of Scotland that appears to have been penned in Ireland, very likely in Connacht, in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. Although edited almost a century ago, the text has been neglected by all but a handful of scholars. Almost the only aspect of the text to attract any scholarly attention has Ó Corráin, ‘Corcu Loígde’, . P. Power (ed.), Crichad an Chaoilli, being the topography of ancient Fermoy (Cork, ). An earlier edition by J.G. O’Keeffe, ‘The ancient territory of Fermoy’ in Ériu, () –, is textually more satisfactory but lacks Power’s detailed annotation. Power, Crichad an Chaoilli, . Power, Crichad an Chaoilli, . Ó Corráin, ‘Corcu Loígde,’ , deems it a ‘twelfth-century tract.’ On the meaning of tuath, see ibid. Power, Crichad, . [D.] Mackinnon, ‘The Glenmasan manuscript’ in The Celtic Review, I (–) –, –, –, –; II (–) –, –, –, –; III (–) –, –, –, –; IV (–) –, –, –; see also C. Mac Giolla Léith (ed.), Oidheadh chloinne hUisneach. The violent death of the children of Uisneach (London, ), –.
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been its collection of over sixty place-names occurring in the account of two itineraries, which form the centrepiece of the tale. Most of these names relate to places in late medieval Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon, and were studied in valuable articles by Dobbs and Aldridge. I feel, however, that even this subject is by no means exhausted and further study, using other sources for purposes of comparison, could yield useful results.
P RO S E T R AC T A N D P O E M O N U Í F H I AC H R AC H
An especially interesting Gaelic survey relating to counties Mayo and Sligo is a tract on the population-group (or dynasty) known as Uí Fhiachrach. This is preserved in the great west Sligo manuscript called the Book of Lecan which was compiled largely between the years and by one of the learned family of Mac Fir Bhisigh at Lackan, near Enniscrone. The precise date of the tract is difficult to establish with certainty, but there is reason to believe that it was put together during the second half of the fourteenth century, probably following the expulsion of the Norman de Berminghams from Tireragh by Domhnall Cléireach Ó Dubhda in the year ; the expulsion was the culmination of a long campaign waged by Domhnall’s father, the long-lived SeinBhrian Ó Dubhda. In the wake of this event, Clann Fhir Bhisigh apparently followed their lordly patrons eastwards across Killala Bay and established a seat of learning at Lackan, where they remained until early in the second half of the seventeenth century. It is noteworthy that a very short and spare version of the Uí Fhiachrach tract preserved in that other great Co. Sligo manuscript, the Book of Ballymote (compiled about the year ), is attributed to one Flann, and it has been suggested that the original of the text may have been the work of the celebrated scholar Flann Mainistrech, who was attached to the monastery of Monasterboice, Co. Louth, and died as early as . Whether or not such a suggestion has any basis in fact, it is clear that somebody – no doubt the great scribe and scholar and principal compiler of the Book of Lecan, Giolla Íosa Mac Fir Bhisigh – took that earlier tract and greatly expanded and reorganised it. M. Dobbs, ‘On Táin Bó Flidais’ in Ériu, (), –; R.B. Aldridge, ‘The routes described in the story called Táin Bó Fliadhais’ in JRSAI, (), –, –; (), –. See T. Ó Concheanainn, ‘A note on the scribes of the Book of Lecan’ in Ériu, (), –; idem, ‘Scríobhaithe Leacáin Mhic Fhir Bhisigh’ in Celtica, (), –. The text occurs in the Book of Lecan [hereafter Lec.], fo. vc–rb, and in a more modern version in Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh’s Leabhar Genealach [hereafter LGen. - Book of Genealogies], –. Book of Ballymote [hereafter BB], pp. a–b. The tract is headed ‘Genelach H. Fiachrach andso do reir Flaind.’ For details of the manuscript, see T. Ó Concheanainn, ‘The Book of Ballymote’ in Celtica, (), –. On the suggested identification of Flann, see idem, ‘Aided Nath Í and Uí Fhiachrach genealogies’ in Éigse, (), , n. .
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In the course of preparing a new edition of the text, I have divided the tract for convenience into more than sections. The initial portion consists of an account of the purported origins of Uí Fhiachrach, reputedly descendants of one Fiachra Foltsnáthach, an older brother of the famous, supposedly fifthcentury, ‘high-king’ Niall of the Nine Hostages. A version of the legend of the death of Dath Í son of Fiachra, a (scarcely-historical) king of Tara said to have been killed on a continental expedition in , is followed by various other legends as well as by detailed genealogies of the many families who claimed affiliation to Uí Fhiachrach. The final or so sections of the text consist of the kind of survey already mentioned. This lists the various subdivisions within the territory of Uí Fhiachrach and the ruling or predominant family or families in each. In all, the text contains just under place-names and about surnames or family names. As to the distribution of these, the first ninety or so place-names are located in the barony of Carra and the adjacent part of the barony of Kilmaine in south Mayo. The next forty or so are in the barony of Tirawley in north Mayo and the remainder are in Co. Sligo, all in the barony of Tireragh. We should also note that the aforementioned Giolla Íosa composed a lengthy poem of some lines or quatrains which bears a striking resemblance to the so-called ‘topographical poems’ of Ó Dubhagáin and Ó hUidhrín, although it is a great deal more detailed than either of those. The first of the latter works runs to lines relating to the provinces of Meath, Ulster, Connacht and Leinster and was composed by the celebrated Connacht poet and scholar Seaán Mór Ó Dubhagáin, who died in the monastery of Rinn Dúin (Rindown) on Lough Ree, Co. Roscommon, in . The second is a little shorter, running to lines; treating of Leinster and Munster, it is the work of one Giolla na Naomh Ó hUidhrín who died in . The poems comprise a list of the Gaelic lordships of later medieval Ireland, together with the name of the ruling family of each. It is assumed that the reader, or listener, will know where each territory is located, and that there is therefore no need to give any specific detail, or often any general indication, of this. One other interesting feature is the way in which the Norman presence in later medieval Ireland is utterly ignored, as if it had never happened. What we get is the ideal situation from a Gaelic point of view, with no complicating external factors. Giolla Íosa Mac Fir Bhisigh’s broadly comparable work, which is actually more a genealogical than a topographical poem, contains information very sim Lec. rb-rb and LGen., –; printed from the former in J. O’Donovan (ed.), The genealogies, tribes and customs ofHy-Fiachrach, commonly called O’Dowda’s country (Dublin, ), –. J. Carney (ed.), Topographical poems by Seaán Mór Ó Dubhagáin and Giolla-naNaomh Ó hUidhrín (Dublin, ). For an older edition, with translation, see J. O’Donovan (ed.), The topographical poems of John O’Dubhagain and Giolla na Naomh O’hUidhrin (Dublin, ). K. Nicholls, ‘The land of the Leinstermen’ in Peritia, (), –: –, warns of the
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ilar to that found in the prose survey described above. The poem is dated , the year it was unveiled, as a kind of inauguration ode for Tadhg Riabhach Ó Dubhda who in the spring of that year succeeded his brother Ruaidhrí as king or chieftain of Uí Fhiachrach Muaidhe. It appears to me, however, entirely possible that the poem might have been around for some time before being pressed into service to praise the succession of Tadhg Riabhach in . It is worth noting that there are some interesting, if slight, discrepancies between the information contained in the poem and that given in the prose survey. For instance, the poem has not quite as many place-names as has the prose: about , compared to ; but the number of surnames and family names is about the same (). Moreover, the form of some names, both of places and families, differs between the two texts. A closer and more detailed comparative study of the prose text and of the poem may enable us to draw somewhat firmer conclusions as to their respective ages. A later recension of the aforementioned prose text and poem occurs in the great Book of Genealogies compiled by Dubhaltach, another member of Clann Fhir Bhisigh, in Galway about the year . The latter, though not a direct descendant of Giolla Íosa’s, clearly had access to interesting material preserved in the library of Clann Fhir Bhisigh at Lackan, for his text differs in numerous minor but sometimes apparently significant ways from the version preserved in the Book of Lecan. These differences would seem to suggest not carelessness on the part of a later copyist but deliberate and intelligent emendation. There is a lot of analytical work still to be done on the texts just referred to – the prose text of c. , the poem of and the mid seventeenth-century recension of the two. We need to bear in mind, for example, the strictures of Nicholls in relation to a broadly similar text about the Uí Mhaine territory of southeast Connacht. Characterising that work’s account of the boundaries of Uí Mhaine as ‘a striking example of the techniques employed by politicallymotivated antiquarianism’, he observes that that account ‘represents a con‘unreliability’ of these works ‘purporting to list the ruling and chiefly families of the pre-Norman period’, and he repeats () that the accuracy of the poems ‘has long been disproved.’ Note his acute earlier remarks that ‘an analysis shows that many of the names of alleged chiefly families and their location in the pre-invasion period represent guesswork (usually based on genealogical texts) rather than genuine information on the past situation’ (‘Anglo-French Ireland and after’ in Peritia, (), , n. ). The most detailed study of the poem is T. Ó Concheanainn, ‘Dán Ghiolla Íosa Mhic Fhir Bhisigh ar Uí Fhiachrach’ in P. Ó Fiannachta (ed.), An Dán Díreach. Léachtaí Cholm Cille, (Maigh Nuad, ), –. See also N. Ó Muraíle, The Celebrated Antiquary: Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (c. –): his lineage, life and learning (Maynooth, ), –. LGen. –; this recension forms the basis of the edition in O’Donovan’s Hy-Fiachrach, –. For a detailed study of the life and work of Dubhaltach, see Ó Muraíle, Celebrated Antiquary. It should be pointed out that while O’Donovan’s topographical and other notes and his commentary in the edition of the prose text and poem – which form the core of his Hy-Fiachrach, published more than a century and a half ago – are invaluable, his handling of the actual texts leaves a good deal to be desired.
