Dynastic Struggles in 11th century Ireland

The next 150 years in Ireland, from Clontarf in 1014 to the coming of the Normans in the second half of the 1100's saw an unprecedented phase of dynastic warfare and general upheaval in Ireland. Few historical accounts attempt to unravel the complex twists of the 11th century which caused this unrest. After the death of Brian Boru, King Mael Sechnaill 2nd of the Ui Neill reasserted himself as High King of Ireland until he died 8 years later in 1022. At this point, confusion reigned and all the dynasties fought together for power.

The 11th century saw Irish politics become more like that of the rest of Europe. Kings spend longer and longer away from home fighting battles, and so they had to employ staff to govern their Kingdoms. Individual regions, fortresses, and the few cities, were given governors to oversee the day-to-day management and the Kings began to set out laws and taxes across their entire realms. Warfare too was modernised. The Irish had long adopted Viking weapons such as long axes, but now they were utilising technology such as Cavalry and navies. These gave rises to new posts of office, such as Admirals and military Commanders. Most of these posts were held by subservient Lords from the King's own kingdom.

It also became more common to reward allegiance and encourage subservience by granting land to noblemen who were able to rule them as Lordships within the control of the King. For example, the King of Connacht made his son the Lord of Meath in the early 1100's, although he did not prove to be up to the task. Other land was given by charter to the church, although not always with purely divine motivations. In 1101, the King of Munster granted the fortress on the rock of Cashel to the church who promptly set up an Archbishop at the site.

The picture becomes clearer by the start of the 1100s. At this point there were four main Kingdoms in Ireland: Munster, ruled by the O'Brien dynasty, of whom Brian Boru was part; Connacht, ruled by the O'Connor dynasty; the Ui Neill (whose land was called Tir Eoghain), ruled by the Mac Lochlainn dynasty and Leinster, ruled by the Mac Murchada dynasty. From 1086 until 1114, the High Kingship was in dispute. King Muirchertach O'Brien of Munster was the most powerful, but King Domnall Mac Lochlainn of the Ui Neill was sufficiently strong to stop him becoming supremely powerful.

This all changed with the succession of Turlough O'Connor to the throne of Connacht. He immediately set about fortifying his Kingdom, building 'castles' around his borders and amassing a large army and navy. Between 1115 and 1131 he systematically destroyed the power of Munster, and then spent the rest of his reign trying to become High King of all Ireland. Upon his death in 1156, the task fell to his son, Rory O'Connor who had duly become King of Connacht. Rory knew that he had to capture Dublin in order to claim to be High King, but others had their eyes on Dublin too. The Kings of the remaining two provinces, King Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn of the Ui Neill and King Dairmait Mac Murchada of Leinster formed an alliance to make a rival bid for the High Kingship. While not achieving this goal, they did manage to hold Connacht's aggression at bay. They also managed to subdue Dublin itself, although it proved very difficult to control a city that did not wish to be controlled.

Although the weak partner in the alliance, Mac Murchada was able to use his powerful Northern allies to keep his enemies in Munster and Connacht at arms length. This all changed in 1166 when, in a stroke of fate, King Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn of the Ui Neill was assassinated by vassals from his own Kingdom. Suddenly without his northern ally, Mac Murchada was dangerously exposed and it is no surprise that the Dubliners wasted no time in pairing up with King O'Connor of Connacht to take their revenge. They easily captured Leinster and drove Dairmait Mac Murchada entirely out of Ireland. At this point, Mac Murchada appealed to the King of England for military assistance and thereby changed the course of Irish history.

Reform of the Christian Church

From its golden era before the Vikings, the Christian Church in Ireland had slowly been secularised and, in many ways, corrupted. According to the historian Donnchadh o Corrain, the principal problem was that it was too decentralisd - the individual abbots of monasteries had gained far too much power. Indeed, many abbots were not even churchmen, some accepted bribes for positions, some had concubines and sanctuary was abused when Brian Boru slaughtered King Silkenbeard of Limerick in the sanctuary of Scattery Island monastery. This is not to say that Ireland's church was rotten to the core - the monastic schools were still vibrant and there were many saintly monks and bishops.

There were those in Ireland who set about reforming the church, but additional help came from the church in Europe who had been busily reforming the French church. The Europe-wide revivial in Monasticism saw new Monastic orders bring Irish establishments under their control. The Cistercians were the first of the medieval orders to set up in Ireland, when St Malachy set up an abbey at Mellifont in 1142. Other orders would follow in the coming century founding new abbeys and taking over old ones.

The Archbishop of Canterbury in England wanted to assert control over the Irish church, and set about establishing links with the church in the influential former Viking city of Dublin. However, when the Irish church was reformed, over the course of three synods at Cashel (1101), Rath Breasail (1111) and Kells-Mellifont (1152), the church was organised under an Archbishop placed at St Patrick's monastery at Armagh, much to Canterbury's displeasure - although the church in Dublin remained under Canterbury's control for some further time. The country was sorted into dioceses, church leaders had to obey stricter moral guidelines and the monasteries were stripped of much of their land. All in all, the reforms were at once a triumph and a disaster. A triumph because the church was now much less corrupt, but a disaster because it destroyed the basis of Irish learning, poetry and script.

