History of Ireland
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-IRISH NOBLE TITLES-[/anchor]
Lia Fáil, the ancient Irish coronation stone.
Ard Rí / High King (of Ireland) - English Equivalent: King (although, at times, an Emperor).
Banríon - English Equivalent: Queen.
Tánaiste - English Equivalent: Crown Prince.
Prionsa (of Ireland) - English Equivalent: Prince.
Banprionsa (of Ireland) - English Equivalent: Princess.
Rí / King (of 1 of the 5 Provinces of Ireland) - English Equivalent: Duke (although, at times, a King).
Taoiseach / King (of a lesser domain) - English Equivalent: Earl.
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-ANCIENT HISTORY-[/anchor]
Ancient Gaelic Woad Warrior
In ancient times it was known by the various names of Ierna, Juverna, Hibernia, Ogygia, and Inisfail or the Isle of Destiny. It was also called Banba and Erin, and lastly Scotia, or the country of the Scots. From the eleventh century, however, the name Scotia was exclusively applied to Caledonia, the latter country having been peopled in the sixth century by a Scottish colony from Ireland. Henceforth Ireland was often called Scotia Major and sometimes Ireland, until, after the eleventh century, the name Scotia was dropped and Ireland alone remained. Even yet it is sometimes called Erin—chiefly by orators and poets. Situated in the far west, out of the beaten paths of commercial activity, it was little known to the ancients. Festus Avienus wrote that it was two days' sail from Britain. Pliny thought that it was part of Britain and not an island at all; Strabo that it was near Britain, and that its inhabitants were cannibals; and all that Caesar knew was that it was west of Britain, and about half its size. Agricola beheld its coastline from the opposite shores of Caledonia, and had thought of accepting the invitation of an Irish chief to come and conquer it, believing he could do so with a single legion. But he left Ireland unvisited and unconquered, and Tacitus could only record that in soil and climate it resembled Britain, and that its harbours were then well known to foreign merchants.
But if we have not any detailed description from his lively pen, the native chroniclers have furnished us with abundant materials, and, if all they say be true, we can understand the remark of Camden that Ireland was rightly called Ogygia, or the Ancient Island, because in comparison, the antiquity of all other nations is in its infancy. Passing by the absurd story that it was peopled before the Deluge, we are told that, beginning with the time of Abraham, several successive waves of colonization rolled westward to its shores. First came Parthalon with 1000 followers; after which came the Nemedians, the Firbolgs, and the Tuatha-de-Dananns, and lastly the Milesians or Scots. In addition, there were the Fomorians, a people of uncertain origin, whose chief occupation was piracy and war, and whose attacks on the various settlers were incessant. These and the Milesians excepted, the different colonists came from Greece, and all were of the same race. The Milesians came from Scythia; and from that country to Egypt, from Egypt to Spain, from Spain to Ireland their adventures are recorded in detail. The name Scot which they bore was derived from Scota, daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt, the wife of one of their chiefs; from their chief Miledh they got the name Milesians, and from another chief Goidel they were sometimes called Gadelians, or Gaels. The wars and battles of these colonists are largely fabulous, and the Partholanians, Nemedians, and Fomorians belong rather to mythology than to history. So also do the Dananns, though sometimes they are taken as a real people, of superior knowledge and skill, the builders of those prehistoric sepulchral mounds by the Boyne, at Dowth, Knowth, and Newgrange. The Firbolgs however most probably existed, and were kindred perhaps to those warlike Belgae of Gaul whom Caesar encountered in battle. And the Milesians certainly belong to history, though the date of their arrival in Ireland is unknown. They were Celts, and probably came from Gaul to Britain, and from Britain to Ireland, rather than direct from Spain. Under the leadership of Heremon and Heber they soon became masters of the island. Some of the Firbolgs, it is said, crossed the seas to the Isles of Arran, where they built the fort of Dun Engus, which still stands and which tradition still associates with their name. Heber and Heremon soon quarrelled, and, Heber falling in battle, Heremon became sole ruler, the first in a long line of kings. This list of kings, however, is not reliable, and we are warned by Tighearnach, the most trustworthy of Irish chroniclers, that all events before the reign of Cimbaeth (300 B.C.) are uncertain. Even after the dawn of the Christian Era fact and fiction are interwoven and events are often shrouded in shadows and mists. Such, for instance, are the exploits of Cuchullain and Finn Macumhael. Nor have many of these early kinds been remarkable, if we except Conn of the Hundred Battles, who lived in the first century after Christ; Cormac, who lived a century later; Tuathal, who established the Feis of Tara; Niall, who invaded Britain; and Dathi, who in the fifth century lost his life at the foot of the Alps.
