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'The Field' - Irish relationship to land.
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21-01-2012 5:42pm#1
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Am opening this in response to a discussion re: the Famine in the 'Atrocities' thread which was threatening to drag us off topic.
Originally, I was thinking of just looking at land in the 19th century - landlords, tenants, managers etc but I decided a broader look at the often obsessive relationship the Irish have with land - who owns it, who had use of it, how do we view it etc might be interesting. Plus, as an early modernist who specialises in Gaelic Ireland I'd like to get 'my' area into the discussion.
So to kick off on a controversial note I thought I'd share this article from History Ireland on Captain Boycott. http://www.historyireland.com///volumes/?id=114975
By 1871 ‘Captain’ Charles Cunningham Boycott had been on Achill Island for seventeen years and had proven himself to be a good and successful farmer in a hostile and challenging environment; quite understandably, he wanted to move on to farm better land on the mainland, somewhere he could race his horses and be closer to ‘civilisation’. Moreover, his friend Murray Blacker had emigrated to the US, the island was still cut off by the sea and he had become head of his East Anglian family since the death of both his father and elder brother and wished to make himself more accessible. His opportunity came in 1872, when John Crichton, 3rd earl of Erne, who owned 40,386 acres in Ireland, 2,184 of them in Mayo, offered him the agency of his lands near the Neale, Co. Mayo, and a lease on a farm of 629 acres with a good house with yard and stables, a ruined castle, two islands, a boathouse and sporting rights.
Lord Erne preferred Englishmen or Scots in positions of authority, and the title of ‘Captain’, most likely bestowed on Boycott by the tenants for obvious reasons, may have played a part in getting him the offer. In 1870, landlords, many of them absentee, owned 80% of all the land of Ireland, while 50% of tenants occupied holdings of less than fifteen acres; more than three quarters of all holdings were annual tenancies.
On 1 May 1874 Boycott took a lease on Lough Mask House and farm for 31 years at £402 p.a. for the first nine years and £500 p.a. for the remaining 22 years, and, unknowingly, began his march into history. He had, he thought, found the home ‘where he would spend the remainder of his days’, but it was to prove to be the wrong place and the wrong time. The land at Lough Mask was much better than his holding on Achill and Boycott’s experience on the island stood to him; he farmed well and prospered. Although still only a tenant farmer himself, he was probably the biggest employer in the area and got on well with both his workers and the local people. He kept a few racehorses, which he often rode himself at local meets with some success, and hunted, shot and fished in season. It is recorded that he rode two winners on the same day at Sligo races under the colours of Lady Gore Booth.
As Erne’s agent he was the ‘boss of the boss’s orders’ and had a duty to collect the rents from the other 35 tenants and generally look after the estate. At this stage, after twenty years in the county, he considered himself a Mayoman.
The Land War begins
In the late 1870s a widespread economic downturn caused a crisis in Irish agriculture; rack-renting and mass evictions were the order of the day, and famine was a constant threat in the west. James Daly, a native of Lahardane, Co. Mayo, editor and joint owner of the Connaught Telegraph newspaper, organised a mass meeting of tenants at Irishtown, Co. Mayo, on 20 April 1879 to protest against their landlord, Canon Geoffrey Bourke PP, and forced him to withdraw eviction notices and reduce rents by 25%. The Connaught Telegraph was the only Mayo paper to publish an account of this historic event. Daly had consistently highlighted Mayo tenants’ grievances and his paper was the land movement’s first and most effective propaganda vehicle for farmers in the west and elsewhere.
On 22 September David Sears, a process-server, and an escort of seventeen RIC constables began serving Lord Erne’s defaulting tenants around the Neale with eviction notices, but they were soon forced back to Lough Mask House by the local women under a shower of stones, mud and manure. It seems that at this stage ‘Captain’ Boycott had been targeted by the Land League (founded in October 1879) as a test case ‘to gain the eyes and ears of the world’, because the following day his farm was invaded by a mob of up to 100 people and his work force warned off. Local curate Fr O’Malley is reported as having congratulated them on ‘the great victory you have achieved and the noble example you have set’. There is a local legend that O’Malley had a falling out with Boycott around that time; he had sent one of Boycott’s workers, a man named Branigan, to ask the ‘Captain’ for a site for a Catholic school, and Boycott, not unreasonably, had enquired why he had not come himself. (O’Malley is also credited with coining the verb ‘boycott’, saying that the people would not be able to remember ‘ostracise’.)
Boycott now found himself in a very difficult situation, as he had horses, cattle, sheep and poultry to look after and crops to get in with very few helpers. Three of his staff refused to leave—Johnny Meany, a groom and former jockey, Judy, the cook, and Harriet, a parlour maid—and he had four guests staying at the time, a teenage niece, two teenage nephews and his niece’s fiancé. They carried on as best they could, rising at 4am, with the men being escorted everywhere by armed police, but by night fences and gates were broken, trees and hedges felled and crops stolen or ruined.