Changes in Britain

It is impossible to understand the next phase of Irish history without reference to events in Britain. In Britain, the period of history from 800 to 1100 was also a time of upheaval, death and warfare, and at least two successful invasions. The Vikings had invaded Anglo-Saxon Britain on a far greater scale than they ever had in Ireland, completely obliterating and colonising the Christian Kingdom of Northumbria as well as East Anglia and large parts of Mercia (see a map before the Viking invasion). This area was called the 'Danelaw'. Only under the leadership of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, did the English manage to stop the advance of the Vikings. It was Alfred who persuaded the individual kingdoms to unite and, in 927, his grandson Aethelstan was crowned "King of all the English" in the city of London, essentially England's first 'High King'. This was the foundation of the Kingdom of England. Over the next 150 years, the two regions merged to form a more coherent Anglo-Norse England, ruled mostly by Danish Kings.

The Normans were the descendants of Vikings who had settled in an area of northern France known as Normandy to this day. In a complex interplay of lines to the throne and broken promises, Duke William of Normandy decided the English throne was his. He invaded England in 1066, and through a series of battles, most notably at Hastings, took the throne and was crowned King William 1st of England, although he is better known as William the Conqueror. This was the phase in European history when all kings were seeking to expand, and England was no exception. Bordered to the north by the newly-united kingdom of Scotland, the King of England instead penetrated into Celtic Wales and, though inter-marriage and other means, controlled half of France by the mid 1100s. It is no surprise, therefore, that when the opportunity arose to spread his royal rule across the sea to Ireland, the English king took it.

The Anglo-French (Norman) Invasion

Strongbow in Ireland

As discussed in the previous section, Dairmait Mac Murchada the King of Leinster had been expelled from Ireland after being defeated by King Rory O'Connor of Connacht and the Dubliners. A ruthless warrior now humiliated by defeat, Mac Murchada's only goal was to win back his Kingdom. With this in mind, he sailed to Britain and sought a meeting with King Henry 2nd of England in 1166, in the hope that Henry might help him in his quest.

Anglo-French?

Historians are divided as to what to call the people who came to Ireland in 1169. Although many came from England, many other barons came to Ireland from France. The Normans (from northern France) had taken over English government only 100 years before. Therefore, historians variously use the terms "Cambro- Norman", "Anglo- Norman", "Anglo- French" or simply "Norman". Here we use "Anglo- French", but any of the above terms is acceptable. As time went on, and England evolved, the term gets replaced with the more modern word "English".

King Henry met Mac Murchada, but was reluctant to help him. He had just become King, and his hold over England was still weak and he did not wish to start an expensive war. Nevertheless, he had been given permission by the Pope shortly before to claim Ireland as part of his kingdom in order to reform the Church. As a compromise, he authorised Mac Murchada to privately recruit anyone he could from the English populace but had no more to do with the matter himself.

Mac Murchada then travelled to Bristol, on the west coast of England, where he recruited the Earl of Pembroke, Richard FitzGilbert de Clare (better known as Strongbow) as well as a handful of lesser Anglo-French barons including Robert FitzStephen, Richard FitzGodebert, Maurice FitzGerald, Raymond le Gros and Milo de Cogan. (See a note on Norman names.) Strongbow was no friend of King Henry, and the feeling was mutual - he had opposed Henry's bid for the throne and was paying for it by being ignored. In return for helping him win back his kingdom, Mac Murchada promised Strongbow his daughter Aoife in marriage and the Kingdom of Leinster upon Mac Murchada's death. The lesser barons were promised land, including the Viking city of Wexford. Since he had little future in England, the prospect of inheriting an entire kingdom in Ireland must have been very appealing to Strongbow.

Returning to Ireland in 1167, Mac Murchada had to wait two years for his reinforcements to arrive. In May 1169 the lesser barons that had been recruited in Wales arrived with 600 archers and cavalry, and recruited 500 Irishmen loyal to Mac Murchada to swell their army further. With this they managed to force the Viking city of Weisfjord (Wexford) to submit once again to King Mac Murchada. He gave Wexford and the surrounding area to these lesser Welsh barons as payment. After further successes which saw him regain much of his kingdom as well as the allegiance of Dublin, he signed a treaty with O'Connor that allowed him to be restored as King of Leinster, provided he recognised O'Connor as High King.

