Ireland History

The arrest in the development of Irish literature, which has been noted as marking the advent of the Normans, continued during the succeeding two centuries. If original literature worthy of the name was then produced, all trace and record of it has been lost.

Yet our annals clearly show that learning and scholarship flourished and were encouraged. They record, year after year, the names of those who were famous as scholars, bards, historians, and lawyers ; they constantly preserve the names of Gaelic chiefs and Norman lords who were conspicuous for their patronage and hospitality to poets and men of learning. Every Gaelic family, and many Norman ones, still had their hereditary bards and historians occupying honoured and privileged positions.

Learned and famous books were produced, as will be shown, but these were mostly compilations. At the time that the new nations were developing popular literature, the Gaelic voice was suppressed. While England, France, Spain and Italy were creating their national languages, and the Renascence was spreading over Europe, the cultured mind of Ireland was forcibly turned back upon the past.

Posted on June 30th, 2008 under Gaelic Feudalism. Tags: england, france, Gaelic chiefs, historians, Irish literature, lawyers, Norman lords, Norman ones, popular literature, record, spain. Comments: None

This proved, in the event, to be the last return of Garrett to Ireland. He must have realised that the crisis was approachinor himself and for his country.

His enemies were powerful. Anne Boleyn, a relative of Butler, had now won a sinister influence over the King, and Piers Butler had resigned to her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, the Earldom of Ormond, taking instead the title of Earl of Ossory. It was evident, too, that a new tone with regard to Ireland was being adopted by the English officials, and that its affairs were being discussed in a spirit which recognised no rights in either Gaelic chief or Norman lord. The whole country was spoken of as a single unit, over every part of which the King should have absolute dominion as he had in England.

 Kildare could no longer be, at once, the ruler of a semi-independent Ireland and the King’s Deputy. On the other hand he knew his own power, to which he owed his immunity. He had added to the widespread alliances of his family by marrying his daughters to the chiefs of Ui Failghe and of Eile (O’Carroll), and all his kinsmen had shown their readiness to support him. One of them (O’Connor) had openly declared his resolve to drive the English out of Ireland.

Posted on June 30th, 2008 under Gaelic Feudalism. Tags: Anne Boleyn, Crisis, Earl of Ossory, Earldom of Ormond, Europe. Culture, Garrett, Geraldines .Ireland, kildare, Society, Thomas Boleyn. Comments: None