Remonstrance ” of Domhnall O’Neill

The Irish had naturally taken a keen interest in the struggle of their neighbours and kinsmen • He had annexed Wales to England in 1283.
In Scotland. Their own condition is well set out in a ” Remonstrance ” which was sent to the Pope about this time by Domhnall O’Neill, King of Aileach.*
After pointing out that Henry II, by false representations, had procured authority from the Pope to claim dominion over Ireland, the document goes on to show that the conditions under which this authority had been secured had been violated and that not reforms but disorder and vice were the results.

 Enumerating the various atrocities that had been committed, such as those by De Bermingham and De Clare, it states that the Irish had been driven from the fertile lands, and that the invaders denied the right of any Irishman to live in his own country.
 Even their clergy, it went on, were treated with contumely and were denied admission into monasteries and abbeys that had been built and endowed by their own people. Treaties were made only to be broken, the murderers of Irishmen went unpunished, the goods of Irishmen might be plundered with impunity, and they were given no redress by law.
The Irish, however, were determined to preserve their lives and liberties against ” those cruel tyrants, usurpers of our just properties, and murderers of our persons ” to whom they had ” never bound themselves  by any oath  of allegiance.”