Boycott was in a fix but was determined to do his duty and see it through: ‘I can hardly desert Lord Erne and moreover my own property is sunk in this place’.
‘Boycott relief expedition’
Some of the 50 volunteers of the ‘Boycott relief expedition’—mainly Orangemen from Cavan and Monaghan
William Sydney Clements, 3rd earl of Leitrim, had been ‘executed’ on 2 April 1878 at Cratlagh Wood, near Milford, Co. Donegal, after he had threatened to evict twenty families ‘before casting a fly on Lough Mask’ that year. On 25 September 1880 Lord Mountmorres was assassinated near his home at Clonbur, Co. Galway. On 14 October 1880 Boycott wrote to the London Times setting out his predicament, and on 29 October the Dublin Daily Express proposed the setting up of a fund to save Boycott’s crops. This was adopted enthusiastically in Ulster, where Lord Erne lived at Crom Castle, Co. Fermanagh, and plans were laid for the ‘Boycott relief expedition’.
Boycott needed and sought no more than about twelve men to harvest his eight acres of turnips, seven acres of mangolds, two acres of potatoes and to thresh twenty acres of already-cut corn, but by the first week in November 1880 the matter was out of his hands; the Ulster ‘Boycott relief expedition’ had organised 50 volunteers, Orangemen from Cavan and Monaghan, to ‘get in the Captain’s turnips’. One of the leaders of the expedition was a Captain Somerset Maxwell, who had been a trustee of the Achill Mission. The volunteers arrived at Lough Mask House on 12 November, escorted by a large company of soldiers, having had to walk all the way from Claremorris railway station in driving rain as none of the local drivers would carry them, and they were accommodated in tents on the lawns, in barns and in the boathouse.
There were around 900 soldiers stationed in and around Ballinrobe and the Neale for the next two weeks until the harvesting was finished, and a large number of Boycott’s sheep, fowl and other foodstuffs vanished while they were there; they also turned Boycott’s well-tended paths and lawns into an appalling quagmire. On 27 November they left along with the relief expedition, and it was reckoned that it had cost up to £10,000 to save a harvest worth at most £350. The Connaught Telegraph gave extensive coverage to the episode and, under the heading ‘OUR INVADERS’, James Daly recorded the miserable state of the rain-sodden volunteers and soldiers and, as was his wont, called for restraint by hotheads to avoid any danger of bloodshed.
Boycott departs and sells up
In 1886 Boycott sold his interest in the house and surrounding farm to Bernard Daly of Ballinrobe, whose descendants have farmed there ever since.
Left without protection, and with no alternative, the following day ‘Captain’ Boycott and his wife Annie quietly and sadly left their home in an army ambulance wagon, escorted by a troop of the 19th Hussars. In Dublin they were escorted from the train to the Hamman Hotel, Upper Sackville Street, by detectives, and on 1 December 1880 they took the mail-boat to Holyhead. The affair made headlines worldwide and he was now a legendary and notorious figure. By the end of 1880 ‘boycotting’ was widespread in Ireland and further afield, and within twenty years the word would appear in dictionaries all over the world. In spring 1881, travelling as Mr and Mrs Charles Cunningham, the Boycotts sailed for the US to visit their friends Murray and Frances Blacker in Amelia County, Virginia, arriving in early April. It had been a long, hard winter for Boycott and he recovered his health and his humour on his first visit to the New World.
In August 1881 the Boycotts returned quietly to Ireland and Lough Mask House and found that nothing had been lost or stolen in their absence. It is probable that when they were forced to leave an Ulsterman was installed as caretaker, as had been the case in other similar situations. Mayo lore has it that they were warmly welcomed home by the local people. In December 1880 Boycott had written to Prime Minister Gladstone seeking £6,000 compensation for the losses that he sustained ‘due to the absence of law in the West of Ireland’. He was not successful and finally had to face the fact that he could no longer afford to stay on at Lough Mask. In 1886 the farm was bought by Bernard Daly from Ballinrobe, whose family have farmed it ever since.
Back in England the same year Boycott took the job of land agent to the 14,000-acre estate of Catholic landowner Sir Hugh Adair along the Norfolk/Suffolk county boundary, close to where he was born, and moved into the agent’s house in Flixton. These continued to be very bad years for farming, with cheap imports and depressed markets, and, as Adair spent much of his time away from home, the running of the estate fell to his agent. Boycott took his duties very seriously and as always he worked hard, earning a reputation for being understanding but firm. He still raced his horses under his own colours of green, with rose sleeves and a black cap, often riding himself and showing ‘indomitable pluck in the saddle’, but always lacked the money to make any real impact. When he took holidays he spent them in Ireland.