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flation of the maximum extent of the Uí Maine of the pre-invasion period with the furthest limits of the conquests – or, indeed, in some cases, the ambition – of the contemporary O’Kellys.’ The following are a few observations which, I hope, may provoke some further thoughts on the subject. Firstly, for reasons that are unclear, fewer of the names (in both prose and poetry) relating to the barony of Carra and contiguous territories seem to have survived or to be at present identifiable than is the case with the northern baronies of Tirawley and Tireragh. I can think of no good reason why this should be so. Secondly, as Professor Ó Concheanainn pointed out to me some years ago when he was engaged on an as yet unpublished re-edition of Giolla Íosa’s poem, the poet’s itinerary in the course of the poem mirrors that of Patrick in the accounts of Tírechán and the Tripartite Life: it goes clockwise from southeast Mayo to northwest, from there to northeast Mayo and on into Co. Sligo. One wonders was this a conscious imitation, or merely dictated by the old Irish desire always to move deiseal (clockwise). Thirdly, there seems, strangely, to be a degree of uncertainty, especially in the prose text, about the form of some of the place-names mentioned, particularly in Tireragh. For example, the townland now rendered Ardnaglass occurs in both the prose text and the poem as Ardan Glas, whereas in Dubhaltach’s mid seventeenth-century recension it takes the more expected form and the one attested since the later sixteenth century, of Ard na nGlas. As it is difficult to see one form evolving naturally into the other, one looks for an alternative explanation. Perhaps Ard na nGlas represents not merely the better-attested but the original form, and the other is accordingly a mistake? But why, one may ask, would Giolla Íosa have made such an elementary error? One possible answer might derive from the recent history of the area as it appeared to Giolla Íosa. Perhaps he was not all that familiar with at least some of the toponymy of Tireragh! After all, remember that this was recentlyconquered territory – wrested from the Norman de Berminghams no more than a generation earlier – and so the new Gaelic rulers and their mandarinclass of official poet-historians might not yet have become altogether au fait with every nook and cranny of this ‘new found land’. A related thought is that the reason for the composition, in such elaborate detail, of at least the Tireragh section of the Uí Fhiachrach tract may also lie in this new conquest. It could arguably have been put together as a kind of charter of Uí Fhiachrach ownership of the territory. In other words, the places which it is suggested the various named families held from time immemorial K.W. Nicholls, ‘Anglo-French Ireland and after,’ , n. . The text in question was edited by John O’Donovan in The tribes and customs of Hy-Many, commonly called O’Kelly’s Country (Dublin, ), -. Lec. ra; va – in print in O’Donovan, Hy-Fiachrach, and , respectively. LGen. . and ., respectively. For some details of this epoch in Tireragh history, see O’Donovan, Hy-Fiachrach, –.
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may instead have been places in which they had been newly planted, and therefore, to adapt Nicholls’s words in relation to Uí Mhaine, the tract may reflect the ‘limits of the conquests’ or ‘ambition’ of the contemporary O’Dowds. And so, rather than the tract being a record of age-old traditions, we may well be witnessing in it an attempted creation of just such ‘traditions’. This would account for the utter absence of the Normans from the text, just as they are omitted from the topographical poems. This has sometimes been taken as an indication that the raw material, at least of the latter poems must antedate the twelfth-century Norman ‘invasion’ but such a view, as we have seen, has been so vehemently rejected by Nicholls that it is unlikely to be resurrected. In relation to the Uí Fhiachrach tract, it is likewise far more likely that, rather than the Normans not having yet arrived when it was first composed, they had indeed come and conquered but had recently been expelled again, and so, in accordance with the old maxim that history is written by the victors, we here see the Burkes and others, having lost their territory, in the process of being written out of history (albeit temporarily). In O’Donovan’s edition of the tract, identifications are offered for up to two-thirds of the place-names. In a fairly small number of cases he is mistaken, but what is remarkable is just how many of them he got right. Since commencing work on the text, I have been able to identify a number of other names – mostly with the assistance of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century surveys mentioned earlier. One of the drawbacks of this survey of Uí Fhiachrach, compared with later English ones such as the BSD, is that while it mentions a particular place in relation to a particular family, it gives no indication of the amount of land involved in each case. We have therefore no way of knowing if a place whose name still survives as that of a modern townland occupied even approximately the same acreage six centuries ago. Or what kind of boundary or fence would have marked off the various owners from one another? On the other hand, even with the degree of doubt already alluded to about some of the name-forms, the place-names occurring in the tract are almost certainly much closer to the correct originals than would any forms occurring in later surveys written in either English or Latin.
S E N C H A S B Ú RC AC H
A little over a century and a half after the last firmly datable portion of the Book of Lecan was penned, another Irish text rich in toponymic detail was compiled in north Connacht. This is preserved in a unique manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin (TCD MS F..). It is especially notable for contain See n. , above. The text of an interesting compact, allegedly concluded in the year
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ing what purports to be a series of colour portraits of various members of the great Hiberno-Norman family known as the Lower MacWilliam Burkes (Clann Uilliam Íochtair) who dominated north Connacht throughout the later medieval period. There are representations of nine de Burgo lords, beginning with Riocard Mór who died in . The volume’s contents comprise an Irish prose text (to be considered presently in more detail), a purported genealogical history in Latin of the de Burgos in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and two lengthy praise-poems in Irish composed by members of the celebrated bardic family of Ó hUiginn, together with the text of two agreements (one bilingual, Irish and Latin, and the other in Latin) concluded in between Uáitéar Ciotach Búrc and the sept of Tomás na nGeimhle Bairéad of Belleek, Co. Mayo. The opening texts (or perhaps the manuscript as a whole?) bear the general title Historia et genealogia familiae de Burgo, but the work is more popularly known by the Irish name Senchas Búrcach. The aforementioned opening prose text takes the form of a rental in Irish which catalogues in great detail all the lands from which the Lower Mac William claimed rent and services in the newly-established county of Mayo. The date of the tract’s compilation is given at one point as , at a time when Sir Seaán mac Oilbhéaruis was chieftain of Clann Uilliam Íochtair (he died in ), but material continued to be added down to the year . On the third folio of the manuscript is a suggestive item, immediately following a statement to the effect that Mac William was entitled to a ‘defence rent’ of five marks from the territory of O’Dowd in Tireragh: this is the signature of ‘O Dowd, that is, Cathal Dubh’. This was the ‘chief of his name’ or ‘captain of his nation’ (to employ English usage of the period): a nephew of Tadhg Riabhach O’Dowd, chief of the family who died in , he appears to have preceded as chieftain Tadhg Riabhach’s son, Dathí Ruadh, who was slain by an Elizabethan soldier in . The occurrence in the midst of this Burke rental of the name of the chief of the O’Dowds is especially interesting. Cathal Dubh was a direct descendant of that Ruaidhrí for whose brother, Tadhg Riabhach, Giolla Íosa Mac Fir Bhisigh’s great inauguration poem of was composed, and his appearance as a mere rent-payer to the Burkes is an eloquent testimony to the family’s decline in status and power vis-a-vis the now all-powerful Norman family of de Burgo. The situation is all the more poignant given the complete
, between Donnchadh Mór and Taithleach Muaidhe Ó Dubhda, and entered in a later hand in Lec. va-b, is very likely to have been penned as much as two centuries after that date. Printed in O’Donovan, Hy-Fiachrach, –, it contains fascinating topographical detail on the ancient territory of Cúil Chearnadha in the north of the barony of Gallen, Co. Mayo. O’Donovan, Hy-Fiachrach, , gives details of Dathí [Ruadh], or David, but does not list Cathal Dubh as a chieftain. His name does, however, occur as the last in a list of Uí Dhubhda chieftains in LGen. .. LGen. .–.
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absence, as noted above, of any trace of the Normans from the Uí Fhiachrach tract compiled less than two centuries earlier. Cathal Dubh O’Dowd’s signature is witnessed by ‘An Cosnaidhe Óg Mac an Bhreitheamhnaigh, judge [breitheamh] to Mac Muiris’ – a member of a hereditary legal family whose surname is now generally anglicized Judge in Mayo and Brehony in Sligo. The family gave name to the townland of Ballynabrehon, just north of Claremorris, and the location of that townland is noteworthy, given that Mac an Bhreitheamhnaigh served Mac Muiris, the Norman family (now anglicised Morris and Fitzmaurice, apparently a branch of the Prendergasts) which gave name to the town of Claremorris and to the barony in which it lies, Clanmorris. The toponymic content of the Burke rental is what is of most interest in the present context. It contains a total of place-names on which I will comment presently. This text has not hitherto attracted nearly as much scholarly attention as it deserves, although it has been edited a number of times in whole or in part. Most of the rental was printed in translation almost a century ago by the Mayo historian Hubert Thomas Knox who also put forward suggested identifications, most of them rather vague, of just over forty of the Mayo place-names occurring in the text. A small portion of the rental, together with translation but with no annotation, was published several decades earlier by O’Donovan, and immediately following it was the text, since largely ignored, of the Burke–Barrett agreement of . An edition (with translation) of the rental and the genealogical history (in Latin) by the Celtic scholar O’Grady was published posthumously, under the title Senchas Búrcach, in . The text is reasonably accurate, but the editor’s apparent aversion to the use of capital letters in all but a tiny number of names makes it quite difficult to read. An edition of the entire work, both the prose and poetry, by Ó Raghallaigh appeared in a series of instalments under the title Seanchus na mBúrcach about the same time (–). This last edition, though rather more accessible than O’Grady’s, is still unsatisfactory as Ó Raghallaigh took the liberty of standardizing the orthography, including the regularisation of the Irish spelling of the names, and his rendering of several of the place-names is deeply flawed. Neither of these two editors paid much attention to the task
Ballynabrehon, North and South (known locally as Ballybrehony), parish of Kilcolman, barony of Clanmorris. See N. Ó Muraíle, Mayo places: their names and origins (Dublin, ), . H.T. Knox, The history of the county of Mayo to the close of the sixteenth century (Dublin, ), –. O’Donovan, Hy-Fiachrach, – and (the agreement of ) –. S.H. O’Grady (ed.), Caithréim Thoirdhealbhaigh, I (London, ), appendix, – (‘Senchas Búrcach’); II, –. JGAHS, (–), –, –; (–), –, –. For a comment on an aspect of the text, see K.W. Nicholls, Land, law and society in sixteenth-century Ireland (Dublin, ), , and n. .