However, Mac Murchada had grown greedy and began to plot how he might use his new Welsh allies to usurp O'Connor and become High King. He sent a message to Strongblow asking for further reinforcements, Strongbow himself landed near-present day Waterford in August 1170 with 1000 men. They attacked and defeated the Viking city of Vadrefjord (Waterford), thereby breaking the treaty with O'Connor. Mac Murchada kept his word to Strongbow and gave him his daughter Aoife as wife, and thereby Strongbow became heir to Leinster's throne. Strongbow's men then went north, attacked and defeated Dublin expelling its Norse leader, Lord MacTorkil, in a boat.

The situation changed suddenly in May 1171 when King Dairmait Mac Murchada died and Strongbow was crowned King Richard of Leinster, after suppressing a short-lived revolt, and became the first non-native to be King of an Irish province. The other Kings in Ireland were astounded at how quickly and successfully an Anglo-French Lord had become legitimally established in Ireland. After mustering an army of 60,000 and aided by the exiled Lord MacTorkil of Dublin, King O'Connor laid siege to Dublin. However, Strongbow turned the tables by storming out from the city walls and defeated O'Connor with the superior Anglo-French military technology and tactics. O'Connor retired humiliated to Connacht, High King only in name. Meanwhile, other Anglo-French Lords continued to harry Leinster's old enemies, invading Mide (Meath) and sending raiding parties as far as Breifne. The map above shows the situation in 1171 with the restoration of the Kingdom of Leinster under King Richard (Strongbow) and the continued attacks northwards. The Orange area is the extent of Anglo-French rule in Ireland.

A note on Anglo-French names

In Anglo-French custom, children were given a new first name and a surname that was their father's first name. So, for example the surname of a man who is the son of Maurice FitzPatrick would be FitzMaurice. Simiarly, the son of Gerald FitzMaurice would have the surname FitzGerald. In later times this custom stopped and people began to keep the same fixed surname.

The English King Intervenes

When word got back to King Henry of England that the man who he knew as the Earl of Pembroke (Strongbow) had established himself as King of a province in Ireland, he was furious. The way he saw it, he had given permission for his citizens to help Mac Murchada militarily, not to rival his authority as King. Henry, rather pointlessly, issued a decree forbidding Strongbow to go to Ireland, cut off the supplies from England and set out for Ireland himself with large army arriving in Waterford in October 1171. Realising that the King could and would defeat him, Strongbow intercepted Henry before he had even arrived offering apologies and begging forgiveness.

Henry's anger must have relented for he let Strongbow remain Lord of Leinster, provided he submitted authority to the King of England. Realising that King Henry was their only hope against Strongbow's expansionism, the less powerful Irish kings decided it would be in their best interests to have him on-side. Henry thus spent quite a period receiving delegations from the Irish Kings of Munster, Breifne, Airgialla and Ulaid (see map above) all of whom submitted to King Henry as their overlord and agreed to pay him tribute. Only the former High King, Rory O'Connor of Connacht, and the Kings of the Northern Ui Neill did not submit to Henry.

Henry carefully divided the parts of Ireland for which was now overlord. He set aside Dublin which was no longer to be part of Leinster, but rather owned by the King and chartered to the city of Bristol. The province of Meath (Mide) which had already been invaded by Strongbow's men, was instead given as a liberty (a semi-autonomous lordship) to Hugh de Lacy, a loyal supporter of Henry, which must have angered Strongbow. Henry returned to England in April 1172 leaving the provinces of Meath and Leinster ruled by two Anglo-French Lords, with Irish kings loyal to King Henry in all the remaining kingdoms other than Connacht and the northern Ui Neill. The Treaty of Windsor in 1175 between King Henry 2nd and King Rory O'Connor of Connacht recognised O'Connor as High King of all lands outside Meath and Leinster, and in turn O'Connor would collect tribute payments from those areas.

The next few years saw de Lacy and Strongbow devote much of their energies to containing resitance across their new liberties. They established Motte-and-Bailey castles (fortified mounds with a courtyard beside them) in all troublesome areas and established the feudal system (of peasants working on lands owned by the lord) as an investment. The picture on the left shows the remains of an Anglo-French Motte-and-Bailey castle which can be seen today in Dundonald in county Down. Dozens of examples survive across Ireland.

When Strongbow died in 1176, the liberty of Leinster passed into the hands of King Henry who granted all his rights as Lord of Ireland to his youngest son Prince John. Prince John was Lord of Ireland until he became King of England in 1199, but in that time he showed little respect for the remaining Irish Kings. His courtiers famously tugged the beards of Irish Kings who came to see him.

In the lands that had been secured by the Anglo-French, an extensive process of colonisation took place. Agricultural estates were established, and market towns established to sell the goods locally, nationally and to the rest of Europe. English, Welsh, French and Belgian settlers arrived to settle the lands of the Anglo-French Lords, while the Irish who remained were reduced to the status of serfs working on the estates. For most poor Irish this was largely academic: there wasn't a noticeable change to their quality of life. But things were different for the old Irish aristocracy, practically none of whom was able to retain their status and lifestyle. For more details of life under the Anglo-French, see the Everyday Life section below.