The day Charles Cunningham Boycott died, aged 65 and a ‘technical bankrupt’, nearly the whole of the Royal Navy was lined up in the Solent and beyond with its admirals and its bands; sirens sounded, flags and pennants fluttered in the warm breeze, and church bells pealed out loudly and joyfully throughout the length and breadth of the UK. It was 19 June 1897 and Queen Victoria was celebrating her diamond jubilee. Boycott’s headstone was erected by his employer, Sir Hugh Adair, but, fittingly, his burial service in Burgh-St Peter Church was conducted by the Revd Douglass Boycott, one of the nephews who had been with him during the famous ‘siege’ seventeen years earlier at Lough Mask House, the Neale, Co. Mayo. HI
Liam Ó Raghallaigh is a local historian, originally from Mayo.
Further reading:
C.A. Boycott, Boycott: the life behind the word (London, 1997).
Connaught Tribune, 1880–1881.
J. Marlow, Captain Boycott and the Irish (London, 1973).
So what to people think? Was Boycott the heartless b**tard who drove people to ruin in order to collect the rents we have been led to believe or was he the fall guy - set up by a local parish priest who he had thwarted as the focus hatred for a series of events Boycott himself was relatively uninvolved in?0 -
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Bannasidhe wrote: »
So what to people think? Was Boycott the heartless b**tard who drove people to ruin in order to collect the rents we have been led to believe or was he the fall guy - set up by a local parish priest who he had thwarted as the focus hatred for a series of events Boycott himself was relatively uninvolved in?
I have always had a soft spot for Captain Boycott and he was the tenant of the landlord Lord Erne.
This has a bit of a Peter Keavney grandfather of Patrick Kavanagh about it.
http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~scruff/kavanagh.htm
Another famous Land Agent was William Steuart Trench
http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/t/Trench_WS/life.htm
So presumably they dealt with better off farmers who had sub tenants of their own ?0 -
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The thing is under the Gaelic system the vast majority of the population was tenant farmers. So when you think about it the switch to a different "landlord class" shouldn't really have caused much of a difference for the population. I really wonder if part of it is a direct result of the Famine and the fact that some landlords used this as an excuse for Clearances. For example Glenveagh national park in Donegal is result of the then landlord evicting the entire population so that he could have a shooting estate/Sheep ranch (ala similiar ones in Highlands)
It wasn't quite the same relationship as the English concept of landlord/tenant.
Firstly the chieftain, or indeed any member of the derbfine (4 generations descended in the male line from a chieftain - the Gaelic version of the aristocracy), did not personally own the land - they, as members of the blood, essentially held shares expressed as possession for their lifetime (or until they were kicked out and sent into exile) of a certain amount of acres of the Clan land. Some clans had a fairly stable system of who lived approximately where, others liked to shuffle it around every year. This does not meant that personal landownership didn't exist - but it was confined to very small plots held when mortgagees defaulted. Although women were not permitted to have shares in the Clan land they could and did own land having paid out mortgages which were not repaid. A woman's land remained her own until she died and it passed to her heirs or she sold it - unlike under Common law, it did not become her husband's property upon marriage. It remained hers and hers alone.
Chieftains could be de-selected - landlords couldn't.
If the chieftain died ('oops, my bad. My throwing dart slipped. Oh No! Is that where the heart is??? Silly, silly me') - that did not mean his eldest male heir gained control so that sense of absolute entitlement vested in a relatively nuclear family present in the aristocracy of countries which followed primogeniture didn't have a chance to really develop in Gaelic Ireland. There were far too many equally entitled rivals around for anyone to truly get up themselves about what they would eventually get. The system gave them the building blocks via a few acres when they turned 15 - everything else they had to work for. Competing with all the other members of the derbfine - all with equal claims.
In terms of who eventually became successor to the dear departed chieftain- this was the person who among other things could claim the loyalty of the most followers - being rich, cunning, ruthless with enemies, generous to friends and a very hospitable host were also incredibly important. A man who couldn't look after 'his' people would soon lack for followers thereby ending any hope of gaining power.
The bretaghs - or the 'tenant farmers' you referred to - were not tied to the land via a lease but to the chieftain by a sense of mutual benefit. The derbfine and kerns acted as the armed protectors, allowing the bretaghs to farm in relative safety.
A Chieftain who couldn't protect the 'lesser' folk would soon be replaced as the economy of the Clan would begin to suffer and their status would fall - leaving then vulnerable to more powerful neighbours ('whoops - there goes those damnable slippery darts again') but the relationship between 'aristocrats' and 'peasants' was not codified as it was under the Feudal System. It was very much based on loyalty to the chief in return for his military protection and skill at 'acquiring' rich spoils from the neighbouring Clans.