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of identifying the place-names. We therefore still await a proper edition of this very interesting and unjustly neglected tract. I have done some preliminary work on the tract, which I hope may eventually lead to a new edition. This work relates particularly to the place-names occurring in the Seanchas in an effort to equate them with existing townland names in Co. Mayo. More than % of the names are fairly readily identifiable. Of the , no fewer than eighty-nine are the names of townlands and/or parishes, while more than twenty others can be identified with the aid of seventeenth-century sources such as the ‘Strafford Inquisition’, BSD and so on. Three are names of baronies and other territories. This leaves only about twenty names that are unidentified or particularly doubtful. The distribution of identifiable names is as follows: fifty-four in the barony of Kilmaine in the south of the county, eight in the barony of Burrishoole in the west and fortyeight in the barony of Tirawley in the north. It would be an interesting exercise to try to locate all the readily identifiable names in this list and in the earlier Uí Fhiachrach tract on a map and compare the result with the present-day townland pattern.
G A E L I C S U RV E Y S : M E R I T S A N D S H O RT C O M I N G S
The principal significance of the foregoing Gaelic surveys, particularly the Uí Fhiachrach tract and Senchas Búrcach, would seem to lie in the way they can be used, not in isolation, but in conjunction with other surveys in Latin and English to give us a fuller diachronic picture of the areas covered, furthering our knowledge of patterns of landownership, of various aspects of the toponymy and of the history of particular families in late medieval Mayo and Sligo. It is, then, rather surprising how rarely the gamut of such evidence has been used to build up a more comprehensive picture of a particular area than might otherwise be possible. Foremost among those who have most satisfactorily demonstrated the merits of such an approach are undoubtedly O’Donovan and, in the following century, the Meath priest, Celtic scholar and local historian, Walsh. The latter employed this methodology to particularly good effect in myriad articles, long and short. His intelligent use of a wide range of English, Latin and Irish surveys in tandem, to extract from them the In addition, Nicholls has, in a private communication, offered identifications for a number of place-names in the Burke-Barrett agreement of . Some further brief comments of mine on aspects of these two works (the Uí Fhiachrach poem of and the Senchas Búrcach) will be found in N. Ó Muraíle, ‘Court poets and historians in late medieval Connacht,’ in E. Mullally and J. Thompson (eds.), The court and cultural diversity: selected papers from the eighth triennial congress of the International Courtly Literature Society (Cambridge, ), –, especially –.
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maximum value in terms of evidence, illustrated their great potential for providing a key to a better understanding of all three types of text, since the evidence of a source in one language can frequently complement or corroborate the evidence of a source in another language. This seems so very obvious that it should scarcely be necessary to emphasise it, yet, all too often, people studying or commenting on names in a particular source are liable to ignore cognate material that happens to occur in a linguistically different one. The validity of this approach has been further affirmed nearer our own day by the work of Nicholls. In a modest effort to emulate the work of the foregoing scholars, I sought, in an article published nearly a decade ago, to demonstrate just how fruitful it can be to use a wide range of sources in the way just outlined. I studied a collection of some nineteen place-names, mostly of townlands, from the shores of Lough Gara in north Roscommon, which occur in a colophon written in minute and all but illegible handwriting in the very lower frayed margin of a page by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh in his Book of Genealogies (LGen. ). With the help of the Elizabethan Fiants, Chancery Inquisitions for Co. Roscommon, the Calendar of Patent Rolls of James I, the so-called ‘Census of ’, BSD and eighteenth-century Registry of Deeds, it proved possible to identify virtually all of them. Another source of enormous value that could be easily overlooked because of its relative lateness is the series of Grand Jury Maps from the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. One of the latest, and arguably the most magnificent, examples is the previously-mentioned Map of the maritime county of Mayo surveyed by the young Scottish engineer William Bald between the years and . It contains some , place-names, many of which do not occur on the maps of the Ordnance Survey but which may be found in some of the surveys, English, Latin and Irish, just referred to. To sum up briefly, all kinds of sources are grist to the historian’s and toponymist’s mill and, in relation to counties Mayo and Sligo, the Uí Fhiachrach tract, which probably dates from the later fourteenth century, and the Senchas Búrcach of some two centuries later, are among the more valuable and underutilised sources of the type just mentioned. Although I have given only the merest taste of what they contain, I hope I have helped to place them in context and to have convinced the reader that they are deserving of further study. Having emphasised the importance of Irish-language sources as a potential mine of valuable topographical information, it must be conceded that they can N. Ó Muraíle, ‘A page from Mac Fhirbhisigh’s “Genealogies”’ in Celtica, (), –. Maps, dating from to , for of the counties (excluding Cavan, Fermanagh, Kerry, Kilkenny, Offaly and Tipperary), are listed in E.M. Rodger, The large scale county maps of the British Isles, – (Oxford, ), –.
Nollaig Ó Muraíle
also have certain shortcomings. A particularly frustrating problem when handling place-names that occur in Gaelic sources is that there is very often little or no indication of the precise location or boundaries of the places mentioned. One reason for this vagueness may well be that the author was writing for people who would have been exceedingly familiar with the places mentioned. It would therefore be as unnecessary to indicate where a particular place was located as it would be for someone writing for a contemporary Irish readership to specify that Leinster House and Croke Park are located in Dublin, that Shannon Airport is in Co. Clare or that Stormont is situated near Belfast. If this explanation is correct, there would have been less need for the context to be spelt out by Gaelic authors than, say, by the compilers of English state documents relating to the confiscation and re-granting of land by the English crown. The former could simply take such knowledge for granted; the latter could not afford to do so: at stake was the ownership of vast quantities of land that they had obtained by often-dubious means. Reference to vagueness in relation to boundaries calls to mind that even close to our own day boundaries can sometimes change quite drastically as happened, for example, between the time when the first Ordnance Survey maps appeared in the s and the revisions later in the century and early in the present century. But I have never seen any instance quite as drastic as that which occurred on Clare Island a century ago, where the whole townland pattern was utterly rearranged. The names remained the same, but the locations changed completely. It is interesting to note that even now, a full century later, most people on the island still go by the old boundaries and layout; they are vaguely aware of the new dispensation, but ignore it for most purposes. I have already emphasised the value of using English and Latin documents to assist with the identification of place-names, but they can also merit our gratitude for another reason: in many instances, the name-forms they contain may reflect phonological changes much better than does the generally more conservative Irish orthography. One example of this would be the name of the southeast Sligo barony of Tirerrill which represents the Irish Tír Oilill (earlier Tír Oilealla). The change of the l in the middle of the second element to r (reflecting a process known as dissimilation) is attested in the Compossicion Booke of Conought () but one continues to find the traditional Irish spelling in seventeenth-century sources such as Mac Fhirbhisigh’s Book of Genealogies. There is, however, in this case just one snippet of evidence from an Irishlanguage source that this change was not confined to the anglicised version of the name: in a poem in the O’Hara Poembook (Leabhar Í Eadhra) from the early seventeenth century, the form Í Oirill occurs. It is, however, quite exceptional to find such an acknowledgement of this type of phonological development in an Ó Muraíle, ‘The place-names of Clare Island’, –, . Dinnseanchas, (), .
Settlement and Place-names
Irish-language source prior to about the eighteenth century. Another such exception is a genealogical tract on the O’Kellys of Uí Mhaine dating from about the year and preserved in fragmentary form in the east-Galway manuscript known as the Book of Uí Mhaine. This contains, in the midst of fairly regular Early Modern Irish spelling, a series of Irish personal names written in a simplified orthography which looks more akin to the spelling in use six centuries later (Mathuin instead of Mathghamhain, Donnchu instead of Donnchadh, Murchu instead of Murchadh, Bean Mhuan instead of Bean Mhumhan, Finnuola instead of Fionnghuala, and so on).
C O N C LU S I O N S
• It would seem, as I have indicated earlier, to be a potentially worthwhile exercise to try plotting names from the surveys I have mentioned on modern maps – for example, the Uí Fhiachrach tract, the Senchas Búrcach or, moving to a most interesting English source, the Escheated Counties Maps [ECM] prepared in relation to the Plantation of Ulster in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Even though a proportion of the names continue to resist all efforts at identification, I can say, on the basis of my own preliminary efforts with the Uí Fhiachrach tract and a former colleague’s with the ECMs, that the overall results are likely to be quite illuminating. • The following are some interesting results of a diachronic examination I made some years ago of the toponymy of one county, Limerick. This revealed that only a small number of pre-Norman Gaelic names occur among the townland names of that county, no more than twenty-eight out of about names, with from the period –, from – and post-. Of course, the location of a good number of names attested in early Gaelic sources can be established with a fair degree of certainty, but they do not survive as townland or parish names. This is particularly true of physical features: names of rivers, lakes, hills, etc., that occur in very early sources may still survive but are not necessarily reflected in the names of administrative divisions. But when it comes to settlement-names, as reflected in townlands, it is remarkable that more than % of those in Co. Limerick are of post-Norman provenance, or at least are not recorded in any pre-Norman source which, admittedly, is not quite the same thing. It would be interesting to compare the proportion in other counties and it may be worth considering what the significance of these R.A.S. Macalister, The Book of Uí Maine otherwise called the book of the O’Kellys (Dublin, ), ra–vb. Based on evidence in A. Ó Maolfabhail et al. (ed.), Logainmneacha na hÉireann, imleabhar I: Contae Luimnigh (Baile Átha Cliath, ).
