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If the Norman had not come here

[Deleted User]

What do you think would have happened in Ireland.

If the Irish Chiefs and Chieftains has not been decimated by the Norman invasions. The clan's would have eventually become an Irish aristocracy with massive estates the same as the imposed English aristocracy, although with an ingrained Irish culture. As we did not have an industrial revolution we would have ended up an Irish peasant/aristocracy culture similar to France, Maybe we wouldn't have had the famine but us peasants would have been very poor working our tiny plots of leased land and eventually somehow the Chieftains aristocracy would have been over trow and the land distributed? and a modern democracy emerge? We would all be duel Irish/English speakers with a unique culture?.

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[Deleted User]

jimmy blevins wrote: »

Afters hours may be a lot of thing's but historically accurate it's not.

Well its more of cultural question.

machiavellianme

JupiterKid wrote: »

The Normans were a mix of Viking and native Northern French. I doubt there would have been the possibility that they would have not invaded Ireland. England was always going to overpower us at some stage.

BTW my surname originates in the North of Holland but its been in Ireland since around the time of the Norman conquest.

Ah the old Jupiterkid family from the North Netherlands, know them well.

Badly Drunk Boy

machiavellianme wrote: »

Ah the old Jupiterkid family from the North Netherlands, know them well.

Van der Jupiterkid, I think.

baaba maal

jimmy blevins wrote: »

Afters hours may be a lot of thing's but historically accurate it's not.

In fairness, Sand pretty much summarised the whole thing in one brilliant post. Very insightful stuff (and I hope this doesn't read as being sarcastic, it is a gift to be able to reduce such a big complicated historical era into a few well-assembled paragraphs imho).

dresden8

Eamondomc wrote: »

We,d have had an Irish revolution and beheaded them all by now anyway.
But if we had a king I reckon it would have been an O Brien!

Jaysus, not that fncker who had "a corrupt relationship" with a certain politician.....

BabyE

It is a fascinating question in alternate history.

dresden8

The Normans were a virus that spread all over Europe and the middle east. They were a machine, we were never going to escape them.

Charles Babbage

No Normans, no sugar, no rabbits, no gassons.

Things evolve anyway, my boss who used to be a decent enough skin, now thinks he is a medieval king.

D!armu!d

Sand wrote: »

The Norman-Gaelic alliances/struggles of the 12th and 13th and 14th centuries are one of the most interesting parts of Irish history....

Any good books to read up on this ?

[Deleted User]

D!armu!d wrote: »

Any good books to read up on this ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donal_Cam_O%27Sullivan_Bearen

After the fall of Dursey and Dunboy, O'Sullivan Beare, Lord of Beara and Bantry, gathered his remaining followers and set off northwards on a 500 kilometre march with 1,000 of his remaining people, starting on 31 December 1602. He hoped to meet Hugh O'Neill on the shores of Lough Neagh.

or

Hugh Roe O'Donnell (later Earl of Tyrconnell) had escaped the castle in the previous year, only to be betrayed while on the run. His second attempt was a success, and although he suffered frostbite O'Donnell was guided to Glenmalure, whence O'Byrne despatched him home to the province of Ulster. The grave of Art O'Neill (son of Shane O'Neill), a fellow prisoner who died during the escape, lies south-west of Granabeg towards Glenmalure, in the townland of Oakwood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiach_McHugh_O%27Byrne

That is two random bits of history about the decline and end of the clan system in Ireland. It is a very interesting subject.

Jawgap

Squall Leonhart wrote: »

Thought you were talking about Harvey Norman haha

Really?......

I thought he was talking about Fatboy Slim's gig in Belfast tomorrow - so I was going to say they'd have probably got someone else for that slot!!

:D:D

jmayo

Olishi4 wrote: »

Well looking at the origin of my surname, I wouldn't exist!

Actually just reminded me ...
if the Normans had never come here we wouldn't have to put up with that singer with the massive eyebrows and the insufferable daughter.
Fecking Normans. :mad:

mariaalice wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donal_Cam_O%27Sullivan_Bearen

Hugh Roe O'Donnell (later Earl of Tyrconnell) had escaped the castle in the previous year, only to be betrayed while on the run. His second attempt was a success, and although he suffered frostbite O'Donnell was guided to Glenmalure, whence O'Byrne despatched him home to the province of Ulster. The grave of Art O'Neill (son of Shane O'Neill), a fellow prisoner who died during the escape, lies south-west of Granabeg towards Glenmalure, in the townland of Oakwood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiach_McHugh_O%27Byrne

That is two random bits of history about the decline and end of the clan system in Ireland. It is a very interesting subject.