The Bretaghs were not expected to fight - that was the preserve of the derbfine and the kerns - Shane Ua Neill was the one to change that by arming and training the bretaghs in the 156Os. The norm was if more fighters were required the clan called on the gallowglass they kept on retainer ('paid' via the allocation of land with the boundaries to the greater Clan lands), summoned their client chieftains to a hosting and/or hired seasonal mercenaries from Western Scotland known as Redshanks. Actual battles were rare and the main form of warfare was the raiding party - this was where the contenders for the chieftainship earned their reputations - becoming 'named' men. Raiding parties were highly mobile, raids were well planned and a fast getaway was absolutely vital. Counter attack, if it came, occurred after the raid when the party was trying to get home with a langer load of someone else's cattle. This was why the mounted members of the derbfine traditionally rode at the back behind the kern foot soldiers- the English accused them of cowardice for this but given that attack would usually come from pursuers trying to reclaim their cows it made perfect sense.
The aristocracy did not farm. They stole cattle, the retrieved cattle, they protected cattle [in a butch, swordy way] - they ate cattle. They wore bits of cattle. They did not feed, milk, slaughter or otherwise engage with the business end of cattle minding. Or, heaven forbid, crop planting/harvesting - that's what the bretaghs were for. It must be admitted that the Tudor administrators complained that the Irish nobles were outrageous snobs - and there is ample evidence to support that accusation.
If a bretagh wished to fight - he became officially became a kern or foot solider thereby ceasing to be a bretagh.
Nicholls has shown the population was small and mobile - not being a pastoral people allowed the Gaelic Irish far greater freedom of movement then experienced in most other European countries. For chieftains to maintain the lifestyle they felt was appropriate (Haughey didn't get his notions by licking a rock
) they needed an income - some would be gained through raiding parties, but most would come from what was produced on the land they 'controlled'. If the bretaghs moved on - income declined. Decline in income = reduction in largesse/inability to hire redshanks. Reduction in largesse = clients begin to look for other 'patrons'. Clients form alternative alliances = chieftain's arse on the line as rival chieftains begin to smell vulnerability. Vulnerability = your arse is gonna get raided!!! No redshanks = bye bye.
The Bretaghs could, and did, move to live under another chief (usually a different sept of the same Clan) should the first prove too onerous in his exactions or not be seen to fufil his side of the social contract. In Mayo, Mayday was the traditional day this happened - Our Buddy Richard Bingham has a rant in the State Papers about waking up one Mayday to find all his 'tenants' had moved elsewhere. He was petitioning to have the practice outlawed.
It is worth noting that when Gráinne Ní Mháille's 2nd husband, Risteard In Iarainn á Búrc died (he was MacUilliam at the time) she decamped from Loch Mask castle - the seat of the MacUilliam - and returned to Carrigahowley in Burrishoole (under Gaelic law she had no right to do this as that was Bourke land - she should have returned to Umhall) with 1000 followers. This would seem to indicate that men followed her because she looked after them - and that they were free to do so. We know she turned up in Galway in 1576 with 3 galleys and 200 'fighting men' - as a woman she had no legal authority whatsoever to command the loyalty of men, particularly men not of her own Clan. Therefore there must have been another dynamic at play. We cannot dismiss Ní Mháille as an anomaly (though many have tried) as she had two powerful female contemporaries who also personally commanded fighting men:
Agnes Campbell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Campbell) married to Turlough Luineach Ua Neill (The Uí Neill and rival to Hugh O Neill, earl of Tyrone)
and her daughter Fionnuala Inion Dubh Nic Dhomhnaill -(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In%C3%ADon_Dubh) who married Aodh mac Magnusa Ó Domhnaill (The Uí Domhnaill of Tirconnell).
In addition, Nicholls (K.W. Nicholls in case ye were wondering ) has argued convincingly that the focus of the Gaelic chieftains was not on the acquisition of land per se, but in a) gaining the loyalty of the people within his existing domain so that he could b) Get one up on rival clans by beating the crap out of them then forcing them to pay tribute and hopefully c) Avoid having the neighbours come over and administer an arse kicking- and who would argue with Nicholls? (Well, I did once actually, it was declared a draw by the amused audience of post-grads but I did need to change my underware afterwards :eek:).
The other method of raising large amounts of readies (aka beeves aka cows) was mortgaging land - but the chief needed permission for that and it was generally only agreed in certain circumstance - war or, more usually, for a dowry. Dowry might seem like a strange one, but not when one considers a marriage was first and foremost an alliance between two clans. The woman's clan would want to make sure that the dowry they paid reflected the status they were trying to project.
