THE STORY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 29 May 1919, Page 7

THE STORY OF IRELAND

•‘U £ -fe!: (By A. M. Sullivan.) i&.. fl TfJ IV r ,-V fVY '0 S'./

' -CHAPTER XXV.— Continued r // The famine now raged with such intensity all over Ireland that it brought about a suspension of hostilities. Neither party could provision an army in the field. King Robert of Scotland, utterdisheartened, sailed home- , ward. His own country was not free from suffering, and in any event the terrible privations of the past few months had filled the Scottish contingent with discontent. King Edward, however, nothing daunted,'resolved to stand by the Irish kingdom to the last, and it was arranged that whenever a resumption of hostilities became feasible Robert should send him another Scottish contingent. The harvest of the following year (1318) was no sooner gathered in and found to be of comparative abundance than both parties sprang to arms. The English commander-in-chief, John De Birmingham, was quickly across the Boyne at the head of 12,000 men, intent on striking King. Edward before his hourly-ex-pected Scottish contingent could arrive. The Irish levies were but slowly coming in, and Edward at this time had barely two or three thousand men at hand. Nevertheless he resolved to meet the English and give them battle. Donald O’Neill and the other native princes saw the madness of this course, and vainly endeavored to dissuade the king from it. They pointed out that the true strategy to be adopted under the circumstances was to gain time, to retire slowly on their northern base, disputing each inch of ground, but-risk-ing no pitched battle until the national levies would have come in, and the Scottish contingent arrived, by which time, moreover, they would have drawn He Birmingham away from his base, and would have him in a hostile country. There can be no second opinion about the merits of this scheme. It was the only one for Edward to pursue just then. It was identical with that which had enabled him to overthrow the Red Earl three.years before, and had won the battle of Connoyre. But the king was immovable. At all times headstrong, selfwilled, and impetuous, he now seemed to have been rendered extravagantly over-confident by the singular fact (for fact it was) that never yet had he met the English in battle on Irish soil that he did not defeat them. It is said that some of the Irish princes, fully persuaded of the madness of the course resolved upon, and incensed by the despotic obstinacy of the king, withdrew from the camp. “There remained with the iron-headed king,” says the historian, “the lords Mowbray de Soulis and- Stewart, with the three brothers of the latter, Mac Roy, Lord of the Isles, and Mac Donald, chief of his clan. The neighborhood of Dundalk, the scene of his triumphs and coronation, -was to be the scene of the last act of Bruce’s chivalrous and stormy career.” From the same authority (McGee) I quote the following account of that scene ; p “On the 14th of October, 1318, at the Hill of

Faughard, within a couple of miles of Dundalk, the advance guard of the hostile armies came into the presence of each other, and made ready for battle. Roland de Jorse, the foreign Archbishop of Armagh, who had not been, able to take possession of his see, though appointed to it seven years before, accompanied the AngloIrish, and, moving through their ranks, gave his benediction to their banners. But the impetuosity of Bruce gave little time for preparation. At the head of the vanguard, without waiting for the whole of his company to come up, he charged the enemy with impetuosity. The action became general, and the skill of De Birmingham as a leader was again demonstratedrj An incident common to the warfare of that age was, however, the immediate cause of the victory y Master John De Maupas, a burgher of Dundalk, believing that the death : of the Scottish leader would be the signal for the retreat of his followers, disguised as a jester or a fool, sought him throughout the field. : ,t One of ' the royal esquires named Gilbert Harper, wearing the svir-

« .i;s . ■ i9s?v"^ coat of his master,% was mistaken for him and slain; but for his body, it was found under that of De Maupas, and struck down with the blow of leaden plummet or slung-shot. After the battle, when the field was searched for his. body, it was found under that of De Maupas, who had bravely yielded up life for. life. The Hibernor Scottish forces dispersed in dismay, and when King Robert of Scotland landed, a' day or two afterwards, he was met by the fugitive men of Garrick, under their leader Thompson, who informed him of : his brother’s fate. He returned at once into his own country, carrying off the few Scottish survivors. The head of the impetuous Edward was sent to London, but the body was interred in the churchyard of Faughard, where, within living memory, a tall pillar-stone was pointed out by every peasant in the neighborhood as marking the grave of King Bruce.” Thus ended the first grand effort of Ireland as an independent nation to expel the Anglo-Norman power. Never was so great an so brilliantly successful, yet eventually defeated by means outside and beyond human skill to avert, or human bravery to withstand. The seasons fought against Ireland in this great crisis of her fate. A dreadful scourge struck down the country in the very moment of national triumph. The arm that was victorious in battle fell lifeless at the breath

of this dread destroyer. To the singular and calamitous coincidence of a famine so terrible at such a critical moment for Ireland, and to this alone, was the ruin of the national cause attributable. The Irish under the king of their choice had, in three heavy campaigns, shown themselves able to meet and overcome the utmost force that could be brought against them. England had put forth her best energies and had been defeated. Prestige was rapidly multiplying the forces and increasing the moral and material resources of the Irish : and but for the circumstances which compelled the retreat northwards from Limerick, reducing and disorganising the national army, and leading in a long train of still greater evils, as far as human ken could see, the independent nationality of Ireland was triumphantly consolidated and her freedom securely established.

The battle of Faughard— or rather the fall of Edward under such circumstances —was a decisive termination of the whole struggle. The expected Scottish contingent arrived soon after ; but all was over, and it returned home. The English king, some years subsequently, took measures to guard against the recurrence of such a formidable danger as that which had so nearly wrested Ireland from his grasp —a Scoto-Irish alliance. On March 17, 1328, a treaty between England and Scotland was signed at Edinburgh, by which it was stipulated that, in the event of a rebellion against Scotland in Skye, Man, or the Islands, or ar/ainst Buyland '-in Ireland , the respective kings would not assist each other’s “rebel subjects.” Ireland had played for a great stake, and lost the game. The nation that had reappeared for a moment, again disappeared, and once more the struggle against the English power was waged merely by isolated chiefs and princes, each one acting for himself alone.

(To bo continued.)

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