Above : Map Of Leinster

Power of the Great Lords.—The story of the Norman settlement is not, however, to be found in the records of the appointments and dismissals of nominal Chief Governors in Dublin. It follows, indeed, no single course, but varies with the varying fortunes of the great families to whom had been granted the right of plunder in so many Irish territories. The history of the early Normans is the history of the great Lordships and of the families upon whom they were conferred. The grants had been accompanied by almost sovereign rights, and in their own territories the great lords made peace and war, granted lands, created nobles and officials, and erected castles, independently of the Crown. Over them the King’s governor had no control; he was merely a rival competitor. The events connected with the development and fate of the four great Lordships—that of Strongbow in Leinster, of De Lacy in Meath, of De Courcey in ” Ulster,” and of De Burgh in Connacht—comprise nearly the whole history of the Normans in Ireland during this period.

The fate of all four affords a striking similarity. In the course of a few generations the families who founded them all die out for want of male heirs, and their lands and titles pass away to strangers.

The Lordship of Leinster.—The Lordship of Leinster stretched from one to the other of the two great Norman bases. Through its entire length, however, ran a core of mountain chains, with a narrow belt of comparatively level country on the coast side and open plains on the other, while beyond the plains again lay a broad, continuous belt of alternate bog, forest and mountain. Through the plains of Leinster lay the routes from Dublin to all the South of Ireland ; to hold them and the narrow coast road was, for centuries, a matter of vital importance.

The Marshalls and the De Lacys.—Strongbow had planted his vassals on the lower valleys of the Suir, the Nore, and the Barrow, and along the coast. He also endeavoured to secure the plain, and had parcelled it out to other followers, but it was held only with difficulty and by constant effort. When he died, leaving an only daughter, Isabel, his sovereign rights in Leinster passed to her husband, William Marshall, the great Earl of Pembroke. But the Marshalls were great English noblemen, absorbed in English politics, and the Normans in Leinster were left practically without a lord. On their north was the powerful Hugh De Lacy, and when he was Viceroy (i 179- 84) he erected many castles through Leinster. Those at Arklow, Wicklow, and Newcastle controlled the coast: those at Carlow and Leighlin Bridge guarded the passes of the Barrow ; a line of forts from Castledermot to Maynooth maintained communications with Dublin and Meath. These were ostensibly ” royal ” castles, but the ambitious De Lacy may have aimed at the union of the almost derelict lordship with his own territory of Meath. Henceforward, the Marshalls are the determined opponents of the Lords of Meath, and it was William Marshall, the younger son of the great Earl, who fought them in the ” War of Meath ” in 1224.

The “War of Kildare ” : Murder of Richard Marshall.—The deserted possessions of the Marshalls continued, however, to be an object of rapacity, and soon they were the cause of a tragedy in which forgery, treachery, and murder were the leading features. The chief actors in the crime were the principal Normans in Ireland—the Lord Justice (Fitz-Gerald), the De Lacys, De Burgh and others—and the victim was Richard Marshall, brother and successor of William Marshall the younger. He had rebelled against the King in England, and his Irish estates had been confiscated, and many of his castles seized. By means of lying letters he was inveigled over to Ireland, and at the same time forged letters in the name of the King (Henry III) were sent to the chief lords, ordering them to capture him alive or dead, and promising that they should share his estates. He was received by Geoffrey De Marisco, who had several times been Lord Justice. Falsely encouraged by De Marisco, Marshall gathered an army, and in a short campaign, called the ” War of Kildare,” he recovered his Leinster castles, and captured Limerick. The other lords had offered little opposition, and a “friendly conference ” was arranged for on the Curragh of Kildare. Marshall came, accompanied by De Marisco—the latter with eighty followers, Marshall with only fifteen. De Burgh, Fitz-Gerald, and Hugh De Lacy were attended by 140 men. Having urged Marshall on to a point which admitted of no compromise, De Marisco, who had been in the conspiracy from the first, suddenly drew off his followers. The other conspirators overwhelmed Marshall’s small troop, and he was wounded and made prisoner. Even then, however, his life might have been saved. But the wound was wilfully aggravated by a surgeon in the pay of the conspirators, and the death of Richard Marshall was thus accomplished (1234).

Disruption of the Lordship : The Geraldines and the Butlers.—Soon afterwards the last of the sons of William Marshall and Isabel died. Their five daughters had married English earls, and amongst these their possessions were divided. Split into five fragments, Strongbow’s lordship disappears (1245). Many of the descendants of his followers, however, had retained a tenacious hold of their castles and lands, and still formed the two narrow belts of Norman influence in Leinster, which constituted the Lordship. Anongst those were two families which were destined to rise into prominence. In the north were the Fitz-Geralds, who had been created ” Barons of Offaly ” by the Lords of Leinster, and who afterwards (1290) acquired one of the shares of Slrongbow’s lordship. In the south were the Butlers, whom the Marshalls had established in the lower valleys of the Nore and the Suir. Originally ” Lords of Carrick ” (Carrick-on-Suir) they also absorbed much of Strongbow’s lordship, and eventually became the great rivals of the two Geraldine families of Leinster and Munster .