I think the arrival of Common Law seriously changed the relationship the Irish had with land and that of the nobility with the peasantry- now I must admit it's a hypothesis I'm working on and the research is in the early stage.
Previously, under the Gaelic system a clan held land from time immemorial - yes, on occasion there was pushing and shoving but these rarely resulted in land actually changing ownership - granted, post Strongbow the Uí Flaithbhertaigh, for example, did get shoved west by the Burkes and the McCarthy by the Fitzgeralds-but lets face it, the Normans redrew the map for a while - then it all settled down again. Also Clans who failed to maintain their status could find themselves reduced until eventually (within a few generations) they became bretaghs as the exactions of more powerful neighbours bankrupted them. The powerful, or sneaky, neighbours would chip away at their land bit by bit. Move a boundary here, an ogham stone there. Bob's your uncle -more land. (Still happens today - my nephew recently inherited some land but when he went to see it last week he discovered his new neighbour has built a bloody great driveway through his [nephew's] land :eek:)
The average Gaelic ruler's preferred method, however, was to physically force the 'neighbours' to pay 'Black rent' once a year. They breed the cows, trap the furs, grow and harvest the whatever and then they bring them to you in tribute . Maximum gain for minimum effort - now that's power. Plus - what's the point of killing a rival when one could let him live and pay for the privilege of having his ass handed to him by you for the rest of this life.
The arrival of the Normans brought this weird concept of personal ownership of large amounts of land ( not a few acres that were mortgaged to raise a few quid to see Emer married to Teige in style which were never quite redeemed as had previously been the case with personal landownership) and, even more startling was the need to have a piece of paper, with a fancy waxy stamp attached,and a ribbon, that said one owned the land.
Didn't really catch on in Gaelic circles (perhaps the frequency with which throwing darts 'slipped' and became embedded in unpopular chieftains described in the Annals had some baring on that).
Even Surrender and Regrant failed to attract that many Gaelic lords - O'Brien, O'Neill and McCarthy were the main ones - and McCarthy gave his title back. Both the new earldoms of Tyrone and Clanricard were riven by civil war for years after.
Some Anglo-Norman families stuck to 'their' ways of owning land (Fitzgeralds, Butlers)- others adopted Gaelic ideas (Burkes, Costellos, Stauntons).
The Tudors changed all of that. If one looks in the Westport House maunscripts one can almost see the moment it all began to change forever and the writing was on the deed for Gaelic Ireland. The Westport MSS contains several document relating to land purchases - over the course of the 1590s Tibbóid na Long á Búrc was buying plots of land of various sizes scattered around western Mayo. He always made sure he got the required piece of paper. Bit by bit Tibbóid became the largest landowner in Mayo - and Viscount Mayo - the lands he had been so busy buying up were the old MacUilliam Lands.
The significant thing is that Tibbóid's father - Risteard In Iarainn needed no such pieces of paper. Prior to 1586 neither did Tibbóid - sure 'everyone' knew which bits of land were 'his' and if they had an issue with that Tibbóid's mammy and her 200 odd fighting men would pop over for a quick chat (as The MacEvilly of Kinturk learned to his cost).
After 1586, Tibbóid owned no land - or shares in land - everything he thought was 'his' now turned out to belong to the earl of Ormond. Why? Because Ormond had pieces of paper that said a Thomas Boitlier had been granted the land Tibbóid and his brothers, cousins, uncles etc thought was 'theirs'- they had been living there since at least the mid 14th century.
Ormond argued that this Boitlier was, in fact, a Butler and although Thomas' direct line was extinct - ownership remained in the Butler family passed from heir to heir until it became Black Tom's- how else would Ormond have the deeds. The Bourkes pointed out that they had in fact swapped land they held in Tipperary and Kilkenny for the land in Mayo - it's in the Annals they cried, 'ask the Brehons' they pleaded. 'Show us yer deeds!!' retorted Ormond. Deals done on a handshake, a spit (and a marriage alliance) sadly often fail to produce any paperwork. Ormond got the land.
The change from communally owned Clan land controlled by an extended family whose leadership was determined by proving ones abilities and whose right to that land were held in the oral tradition to personally owned land where control was held in a nuclear family and succession was based on primogeniture with ownership established by possession a specific set of documents overturned the very foundations of the Gaelic world. It also changed the dynamic between the nobility and the peasant whose loyalty no longer needed to be cultivated but now could be demanded as a right.
Tibbóid na Long saw what was coming down the line and he got those all important pieces of paper - most were not so perceptive or lacked the funds.
What I am seeking to determine is was that the moment when the Irish began to develop an obsession with having those pieces of paper that confirm we own the land. An insurance so that no-one can take it from us again - it ours because we have a piece of official paper that says it is.