And every year one can relive their journey by doing the Art O'Neill challenge from Dublin Castle to Glenmalure.
BTW bring multiple torches.

Sand

D!armu!d wrote: »

Any good books to read up on this ?

Well, you could read through 'A New History of Ireland Vol II: Medieval Ireland 1169-1534'. Be warned, its a book big enough that you could reasonably expect to beat someone to death with it. But it certainly covers the politics, society, struggles of the era in the level of detail you need to get the scale of what happened in Ireland. For example, Strongbows campaign in Ireland was simultaneous with a political struggle with an English king who hated him and wanted him to fail and die in Ireland. Strongbow won some desperate victories against the Irish but was eventually forced to travel to France to seek aid from that king. Which he managed to pull off. There is characters like Hugh De Lacey who was a Tywin Lannister figure in Norman Ireland for decades - to the point where he intimidated the supposed King of Ireland, John, into fleeing back to England such was his power in the country. He too suffered a very poetic end. There are conquistadors like John De Courcy who arrived in Ireland as a mercenary and adventurer and ended up carving out a practically independent kingdom for himself in eastern Ulster by sword and by marriage. And the aforementioned feasts and peace-talks ending in slaughter - suffice to say if you were a Gaelic noble and your Norman neighbour invited you to dinner, you ought to arrive in numbers and heavily armed if at all. And then you have the Gaelic kings, like Diarmait who was an amoral ruler of his time with some deeds to prove it.

There is also stories so unbelievable you would think they are made up, such as Thomas FitzGerald, 5th Earl of Desmond. He was out hunting, a storm struck so he took shelter at the home of one his Gaelic vassals, the MacCormacs. There he set eyes on his vassals daughter and fell in love, which was a bad idea for a brutal medieval warlord. He married her despite her being far below his station in life. Though romantic, this caused a scandal, and his uncle led a faction to overthrow him and he died in exile in France - though his tale was famous enough that the Kings of England and France attended his funeral, and he had two sons with his wife. So maybe not all a loss.

I think its the most fascinating period of Irish history tbh. There are no heroes. No right side of history, and no side we are supposed to cheer for. For instance, the Bruce Invasions, which occasioned the first explicit pan-Gaelic cause against a common English enemy when the Scots invaded Ireland. Braveheart buddies right? But the Scottish army lived off the land and inflicted such hardship and famine on the Gaelic Irish that they celebrated as much as the English did at the final defeat of the Bruce army. Politics today are complicated, politics then were complicated too.

ClovenHoof

Sand's post is a bit odd. He states that Brehon Law was defacto in Ireland, yet the Irish power classes were influenced by the Normans. This is the part I do not get.

He also demonstrates this typical sense of Irish self hatred in regards to the implication that Irish kings were murderous dictators while the Norman were a civilizing force.

The Harrying of the North whereby, the Norman basically killed everything in the north of England from the common snail up, was a savage act of murderous and planned genocide, and yet here is the thread's resident historian acting as if the Irish were mad killers and the Normans the paragons of virtue.

buried

ClovenHoof wrote: »

Sand's post is a bit odd. He states that Brehon Law was defacto in Ireland, yet the Irish power classes were influenced by the Normans. This is the part I do not get.

He also demonstrates this typical sense of Irish self hatred in regards to the comment about Irish kings were murderous dictators while the Norman were a civilizing force.

The Harrying of the North whereby the Norman basically killed everything in the north of England from a common snail up was a savage act of murderous and planned genocide, and yet here is the thread's resident historian acting as if the Irish were mad killers and the Normans the paragons of virtue.

Yeah, well said. I actually never heard of that atrocity until I read 'The Norman Conquest' by Marc Morris (good read for anyone interested here BTW). Crazy brutal stuff.

ClovenHoof

buried wrote: »

Yeah, well said. I actually never heard of that atrocity until I read 'The Norman Conquest' by Marc Morris (good read for anyone interested here BTW). Crazy brutal stuff.