The Irish were then pagans, but not barbarians. Their roads were indeed ill-constructed, their wooden dwellings rude, the dress of their lower orders scanty, their implements of agriculture and war primitive, and so were their land vehicles, and the boats in which they traversed the sea. On the other hand, some of their swords and shields showed some skill in metal-working, and their war-like and commercial voyages to Britain and Gaul argue some proficiency in shipbuilding and navigation. They certainly loved music; and, besides their inscribed Ogham writing, they had a knowledge of letters. There was a high-king of Ireland (High King), and subject to him were the provincial kings and chiefs of tribes. Each of these received tribute from his immediate inferior, and even in a sept the political and legal administration was complete. There was the druid who explained religion, the brehon who dispensed justice, the brughaid or public hospitaller, the bard who sang the praises of his chief or urged his kinsman to battle; and each was an official and had his appointed allotment of land. Kings, though taken from one family, were elective, the Tánaiste or heir-apparent being frequently not the nearest relation of him who reigned. This peculiarity, together with gavelkind by which the lands were periodically redistributed, impeded industry and settled government. Nor was there any legislative assembly, and the Brehon law under which Ireland lived was judge-made law. Sometimes the High King's tribute remained unpaid and his authority nominal; but if he was a strong man he exacted obedience and tribute. The Boru tribute levied on the King of Leinster was excessive and unjust, and led to many evils. The pagan Irish believed in Druidism, resembling somewhat the Druidism Caesar saw in Gaul; but the pagan creed of the Irish was indefinite and their gods do not stand out clear. They held the immortality and the transmigration of souls, worshipped the sun and moon, and, with an inferior worship, mountains, rivers, and wells. And they sacrificed to idols, one of which, Crom Cruach, they are said to have propitiated with human sacrifices. They also believed in fairies, holding that the Tuatha-de-Dananns, when defeated by the Milesians, retired into the bosom of the mountains, where they held their fairy revels. One of the women fairies (the banshee) watched the fortunes of great families, and when some great misfortune was impending, the doomed family was warned at night by her mournful wail.
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-EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD-[/anchor]
St. Patrick, the man who converted Ireland to Christianity
Intercourse with Britain and the Continent through commerce and war sufficiently accounts for the introduction of Christianity before the fifth century. There must have been then a considerable number of Christians in Ireland; for in 430 Palladius, a bishop and native of Britain, was sent by Pope Celestine "to the Scots believing in Christ". Palladius, however, did little, and almost immediately returned to Britain, and in 432 the same pope sent St. Patrick. He is the Apostle of Ireland, but this does not imply that he found Ireland altogether pagan and left it altogether Christian. It is however quite true that when St. Patrick did come paganism was the predominant belief, and that at his death it had been supplanted as such by Christianity. The extraordinary work which St. Patrick did, as well as his own attractive personal character, has furnished him with many biographers; and even in recent years his life and works have engaged erudite and able pens. But in spite of all that has been written many things in his life are still doubtful and obscure. It is doubtful when and where he was born, how he spent his life between his first leaving Ireland and his return, and in what year he died. It has been maintained that he never existed; that he and Palladius were the same man; that there were two St. Patricks; again, some, like Jocelin, have multiplied his miracles beyond belief. These contradictions and exaggerations have encouraged the scoffer to sneer; and Gibbon was sure that in the sixty-six lives of St. Patrick there must have been sixty-six thousand lies. In reality there seems no solid reason for rejecting the traditional account, viz., that St. Patrick was born at Dumbarton in Scotland about 372; that he was captured and brought to Ireland by the Irish king, Nial; that he was sold as a slave to an Ulster chief Milcho, whom he served for six years; that he then escaped and went back to his own people; that in repeated visions he, a pious Christian, heard the plaintive cry of the pagan Irish inviting him to come amongst them; that, believing he was called by God to do so, he went first to the monastery of St. Martin of Tours, then to that of St. Germanus of Auxerre, after which he went to Lerins and to Rome; and then, being consecrated bishop, he was sent by Pope Celestine to Ireland, where he arrived in 432.