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Dr.Nightdub wrote: »If I'm following it right, the "dispossessed Gael" part didn't kick in until later.
The process Bannasidhe described changed the structure from communal ownership to who had the bits of paper. Smart Gaels or Anglo-Normans could always swallow their pride, grovel to the relevant Tudor / Stuart monarch and get the bits of paper, thereafter maintaining a relatively benign relationship with the lower orders who'd been on "their" land beforehand.
Then along came the plantations and even the bits of paper no longer counted, or completely fresh sets were issued to whoever needed to be rewarded. I only vaguely remember this from school (in the 70s) but there were three waves of plantation:
1. Elizabeth I - Laois & Offaly
2. James I - Ulster
3. Cromwell - all the other good bits; not even perfidious Albion would covet Leitrim and they needed Connacht to send the people with the out-of-date bits of paper to
Well as Bannasidhe explains it quite elegantly "members of the blood" had "shares". Nichol in his book compares Clan structure to that of a Corporation when it came to ownership. Ergo the entire land was vested in the "Corporate entity" of which the members had shares.
I'm assuming in above context "members of the blood" = righdamhna (kingly material) ergo the members of the overall Clan Deirbhfhine who could be potential Taoiseach. If one had fallen out of the Deirbhfhine you didn't have a vote when it came to the Oireachtas that elected the new Clann Taoiseach. Generally also in ideal situation the title of taoiseach would rotate between different branches of the Clan.
No doubt Bannasidhe will correct me though
As for plantations the others one left out are those of the 1620's in North Wexford, Laois and Offaly, Longford, Leitrim and north Tipperary. In general those are ignored on the history curriculm (Junior Cert?) in school.
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Dr.Nightdub wrote: »Thanks Dubhthach, I never even knew about the Munster one in the map or the 1620s one, so keep the lessons coming. BTW it was Inter Cert back then so they obviously just changed the name but not the content
Maybe you weren't paying attention.
Sometimes it helps to think local, and you might parse thru some of the links on the Knight of Glin Thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=74431899
To borrow a phrase " Big history is like a bikini and sometimes hides more than it reveals".
How do you account for the survival of catholic families like the O'Connells ( Daniel O'Connell) , the Knights of Glin & the Plunketts and so on. ?0 -
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Well as Bannasidhe explains it quite elegantly "members of the blood" had "shares". Nichol in his book compares Clan structure to that of a Corporation when it came to ownership. Ergo the entire land was vested in the "Corporate entity" of which the members had shares.
I'm assuming in above context "members of the blood" = righdamhna (kingly material) ergo the members of the overall Clan Deirbhfhine who could be potential Taoiseach. If one had fallen out of the Deirbhfhine you didn't have a vote when it came to the Oireachtas that elected the new Clann Taoiseach. Generally also in ideal situation the title of taoiseach would rotate between different branches of the Clan.
No doubt Bannasidhe will correct me though
As for plantations the others one left out are those of the 1620's in North Wexford, Laois and Offaly, Longford, Leitrim and north Tipperary. In general those are ignored on the history curriculm (Junior Cert?) in school.
Oh dear - I hope I am not coming across as a know-all
. I certainly do not know it all - far from it! I am enjoying this opportunity to 'think out loud' and the feed back I get. Cheers guys - You all are my peer reviewers and I trust that if I get something wrong - as I frequently do - or push the evidence too far ye will (nicely) come down on me like a well deserved ton of bricks.
Ok - but now I do need to issue a very slight correction to what Dubhtach posted above
.
The office of Taoiseach was that of main councillor to the Clan chieftain - he may be a member of the Clan or, more usually, a trusted client. Brady likes to say that to understand Gaelic Ireland - watch The Godfather - he's not wrong. In that film Robert Duvall plays Tom Hagen - informally adopted son of Don Vito Corleone who acts as the family lawyer and consigliere. The role of the Taoiseach was the same as that of the consigliere. He was the voice of 'reason' behind the chieftain.
The chieftain himself was the personification of the Clan - so each clan selected candidates who reflected their image of themselves back to them and projected that image to the outside world. The chieftain referred to himself as 'Is Mise' plus plural Clan name -[ I am Uí Neill/Uí Domhnaill/MacUillaim] etc when acting in an official capacity but when acting a private individual they would use the singular 'Ua'. Their title translates into English as 'The' (sometimes called The Chief of The Name).
Indeed the word Chieftain comes from Norman French chevetaine and was unknown in Ireland prior to the arrival of the Normans.
It was absolutely possible for people to drop down from the derbfine - if ones direct male ancestors back 4 generations (so to great-grandfather) had failed to become a chieftain - then you were no longer a member of the derbfine.