Nollaig Ó Muraíle
statistics might be. It may well not have any particular importance but merely reflect the nature of our extant sources. • A couple of modestly titled articles published in the early s by the learned and strongly opinionated O’Rahilly would be well worth reprinting. The first is in two parts: a brief but fascinating study of ‘The Irish names in “The Song of Dermot and the Earl”’ and, following his examination of that important and intriguing Norman-French work, an account of ‘The pronunciation of th and dh,’ in which he meticulously illustrates how those Irish sounds were reflected in Norman and English documents in the centuries immediately succeeding the twelfth. The second article deals with some forty-three medieval Irish place-names and mentions numerous others in passing and makes many valuable observations on various aspects of Irish onomastics. In this essay I hope I have thrown out, if not substantial food for thought, at least some morsels to whet appetites for further study of a field that is still relatively untilled, despite the labours of O’Donovan and others. I hope at least to have drawn attention to the fact that there is a considerable amount of raw material in Irish-language sources waiting to be exploited. Very often it lies almost unnoticed – for the simple reason that it is not noticeably different from the surrounding material. When Irish place-names occur in a different linguistic setting, in the midst of material in other languages, such as Latin or English, they are often inclined to stand out, and even appear exotic, since they consist for the most part of more or less thinly disguised Irish words. Conversely, when they occur in an Irish-language context, they are not quite so noticeable and are all too easily overlooked. As mentioned earlier, in O’Grady’s edition of Senchas Búrcach, most of the place-names are printed in lower case, with scarcely any use of a capital letter and no effort made to identify them, while Ó Raghallaigh’s edition from the same period regularised the Irish spelling of the names and also made no effort at identification. And so, having been largely unpublished for centuries, the onomastic riches of Senchas Búrcach have lain unexplored for a further three-quarters of a century after they were made available in print. Meileann muilte Dé go mall . . . as the old Irish proverb has it – ‘the mills of God grind slowly’ – but in the light of this we would have to say that they are not half as slow as some of the mills of Irish language scholarship, particularly in relation to name-studies! To end on a positive note, however, perhaps I should point to the challenge that this poses to all of us, young and not so young alike. Ours is no overworked subject in T.F. O’Rahilly, ‘Notes on middle-Irish pronunciation’ in Hermathena, (), –. O’Rahilly, ‘Notes’, –. Idem, ‘Notes on Irish place-names’ in Hermathena, (), –.
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which those setting to work will find themselves rewriting the footnotes of others. There are rich veins of ore still waiting to be dug out and sifted. The Harvard scholar, Kelleher, writing almost forty years ago in relation to the study of early Irish history, issued a clarion-call, which can apply equally well to the disciplines of those represented in this collection: There is work for all, more than enough for every recruit we can enlist, and for the most part it can be work of sound originality. . . . Anybody in the field, with a reasonable amount of imagination and enterprise, can make real discoveries, significant contributions. There is no corner of the field where you can dig and not strike pay-dirt. We should always remember that we are the fortunate generation. . . . What can be achieved when, and if, we attract a normal complement of scholars to the field is indeed a subject for pleasant speculation.
J.V. Kelleher, ‘Early Irish history and pseudo-history’ in Studia Hibernica, (), –: , .
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
K AT H A R I N E S I M M S
Between about and AD hereditary praise-poets regularly addressed eulogies and elegies, composed in syllabic metres and in Early Modern Irish, to noble patrons, both Gaelic and Anglo-Irish. An extensive corpus of this bardic poetry survives, and I have for some time been compiling a computerreadable descriptive catalogue of all such poems that I can locate, whether published or unpublished. The list presently stands at about , items, identified by their first lines, just as the poets themselves would have referred to them. In the course of reading through the individual texts, some entries have to be discarded as duplicates or belonging to a different type or period, but new examples also turn up that were missed earlier, so the total tends to remain constant at around ,. At present just over , poems have been catalogued, still quite a long way from the projected total, but covering the overwhelming majority of edited poems, either with or without a translation.
THE PRAISE POEMS
Most poems addressed to a secular patron are general eulogies, praising the patron’s appearance, his generosity to poets, and his prowess in war and so forth. Some commemorate specific events such as a death or a marriage, and some praise a noble’s most prized possession, a sword, a hunting-dog, or the patron’s house. These house poems can also commemorate a specific event, such as the building of a new house, or in the later period, the destruction of the family home in the course of war with the English. At other times they seem simply to celebrate the chief ’s pride in a particularly fine house, whose best features he wants to see publicised. General praise-poems can also contain a passage praising or describing the patron’s house or furnishings as a common eulogistic motif. This is the case with the poem to Black Tom Butler: ‘Taghaim Tomás ragha is roghrádh’, which Appendix , no. .
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
mentions both his house at Carrick-on-Suir and Kilkenny castle. Other poems, often on religious themes, can contain incidental references to houses and furnishings, sometimes in a metaphor, for instance, in descriptions of God’s palace in heaven. Searching the , odd poems whose descriptions were already logged on the computer for the occurrence of ‘house’ as a class of poem or a motif within a poem, produced a list of sixty-three poems, the most informative of which are given in Appendix at the end of this chapter. Of these, twenty-eight were directly composed about a nobleman’s house, and the others contained passages descriptive of houses or furnishings. To analyse this group of texts further, I retained some identifying fields from the original database, but added space to enter words and phrases from the actual text of the poems, words applying to the house itself, its structure, its furnishings, inmates, activities inside and outside, and any description of the surrounding landscape. Immediately it became obvious that of the sixtythree poems listed, an unusually small proportion, only thirty-one, have English translations, while twenty-four are published with the Irish text only, one is edited and translated in an unpublished thesis and four have not been edited at all. In Appendix , editions with an English translation are marked by an asterisk. A further problem was the approximate and untechnical nature of the published translations. One text worth looking at in some detail is Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn’s poem on Lifford castle, since Professor Brendan Bradshaw has used this as part of the evidence to substantiate his picture of the original builder of the castle, Manus O’Donnell, as ‘Maghnus the Magnificent,’ a typical Renaissance nobleman. Eleanor Knott’s translation of the poem uses the word ‘castle’ three times, but the text itself has much vaguer words: brugh, ‘steading or mansion’; lios an longphuirt, ‘the enclosed area, or fort, of the mansion or stronghold’; treabh, ‘a dwelling’; an teachsoin, ‘that house’; an tuir thonnmhalla thigh, ‘the smooth, dense tower’; san phurt, ‘in the place’; bruidhean, ‘hostel’; teaghdhais, ‘dwelling-place’; dúnadh Leithbhir, ‘Lifford’s encampment or fortified site’; san ráith, ‘in the rath, earthen rampart, fort’. The normal word for ‘castle’ – ‘caisléan’– never occurs, though as shown above the building is called a tower, and other details confirm that it was at least in part a stone structure. Aside from the vagaries of translators, the actual vocabulary of the bardic poets presents problems. At one level a patron whose house contained luxurious and innovatory features was anxious that these would find specific mention in the praise-poem, so the tables, featherbeds and cupboards that occur in For example, Appendix , no. . Appendix , no. . B. Bradshaw, ‘Manus the Magnificent’ in A. Cosgrove and D. McCartney (eds.), Studies in Irish history (Dublin, ), and n. .
Katharine Simms
Tadhg Dall’s poem on Lifford castle are likely to have had a basis in fact. This may even apply to the marble arches he mentions, which may have been, for example, imported stone facings to doorways or fireplaces. The poet himself, however, was concerned to find words that would alliterate and rhyme easily, and to set the patron’s dwelling-place and lifestyle into a timeless heroic context, comparable to the great figures of myth and legend that he proposed to claim as ancestors and prototypes for his patron. Thus Lifford castle is called a rath and a liss and a bruidhean, a hostel or banqueting-hall, of the type in which Fionn Mac Cumhaill and his Fianna held their feasts. It is possible, however, that some of the bard’s terminology conveyed a clearer meaning to the poet and his audience than it does to us, because they were familiar with the appearance of the structures they were describing. In Appendix I have listed the vocabulary descriptive of buildings and furnishings which occur in the poems through the centuries, marking with an asterisk frequently-occurring words that appear to have an architectural meaning, which is however tantalisingly vague – words like asnach, rib-cage, ribbed; gabhal, gabhlach, ‘fork, forked’, which seems to apply particularly to rafters, sduagh, ‘a loop or arch’ and so forth. It is a relief to come across English borrowings (shown in capital letters), which usually have a more precise meaning, like cúpla, a ‘couple or coupling’, a pair of rafters joined at the ridge-pole by wooden peg or ‘stopper’, a word still found today in the vocabulary of housebuilders in Inis Meáin, as collected and published by Ó Siadhail in . Because the poems were recited indoors during a feast, the poet’s eye view often seems to lay more stress on the interior surfaces of the buildings: the rafters, and the wooden or wattle-and-daub banqueting-halls attached to stone towers, rather than the external stone walls that are all that are left to catch the eye of the modern observer.
B U I L D I N G S V O C A B U L A RY
The vocabulary for buildings or furnishings has been divided into three sections, starting with a base list of fifty-two words from the nine relevant thirteenth-century poems, then adding sixty-nine extra terms from the eleven fourteenth and fifteenth-century poems, and a mere thirty-nine further words gleaned from thirty-five relevant poems of sixteenth or seventeenth-century date. Given the very much larger number of poems coming from the early modern period, and the fact that a considerable proportion of these refer to the castles of the Anglo-Irish earls and barons, I found it striking that the big surge
