A bit of Irish History

IRELAND

By the fourth century there were five leading Gaelic kingdoms in Ireland. They roughly correspond to the provinces of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Connaught and the counties of Meath and Westmeath. Munster was the Eoganachta kingdom; Ulster the O'Niells; Leinster was ruled by the MacMurroghs; Connaught by the O'Connors; and Meath by the southern O'Niell family. There were about a hundred and fifty lesser kingdoms grouped in allegiance beneath them. From time to time the number of kingdoms changed with the fluctuating fortunes of the leading clans. In the ninth century two High Kingdoms dominated Ireland. In the north the O'Niells ruled from Tara, while in the south the Eoganachta ruled from Cashel. These two great Irish families struggled for the High Kingship of all Ireland. They fought each other in the battle of Ballaghmoon in 908 and the Eoganachta were defeated. Their priest-king Cormac was killed and the power of the Eoganacht never recovered. In 977 King Olaf of the Sandals defeated Domnall the O'Niell High King and extended the Viking kingdom of Dublin to the Shannon. By the end of the tenth century the Vikings in Ireland had accepted Christianity and Brian Boru had become the High King of Munster and the southern half of Ireland. Brian Boru, who is considered one of the greatest Irishmen who ever lived, regained Cashel, which once again became the seat of the kings of Munster. In 999 he completely defeated the Danes of Dublin and entered the city in triumph. In 1002 he was acknowledged the first absolute High King of all Ireland, finally ending the domination of the O'Niells. The Danes proved reluctant vassals and plotted a rebellion against Brian's rule. The two armies met in Dublin near Clontarf on Good Friday 23 April 1014. Eventually the Danes were driven back to the beach at Clontarf, where hundreds of them drowned, in an exceptionally high tide, before they could reach the safety of their ships.

RIVER BOYNE

The Boyne is a river in Ireland rising in the bog of Allen, near Carbury in County Kildare. It flows in a north-easterly direction past Trim, Navan and Slane to enter the Irish sea four miles below Drogheda. The river is seventy miles long and is known for its salmon fishing. It figures prominently in Irish history. The Bronze Age burial tumuli at Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth along the course of the river Boyne are of thehighest archaeological interest and importance. They predate the pyramids in Egypt. Slane is intimately associated with St. Patrick and with the introduction of Christianity to nearby Tara, the seat of the Irish kings.

[Encyclopaedia Britannica]

THE PALE

The word Pale has several different meanings one of which denotes a limit, boundary or restriction. It is a district within determined bounds, or subject to a particular jurisdiction. Beyond the Pale is an expression indicating something is barbaric, forbidden, improper, inadvisable, indecent, irregular, not done, out of line, unacceptable, unseemly, unspeakable, or unsuitable. In 1394 King Richard II of England went to Ireland and formally established the Pale to extend from Dundalk to the river Boyne and down the Barrow River to Waterford. This was the extent of English influence in Ireland at the time.

[The Oxford Guide to Family History - David Hey - 1993]

PLANTATIONS

It was, ironically, the Catholic Queen Mary (1547-1558) who after a long border war to extend English law in Leix and Offaly adopted a policy of confiscation and plantation. These two areas were renamed King's and Queen's Counties and divided into a more fertile eastern area into which loyal families from the Pale and England were to be planted and a western area which was to be left to the Irish holding by common law or tenure. During the reign of James I (1603-1625) the principle attraction for the English emigrant was northern Ireland. The government actively encouraged settlement by providing land in those parts of west Ulster, which had been troublesome during the reign of Elizabeth. Earlier attempts to found plantations had failed, but this time the policy was successful.