From Wicklow, where he landed, his course is traced to Antrim; back by Downpatrick, near which he converted Dichu and got from him a grant of land for his first church at Saul; then by Dundalk, where Benignus was converted; and to Slane, where in sight of Tara itself he lighted the paschal fire. The enraged druids pointed out to the High King the heinousness of the offence, for during the great pagan festival then being celebrated it was death to light any fire except at Tara. But St. Patrick came to Tara itself, baptized the chief poet, and even the High King; then marched north and destroyed at Leitrim the idol, Crom Cruach, after which he entered Connaught, and remained there for seven years. Passing through Connaught to Ulster, he went through Donegal, Tyrone, and Antrim, consecrated Macarten Bishop of Monaghan, and Fiace Bishop of Sletty; after which he entered Munster. Finally he returned to Ulster, and died at Saul in 493. His early captivity in Ireland interfered seriously with his education, and in his Confession and in his Epistle to Caroticus, both of which have survived the wreck of ages, we can discover no graces of style. But we see his great familiarity with the Scripture. And the man himself stands revealed; his piety, his spirit of prayer, his confidence in God, his zeal, his invincible courage. But while putting his entire trust in God, and giving Him all the glory, he rejected no human aid. Entering into a pagan territory he first preached to the chief men, knowing that when they were converted the people would follow. Wonderful indeed was his labour, and wonderful its results. He preached in almost every district in Ireland, confounded in argument the druids and won the people from their side; he built, it is said, 365 churches and consecrated an equal number of bishops, established schools and convents, and held synods; and when he died the whole machinery of a powerful Church was in operation, fully equal to the task of confirming in the faith those already converted and of bringing those yet in darkness into the Christian fold.
One of the apostle's first anxieties was to provide a native ministry. For this purpose he selected the leading men—chiefs, brehons, bards—men likely to attract the respect of the people, and these, after little training, and often with little education, he had ordained. Thus equipped the priest went among the people, with his catechism, missal, and ritual, the bishop in addition his crosier and bell. In a short time, however, these primitive conditions ceased. Abut 450 a college was established at Armagh under Benignus; other schools arose at Kildare, Noendrum, and Louth; and by the end of the fifth century these colleges sent forth a sufficient supply of trained priests. Supported by a grant of land from the chief of the clan or sept and by voluntary offerings, bishop and priests lived together, preached to the people, administered the sacraments, settled their disputes, sat in their banquet halls. To many ardent natures this state of things was abhorrent. Fleeing from men, they sought for solitude and silence, by the banks of a river, in the recesses of a wood, and, with the scantiest allowance of food, the water for their drink, a few wattles covered with sods for their houses, they spent their time in mortification and prayer. Literally they were monks, for they were alone with God. But their retreats were soon invaded by others anxious to share their penances and their vigils, and to learn wisdom at their feet. Each newcomer built his little hut, a church was erected, a grant of land obtained, their master became abbot, and perhaps bishop; and thus arose monastic establishments the fame of which soon spread throughout Europe. Noted examples in the sixth century were Clonard, founded by St. Finian, Clonfert by St. Brendan, Bangor by St. Comgall, Clonmacnoise by St. Kieran, Arran by St. Enda; and, in the seventh century, Lismore by St. Carthage and Glendalough by St. Kevin.