M. Ó Siadhail, Téarmaí tógála agus tís as Inis Meáin (Baile Átha Cliath, ), .
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
in additional vocabulary came earlier, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the Gaelic Irish first began to build their own castles, and that there were apparently comparatively few further changes thereafter in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This fits in, of course, with the general impression that Irish tower houses and fortified mansions in the early modern period were oldfashioned in terms of building trends elsewhere in the British Isles, with little or no serious provision to counter the problems posed by the cannons and bombs of contemporary warfare. However, it must be emphasised that when a word occurs for the first time within this limited sample, for instance in the fourteenth century, this does not prove that the word, and the object or concept it refers to, was not around at an earlier date (and recorded, for example, in Middle Irish prose texts). It merely demonstrates that the term is at least as early as the fourteenth century. If we examine what the additional vocabulary in our fourteenth and fifteenth century poems included – and poems from this period refer exclusively to houses of the Gaelic Irish – we find in alphabetical order ‘balla’, a borrowing of the English word for wall, ‘beathadhach’ (animal, or creature), with reference to animal carvings and wall paintings; ‘bórd’ another English word, meaning edging or border, as well as the more familiar sense of table, and it is not clear that an actual table is intended in texts dating prior to ; ‘cathaoir’ or chair (apparently these were in strictly limited supply for the chief himself and some distinguished guests); ‘compás’, an English loan-word for a mason’s instrument, a pair of compasses; ‘cuilt’, a mattress or quilt; ‘cúirt’, the English or French term for a nobleman’s court; ‘cúpla’, the coupling-beams in a roof; ‘fuinneóg’, a long-established borrowing from Old Norse meaning ‘window’. This word is already encountered in the thirteenth century with reference to the stained glass windows of the newly-built cathedral in Armagh, but we find windows mentioned repeatedly in fourteenth-century compositions in praise of secular chieftains’ dwellings: in Aodh O’Conor’s house at Cloonfree in the first decade of the fourteenth century, in Conor O’Brien’s house in Co. Limerick in , in Donnchadh MacMahon’s limestone tower by the sea in Co. Clare, and Murchadh Ó Madadháin has ‘broad windows’ in east Galway about . However, the first unambiguous reference to glass in such windows comes only in the seventeenth century. The word ‘gabhal’, forked wood, wooden prop or rafters, is also a long-established Irish term, but interestingly in one of the poems to O’Conor’s house at Cloonfree there is emphatic reference to ‘foreign rafters (or wooden props)’ put together with imported skill. Other terms from this period are gairde, a garret or watchtower, halla, the Appendix , no. . Appendix , nos. –, . T. Ó Donnchadha (ed.), Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe (Baile Átha Cliath, ), poem no. xxv, lines , . L. Mac Cionaith (ed.), Dioghluim Dána (Baile Átha Cliath, ), no. , verse , and see below, note .
Katharine Simms
English word for ‘hall’, ‘táibhleadh’, battlements, a raised wooden gallery along the tops of walls for fighting from, tapar, the English word for a taper or torch, tor from the Latin for a tower. An interesting feature of poems from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is that we find some features recorded in earlier poems now being described by recent English or French loanwords, thus ‘táille’ from the French for battlements beside táibhleadh from the Latin tabulatum, French ‘túr’ for tower beside the older ‘tor’ from Latin turris. The word ‘bórd’ is now unambiguously used for tables. It is reassuring in terms of how far one can trust the reality of the bardic descriptions that crystal and wax candles are only ascribed to the houses of the Anglo-Irish. I would like now to turn from sifting isolated words to pick out instead one chieftain’s house in each century, and try to reconstruct its appearance as far as is possible from the description of one or more poems about it.
D E S C R I P T I O N S O F C H I E F TA I N S ’ H O U S E S : T H I RT E E N T H A N D F O U RT E E N T H C E N T U R I E S
To begin with the chief seat of Magauran in the barony of Tullyhaw Co. Cavan at the end of the thirteenth century. It appears to have consisted of a cluster of houses, one of which was a large drinking-hall or banqueting-hall. The walls of this are described as firm and dense, but made of hazelwood, which may imply a construction of wattle-and-daub. The guests sat along the sides of the hall with their backs leaning against the wall. They drank out of goblets and drinking horns said to be decorated with glassy gems in gold settings and these vessels are described as moving around the room, apparently passed from hand to hand. Either hanging against the wall or spread over the seats along the sides were thick animal skins or rugs, covered with finer cloth, usually translated as satin. These cloths are coloured green and brown, as are the clothes of the company, since green and red-brown seem to have been the most expensive of the home-produced dyes and were thus suited to the clothes of noblemen. Fixed into the wall over the heads of the drinkers are weaponracks, holding shields, spears, daggers and items of horse-harness. There are coats of mail and Anglo-Norman style metal helmets, but it is a little unclear whether these are worn during the feast or hanging on the wall. The huntingdogs are in the hall during the feast, there are a group of praise-poets and a E. Knott (ed.), The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn ( vols, text London , transl. London ), poem no. , verse ; J. Carney (ed.), Poems on the Butlers (Dublin ), poem no. xvi, lines , . Carney, Poems on the Butlers, no. viii, line ; no. xvi, line . Appendix , no. . See W.N. Hancock et al. (eds.), Ancient laws of Ireland (Dublin and London, ), –; D.A. Binchy (ed.), Corpus iuris Hibernici (Dublin, ) , , line .
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
crowned bard, who is rather strangely described as placed in the doorway, and the ‘ribs’ of the doorpost are decorated with gold. All the guests are described as men, though the final complimentary verse to the chief ’s wife may imply she was also present at the feast. There is no reference to wine, and the feast is likely to have consisted of ale only. Another thirteenth-century poem to Aodh son of Felim O Conor implies that a supply of malt would be freshly brewed immediately before the feast was held. This presents a very timeless and traditional picture, in strong contrast to the two elaborate poems in praise of the ‘palace’ or great house of Aodh son of Eoghan O’Conor at Cloonfree Co. Roscommon which was burned down by enemies in , soon after it was built. Discussion of these poems may have been unduly influenced by Professor Quiggin’s identification of an apparent moated grange site in the townland of Cloonfree as the remains of O’Conor’s palace (see O’Conor, this volume), so I will concentrate on the evidence of the texts themselves. Like Magauran’s ‘great house’, the palace of O’Conor was situated among a cluster of other houses, which were thought to be sheltered from attack by the proximity of the fort. Unusually for an Irish chief of the time, Aodh was concerned to make his stronghold defensible, and he collaborated closely with the architect in drawing up the design. As the poet boasts: ‘Great is the share of Aodh of the smooth armour in shaping the stout dyke. The mason indeed wrought it, but ‘twas Aodh that planned it. The gentle man of the soft locks needed no exact rule or plumbline after the ruddy brown prince had cast a measuring glance round the ample, dew-spangled slope.’ Nevertheless there are several references to foreign influence: ‘seeing the strangeness of its design, we would fain ask whether the novel strange woodwork is made of (materials) from the forests or soil of Ireland?’ ‘exotic to me is the arrangement of the Englishmen’, so it seems possible O’Conor employed English builders. The site seems to have been somewhat raised, with a single earthen bank topped by an oaken palisade encircling the mound, like a ‘belt of planks above a belt of clay’, and a water-filled moat was outside it. Inside the palisade was a wall-walk or fighting platform, and one poet boasted a pack of women could hold the place against an army unless they were starved out, while the other said one man could defend it against a host. In one poem the stronghold is called a ‘four-ridged rath’, in the other a ‘four-gabled (or four-peaked) citadel’ which could reflect the square outlines of a moated grange. There was a single gateway in, which is metaphorically described as a N. J. A. Williams (ed.), Poems of Giolla Brighde Mac Con Midhe (Dublin ), no. xiv, verse . Appendix , nos. and . See B.J. Graham, ‘Medieval settlement in County Roscommon’ in PRIA, C (), –: . E.C. Quiggin, ‘O’Conor’s house at Cloonfree’ in E.C. Quiggin (ed.), Essays and studies presented to William Ridgeway (Cambridge, ), , verses –. Quiggin, ‘O’Conor’s house’, , verse . ‘allmhurdha leam gléas na nGall’ – Mac Cionaith, Dioghluim Dána , no. , verse .
Katharine Simms
cennrach caomh, a ‘beautiful belt-buckle’ fastening the circle of the outer rampart, and it is possible that the gairde, or ‘garret’ – the shingled, or slated watch-tower which is mentioned in one poem – was built over this gateway. Within the enclosure was a great house, used for banquets, and a back house built of dark boards. The main house had windows, and was roofed with thatch, which was praised as being unusually waterproof. It is described as a ‘brugh slatach’ a hostel of rods, or raith sailgheach ‘a rath of willow-wands’ which may imply that the main house was still built of wattle and daub. Like Magauran’s house it was furnished inside with rugs or cloth hangings, and here the banquets might include wine, though we are also told O’Conor’s cheeks were flushed with ‘the cold breath of wine-like beer’. There is reference to a ‘léibheann’, a curving ‘level’ of boards where the happy hostages were kept free of chains or fetters. Unfortunately ‘léibheann’ is a vague word, which could refer to a wooden second storey in the main house, or to a dais at the end of the banqueting hall to accommodate the royal family and their guests, including hostages, or simply to a wooden floor to the main hall, rather than just beaten earth. O’Conor’s queen and her female attendants are given some prominence among the inmates, so the palace was a prestige residence as much as a military stronghold, and feasts were accompanied by the playing of harps. Horses were apparently kept in the enclosure.
C H I E F TA I N S ’ H O U S E S : F I F T E E N T H T O S E V E N T E E N T H C E N T U R I E S
Two poems from the first half of the fifteenth century are in praise of a single house, the bawn of Rudhraighe Mac Mathghamhna. They were written before when Rudhraighe succeeded his brother as chief of Oirghialla, approximately the modern county of Monaghan. We have evidence from the Register of Primate John Mey that Rudhraighe possessed a house within a bawn called an Chathair, or an Chathraigh, ‘the citadel’, which is the name applied to his house in these two poems. We learn from the Register of Primate Swayne that some time prior to Rudhraighe had acquired an Anglo-Irish wife, Alice White, by whom he had a number of children. This may explain his use of foreign workmen on the house, ‘craftsmen from every land.’ The poems are unedited, written as prose in a loose metrical form which makes it difficult to use rhyme correspondence as a way of restoring any corruptions or illegibility in the text, but what can be read indicates that the house was on an Appendix , nos. and . AU, iii, , , . W.H.G. Quigley and E.F.D. Roberts (eds.), Registrum Iohannis Mey: the register of John Mey, archbishop of Armagh – (Belfast, ), . D.A. Chart (ed.), The register of John Swayne, archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, – (Belfast, ), –. ‘saer as gach tir tograid’, TCD MS /.