[The Oxford Guide to Family History - David Hey - 1993] 15 September 1997

In 1607 the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell and nearly one hundred chiefs of the north left Ireland in what became known as the "Flight of the Earls". Although it cannot be proved, they were found guilty of treason. By legal process six counties were declared escheated and these lands divided between English who undertook to settle people on the land, servitors who were mainly Scots, and Irish who had to pay rents twice as large as the other undertakers. This was the swan song of the Gaelic tradition, as Ulster became the most British of all the provinces. In the years immediately following the plantation of Ulster, three other plantations, in North Wexford (1610-20), Longford and Ely O'Carroll (1615-20), Leitrim and the midland districts along the Shannon (1620), comprising nearly half a million acres of land, were taken in hand. Emmel Castle near Nenagh on the border of Tipperary County was confiscated by Cromwell but was returned to the O'Carroll family when the monarchy was restored in England. It is in the area previously known as Ely O'Carrroll. Emigration to Ireland was eventually on a larger scale than was sought by the original objectives. The counties of Antrim and Down, which lay outside the areas of the official scheme, each attracted more settlers than any of the other counties further west. Nor did the movement of Scottish and English families come to an end in 1641, when the Irish rebelled. The peak rates of immigration were probably not reached until the second half of the seventeenth century. By 1659 Scottish and English settlers accounted for 37 % of the 70800 householders in Ulster and half a century after the plantations were first established, the British and Irish were clearly segregated at township level. By 1665 Protestants owned just under four-fifths of the land but were only a third of the population and at the end of the first decade of the 18th century the total acreage for Irish Catholics was whittled down to 7% of the land total. The introduction of the English language and the Protestant religion, as well as new form of settlement and landholding, were important innovations of lasting consequence, but the cultural gap between the planter and the native Irish was not as great as is often supposed. The division deepened late.

[The Oxford Guide to Family History - David Hey - 1993 - p72-74]

DROGHEDA

A municipal borough and seaport on the southern border of County Louth, Ire., on the Boyne about 4 miles from its mouth in Drogheda Bay and 30 miles N by W from Dublin by road. Pop (1951) 16,779. Area 2.3 sq. miles Its earliest name was Inver-Colpa ("the port of Colpa"); Drogheda signifies "the bridge of the ford." Two towns grew up, one on either side of the river, which received separate incorporation in 1228 but were combined by charter in 1412. Drogheda was a stronghold of the Danes and later of the Anglo-Normans, and in 1157 a synod was convened there. In the reign of Edward III it was one of the four staple towns in Ireland with Dublin, Waterford and Kilkenny, and was granted the right of coining money. Several parliaments were held there including one in 1494 when Poyning's law was enacted. In the 1641 rebellion the town was besieged by Phelim O'Neill and was relieved, but in 1649 it fell to Oliver Cromwell and the inhabitants were massacred. After the battle of the Boyne in 1690 it surrendered without a struggle, though garrisoned by King James's army. It ceased to be a parliamentary borough in 1885 and a county of itself in 1898. The ancient fortifications of Drogheda have disappeared except for the gateway of St Lawrence, which remains almost perfect, and the ruins of the West or Butler gate. From the close of the 12th century to sometime after the Reformation the primates of Ireland lived in Drogheda. In the Dominican friary founded in 1224, of which the Magdalen tower remains, Richard II received the submission of the O'Neill, O'Donnell and other chieftains of Ulster and Leinster. Of the establishments of the Franciscans, Carmelites and Knights of St John nothing is left, but there are a tower and a pointed arch of the Augustinian Abbey of St Mary d'Urso founded in 1206. The bluecoat school was founded in 1727 but the present buildings date from 1870. At Mellifont, 6 miles W., are the ruins of a once famous Cistercian Abbey.

Industry includes linen and cotton mills, coach building works, flour and sawmills, a brewery, one of the largest cement works in the British Isles and factories making vegetable oil products, clothing, boots, fertilizer and spark plugs. Drogheda is the headquarters of valuable Boyne salmon fishing. Agricultural produce and coal are traded by sea. [Encyclopaedia Britannica]

While on a bus tour to Newgrange in June 1996 the driver mentioned that during the siege of Drogheda in 1649 one of the families involved were the O'Carrolls. The Irish were besieging the Royalists who occupied Drogheda.