Sometimes such septs would form breakaway minor clans. For example in Mayo Clan Morris, Mac Philpin, Mac Daithaí were such minor clans - they were all technically Bourkes but had dropped out of the derbfine for succession to the main MacUilliam title so became 'new' Clans which were clients of the main Bourke line.
Sometimes the descendants of a particularly powerful figure would break away and form a new clan based on this new line. This was how the Uí Brian came into existence in the 11 century - Brian Boruma himself was Mac Cennétig but his descendants reckoned Brian was a far more impressive ancestor to claim descent from then his father Cennétig. Those with the name Kennedy are the descendants of that Cennétig.
In terms of the actual election process it varied from Clan to Clan - we do have a very good idea of what happened with the Mayo Bourkes as Áodh Rua Ua Domhnall attempted to subvert the process and install his own candidate - in the outrage that followed we were left with a very accurate account of what should have happened - and what actually happened.
There were 4 sliocht or septs remaining in the MacUilliam derbfine by the late 16th century: Ullig of Burrishoole, Achill and Erris, Éamonn of Castlebar, Ricard of Tirawley and Ultar of Kilmaine.
When a new MacUilliam was being selected - the extended Clan plus client clans would call an Oireachtas at a 'sacred' rath in Kilmaine near Shrule (sacred since 1333 when the founder of the MacUilliamship, Éamonn Albanach chose it).
The seniors of each sliocht would enter the rath with the chieftains of their traditional 5 main clients clans- these 5 would then select the MacUilliam and his Tanaiste. So each sliocht chose it's candidates but the actual chieftain and his immediate successor was chosen by the clients. The closest rival to the new MacUilliam was usually made Tanaiste - they were naturally usually from another Sliocht.
When the MacUilliam died there was a bit of pushing and shoving as the Tanaiste worked to ensure he got the title - then there would be an election for a new Tanaiste at an Oireachtas plus the inauguration of both MacUillam and his appointed successor at the same time.
In the last decades of the 16th century it went as follows:
(1570-1580) Seán Mac Oliverus of Sliocht Ricard as MU with Risteard In Iarainn of Sliocht Ullig as Tanaiste.
(1580-1582) Risteard In Iarainn as MU - Ricard Mac Oliverus of Sliocht Rocard as Tanaiste.
(1582-1585) Ricard Mac Oliverus as MU - Éamonn of Sliocht Éamonn as Tanaiste.
1585 Ricard Mac Oliverus allies with Richard Bingham and title is declared extinct.
'Unofficial' (according to the Tudors) Mac Uilliam's:
(1585/6] Éamonn of Sliocht Éamonn as MU - Uilliam an tAb Caoch [The Blind Abbot] Sliocht Ullig as Tanaste.
(1585 - 1598) The Blind Abbot - no official Tanaiste known.
1589-1601) Uí Domhnall 'sponsors' an official inauguration but uses force to 'proclaim' his first cousin Tibbóid Mac Ultar Ciotach of Sliocht Ricard as MU. Tibbóid na Long of Sliocht Ullig was considered the front runner. Sliocht Ullig, Ultar and Éamonn unite and drive Uí Domhnall's Mac Uilliam out of Mayo. A new inauguration is held - Risteard mac Demann of Sliocht Ullig selected.
Mac Demann died fighting the 'other' MacUilliam in 1601, Tibbóid na Long was considered to now be 'the Bourkes' Mac Uilliam. He fought at Kinsale for Mountjoy - or rather he fought at Kinsale against Uí Domhnall and his puppet MacUilliam. Tibbóid was created Viscount Mayo by Charles I - his rival MacUilliam died in Spain having fled with Uí Domhnall.0 -
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I should point out the Kennedys are actually from Brian's nephew who shared the same name as his father.
What's interesting about this is that you can easily distingush between the two genetically. Mainly as the Dál gCais have their own marker (L226 -- Most recent common ancestor circa 1200 years ago), while alot of names connected to Uí Maine show up as M222+ (Connachta/Uí Néill).
Anyways I'm glad your brought up the MacWilliam Íochtair inaguration site in Mayo. There's an essay specifically about the Burkes inaguration sites in: Gaelic Ireland c.1250-c.1650: Land,Lordship & Settlement by elizabeth FitzPatrick (Assembly and Inaguration Places of the Burkes in Late Medieval Connacht).
What's interesting is that the Clanrickard Brukes (Mac Uilliam Uachtair) adopted he ingaurantation site of the Uí Fiachrach Aidhne (Caher na nIarla). However the Mac Uilliam Íochtair seem to be abit later into the game and didn't use the ignaturation site of the Conmaicne Cúile Talad (Connemara derives from Conmaicne), but instead the ringfort of Rath Eassa Caoide (the site above). Anyways it's interesting to think that a mere 80 years after their arrival in Connacht that they had gone from more then likely French speaking to using native succession practises.