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
elevated site. ‘Clearly visible above the ridged plain of Oirghiall is the rath of brown shields’; ‘The ridge-pole of the roof is above towers.’ The roof itself was very tightly and densely thatched, the scollops or small rods used to pack the thatching material down are described as strangling it, and one poet boasts ‘rough wind will not lift a wisp from the dwelling.’ The site was surrounded by a lake, filled with fish and ducks, and the lake was encircled by woods melodious with the sound of blackbirds. The view looking out from the building was said to be better than anywhere except Grianán Oiligh. The word ‘bawn’ (Lat. bawona , Ir. badhún ) which appears in the ecclesiastical record is never used in the poems, which prefer to call the structure a ‘lios’, ‘a limed rath in which not a few of the bright ruddy boards are joined invisibly, they have the appearance of one single board’, ‘the woven, ribbed rath’, a ‘house of boards and connecting coupling beams’, a ‘court’ ‘whose skilled work has left the woods bare of wattling-rods’, a ‘white-rodded hostel’, ‘the palace of red oaken arches, like a crest on top of a helmet’. These expressions give rather contradictory suggestions of both wattlework and a building of oaken beams and planks. One approach to interpreting this is to see references to wattling-rods, like the expressions ‘rath’ and ‘lios’ as deliberate archaisms, intended to recall a bygone heroic age, but not directly descriptive of the building then being eulogised. Another possibility is that there was a main chieftain’s residence built of oaken boards and couplingbeams, with a wattle-and-daub banqueting-hall attached to it, as the later stone tower houses normally had halls of timber or wattle-and-daub attached to them. Inside, both poems tell us, the walls had depictions of animals either painted or carved ‘on the surface of the brown oaken boards’. We are told of a ‘hidden hunt’ with the likeness of stags and does, horsemen, hounds, decorative dogs and motionless bird-flocks. It was considered noteworthy that the ‘Leir os clar Orrghiall na eisgir . rath na ndonnsciath ndhomain’, TCD MS /. ‘Féige in tighi os toraib’, TCD MS /. ‘Aeintech is ferr fasscudh . . . scolb trithi aga thactadh’, TCD MS / (see Ó Siadhail, Téarmaí tógála agus tís, ); ‘ma borb gaoth . . . dlai don treib ni thogaibh’, TCD MS /. ‘Fidhbaidh cain mun clarderg cupaigh . fai lainbind ga lonaib’, TCD MS /; ‘loch na timcal aga toiracht . fidhbad na loch lacnach . ni husgi diumsa a daingen . acht ciuin loch can cassadh . ar a mbi coilchi d’iasg iuchrach’; ‘ni mestadh aeintech acht Oilech . ar aibhnes na farradh . gotha gerg is goideal- . mun port is ferr amarc’, TCD MS /. ‘mac Nualaithi lán sa lissin’, TCD MS /. Ní terc is a táth gan faicsin . clar geal clármar chorcoir . sa n-aelraith is airdi medhair . is taidhbsi aenchlair orro’, TCD MS /. ‘sa rath fithe assnach’, TCD MS /. ‘tech na clar is cupla cenguil’, TCD MS /. ‘cuirt bregh is fuaire na fledhaibh . nech uaithi ni hobtair’, ‘cuirt mic Ardghail’, ‘in cuirt urrdaircsi os gac istadh’, TCD MS /, . ‘gres on terc caelach na cailledh’, TCD MS /. ‘in brugh saethrach slaitghel’, TCD MS /. ‘bruighin na sduath nderg ndarach . mar budh faebair os cinn clogait’, TCD MS /. ‘fiadhach ag a falach. daim mar budh edh ar na negor.coin & gres gadur.eillte sa brudh. .ar ucht ndonnclar ndharach’, TCD MS /; ‘sreth
Katharine Simms
windows in this house could be opened and shut, but there is no reference to glass. Other points which seem to be eulogised were a set of wooden mazers or dishes, enough to serve a hundred people, quilts in the sleeping-quarters, tapers or torches lighting the house, and the presence of a well for fresh water. The zoomorphic decorations in this fifteenth-century house are paralleled by a contemporary reference in a poem on Tomás Óg Mag Uidhir, king of Fir Manach, to the fascinating decoration of the doors on his house, their surfaces ‘filled with foreign birds’. From the end of the sixteenth century we have two poems in praise of Enniskillen castle, one by Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn, who died in , and a second by Eochaidh Ó hEoghusa addressed to Aodh Mag Uidhir who died in . In this case we have a near-contemporary sketch of the castle from John Speed’s Map of Ulster drawn c.. Ó hUiginn was apparently a blind poet, but this did not seem to handicap him in the slightest from describing – ‘the white-walled rampart amongst the blue hillocks. . .the strand beside the court . . . was crowded with . . . such groves of tapering ship-masts that they concealed the beach and its waves. Hard by that enclosure I see . . . the moist-surfaced lawn of the bright-hued castle . . . upturned by the hooves of steeds; from the prancing of horses . . . no herb flourishes in the soil of the outer yard (fan orluinn). I make directly for the fort of coupling-beams . . . I found the nobles of the race of Colla in the thronged court . . . and those who exposed the genealogies of the Gaels . . . plenty of poets and minstrels, plenty of satin-clad maidens, weaving golden fringes . . . an abundance of soldiery reclining by the side walls, their edged weapons hanging above them . . . on the battlements of the rampart a mighty band of fairy youths . . . a company of metal-workers welding goblets, a company of blacksmiths preparing weapons, a company of masons from different lands working on her, the fair pearl of babbling streams.’ At the banquet that night the guests sat along the sides of the walls as in the thirteenth century, except that Mág Uidhir himself sat in a royal seat or throne, with the poet on his right hand, and at night the noblest of the guests slept on featherbeds. Ó hEoghusa’s poem is less detailed. It was written about to celebrate bethadhach ar bruighin nach esbudhach obair. . doim ar a slesaib no a shamuil.coin is eachaidh orro. .eoin na heltasa gan eitil. ealtada is da hobair’, TCD MS /. ‘sreth masal a dil ced’, TCD MS /. ‘do chi a toigh na tapthar. .no co mbi ar a cuilt a codladh.gres ar gach cerd san istadh.trebh na tapthur’, ibid. ‘bes in fhirthopar con nistadh’, ibid. Appendix , no. . ‘gairid an la samhraidh . ag feaghain chlar a comhla . fa lan d’eanaibh allmhurdha’, Clonalis, Co. Roscommon, Book of O’Conor Don, fo. a. Appendix , nos. , . ‘Cúchonnacht Óg . . . ‘na shuidhe ríogh suidhidh sé. suidhimse ar deis’. Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall , no. , verses , . Compare another reference to a Mág Uidhir on his royal seat or throne, most probably also in Enniskillen: ‘Aodh romham ‘n-a ríoghshuidhe . . . ‘s a ógbhadh . . . ime go héanduine’ from an address by Eochaidh Ó hEoghusa to Aodh Mág Uidhir; ‘Atáim i gcás idir dhá chomhairle’, in Mac Cionaith, Dioghluim Dána, no. , verse .
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
Mag Uidhir’s recapture of Enniskillen castle from the English. During its occupation, he laments that the activities described by Ó hUiginn had ceased, and as a result the grass had grown on the slopes around the castle, but now that Mag Uidhir has returned the mud will be churned up again: Thou shalt see, as thou wert wont to do at first, every side of thy fair green lawn upturned and reddened by the racing of fleet steeds. From the footprints of a band of poets, from the grazing of outlaw’s cattle, thou shalt see the swelling breasts of thy sunny slopes reddened on top. Thou shalt see about the skirts of thy slopes steeds and red-headed hounds racing, galleys rowing beside thy bank, and a crowd on every hilltop. . .the poets will be shouting on the slope of thy court . . . thou shalt see tellers of tales from abroad; a sweet-stringed sound, music of harps, strangers from all sides in thee . . . Happy the face that looks upon thee; well for him, O fresh fortress of the warm streams, who after deliverance has trodden on the soil of thy island. O protecting gate of the province . . . O lime-white fort of Enniskillen . . . it is time to vanquish thy sore heart’. The last poem I want to mention was written in the early seventeenth century by Fearflatha Ó Gnímh to celebrate some extensions and renovations carried out by Sir Henry Ó Néill of Clannaboy to his father Shane’s castle at Edenduffcarrick. He calls it a limewashed dwelling, a vision that shimmers above the lake waters like a cloud or a candelabra. Within the rath, he says, may be seen a series of artfully joined wooden props or rafters; the tower is roofed by blue flagstones, impervious to the hazards of fire. Then he speaks of a watertight roof of oaken boards above the firm stones, possibly indicating that the flagstones are only roofing the tower and not the main building, or that he is now thinking of the inside roof of the hall, constructed of oaken planks which would be covered with slates or flagstones on the outside. Inside the fort are a set of featherbeds about whose warmth and comfort the poet is enthusiastic. Against the inside walls are a series of fine cloth hangings, embroidered by the fingers of maidens. The arches of the doorways have ornamental carvings, the windows have coloured glass in them – blue is particularly mentioned. Two towers with high battlements have been added by Henry, and there is an allusion to decorative arches like teeth, though the poet adds hastily that these improvements are not to be understood as implying that Henry was dissatisfied with his ancestor’s house, but now it will be more secure and more beautiful. Once the Uí Néill princes lived in houses of wood, until they rebuilt O. Bergin (ed.), Irish bardic poetry (revised D. Greene and F. Kelly, eds., Dublin, ), no. . Appendix , no. . Above, note .
Katharine Simms
them as towers – Henry’s improvements follow in the tradition of his race. The poem ends with verses to Ó Néill’s English wife, Martha, daughter of Sir Francis Stafford, whose money probably paid for the improvements.
