Art Mac Murrough Kavanagh (1377 – 1417)
Above: Arthur Mac Murrogh Kavanagh
The man that gave most. trouble during the reign of Richard II (from 1377 to 1399) was Art Mac Murrogh Kavanagh, king of Leinster, born in 1357. In early youth, even in his sixteenth year, he began his active career as defender of the province; and at eighteen (in 1375) he was elected king of Leinster. Some time after his election, he married the daughter of Maurice Fitzgerald fourth earl of Kildare; where- upon the English authorities seized the lady’s vast estates, inasmuch as she had violated the Statute of Kilkenny by marrying a mere Irishman. In addition lo this, his black rent-eighty marks a year-was for some reason stopped, soon after the accession of Richard II. Exasperated by these proceedings, he devastated and burned many districts in the counties of Wefcrd, Kilkenny, Carlow, and Kildare; till the Di.blin council were at last forced to pay him him black rent.
276. Meantime Ireland had been going from bad to worse; and at last the king resolved to come hither himself with an overwhelming- force, hoping thereby to overawe the whole country into submission and quiet- ness. He made great preparations for this expedition; and on the 2nd of October, 1304, attended by many of the English nobles, he landed at Waterford with an army of 34,000 men, the largest force ever yet brought to the shores of Ireland.
277. As soon as Mac Murrogh heard of this, far from showing any signs of fear, he swept down on New Ross, then a flourishing English settlement strongly walled, burned the town, and brought away a vast quantity of booty. And when the king and his army marched north from Waterford to Dublin he harassed them on the way after his usual fashion, attacking then; from the woods and bogs and cutting off great numbers.
The Irish chiefs however saw that submission was inevitable. At a place called Ballygorry, near Carlow, Mowbray earl of Nottingham received the submission of a number of the southern chiefs in I3QS. an’l amongst them MacMurrogh, (he most dreaded of all. The king himself received the northern chiefs at Drogheda. Altogether about 75 chiefs submitted to the king and to Mowbray. They were afterwards invited to Dublin, where they were feasted sumptuously for several days by the king, who knighted the four provincial kings, O’Neill of Ulster, O’Connor of Connaught, Mac Murrogh of Leinster, and O’Brien of Thomond.
In a letter to the duke of York, the English Regent king Richard describes the Irish people as of three classes-Irish savages or enemies; Irish rebels (colonists in rebellion); and English subjects; and he says the rebels were driven to revolt by ill-usage.
But this magnificent and expensive expedition produced no useful result whatever. As for the sub- mission and reconciliation of the Irish chiefs, it was all pure sham. They did not look upon king Richard as their lawful sovereign; and as the promises they had made had been extorted by force, they did not consider themselves bound to keep them.
