The Normans in Ireland

Leinster, 1167–1247

Richard Lomas

• Publisher: John Donald
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781910900338
• eBook ISBN: 9781788854801
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The Norman invasion of Britain, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, is well known, but the later invasion of Ireland is much less well documented. Yet much of what we see today in Irish heritage has Norman roots. Ireland and Britain have many similarities, although relations between them have too often descended into bitterness and violence. This book goes back to the starting point of this, more than eight hundred years ago. Beginning with Irish history before the Norman invasion, the book describes how Ireland was conquered and settled by the French-speaking Normans from north-west France, whose language and culture had already come to dominate most of Britain. It looks at the creation and government of a large region called the Liberty of Leinster between 1167 and 1247, a turning point in Irish history, identifying the Frankish institutions imposed upon Ireland by its Anglo-Norman conquerors. The Normans were not always belligerent conquerors, but they were innovators and reformers, who incorporated the sensible traditions and practices of their subjugated lands into their new government. In little over one hundred years the Normans had a transforming effect on British and Irish societies and, while different in many ways, both countries benefited from their legacy.

PART I: ROOTS

The reasons why in 1169 and the following years groups of Anglo-Norman and Cambro-Norman warriors came to Ireland are immediate and local. But there was an obvious geographical unity in that as an island it had long attracted previous adventurers, raiders and traders, like the Vikings, although, surprisingly, not the Romans. Within the confines of Ireland there were no formal boundaries but nine kingdoms with their own ruling kings, and no dynastic High King; this politically fractured society was almost inevitably warlike. The Normans, therefore, arrived at the end of a train of events stretching back over 200 years.

A balanced perspective requires an understanding of these events. As the story unfolds, the two chapters that follow will be of help in achieving this.

1
Viking Eruptions

Throughout the ninth century, Western Europe endured violent assaults at the hands of raiders from beyond its borders. From the steppes of western Asia came the Magyars, from across the Mediterranean came the Saracens of North Africa, and from Scandinavia came the Vikings or Northmen. It is with these last intruders that this book is concerned. The damage and rampaging disruption caused by their raiding intrusions could be, and was, made good. But their brutality and disruptive engagement against native societies destroyed kingdoms, so much so as to set the political development of many parts of Europe onto a new course.

Before looking at this, it is worth bringing the Vikings into better focus. The chroniclers who recorded their raids were rightly horrified by their savagery, barbarity and wanton violence. There is no validity in the common belief that they wore horned helmets, but these animal-skin-clad, hirsute, fearsome warriors, known by the Norse word bersurker (from which is derived the word ‘berserk’), did indulge in pre-battle rituals which resulted in winding themselves up into a frenzy, which they then unleashed upon their enemies to devasting effect: in fact, they did run berserk. They were a cruel people who killed indiscriminately, possibly because there appears to have been no teaching of restraint in their religion, unlike Christian teaching – but here I am speculating through lack of firm evidence.

However, the Vikings had another side to them. They became excellent colonists; they were skilled craftsmen; and through their expertise in naval architecture, innovative shipbuilding and seamanship, they fostered an international commercial nexus that extended from Kiev to Limerick. It will, I hope, become apparent that what happened in Ireland after 1169 stemmed directly from the changes they made or introduced.

FRANCE

The kingdom of France takes its name from the Franks, a Germanic people who in the sixth century occupied the Roman province of Gaul. Once settled, they adopted the Romans’ institutions and gradually their language. It has been said, mischievously, though with a basic truth, that the French language is ‘a debased dialect of Latin’. In adopting this formula, the Franks were at one with all other Germanic peoples who took over Roman provinces.

Subsequently and through conquest, a Frankish empire was created, stretching from the river Ebro in Spain to the river Elbe in Germany. Its high point was the coronation of the Frankish king Charlemagne (Charles the Great) as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, in St Peter’s Church in Rome on Christmas Day 800. When Charlemagne died in 814 he was succeeded by his only surviving son, Louis, known as Louis the Pious. The empire survived intact until after Louis’s death in 840. He left three legitimate sons, and consequently, according to custom, after his death in 843 the empire was divided between them. It was West Francia, or part of it, that was to develop into the kingdom of France.¹

FRANCE AND THE FOUNDING OF NORMANDY

The history of the West Frankish kingdom was of political disintegration, so that by around 1100 it could be described as a failed state. The effective authority of the king gradually shrank to no more than that of the Île de France, a small area around Paris. The real power had been usurped by local or regional officials bearing the titles of count or duke. They were the descendants of royal officials appointed by the king and were theoretically answerable to him. The effective power of the French kings was gradually but massively eroded, although they retained one unique feature: sovereignty. They alone were crowned and anointed monarchs, a title and status that no count or duke could deny. In the end, this proved to be their priceless asset and the basis on which they were to rebuild their authority.