C O N C LU S I O N
The purpose of my paper has been to draw attention to the existence of these house-poems, but also to warn the casual enquirer against being too confident about extracting definite information from the texts, both because of the comparisons with heroic or supernatural palaces which the poets wish deliberately to invoke, and because the vocabulary is in many cases so ambiguous, largely because of the poets’ need to find synonyms to fit into their rhyme-scheme. This problem with the actual translation of the texts as opposed to finer points of interpretation is the more serious in that such a high proportion of the poems about houses are published as Irish texts only without an English translation, particularly the O’Byrne poems in the Leabhar Branach, and the Poems on the Butlers and Poems on the O’Reillys edited by James Carney. Some particularly interesting poems are not published at all. To facilitate other historians condemned to wrestle with the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of the Irish language based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials, where the head-words are almost all in Old Irish form, while the texts of the poems are in Early Modern Irish, I have collected a select glossary of the Dictionary’s definitions for the relevant terms in Appendix . I hope the summaries I have given from descriptions of individual houses from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century show that these are nonetheless valuable sources of information, providing not so much practical data for the archaeologist as a glimpse into the activities and concerns of the houses’ occupants.
APPENDIX
List ofpoems composed about a patron’s house, or containing passages referring to a house and/or its furnishings, arranged in approximate chronological order
Editions with English translation marked by an asterisk. ] th c.? ‘Mór ós gach béd bás an ríogh’: T. Ó Donnchadha (ed.), Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe (Baile Átha Cliath, ), poem no. xi – historical, on palace of Muircheartach mac Earca. ] early th c. ‘Créad agaibh aoidhidh a gcéin’ c.(?): *O. Bergin (ed.),
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]
]
] ] ] ]
Irish Bardic Poetry (revised D. Greene and F. Kelly, Dublin, ), poem no. – to Richard de Burgh. early th c. ‘Fada in chabhair a Cruachain’ c.(?):*G. Murphy, ‘Two Irish poems written from the Mediterranean in the thirteenth century’ in Éigse, (–), – – to Cathal Croibhdhearg Ó Conchobhair. early th c. ‘Congaibh róm th’aighidh a Aodh’ c.: RIA MS (/N/), – to Aodh son of Cathal Croibhdhearg Ó Conchobhair. early to mid th c. ‘Teasta eochair ghlais Ghaedheal’ c.: *N. Williams (ed.), Poems of Giolla Brighde Mac Con Midhe (Dublin, ), poem no. ii – to Gormlaith dau. of Domhnall Mór Ó Domhnaill. mid th c. ‘Céidtreabh Érend Inis Saimhér’ c.: *Williams, Poems of Giolla Brighde, poem no. v – to Gofraidh Ó Domhnaill. mid-late th c. ‘Dearmad do fhágbhas ag Aodh’: *Williams, Poems of Giolla Brighde, poem no. xiv – to Aodh son of Feidhlim Ó Conchobhair d. . late th c. ‘Ceannphort Éirenn Ard Macha’: *Williams, Poems of Giolla Brighde, poem no. xvii – on Armagh cathedral. late th c. ‘Teach n-óil gach bruighean n-a bhaile’ (aceph.): *L. McKenna (ed.), The Book of Magauran (Dublin, ), poem no. i – to Brian Breaghach Mag Shamhradháin d. . thc.–thc.? ‘Fada go tuighim mo theach’: *L. McKenna (ed.) Aithdioghluim Dána ( vols, text London, , transl. London, ), poem no. – religious, thatching as spiritual metaphor. early th c. ‘An tú arís a Ráith Teamhrach?’ c.–: *E.C. Quiggin ed. ‘O’Conor’s house at Cloonfree’ in E.C. Quiggin (ed.), Essays presented to William Ridgeway, – – to Aodh son of Eoghan Ó Conchobhair d. , on his house at Cloonfree. early th c. ‘Tomhus múir Chruachna i gCluain Fhraoich’ c.– : L. Mac Cionaith (ed.), Dioghluim Dána (Baile Átha Cliath, ), no. (*L. McKenna, ‘Bardic Poems’ in Irish Monthly, (), ff.) – to Aodh son of Eoghan Ó Conchobhair d. on house at Cloonfree. early th c. ‘Teach carad do chíu folamh’ c.: Mac Cionaith, Dioghluim Dána , no. (*McKenna, ‘Bardic Poems’ in Irish Monthly, (), ff.) – on Conchobhar son of Toirdhealbhach Ó Briain d. . mid th c. ‘Cia as gairde or gabhadh Eire’ NLI MS G , fo.b: RIA (/L/), fo. a – to Donnchadh (mac Ruaidhri Bhuidhe) Mac Mathghamhna of Thomond fl. . mid th c. ‘Filidh Éireann go haointeach’ : *E. Knott, ‘Filidh Éireann go haointeach’ in Ériu (), – – to Uilliam Ó Ceallaigh. mid th c. ‘Do tógbhadh meirge Murchaidh’: Mac Cionaith, Dioghluim Dána, no. (*McKenna, ‘Bardic Poems’ in Irish Monthly, (), ) – to Murchadh son of Eoghan Ó Madadháin d. .
Katharine Simms
] mid th c. ‘Samuil múr Teamhra atá a nUltaibh’: TCD Ms (H..) p. – to Rughraidhe Mac Mathghamhna d. . ] mid th c. ‘Mestar tech innsi re hOilech’: TCD Ms (H..) p. – to Rughraidhe Mac Mathghamhna d. . ] mid th c.? ‘Crann toruidh Croch in Coimdhe’: *McKenna, Aithdioghluim Dána, poem no. – on Holycross Abbey. ] mid th c. ‘Bheith re dan dlighidh ollamh’: Clonalis, Co. Roscommon, Book of O’Conor Don, fo. b – to Tomás Óg Mág Uidhir d. . ] early th c. ‘Do mhealladh cách nó Ó Cearbhaill’: *E. Knott (ed.), The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn ( vols, text London, , transl. London, ), poem no. – to Maolruanaidh son of Seaán Ó Cearbhaill d. . ] mid th c. ‘Teach ceolmhar ’na bhfaghthar fíon’: S. Mac Airt (ed.), Leabhar Branach (Dublin, ), poem no. – to Aodh Ó Broin on Baile na Corra. ] mid th c. ‘Ní fuighthear commaith Aodha’: Mac Airt , Leabhar Branach, poem no. – to Aodh O Broin on Baile na Corra. ] late th c. ‘Beannacht ag Baile na Corra’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. (*S. O’Grady, Catalogue of Irish manuscripts in the British Museum [al. British Library] (London, , ) – to Ó Broin on Baile na Corra. ] late th c. ‘Ní fhaicim oighir Aodha’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. – to Fiachaidh son of Aodh Ó Broin on Baile na Corra. ] late th c. ‘Grása Dé d’furtacht Aodha’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. – to Aodh O Broin on Baile na Corra. ] late th c. or early th c. ‘Fada an turus tug Eamhuin’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. – on Baile na Corra. ] late th c. or early th c. ‘Iomdha urraim ag Clann Cathaoir’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. – to Feidhlim Ó Broin on Baile na Corra. ] late th c. ‘Cionnas ata an treabh so astoigh’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. (*O’Grady, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum , , –) – on the late Fiacha Ó Broin. ] late th c.? ‘Mairg aga mbi meanma mhear’: T.F. O’Rahilly (ed.), Measgra Dánta (Dublin and Cork, ), no. . ] late th c. ‘Léig dod chomórtas dúinn’: *C. Mhag Craith (ed.) Dán na mBráthar Mionúr ( vols, text Dublin, , transl. Dublin, ), no. – satire on Archbishop Miler Magrath and Máistir Séadhan making contrast between hut of Máistir Séadhan’s mother and the Blessed Virgin’s palace in heaven. ] late th c. ‘Tánag adhaigh go hEas Caoile’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall, poem no. – to a MacSuibhne in Connacht.
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
] late th c. ‘Innis ród a Ráith Ailigh’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall, poem no. – to Seaán Ó Dochartaigh d. on Grianán Oiligh. ] late th c. ‘Ionmhain baile brugh Leithbhir’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall, poem no. – to Conn Ó Domhnaill d. on Lifford. ] late th c. ‘Annamh teach a ttreidhibh Leithbhir’: *C. Ó Lochlainn (ed.), ‘Annamh teach i dtréidhibh Leithbhir’ in Irish Book Lover, (), – – to Conn Ó Domhnaill d. on Lifford. ] late th c. ‘Lios Gréine is Eamhain d’Ultaibh’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall, poem no. – to Shane O Neill. ] late th c. ‘Nodlaig do chuamair don Chraoibh’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall , poem no. – to Toirdhealbhach Luineach Ó Néill on Eas Craoibhe. ] late th c. ‘Leithéid Almhan i nUltaibh’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall , poem no. – to MacSuibhne Fanaid on Rathmullen. ] late th c. ‘An tú ár gcéadaithne a charrag?’: Mac Cionaith, Dioghluim Dána , no. (*McKenna, ‘Bardic Poems’ in Irish Monthly (), ff.) – to Conchubhar Mac Diarmada on Carraig Mhic Dhiarmada. ] late th c. ‘Mairg fheachas ar Inis Ceithleann’: *Knott, The bardic poems of Tadhg Dall , poem no. – to Cúchonnacht Mag Uidhir on Enniskillen. ] late th c. ‘Mithid sin a ráith na ríogh’: *Bergin, Irish bardic Poetry, poem no. – to Aodh Mag Uidhir d. on Enniskillen. ] late th c. ‘Atáim i gcás idir dhá chomhairle’: Mac Cionaith, Dioghluim Dána , no. (*McKenna, ‘Bardic Poems’ Irish Monthly (), ff.) – to Aodh Mag Uidhir d. , referring to his fairy ‘lios’ of limestone, most probably Enniskillen. ] late th c. ‘Fuaras nóchar uaibhreach óigmhear’: J. Carney (ed.), Poems on the Butlers (Dublin, ), poem no. xix – to Viscount Mountgarret on Mountgarret and Ballyragget. ] late th c. ‘Triall gach éinfhir go cúirt Tiobóid’: Carney, Poems on the Butlers, poem no. vi – to Theobald Butler lord of Caher. ] late th c. ‘Do bheannaigh Dia dún meicc Piarais’: Carney, Poems on the Butlers, poem no. iii – to Theobald Butler, lord of Caher. ] late th c. ‘Damh fein choiglim an Chathair’: Carney, Poems on the Butlers, poem no. viii – to Theobald Butler, lord of Caher. ] late th c. ‘Taghaim Tomás ragha is roghrádh’: Carney, Poems on the Butlers, poem no. xvi – to Thomas Butler, th Earl of Ormond mentioning Carrick and Kilkenny Castles. ] late th c. ‘A dhúin thíos atá it aonar’: T. Ó Rathile (ed.), Measgra Dánta (Cork, ), no. – to Red Hugh O’Donnell on strategic levelling of Donegal castle. ] early th c. ‘Ionmhuin teach re ttugas cúl’: Mac Airt, Leabhar Branach, poem no. – to Feilim Ó Broin on Carraig an Chróigh.
