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The Wars of Turlogh: an Historical Document Author(S): Edmund Curtis Source: the Irish Review (Dublin), Vol Irish Review (Dublin) The Wars of Turlogh: An Historical Document Author(s): Edmund Curtis Source: The Irish Review (Dublin), Vol. 2, No. 23 (Jan., 1913), pp. 577-586 Published by: Irish Review (Dublin) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30062919 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 12:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Irish Review (Dublin) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Review (Dublin). http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.208 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:02:16 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE WARS OF TURLOGH AN HISTORICALDOCUMENT By EDMUND CURTIS LOWLY but surelythe blankspaces in our IrishHistory are being filled, the years are bringing more scholars to the unearthing of our records, and scientific methods of research which have completely re-cast the story of other nations are, though belated, in the way of being applied to our own. It is no longer sufficient for one who aspires to write Irish History to ladle out cold the printed and inadequate works of dead men; we call into the arena the full-equipped historical student, the folk-lorist, the philologist, the ethnologist. We must wait long years yet before the Irish History is written, but the time will come; we must wait till numerous unutilised clan-poems are to hand, for instance; and a thousand manuscripts in the native language have to yield up their secrets. One long period in our national records has hitherto seemed a barren wilderness, if one may judge by the official histories, that, namely, from the coming of the Norman-English invaders to the end of the fifteenth century. It seemed taken for granted that, for the long and devastating wars which broke up the national polity which a hundred Ard-Righs had builded there was no native record of any length or value, save what our scanty annals afford. But at least in one corner of Ireland the sean-achaidheof a royal clan wrote down the story of long wars against the English from the point of view of the Gael. This is the Caithreim Thoirdhealbhaigk, or "Wars of Turlogh," the story of the struggles of De Clares and O'Briens in Thomond for fifty years from 1275 A.D. onwards, written by an eye-witness, the clan-historian, Sean Mac Craith, between 1345 and 1360.* *There are various MS. copies in R.I.A. and T.C.D.; the oldest (I5og) being in the latter library. For this article and the passages translated I have mainly used a r6o8 copy in R.I.A. The " Caithreim " has never-curiously enough- been printed, and has practically been ignored by our historians. Mr. S. H. O'Grady has, since r896, been preparing an edition for the Cambridge University Press, but inquiries fail to elicit when we may expect the appearance of so desired a work. Mr. T. S. Westropp has whetted our anticipation by his invaluable " Historical Character of the Wars of Torlough," Trans. R.I.A., 1903, and " The Normans in Thomond, 1250-1333," 189o-9', to which I am greatly indebted. He proves conclusively that the traditional date ascribed to the author of the " Wars " (Caithreim Thoirdhealbhaigh), i.e., 1459, is inaccurate, and should be between and I345 1360 (p. 140 T.R.I.A., I903). 577 This content downloaded from 195.34.79.208 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:02:16 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE IRISH REVIEW To the historian the " Wars of Turlogh " must be all important. It will disappoint those readers of History who look for an Irish Froissart or Commines. But for all who love a good story it is good reading. The over-flown language, the redundancy of epithet, the characteristic faults of so much Irish literature will not hide the thrilling drama it reveals, the lack of real portraiture will not obscure its heroes, and when a battle is to be described or a brave deed told, S6an Mac Craith marches as swiftly and gallantly as any of his armies. The story of native resistance to English invasion in the 12th and I3th centuries is one of local resistance and local Hastings or Bannockburns. Every prince fell back to defend his own territory. Take the O'Briens of Thomond. In II192 the Anglo-Normans crossed the Shannon at Killaloe, but the descendant of Brian of the Tributes fell on them and drove them with heavy slaughter back over the river. The land of the Da1 gCais was impregnable. In I250 Henry III. confirmed Donogh Cairbreach O'Brien as " King of Thomond " in the present Co. Clare, North Tipperary, and part of King's County, and though Donogh assumed the new title of O'Brien, they were styled " Kings" in the letters and deeds of English Kings for a couple of centuries yet. In 1275 Edward I. granted the lands of Bunratty, Quin and Tradree to Thomas de Clare,* the stretch of country between the lower Fergus and Limerick was to become an outpost of English speech and English power dominating the rest of Thomond. This De Clare was of the very flower of Norman chivalry, ninth in descent from a natural son of Richard Duke of Normandy; his eldest brother was Earl of Gloucester. If it be any consolation to us, these con- querors of so much of Ireland would have scorned the name of Saxon as thoroughly as any prince or poet of the Gael; they were men of mixed Scandinavian-French blood, with strains of the Celt of Brittany and Wales; the proudest, haughtiest and cleverest of all the races of their time, despising, and hated by, the Saxons they had enslaved; true and untameable adventurers, the worthiest foes that our own death-despising Gaels could have faced. The grant by an English King of O'Brien's lands was the fons *The County of Clare, contrary to a common opinion, does not derive its name from De Clare, otherwise the Irish speakers would call it Conndae an ChlAirigh instead of Conndae an Chlair, as they actually do. The name is taken from the place called Clare, or from " the Plain of North Munster (clir thuaidh- mumhain "), and not from the Norman invader, Thomond not actually being shired until two centuries later. 578 This content downloaded from 195.34.79.208 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 12:02:16 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE WARS OF TURLOGH et origo of a war of Gael and Gall, which went backward and forward for fifty years with but one interval, till the Gael stood erect, a victor and the foreigner was left neither stone nor field nor root nor branch in all Thomond. De Clare waited in the City of Cork the opportunity to strike in across the Shannon, and a succession struggle among the O'Briens soon opened up the way for him. In 1259 died, by an untimely death, Teig " of Caoluisge," heir apparent of Thomond, a great foe of the English. His father, Conor O'Brien was still King; he fell in battle against rebel O'Lochlins in 1267, and his second son, Brian Rua, was inaugurated at Magh Aidhir, and ruled well and vigorously till 1276. But Teig of Caoluisge had left a son, Turlogh, whose claims the great fighting clan of the Macconmaras were determined to enforce. The young Turlogh is the hero of the first half of these wars; he stands out through all his spirited career a right princely figure, a great warrior, a King determined to share his realm with neither Gael nor Gall, and after victory ruling like a true father of his people. Girt about by the fighting Macconmaras, the young prince claimed from his uncle the throne of Thomond. Thus was kindled a succession war of forty years' duration-one of those countless wars that were engaged in medieval Europe, for thrones or fiefs, to decide the vexed question, does sovereignty go to the adult next brother of the dead lord, or to his eldest son yet a child? At last Brian, hard- bested, fled over the Shannon to Cork and came to Thomas De Cla'e. The Norman, already a holder of title-deeds, was offered all the land between Ath-soluis and Limerick if he would restore Brian Rua; the bargain was struck, and in 1277 a great array, De Clare, Geraldines, Butlers and the Clan Brian Rua marched out of Limerick to the recovery of Thomond. Turlogh was in the West, in Corcovascin, and the allies made short work of the faithful Macconmaras and O'Deas. De Clare then built a strong castle of stone at Bunratty, henceforth the fortress and seat of his race, and planted Tradree with English and Welsh tenants. All along the lower Fergus English-speaking and English-hearted Bagots, Pippards, Kingshals, Piruns, Tumberlaths and Fukes, with names almost impossible to Gaelic throats, were to represent to the Gael all that was odious, churlish and foreign "English-speaking, shaven, cosy, grudging"- like the Cromwellians of later and more successful plantations.
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