One of the major causes of the decline of French royal authority was the Viking raids that reached a crescendo in the late ninth century.² The task of organising defence measures to thwart or defeat these assaults proved to be beyond the ability of the crown and consequently it was shouldered by the counts and dukes. Inevitably, the forces they raised, mainly heavy cavalry, were used to substantiate their authority over their subjects as well as providing defence.

It was this situation that gave rise to the duchy of Normandy, which was to play such a crucial role in the history of Britain and Ireland. Its creation was an initiative of the French king, Charles III (895–929), who in 913 negotiated a treaty with a Viking leader, Rollo (or Rolf), whereby the latter was granted land along the Channel coast in return for his loyalty to the crown and conversion to Christianity.³ In effect, Charles employed the tactic ‘if you can’t beat them, get them to join you’. Rollo would henceforth protect the French interior from his fellow Vikings. Over the following twenty years further grants of land were made, until Normandy extended in a direct line of about 80 miles (125 km) from Mont-Saint-Michel at the base of the Cotentin peninsula to Le Tréport. Its inland depth was 60 miles (90 km) at its maximum. One clue as to Charles III’s thinking was that his Viking allies would control the mouth of the River Seine, one of the main points of access to the French interior used by the Viking raiders.

Without doubt, large numbers of Viking men and women migrated from the north to settle in Normandy, although the exact figures will never be known. This migration continued until after c. 960, when it gradually dried up. With the end of migration came assimilation, so that by the year 1000, Normans of whatever ethnic origin were speaking French.

FOUNDING OF BRITAIN: ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

Britain was unlike France in several ways. In Britain three languages were spoken, the early versions of English, Welsh and Irish, broadly reflecting the island’s ethnic and political divisions. The largest area was that occupied by English-speaking kingdoms, the products of invasions and migrations of Germanic people (Angles, Jutes and Saxons) from Europe between c. 450 and c. 600. By 850, the number of kingdoms had been reduced by warfare and conquest to four: Northumbria (Firth of Forth – river Humber); Mercia (river Humber – river Thames); Wessex (river Thames – south coast) and East Anglia. At this stage, there was no kingdom of England.⁴ The nearest these kingdoms came to unity was the enforced acknowledgement that one of the kings was Bretwalda (ruler of Britain). It was a temporary and enforced acceptance without constitutional validity, akin to the situation in Ireland where there were multiple provincial kings, each striving to enforce superiority as High King.

The northern limit of English Britain was a line running from the Forth to the Clyde represented by a Roman wall: not Hadrian’s Wall, but the one built by Hadrian’s successor as emperor, Antoninus Pius (ad 138–161), now referred to as the Antonine Wall. To the north of this wall, which at that time would still have been substantially intact, lay two quite different kingdoms. The larger, in the east, was Pictavia, which occupied the fertile land between the Firth of Forth and the Dornoch Firth.⁵ The Picts, who produced a distinctive but enigmatic art, almost certainly spoke Brittonic, a Celtic language common to the entire island of Britain from which the Welsh language developed.

To the west was the smaller kingdom of Dál Riata, which comprised territory on both sides of the North Channel. The Irish territory was essentially that which is now Co. Antrim, while the Scottish territories were comprised of the later counties of Argyll and Bute and included the islands of Arran, Islay, Jura and Mull. These kingdoms differed in several ways, the principal one being language. In Dál Riata, the spoken language was the other Celtic language, Goedelic, from which Irish and its Scottish offshoot, Gaelic, developed.

Finally, west of a line from the estuary of the river Dee to that of the river Severn, was the land roughly corresponding to present-day Wales. It was divided into four kingdoms but was homogeneous in language and culture.

The Vikings changed northern Britain in two profound ways. Vikings from Norway took control and colonised the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, and the islands of the Outer Hebrides. From these bases they extended their control over those parts of the mainland covering the later counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Inverness, and Ross and Cromarty. In doing so they introduced another foreign language, Norse. Their impact was long-lasting, though not permanent: in the late fifteenth century (1472) the earldom of Orkney and the lordship of Shetland were annexed to the Scottish crown, and the lordship of the Isles was forfeited in 1493.

Arguably of greater significance was their impact on Pictavia and Dál Riata. It is unfortunate that the evidence for what happened, when and why is so sparse as to make certainty well-nigh impossible. That said, what has become clear to me is that between c. 840 and c. 890 the Gaelic-speaking kings of Dál Riata gained control of Pictavia, thereby bringing into existence a new, larger kingdom, Alba. Without doubt, this was a remarkable turnover of political power. Since the early years of the ninth century, the Pictish kings had exercised political hegemony over their western neighbour, which is not surprising given their disparity in size. Traditionally, responsibility for this turn of events has been attributed to one man, Cinead (Kenneth) Mac Alpin (d. 858), but this is now considered to be too simplistic. Instead, the basic and underlying reason is now thought to be the gradual weakening of the Pictavian state, brought about by Viking assaults to the point where it became vulnerable to a Dál Riatan takeover. Added to this was that Dál Riata too was vulnerable to Viking pressure, so that salvation must have seemed to lie in union with Pictavia. Change of political control was followed by language change: in ways and at a pace which are hidden from us, Brittonic gave way to Gaelic, which in the long run became the language of the northern Scottish mainland and Western Isles – though not Orkney and Shetland, where a Norse language known as Norn continued to be spoken until the eighteenth century.