I should point out as well that in Modern Irish Ua is written as Ó
thence Ua Duḃṫaiġ -> Ó Dubhthaigh
Anyways back to Taoiseach Nicholl (Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle Ages) doesn't agree with you he categorically states (Ch.2)
Tighearna = Tiarna (modern Irish)
Likewise in Scotland the term used is the cognate tòiseach. Interesting enough the original term Fine (Clan/kin-group) survived in usage in scotland but gave way to Sliocht (seed of) in Ireland.
Anyways when I look up Taoiseach in DIL (Dictionary of Irish language -- covering old/middle Irish period eg. before Norman arrival). I see the following headwords:
See here in DIL: Toísech (hit expand all)
Clann of course means "children of" and maintains this meaning in modern Irish. One thing most people don't realise when they learn irish in school and they mistakening use Clann to describe their family (parents etc.). It can only be used to describe ones children.
Rightly corrected!
What do you think the argument I had with Nicholls was about...;)
Edit: To say Katharine Simms From Kings to Warlords. The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages (1987) looks at the inauguration of Ó Domhnall's MacUilliam.
It's due to Katherine I use the spelling forms for names that I do - way back when I began my thesis I decided I didn't want to use the Anglicised versions unless the person was actually Anglicised - it was the whole Grace O Malley thing getting up my nose. Simms (my extern) has a 'thing' about using the correct Irish forms - so I decided to trawl through the Annals to find the accurate (i.e. the one they used) and go with that - that way I could provide an acceptable source for the form I was using. When there were various versions (gotta love that non-standardised spelling!), I went with the first version. 0 -
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Just the one.Bannasidhe wrote: »
If the chieftain died ('oops, my bad. My throwing dart slipped. Oh No! Is that where the heart is??? Silly, silly me')
The aristocracy did not farm. They stole cattle, they retrieved cattle, they protected cattle [in a butch, swordy way] - they ate cattle. They wore bits of cattle. They did not feed, milk, slaughter or otherwise engage with the business end of cattle minding. Or, heaven forbid, crop planting/harvesting - that's what the bretaghs were for. It must be admitted that the Tudor administrators complained that the Irish nobles were outrageous snobs - and there is ample evidence to support that accusation.
If the bretaghs moved on - income declined. Decline in income = reduction in largesse/inability to hire redshanks. Reduction in largesse = clients begin to look for other 'patrons'. Clients form alternative alliances = chieftain's arse on the line as rival chieftains begin to smell vulnerability. Vulnerability = your arse is gonna get raided!!! No redshanks = bye bye.
In addition, Nicholls (K.W. Nicholls in case ye were wondering ) has argued convincingly that the focus of the Gaelic chieftains was not on the acquisition of land per se, but in a) gaining the loyalty of the people within his existing domain so that he could b) Get one up on rival clans by beating the crap out of them then forcing them to pay tribute and hopefully c) Avoid having the neighbours come over and administer an arse kicking- and who would argue with Nicholls? (Well, I did once actually, it was declared a draw by the amused audience of post-grads but I did need to change my underware afterwards :eek:).
Plus - what's the point of killing a rival when one could let him live and pay for the privilege of having his ass handed to him by you for the rest of this life.
Any thoughts?
Please may I have the ISBN for Bannasidhe's 'Gaelic Ireland for Dummies'?
(apologies for the unethical editing)0 -
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Just to interject another point of view here - an interview given by Dr Brendan Bradshaw to History Ireland.
http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume1/issue1/features/?id=108
I see your Bradshaw and raise you a Foster
http://www.ricorso.net/rx/bibliogs/journals/Ir_Revw/tocs/ir_rev01.htmRoy Foster, ‘We are all revisionists now’, pp.1-5: defends Irish historical revisionism against contemporary attacks from anti-revisionists such as Raymond Crotty, Joseph Lee, Vincent Comerford and Paul Bew; summarises the argument while highlighting the necessity of getting 'behind hindsight'; argues that anti-revisionists, like revisionists, are now employing modern historical methods instead of the appeal of Irish historical myth; hence the title ‘We are all revisionists now’.
:pac:
Anyone interested in the internal debate about Irish Historiography should have a read of Brady,Ciaran,( ed.), Interpreting Irish History: the Debate on Historical Revisionism 1938-1994,( Irish Academic Press, 1994.)
The debate has moved on somewhat since then - though there was a revival of absolute stances taken and gauntlets flung down during the Peter Hart Vs Meda Ryan spat which was played out in the pages of History Ireland until editor, Tommy Graham, called 'enough!'
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/803620
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