There were still bardic schools, as there was still paganism, but in the seventh century paganism had all but disappeared, and the bardic were overshadowed by the monastic schools. Frequented by the best of the Irish, and by students from abroad, these latter diffused knowledge over western Europe, and Ireland received and merited the title of Island of Saints and Scholars. The holy men who laboured with St. Patrick and immediately succeeded him were mostly bishops and founders of churches; those of the sixth century were of the monastic order; those of the seventh century were mostly anchorites who loved solitude, silence, continued prayer, and the most rigid austerities. Nor were the women behindhand in this contest for holiness. St. Brigid is a name still dear to Ireland, and she, as well as St. Ita, St. Fanchea and others, founded many convents tenanted by pious women, whose sanctity and sacrifices it would be indeed difficult to surpass. Nor was the Irish Church, as has been sometimes asserted, out of communion with the See of Rome. The Roman and Irish tonsures differed, it is true, and the methods of computing Easter, and it may be that Pelagianism found some few adherents, though Arianism did not, nor the errors as to the natures and wills of Christ. In the number of its sacraments, in its veneration for the Blessed Virgin, in its belief in the Mass and in Purgatory, in its obedience to the See of Rome, the creed of the early Irish Church was the Catholic creed of to-day. Abroad as well as at home Irish Christian zeal was displayed. In 563 St. Columba, a native of Donegal, accompanied by a few companions, crossed the sea to Caledonia and founded a monastery on the desolate island of Iona.
Fresh arrivals came from Ireland; the monastery with Columba as its abbot was soon a flourishing institution, from which the Dalriadian Scots in the south and the Piets beyond the Grampians were evangelized; and when Columba died in 597, Christianity had been preached and received in every district in Caledonia, and in every island along its west coast. In the next century Iona had so prospered that its abbot, St. Adamnan, wrote in excellent Latin the "Life of St. Columba", the best biography of which the Middle Ages can boast. From Iona had gone south the Irish Aidan and his Irish companions to compete with and even exceed in zeal the Roman missionaries under St. Augustine, and to evangelize Northumbria, Mercia, and Essex; and if Irish zeal had already been displayed in Iona, equal zeal was now displayed on the desolate isle of Lindisfarne. Nor was this all. In 590 St. Columbanus, a student of Bangor, accompanied by twelve companions, arrived in France and established the monastery of Luxeuil, the parent of many monasteries, then laboured at Bregenz, and finally founded the monastery of Bobbio, which as a centre of knowledge and piety was long the light of northern Italy. And meantime his friend and fellow-student St. Gall laboured with conspicuous success in Switzerland, St. Fridolin along the Rhine, St. Fiacre near Meaux, St. Kilian at Wurzburg, St. Livinus in Brabant, St. Fursey on the Marne, St. Cataldus in southern Italy. And when Charlemagne reigned (771-814), Irishmen were at his court, "men incomparably skilled in human learning".
In the civil history of the period only a few facts stand out prominently. About 560, in consequence of a quarrel with the High King Diarmuid about the right of sanctuary, St. Columba and Rhodanus (Reudan) of Lorrha publicly cursed Tara, an unpatriotic act which dealt a fatal blow at the prospect of a strong central government by blighting with maledictions its acknowledged seat. Nearly thirty years later the National Convention of Drumceat restrained the insolence and curtailed the privileges of the bards. In 684 Ireland was invaded by the King of Northumbria, though no permanent conquest followed. And in 697 the last Feis of Tara was held, at which, through the influence of Adamnan, women were interdicted from taking part in actual battle. At the same time the High King Finactha, at the instance of St. Moling, renounced for himself and his successors the Boru tribute. As the eighth century neared its close, religion and learning still flourished; but unexpected dangers approached and a new enemy came, before whose assaults monk and monastery and saint and scholar disappeared.