The Harrying of the North was perhaps the first genocide in Europe and took place long before the Cathar Crusade. The Normans were brutal and efficient killers who really only brought crushing taxation and totalitarian rule to these islands.

Culturally they were a wasteland, while the Medieval Irish had a culture which would have been the envy of much of Europe at the time and one which even seduced the Normans and English.

I think the cheap Chinese dye from Sand's annual Great War poppy on his collar has leaked into this skin. The Irish were a more moderate and far more cultured society than the genocide happy and totalitarian rule imposing Normans.

buried

ClovenHoof wrote: »

The Harrying of the North was perhaps the first genocide in Europe and took place long before the Cathar Crusade. The Normans were brutal and efficient killers who really only brought crushing taxation and totalitarian rule to these islands.

Any good books you could recommend on that period and place? Only ones I've read are the Morris one and David Carpenter's 'The Struggle for Mastery', plus the heavy propaganda writing of 'Gerald of Wales' from that timeline. Would appreciate it Clovenhoof!

ClovenHoof

buried wrote: »

Any good books you could recommend on that period and place? Only ones I've read are the Morris one and David Carpenter's 'The Struggle for Mastery', plus the heavy propaganda writing of 'Gerald of Wales' from that timeline. Would appreciate it Clovenhoof!

as you yourself cited The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris is a great place to start.

“I persecuted the native inhabitants of England beyond all reason. Whether nobles or commons, I cruelly oppressed them; many I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes, especially in the county of York, perished through me by famine and sword…I am stained with the rivers of blood that I have shed.” - William of Normandy

“In his anger at the English barons, William commanded that all crops and herds, chattels and foods should be burned to ashes, so that the whole of the North be stripped of all means of survival. So terrible a famine fell upon the people, that more than 100,000 young and old starved to death. My writings have often praised William, but for this act I can only condemn him.” - Orderic Vitalis

There's the great civilizing force for you.

buried

ClovenHoof wrote: »

as another posted cited The Norman Conquest by Marc Morris is a great place to start.

lol That was me man!:)

Your Face

Well they did come, so why waste your time?
We're still dealing what actually happened.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

I would not have my lovely sofa

looksee

BabyE wrote: »

The Normans were vikings.

No, the Normans had been Vikings. (but whether they were Vikings or Normans, they came to fight the Vikings, not the Irish.) By the time they came at the request of Dermot McMurrough they had developed a distinct identity as Normans.

McMurrough had asked Henry II for help in getting back the lands from which he had been evicted by other Irish chiefs but Henry was not interested in coming himself. However the Pope had recently said that Ireland should be brought back under the influence of the Catholic church - he thought the Irish needed to be brought back under the influence of Rome - so Henry used this excuse to allow McMurrough to go and ask around to to see who would help him. Richard de Clare (Strongbow) agreed.

De Clare defeated the Viking city of Waterford. The Normans were given lands by the arrangement with McMurrough. The English king came subsequently as he felt the Norman lords were getting a bit too powerful, and they had to be reminded who was king.

mitchconnor16

mariaalice wrote: »

What do you think would have happened in Ireland.

If the Irish Chiefs and Chieftains has not been decimated by the Norman invasions. The clan's would have eventually become an Irish aristocracy with massive estates the same as the imposed English aristocracy, although with an ingrained Irish culture. As we did not have an industrial revolution we would have ended up an Irish peasant/aristocracy culture similar to France, Maybe we wouldn't have had the famine but us peasants would have been very poor working our tiny plots of leased land and eventually somehow the Chieftains aristocracy would have been over trow and the land distributed? and a modern democracy emerge? We would all be duel Irish/English speakers with a unique culture?.

I'm sure the cowardly earls wouldn't have fled to Spain to seek Spanish assistance.

Arsemageddon

ClovenHoof wrote: »

The Harrying of the North was perhaps the first genocide in Europe..

The harrying of the north was not a genocide, and even if it was it wouldn't have been the first in Europe.

This is genuinely one of the stupidest statements I have ever read.

JupiterKid

Wow - so much bitterness expressed at an event which took place on the guts of a Millenium ago. And I'm pretty sure the Normans had their own rich, distinct culture. Just look at their stunning castles.

Anyhow the OP's question is academic. The Normans did come and they changed the face of Ireland.

FA Hayek

Surely puts paid to the myth about 800 years of oppression.