The English Government made provision for an army for the invasion of Ireland and on March 30, 1649 Cromwell accepted the command of this army where the adventurers and the conquering army were to be paid in Irish land. On 15 August he landed at Dublin and on 3 September he appeared before Drogheda with 10.000 men. A week later he stormed the town and began a policy of indiscriminate massacre. He put to the sword the whole garrison and not a few civilians, including every priest on whom he could lay his hands, in all about 2800 persons. Ten counties were appropriated to soldiers and adventurers and later others were added. The chief effect of the Cromwellian plantation was to impose new English and puritan landlords on Ireland.

BATTLE OF THE BOYNE

James II, a professed Catholic, succeeded Charles II as King of England in 1685. William, Prince of Orange and ruler of the Netherlands was a grandson of Charles I as well as James II's son-in-law. He was a Protestant and was invited by James' opponents to accept the British Crown. Civil war followed and after the Scots were defeated in June 1689 by William of Orange at the battle of Killiecrankie, Ireland remained James' only hope. James fled to France where Louis XIV agreed to help the deposed king who, in March 1689, landed at Kinsale where he was greeted as the lawful monarch. The English in Ireland were confronted by a revolt of three-fourths of the population, and by a more formidable presence of veteran regiments from France, as Louis XIV endeavoured to stir up a civil war in Ireland. He entertained hopes of a long drawn out struggle in Ireland which would occupy the attention and energies of William III while he attempted to make France all-powerful in Europe.

In June 1690, William III sailed from England to assume command of the army in Ireland. James II then fell back on Drogheda and assembled in the Oldbridge area south of the Boyne, 7000 French infantry, some regular Irish cavalry and untrained Irish infantry and dragoons - altogether about 21000 men. William followed closely on his heels and led the Dutch Blue Guards, two regiments of French Huguenots, some English, and contingents of Danish, Prussian, Finnish and Swiss mercenaries - altogether about 35000 men. On June 30, sixteen days after he landed, the two armies stood facing each other, three miles west of Drogheda, with only the River Boyne between them. The odds against James were very great but the advantage of position lay with him. To the experienced eye the determination of William to force a passage on the following morning seemed little short of folly. James could not make up his mind either to fight or retreat. Forced by William's impetuous attack to turn and defend himself, when he was actually on the point of retiring, he was unable to bring half his army into action before his adversary had crossed the Boyne at Rosnaree on the left and at Oldbridge towards the right. Taken by surprise, the Irish and their allies, especially the cavalry, fought with a determination that fully justified criticism of William's tactics. Fearing encirclement by William's cavalry James was among the earliest to quit the field and hastily fled to France where he died in 1701. The Irish army made good its retreat, through the pass of Duleek, and carried on the war for another year in Ireland until they capitulated on 13 October 1691.

In terms of the Treaty of Limerick seven thousand officers and men who would not take an oath of allegiance to England departed for France in what became known as the "Flight of the Wild Geese". By his victory William secured the fall of Drogheda and Dublin and the flight of James from Ireland. This victory is commemorated annually as Orange Day in Northern Ireland (12 July in the new calendar). Ironically the Battle of the Boyne fought on 1 July 1690, took place on Irish soil between William III King of England and James II King of Scotland. Dragoon A Dragoon was a kind of carbine so called from its `breathing fire' A mounted infantryman armed with a dragoon - now a name for certain regiments of cavalry

Francis Carroll was a Dragoon Commander at the Battle of the Boyne with the rank of Colonel. From the names of officers in Col. Francis' Regiment it is evident that the regiment was mainly recruited in King's Coumty, the original home of the O'Carrolls. After the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 he volunteered for service of France where he was a Colonel in the celebrated Irish Brigade. He was killed in the Battle of Marsaglia, in Italy, in 1693. James Carroll, was a Captain in Lord Dongan's Regiment of Dragoons.

Thomas Carroll was first Lieu. Col. under Col. Francis Carroll and was killed at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690. Two of his sons were captured and transplanted to the north.

Terence Carroll was a Major in Col Francis' Regiment at the Battle of the Boyne. Undoubtedly other Carrolls and/or O'Carrolls were at the Battle of the Boyne and research may reveal who they were and what became of them. General & Field Officers in the army of King James Dragoons 6 Francis Carroll, Colonel Terence Carroll, 1st } Lt-Col. Fran. Boismoroll, 2nd } ----- Maj or [O'Hart Pedigrees - p509]

POPULATION

Population 1780 - 5 million 1821 - 6.8 million 1831 - 7.77 million 1842 - 8 million plus 1900 - half what it had been 50 years earlier.