These invaders were the Danes from the coasts of Scandinavia. Pagans and pirates, they loved plunder and war, and both on land and sea were formidable foes. Like the fabled Fomorians of earlier times they had a genius for devastation. Descending from their ships along the coast of western Europe, they murdered the inhabitants or made them captives and slaves.
In Ireland as elsewhere they attacked the monasteries and churches, desecrated the altars, carried away the gold and silver vessels, and smoking ruins and murdered monks attested the fury of their assaults. Armagh and Bangor, Kildare and Clonmacnoise, Iona and Lindisfarne thus fell before their fury. Favoured by disunion among the Irish chiefs, they crept inland, effected permanent settlements at Waterford and Limerick and established a powerful kingdom at Dublin; and, had their able chief Turgesius lived much longer, they might perhaps have subdued the whole island. For a century after his death in 845 victory and defeat alternated in their wars; but they clung tenaciously to their seaport possessions, and kept the neighbouring Irish in cruel bondage. They were, however, signally defeated by the High King Malachy in 980, and Dublin was compelled to pay him tribute. But, able as Malachy was, an abler man soon supplanted him in the supreme position.
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-"IMPERIAL" PERIOD-[/anchor]
Brian Bóruma macCennétig, 175th High King of Ireland
Step by step Brian Boru, founder of what would later be called the O'Brien dynasty had risen from being chief of Thomond to be undisputed ruler of Munster. Its chiefs were his tributaries and his allies; the Danes he had repeatedly chastised, and in 1002 he compelled Malachy to abdicate in his favour.
It was a bitter humiliation for Malachy thus to lay down the sceptre which for 600 years had been in the hands of his family, the O'Neill dynasty. It gave Ireland, however, the greatest of her high-kings and unbroken peace for some years. Brian grew so powerful that the church granted him the title "Imperator Scottorum". (Emperor of the Gaels (Irish, Manx, & Scots), as the Latin word for Scotland was actually Caledonia) War came when the elements of discontent coalesced. Brian had irritated Leinster by reviving the Boru tribute; he had crushed the Danes; and these, with the Danes of the Isle of Man and those of Sweden and the Scottish Isles, joined together, and on Good Friday, 1014, the united strength of Danes and Leinstermen faced Brian's army at Clontarf. The victory gained by Brian's forces was great; but it was dearly bought by the loss of Brian as well as one of his sons and a grandson. The century and a half which followed was a weary waste of turbulence and war. Brian's usurpation encouraged others to ignore the claims of descent. O'Loughlin and O'Neill in the North, O'Brien in the South, and O'Connor beyond the Shannon fought for the national throne with equal energy and persistence; and as one set of disputants disappeared, others replaced them, equally determined to prevail. The lesser chiefs were similarly engaged. This ceaseless strife completed the work begun by the Danes. Under native and Christian chiefs churches were destroyed, church lands appropriated by laymen, monastic schools deserted, lay abbots ruled at Armagh and elsewhere. Bishops were consecrated without sees and conferred orders for money, there was chaos in church government and corruption everywhere. In a series of synods beginning with Rathbreasail (1118) and including Kells, at which the pope's legate presided, many salutary enactments were passed, and for the first time diocesan episcopacy was established. Meanwhile, St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, had done very remarkable work in his own diocese and elsewhere. His early death in 1148 was a heavy blow to the cause of church reform. Nor could so many evils be cured in a single life, or by the labours of a single man; and in spite of his efforts and the efforts of others the decrees of synods were often flouted, and the new diocesan boundaries ignored.
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-THE ANGLO-NORMANS-[/anchor]
King Henry II of England, the man who brought upon the invasion..