Below : Map Of Meath

The Earldom of Meath.—The fierce dissensions of the O Maolachlan family had left the ancient Kingdom of Tara without a recognised owner. Henry had seized the opportunity to grant it to Hugh De Lacy by a charter which professed to confer upon him all the sovereign rights of the O Maolachlans, to be held, however, as the King’s vassal. The great territory thus dealt with extended from the Shannon to the sea, approached the very walls of Dublin, and bordered upon Strongbow’s lordship. Unlike Leinster, it was a great open plain, forming, on the coast, the principal gap in the mountain chains which encircled the island, but broken, inland, by many bogs and a chain of lakes.

De Lacy’s Castles.—Hugh De Lacy was one of the ablest and most vigorous of the early Normans, and he was, above all, a great builder of castles. Soon he had covered with castles not only all of Meath which lay east of the Boyne, but also the part of Oirghialla which lay between that river and Dundalk (now called Co. Louth). Here the powerful Earl installed his chief followers, many of whom were the ancestors of the families who figure in the later history of the ” Pale ” * . Thus was made a compact settlement in a great wedge-shaped district, which on the coast extended from Dublin to Dundalk, but narrowed inland to the castles of Trim and Delvin.

The “Causeway” to the Shannon.—Westward of those two forts lay the bogs and lakes, but through the passes De Lacy’s barons also forced their way until they reached the Shannon at Athlone. Here a bridge, protected by a royal castle, maintained connection with Connacht. Upon this narrow Norman causeway from Trim to Athlone chiefly depended communication with the country beyond the Shannon, and its existence was only second in importance to that of the Leinster ” belt.” It did not, however, prove to be as permanent as was the latter.

* Nugents, Tuites, Tyrretts, Daltons, Dillons, Cusacks, Plunketts, Prestons. Barnewalls, Flemings, Verdons, Gernons, etc.

De Lacy’s Ambition.—De Lacy’s power was too great for him to enjoy the permanent confidence of the King, and accordingly we find him frequently appointed to and dismissed from the position of Viceroy. Apparently the King’s suspicions were not unjustified, for De Lacy’s ambition evidently extended beyond Meath. We have seen how he filled Leinster on his south with castles, which were only nominally royal ones, while by his second marriage vnih Rose O’Connor, a daughter of Rory O’Connor, he created an alliance beyond the Shannon. When Prince John returned from his unfortunate visit, he laid the blame for its failure upon De Lacy. Next year, however, the Lord of Meath was killed by a young Irishman as he was supervising the erection of a castle on the site of the Columban monastery of Durrow (1186).

The De Lacys Banished.—Hugh De Lacy left two sons by his Norman wife—Walter and Hugh—and three by his Irish wife. Walter succeeded him as Lord of Meath, but Hugh, the younger, was more able and active, and was frequently Lord Deputy. Soon a rivalry sprang up between the De Lacys and De Courcey, whose earldom of ” Ulster ” lay upon their north, and when, as we shall see, King John determined to crush De Courcey, he employed the De Lacys to do so, and gave the Earldom of Ulster to Hugh the younger. But five years later the King turned upon the De Lacys, who in the meantime had been fighting with various Norman lords. John landed in Ireland with a large army, and drove the brothers out of both Meath and Ulster, and into exile (1210).

The “War of Meath.”—Walter De Lacy was restored to Meath about the year 1215, but soon the feud with the Marshalls broke out (1221). Hugh came to the assistance of his brother, and for three years the ” War of Meath ” raged between the opposing factions, both of which had Irish allies. William Marshall the younger crossed to Ireland in 1224, besieged Walter in Trim, and met Hugh near Dundalk. At the latter place a peace was arranged which imposed no conditions upon the rebellious barons, and ten years later the De Lacys were amongst the leaders of the conspiracy which brought about the murder of Richard Marshall.

Partition of De Lacy’s Lordship.—When Walter De Lacy, the second Lord of Meath, died in 1241 he left no male issue surviving him. The lordship descended to his two grand-daughters and became divided between their husbands, and eventually one half passed to the family of Talbot , and the other into the possession of the English royal family. In the latter half the families originally established there by Hugh De Lacy became immediately dependent upon the English Crown, and formed the principal elements in what was in later years called the ” Pale ” . The claims of the issue of Hugh De Lacy by Rose O’Connor—and there is evidence that there was such issue— appear to have been ignored.