Katharine Simms
] early th c. ‘Lóchrann chúig solas Sainct Phroinsias’: *Mág Craith, Dán na mBráthar Mionúr no. – religious poem which describes guiding torch outside house. ] early th c. ‘Uaigneach ataoi a theagh na mbráthar’: *Mág Craith, Dán na mbráthar mionúr no. – on ruins of Multyfarnham. ] early th c. ‘A mhná goileam tre Ghlais Áir’: Ó Rathile, Measgra Dánta , no. – on house of Alexander Grace. ] early th c. ‘Néll longphuirt ós Loch Eachach’: Ó Donnchadha, Leabhar Cloinne Aodha Buidhe, poem no. xxv – on extensions to Sir Henry O Neill’s castle of Edenduffcarrick. ] mid th c. ‘Tá Dia ag díon an Mhóintigh’: RIA Ms no. (C/iv/), ff. r, r. – on An Móinteach, house of Feidhlim MacDubhghaill. ] mid th c. or late th c. ‘Mo thruaighe mar ataoi, a Thulaigh’: J. Carney (ed.), Poems on the O’Reillys (Dublin, ), poem no. xxiv – on ruined O’Reilly castle of Tullymongan.
APPENDIX
Section A: Vocabulary for building and furnishing taken from nine thirteenthcentury bardic poems. (Definitions from the Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of the Irish Language – words borrowed from Latin, Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse in roman font, words borrowed from French or Middle English in small capitals. Most frequently occurring terms have an asterisk). aighlenn, aidhlenn, ‘hook or rack for holding weapons’ *airsa, orrsa, ursain, ‘ door-post, jamb’ altóir, ‘altar’ (from Lat. ‘altare’) *aol, ‘lime, chalk; (‘lucht aoil do loscadh’, lime-burners), aolcloch, ‘built of limestone’ asna, esna, ‘rib, side’ *asnach, esnach, ‘ribs, rib-cage’ adj. ‘ribbed’ bleidhe, ‘a drinking-cup, goblet’ (from Anglo-Sax. ‘bledu’) *bruidhean, bruighean, ‘hostel, large banqueting hall; house, mansion’ casnaidh ‘woodshavings’ cell, ceall, cill, ‘monastic settlement or foundation, collection of ecclesiastical buildings, church; sanctuary, clergy as opposed to laity; churchyard, graveyard’ (from Lat. ‘cella’) cimas, ciumhais, ‘edge, border, limit; dress-fringe, hem; ornaments on battledress; flank of army; limits of territory, crust on loaf ’. *clár, ‘board, plank; used of a variety of specific flat articles normally made of
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
wood (clár casta ‘a wine-press), wooden cover of cask or book, table-top, by extension applied to other materials, pane of glass, crystal etc.’ *cleth , cleath, ‘house-post, stake, pole’; cleth cengail ‘tie-beam, cross-beam’ *cloch, clach, ‘a stone or rock; stone (as building material; ‘cloch aoil’ limestone, ‘cloch aolta’ limewashed stone); construction of stone , especially fortress, stronghold, castle; slingstone, stone in kidneys, gemstone, rosary bead’ clúmh, clúimh, ‘feathers, plumage, down; featherbed?, the pile of cloth, foliage’ CÓFRA, ‘coffer, chest’ *comhla, ‘valve of door, window etc., lid, covering; gate, portcullis, grate’ corrthar, ‘fringe, edging, border (of garments); fig. fringe of fire, borders of territory; claideb corthaire, a term in weaving, apparently rod used for making fringes’ CUPA, ‘cup, goblet’ (Middle Engl. ‘cuppe’, Anglo-Norman ‘cupe’) *darach ‘oaken, of oakwood’ *dlúth, dlúith, ‘close, compact, dense’ *doras, dorus, ‘gate, doorway, opening or entrance; in earlier language usually distinguished from comhla or door-valve’ *dún, ‘fort, earthen or more rarely stone rampart inside which a house or houses were erected, in Norman period any strongly enclosed or fortified place, whether a single residence or a burgh or town’ delb, dealbh, ‘form, figure, appearance, shape; likeness, image, statue; shaping, fashioning, arranging, composing’ eochair, ‘key’ étach, éadach, ‘a covering, raiment, clothing, a garment; cloth, stuff; bedclothes(?); drapery, hangings’ froighidh ‘interior wall, or inner side of a wall’ fuindeóc, fuinneóg, [in church] (from Old Norse) ‘a window; (used figuratively of gaping wounds); fuindeocach ‘having windows’ geim gloine ‘glass gems’ glas, ‘a lock, a fetter, a clasp, a bolt’ glaine, gloine, ‘clearness, cleanness, purity; glass, crystal; crystalline quality (figurative)’ ibar, iobhar, ‘a yew, yew-wood; an article made of yew-wood’ lámhanart, ‘handlinen’ *leaba< lepaid=leth+buith [Celtica ii, ], ‘harbourage, houseroom (Old Ir. laws); bed, cubicle, sleeping-apartment; poet’s cell (‘leaba luinge’), couch, nest of animals, berth of boat, socket or sheath, position, station’ *lecc, leac, ‘flat slab of rock or stone; flagstone, paving-stone; bedrock underlying earth or water, altarstone, kneading slab, stone in kidney; legal metaphor for an irreversible act’ luachair, ‘rushes’ *múr(r), ‘a wall or rampart, generally constructed of earth or stone surround-
Katharine Simms
ing a building, fort or town; place enclosed by wall, dwelling, fort, keep, common in late poetry of a castle or mansion’ peall ‘an animal’s skin’ or ‘fur’, hence a rug or blanket, generally for sleeping on, often nearly ‘mattress, couch’ (from Latin ‘pellis’) *port, ‘place, spot, locality; stead, abode; bank, mound (late)’ scing, sging, ‘fur or cloth covering, clothes, cloak, bed-covering (skin) covering of boat or coracle, covering of roof ’ seim, ‘rivet, used to fasten spearheads to shafts’ slinn, slind, ‘a shingle, tile, flat stone; the flat part of a weaponhead; a weaver’s slay’ *slinntech, slinnteach, ‘shingles, tiles, slates (collective)’ *slios, ‘side, wall; seat, bench, particularly along wall of room’ *sróll, ‘fine cloth, satin’ *stúag, sdúagh, ‘arch, bow, loop (in building, in rainbow); of halos, hoops used to keep clothes off wounds, bend of a bow (military), arch of eyebrows, handle of pitcher etc.; used figuratively of warriors and chiefs’ *taeb, taobh, ‘side in concrete sense (of human, of hill etc.); side in a dispute; trust, reliance; also found in many prepositional phrases’ *teach, ‘house, dwelling’; teach n-óil, teach n-óla, ‘drinking house, banqueting hall’ téighidh, ‘(transitive)warms, heats; (intransitive) grows warm, hot; téaghadh, ‘heating, warming’ tempul, teampall, ‘temple (biblical and classical); the human body (biblical metaphor); church (priomhtheampall, ‘cathedral’)’ uscar ordha ‘golden jewels’ Section B: Additional vocabulary from eleven fourteenth and fifteenth-century poems *amlach, ‘variegated, ornamented, decorated’ *baile, ‘place, piece of land (belonging to one family, group, or individual); homestead, farmstead; town, city; passage (in book or speech); as conjunction ‘where, wherever’; used adverbially ‘to, or at, home’ BALLA, ‘wall, rampart’ (Engl. loanword) *beann, ‘mountain, crag, peak, point; pinnacle, spire, gable, corner etc. of building; wing of army or fleet; horn of animal; crest, diadem of helmet; drinking horn, musical horn; prong, point; yards (naut.), sail-tops’. See M. Ó Siadhail, Téarmaí tógála agus tís as Inis Meáin (Baile Atha Cliath, ), (‘binn’) beathadhach, ‘animal, creature’ bord, (Old English loanword) ‘edge, side, border, brink; bank of river, line of goal, board or gunwale of ship; board, table; seat, bench’
Native Sources for Gaelic Settlement: The House Poems
*bruig, brugh, ‘land, cultivated land, holding; region, district, border; (farm)house, abode, mansion, castle’ buinne ‘sapling’(?) cáelach, caolach, ‘twigs, wattles; roof-wattling of a house under thatch’ carbh, ‘ship’ (Old Norse karfi) *cathair, caithir, ‘stone enclosure, fortress, castle, dwelling; monastic settlement, enclosure, monastery; fortified city, city’ cathaír, cathaoir, ‘chair, seat’ cearamh ‘chisel(?)’ *cerd, ceard, ‘craftsman, artisan; craft, art, skill, handicraft, feat’ cerdchae, ceardcha, ‘workshop, smithy’ cern, cearn, ‘angle, corner, recess; remote spot (in world); swelling , excresence (on body)’ *cladh, claidhe, ‘ditch, trench; dyke, earthen rampart’ COMPÁS, ‘compass, circumference, circle, extent; navigational instrument, mason’s instrument’ (from Engl.) *cranngal, ‘timber; wooden structure or object’ cré, ‘clay, earth; land; body (transferred sense from ‘corpán criadh’ ‘body [made] of clay)’ crios, ‘girdle, belt, hoop; zone; enclosure(?). cruach, ‘heap, rick, pile’ CUILT, coilt, cúilt, ‘mattress, bed, coverlet, quilt’ (from Engl.) cúiltech, cúilteagh, “back-house”, out-office, larder’ *cuirt, CÚIRT, ‘court, manor, palace; court of law’ (