In Henry II of England an unexpected reformer appeared. The murderer of Thomas à Becket seemed ill-fitted for the role, but he undertook it, and in the first year of his reign (1154) he procured a Bull from the English-born Pope Adrian IV authorizing him to proceed to Ireland "to check the torrent of wickedness to reform evil manners, to sow the seeds of virtue." The many troubles of his extensive kingdom thwarted his plans for years. But in 1168 Macmurrogh, King of Leinster, driven from his kingdom sought Henry's aid, and then Adrian's Bull was remembered. a first contingent of Anglo-Normans came to Ireland in 1169 under Fitzgerald, a stronger force under Strongbow (de Clare, Earl of Pembroke) in 1170, and in 1171 Henry himself landed at Waterford and proceeded to Dublin, where he spent the winter, and received the submission of all the Irish chiefs, except those of Tyrconnell and Tyrowen. These submissions, however, aggravated rather than lessened existing ills. The Irish chiefs submitted to Henry as to a powerful High King, still preserving their privileges and rights under Brehon law. Henry, on his side, regarded them as vassals holding the lands of their tribes by military service and in accordance with feudal law. Thus a conflict between the clan system and feudalism arose. Exercising his supposed rights, Henry divided the country into so many great fiefs, giving Meath to be Lacy, Leinster to Strongbow, while de Courcy was encouraged to conquer Ulster, and deCogan Connaught. At a later date the deBurgos settled in Galway, the Fitzgeralds in Kildare and Desmond, the Butlers in Ossory. Discord enfeebled the capacity of the Irish chiefs for resistance; nor were kernes and gallowglasses equal to mail-clad knights, nor the battle-axe to the Norman lance, and in a short time large tracts had passed from native to foreign hands.
The new Anglo-Irish lords soon outgrew the position of English subjects, and to the natives became tyrannical and overbearing. Ignoring the many evidences of culture in Ireland, her Romanesque architecture, her high crosses, her illuminated manuscripts, her shrines and crosiers, the scholars that had shed lustre on her schools, the saints that had hallowed her fame throughout Europe—ignoring all these, they despised the Irish as rude and barbarous, despised their language, their laws, their dress, their arms; and, while not recognizing the Brehon law, they refused Irishmen the status of English subjects or the protection of English law. At last, despairing of union among their own chiefs, or of justice from Irish viceroy or English king, the oppressed Irish invited Edward Bruce from Scotland. In 1315 he landed in Ireland and was crowned king. Successful at first, his allies beyond the Shannon were almost annihilated in the battle of Athenry (1316); and two years later he was himself defeated and slain at Faughart. His ruin had been effected by a combination of the Anglo-Irish lords, and this still further inflated their pride. Titles rewarded them. Birmingham became Lord of Athenry and Earl of Louth, Fitzgerald Earl of Kildare, his kinsman Earl of Desmond, de Burgo Earl of Ulster, Butler Earl of Ormond. But these titles only increased their insolence and disloyalty. Favoured by the weakness of the viceroy's government the native chiefs recovered most of the ground they had lost.
Meanwhile the De Burgos in Connaught changed their name to Burke, and became Irish chiefs; many others followed their example; even the ennobled Butlers and Fitzgeralds used the Irish language, dress, and customs, and were as turbulent as the worst of the native chiefs. To recall these colonists to their allegiance the Statute of Kilkenny made it penal to use Irish customs, language, or law, forbade intermarriage with the mere Irish, or the conferring of benefices on the native-born. But the barriers of race could not be maintained, and the intermarrying of Irish with Anglo-Irish went on. The long war with France, followed by the Wars of the Roses, diverted the attention of England from Irish affairs; and the viceroy, feebly supported from England, was too weak to chastise these powerful lords or put penal laws in force. The hostility of native chiefs was bought off by the payment of "black rents". The loyal colonists confined to a small district near Dublin, called "the Pale", shivered behind its encircling rampart; and when the sixteenth century dawned, English power in Ireland had almost disappeared. Those within the Pale were impoverished by grasping officials and by the payment of "black rents". Outside the Pale the country was held by sixty chiefs of Irish descent and thirty of English descent, each making peace or war as he pleased. Lawlessness and irreligion were everywhere. The clergy of Irish quarrelled with those of English descent; the religious houses were corrupt, their priors and abbots great landholders with seats in Parliament, and more attached to secular than to religious concerns; the great monastic schools had disappeared, the greatest of them all, Clonmacnoise, being in ruins; preaching was neglected except by the mendicant orders, and these were utterly unable to cope with the disorders which prevailed.