[The Oxford Guide to Family History - David Hey - 1993 - p95]

1996 - 3.5 million in southern Ireland = about 3 million in Northern Ireland (mostly Protestants) Between 1841 and 1851 the population fell from 8,175,124 to 6,552,386 - over 20 percent. Total deaths from any cause were over 1.5 million. Every census from 1851 to 1961 showed a decline in Ireland's population as people left, married late or not at all. Famine Food shortages in 1817 and 1822 1845 affected the poor the most. Wheat, Barley and oats were produced but exported. "Bread is scarcely ever seen and an oven is unknown" wrote Charles Trevelyan, "There is scarcely a peasant woman in the west of Ireland whose culinary art exceeds the boiling of a potato." The potato disease started in North America in 1844 and first appeared in Ireland in the autumn of 1845. In 1846 it appeared earlier and was of a much more sweeping and decisive kind. Between 1845 - 1849 people died of disease and starvation. The official figure is 21770 but one million is a more realistic estimate. The worst years of the famine came after 1845

Not until January 1847 did the British Government realise that something had to be done. By August that year 3 million people (nearly half the population of Ireland) were being fed by public money - often organised by the Quakers. Epidemics The Black Death, which visited Ireland in 1348 and 1349, had resulted in the deaths of approximately one-third of the population, forcing the Norman-Irish and Irish even closer in the face of a common calamity. Dysentery, a killer disease, was reported in Dublin in November 1846 and scurvy was everywhere. Typhus and relapsing fever spread from western Ireland to the well-fed towns of the east. In December 1848, Cholera reached Ireland from Europe and was at its height in mid-1849.

Emigration 1846 - 106,000 1847 - 215,000 of whom 3/4 went to America 1851 - 250,000 (3/4 went to America) The Irish had emigrated to England, Scotland, and Wales in large numbers long before the famine years of the 1840s. The 1841 census returns for England and Wales numbered 289,404 Irish born residents in England and Wales. Ten years later the totals had soared to 519,959. The peak was reached in 1861 when 601,634 were recorded. An estimated one million emigrated to America between 1841 and 1851 and in 1996 45 million Americans were of Irish descent Between 1845 and 1855 nearly 2 million people emigrated to America and Australia and another 750,000 to Britain. By 1900 over 4 million Irishmen had crossed the Atlantic and as many lived outside Ireland as lived in it. In the century up to 1930 one in two people born in Ireland made their homes elsewhere. In the 1950s an average of 60,000 people left the country every year. Sinn Fein In 1899 Arthur Griffith founded a newspaper which advocated a doctrine later known as Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone) and in 1905 the Sinn Fein movement was organised as a political organisation.

ST.PATRICK

In 432 Patrick was sent as bishop to Ireland. Patrick was a Briton, son of a decurion under the Roman government, and probably a native of Gwent, Monmouthshire. He was carried off as a captive in the reign of Naill and became a slave in north eastern Ulster. After six years he escaped. His birth may be dated in 385, his capture in 401, his escape in 407. His mission to Ireland succeeded rapidly. In 438 he was favourably received at the court of the high king, Loiguire, son of Naill. In 439 three bishops were sent to his assistance, Secundinus, Auxilius and Iserninus. Patrick chose for his own see Armagh beside the ancient Ulster capital. In a story of St Patrick's reform of Irish law one might see an influence transformed by tradition into an event. A druid foretold to Loiguire: "He shall free slaves, he shall raise up men of lowly kin." In the written laws , two centuries later, a slave class no longer exists. St Patrick's epistle condemns the enslavement of Christians. The earlier racial distinction between conquerors and conquered, between Piet and Celt, survive only in antiquarian tradition, and all became known by the common name Goidal (Gaels) or Fir Eirenn (Men of Ireland).

[Encyclopaedia Britannica]