On the English-speaking kingdoms the Viking impact was equally drastic. Between 865 and 878 a large Viking army effectively destroyed Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia as states. Only Wessex, under its king, Alfred (871–99), did not succumb.⁶ The Vikings were fought to a standstill and accepted peace terms, which included their conversion to Christianity.

In the course of the tenth century Alfred’s successors, Edward (899–927), Aethelstan (927–39), Edmund (939–46), Eadred (946–55) and Edgar (955–75), gradually succeeded in imposing their rule over the Viking areas. They did not do so, however, to re-impose the status quo ante but to incorporate what had been Mercia, Northumberland and East Anglia into an enlarged Wessex. By 975, this name had become obsolete. A new kingdom had emerged and needed a new name: England.

In the following twenty-five years, the kings of Alba took over the most northerly parts of Northumbria so that by the year 1000, they had advanced their southern border to the river Tweed.⁷ They had in effect converted Alba into the kingdom of Scotland. The two kingdoms into which Britain was and is divided were the consequence of Viking invasions.

IRELAND

Compared with France and Britain, the Viking impact on Ireland was not extensive, at least geographically.⁸ As elsewhere, Viking activity began with annual raids during the early 830s which then became more widespread and penetrating in the middle decades, particularly with the introduction of over-wintering and fortified camps, called longphorts in Ireland. But there was no concerted attempt, as in England, at total conquest; nor as in France, to create a large province capable of attracting large scale immigration. At first glance, the Viking legacy appears to be little more than a few coastal settlements, the most important of which were Dublin, Waterford and Limerick; how large was the community, if established, will only be determined by ongoing archaeological research. The most these coastal towns were concerned to control were limited hinterlands, from which they could draw what they required by way of foodstuffs. Their primary interest was not conquest, but commerce.

It was through this that they drew Ireland into a wider economic world, and this was far-ranging. The Irish towns lay at the western limits of an international trade network. Far to the east it was anchored at Viking settlements at Novgorod and Kiev in what the Arabs called ‘the land of Rus’ (hence Russia). Using their naval skills, the Vikings used rivers such as the Dvina and the Dneipr to reach the Black Sea and Byzantium (Istanbul). It was a network that helped to bring the more backward west into contact, economically and culturally, with the more sophisticated Arab and Oriental worlds.

Closer to home, Ireland became engaged with the Norse sea world that encompassed the Isle of Man and the western islands and coasts of Britain. Here too Dublin was to the fore, particularly in the tenth century through its links to the Norse kingdom of York and increasingly in the eleventh century with the west coast towns of Bristol and Chester, while in Ireland, the smaller Viking towns of Cork and Wexford became more prominent.

Nevertheless, the political structure of Ireland remained fundamentally unaltered. The island was divided between nine kingdoms, each with its own ruling dynasty. From south to north there were: Laigin (Leinster), Munster (though this was divided into Thomond and Desmond), Connacht, Bréifne, Mide (Meath), Airgialla, Ailech and Ulaid. Every provincial king was faced with two permanent problems. One was to maintain control over the sub-kings within his province, of which there were about fifty in all. The other was the engagement in a contest to become High King of Ireland, or to resist the same ambition in a rival. As in England in the pre-Viking era, there was no recognised sovereign, as there was in France. To attain the High Kingship of Ireland a provincial king required military might, to enforce the acknowledgement by all other kings and to maintain that submission. It is clear, however, that the Viking towns had become participants in this kaleidoscope of political ambition. By 1169, control of Dublin had become key to the mastery of Ireland and it was on its way to becoming Ireland’s capital.

At the beginning of the eleventh century, the far west of Europe exhibited two things that could be attributed to the Vikings. One was that a powerful French–Norse province, the duchy of Normandy, was well established along a stretch of the southern shore of the Channel. The other is that two new kingdoms, England and Scotland, had come into being in Britain, both formed by the union of smaller kingdoms, and both with ruling dynasties with accepted sovereignty. Beyond them to the west lay Wales and Ireland, each with its ethnic and linguistic homogeneity but still politically fragmented and thereby vulnerable to an aggressive predator. And by 1169, the Vikings had succeeded in forging links joining Ireland to Britain, Europe and the wider world. They were the precursors of their Frenchified descendants in Normandy, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Foreword
• Preface
• Maps and Genealogical Tables
• Part I: Roots
• Part II: Conquest, Creation and Control
• Part III: Impact
• Afterword
• Glossary of Terms
• Glossary of Irish Names
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Picture Sections