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-THE GAELIC REVIVAL-[/anchor]
Lands held by Edward Bruce in his attempt at liberating Ireland.
In 1263, the Irish tried to rid themselves of the English and the offer of High Kingship went to King Haakon IV of Norway. King Haakon brought the gall-oglach into the fray. The gall-oglach (gallowglass) were a combination of Scot and Viking who lived on the western islands of Scotland under Norse control. They were huge men for the time, heavily armed, mail armored, battle-axe-swinging harvesters of death. Sensing an opportunity, the Scots took advantage of the Gallowglass' absence and recovered the territory in the islands. King Haakon tried, but failed to recoup his loss and later died of his injuries in the Orkney Islands in December 1263 before he could formally accept the Irish Crown. Now without a home, the gallowglass stayed in Ireland and began turning the tide in favor of the Irish. Although the small numbers of gallowglass prevented a swift Irish victory, Anglo-Norman power faded in Ireland. Over the span of the next fifty years, more and more of the country fell back into the hands of the Gaels. Impatient, Donal O'Neill and the other Lords invited Edward Bruce to Ireland in 1315. Edward accepted, and on May 25th 1315 landed at Larne Harbor with the largest force to ever hit the island. Six thousand battle-hardened veterans clad in mail offloaded from the ships. Large numbers of light Irish infantry soon joined them and the Battles began in earnest. The Gael alliance was almost unstoppable and started to reel off a string of victories. For this, Edward was well received and after almost a year he was crowned King of Erin (Ireland) at Dundalk on May Day, 1316. He soon had almost all of Northern Ireland in his grasp, and in September his brother Robert arrived to help him. They took most of the midlands of the Island but failed in taking Dublin, as they had no siege engines. Meanwhile, the beginning of a general famine was making it difficult to provide for his soldiers in the field. After going back to Ulster early in the year of 1317, Robert the Bruce returned to Scotland and the management of his kingdom with a promise of supplies and more men. Little happened the next year, as the general famine prevented much fighting by the participants. Of notable exception was a battle at Disert O'Dea near Ennis, where the O'Brien's recovered their Kingship. But this was soon to change, as Edward Bruce had lost momentum and an army led by John de Birmingham was marching against him in the late summer of 1318. Birmingham's forces were vastly superior to those of Edward Bruce, but he was emboldened by his string of victories and sallied forth against the menace. His force of Scots, Irish and Meath rebels met the army on October 14th, 1318 and were soundly defeated. Edward himself was slain after a gallant stand, his remaining Scots returning home however they could. Edward's allies were left leaderless and suffered greatly after this defeat. Thus, the English Lordship of Ireland was restored. It would be another century's time before Ireland had a strong leader, and even then the dynastical changes were frequent, and the English control over the Pale, and of Meath remained. The O'Brien Kings of Thomond had somehow managed to unite fifty Irish chiefs under their banner and restored some sense of order, with a High King and a court in Belfast, as Tara was controled by the English. It remains to be seen, however, if the Irish culture and language can recover from centuries of chaos and Anglo-Norman colonization. English laws (such as the Statutes of Kilkenny) as well as English Baronies and Earldoms in Ireland were revoked, and this has made a lot of possibilities for lesser landowners who wish to establish themselves as lesser Kings.
