READINGS IN IRISH HISTORY

New Zealand Tablet, 4 October 1917, Page 13

READINGS IN IRISH HISTORY

B? "Shanachie."

; THE ANGLO-NORMANS TURN IRISH. The first great wave of -Keltic migration that . surged over Europe reached as far as the western rim of the | continent. They were the Gaels. Hard upon them followed a kindred.race, the Britons, who gradu-., ally pushed forward -the Gaels from the western fringe of the European mainland and the island of Britain into Ireland. ■•''ln time the Kelt of " the Continent disappeared as a distinct element of the population. Conquering Roman and Teuton assimilated him by degrees. A few geographical names, such as Alps and Garonne, alone remain to tell the story of the Kelt and his rovings at a period 1 when as yet no plough-share had upturned a rood of land, no woodman's axe had resounded in. the primeval forests of Western Europe. In Britain-the fate of the Kelt was to be the same. Roman and English invader either absorbed or drove him from his level plains into the mountain, districts of .Wales. His footprints in the England of to-day are few. Not much more than the Cromlechs of Stonehinge} a few names like London and Avon remain to remind the men of the present that the fair-haired, blue-eyed, strong-limbed Kelt was once master of that land. The Roman attacked him from the East, and the Kelt as ever set his face towards the West. Then when the crash of the Empire came Romanized Britain passed into the hands of the English, who in turn partially, gave way to the Danes or were blended with them into one people. Last of all came the Normans, who reduced the Anglo-Saxons to the condition of serfs and Normanized their customs, laws, and language. It is all like the play of the surf on a level beach, breaker chases breaker along the sand, and then comes on the last and greatest swell swallowing up the others that have gone before. "■':' In Ireland, the most western limit of his migrations, the fate of the Kelt was different. Each successive wave of invasion that broke on the Irish shore and dashed over the island, lost its identity, was absorbed. It was like pouring out water on a thirsty land. The native population, so to say, swallowed up the newcomers, though elsewhere it was invariably the invaders who absorbed the invaded. Thus the invaders of Britain, from the Jutes to the Normans, were all of the same stock, and hence it should have been easy for the native race to absorb them; but this never came to pass; the new-comers always became the dominant race. The invaders of Ireland, the Danes and the Anglo-Normans, were wholly different in origin from the ancient Keltic inhabitants. Yet the Danes and Anglo-Normans instead of becoming the dominant race, as happened in England, lost their identity and were completely absorbed by the native population; they became, as it was said, more Irish than the Irish themselves. tv . After A the short-lived and ill-starred reign of EdBruce in Ireland the current of Anglo-Irish feeling; began to set in a determined direction. J It was gradually , veering round from England towards Ireland. The descendants of the invaders were beginning ■ to recognise that, though their fathers were AngloNormans, they were Irish; that Ireland, not England, was their country. In other words, they Were giving. i|t> their Anglo-Norman speech, distinctive dress, and igjanners • for those of the natives among whom they lived.: Unconsciously they were being blended with tne Irish race , around them. The, first descendants of fa invaders to turn Irish were the. De Burgos of Conught. William De Burgo, who ''died in 1325, popped his Anglo-Norman name, and called' himself William Burke. He. spoke the Irish .language, and ; t opted the Irish customs. . JHis example was v widely. *xmitatech ;, ;V ; Another Anglo-Norman of the same pro-■ ttt.ce,. De ; Birmingham, assumed the name of ■ Macsrrjs; De Exeter became Mac Jordan, Nagle became v ftae%osielloe, and so with many others. /- In v this, way r fabric of English power in Connaught crumbled, and in the other provinces a similar; change

was taking place only more slowly. So much, indeed, was this - the case that in the reign of Edward 111. ; 7 English authority had become extinguished in three provinces and was( daily growing less and //less .'in'-it .-'-.- Leinster,' './. ■ %s's . x*. /;/ '" llj }-~l I '- >I/I 1 : $ ; . -We must pause to consider the reason of this trend/ of events, for it presents a phenomenon unique, pervf** haps, in history, i In the first place the harsh measures 7 ■ of English kings and viceroys irritaterd the Anglo-Irish ' lords and estranged them from England. Again, this transformation has been attributed, by some to the desire of these lords to acquire wealth and power, which, especially by coyne and livery, they could do under Irish but not under English• law,' and this was ? no doubt a powerful operating cause, and ■ quite in keeping with the traditional cupidity of their ancestors. The most • powerful cause at work, however, was the attractive and absorbing power of the Irish themselves —generous, warm-hearted, impulsive, sympathetic, coveting no man's goods, prodigal of his own, brave in battle, chivalrous to a foe, faithful to a friend, the Irishman won the heart of his invaders. It was in their social intercourse with the Anglo-Normans that the natives chiefly influenced them and gradually made them Irish. "When the-hush of peace had succeeded, to the clash of arms, when the lord had laid his battle harness aside and sat in the hall of his feudal castle, surrounded by his Irish friendsvassals and chiefs, —// the attractive influence of the Irish character was more potent still. He was charmed with the song and story in the Irish tongue. . . . When the harper struck the cords of his harp with that skill for which . the Irish harper was so famed, when he sang of wars and battles and love, of the soldier's bravery and the chieftain's skill, when the notes that swelled loud with victory again sank into a plaintive moan, as he sang a dirge for-those who had fallen, and the eyes that brightened and flashed became dimmed with tsars, then that alien lord, touched, softened, fascinated, even - in spite of himself, was glad to call these people his countrymen, and proud if he could be called their chief. The conversion of many a stern warrior from English to Irish ways was due to such subtle influences as these." .... *