Monday, June 30th, 2008
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.
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No Original Literature of Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
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Read the full post (271 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)Posted in Gaelic Feudalism | No Comments »
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
When Garrett Og, Earl of Kildare, was permitted by Henry VIII to return to Ireland (1529), he was not, as has already been stated, restored to his office of Deputy. This was conferred on Sir William Skeffington, an elderly English knight of no great ability.
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The Feud between Garret Og and the Council
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Read the full post (184 words, estimated 44 secs reading time)Posted in The Fall of the House of Kildare | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Above : Picture Of Charles I
In the Declaration issued from Breda before his return to England, Charles had promised that, with certain exceptions—those, as it afterwards appeared, of the regicides who had signed Charles I*s death-warrant—none of his subjects, ” of what degree of guilt soever,” should find, that ” any crime whatsoever ” committed against either his father or himself should ” ever rise in judgment or be brought in question against any of them, to the least endangerment of them, either in their lives, liberties or estates.” This he guaranteed, ” upon the word of a King solemnly given.”
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Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
Above : Belfast Castle
Meanwhile the negotiations were being carried on between Ormond and the Confederates. The former had been directed by the King to agree to a cessation of hostilities for a year, during which arrangements for a permanent peace might be made. The old Irish, like the Parliamentarians, though, of course, for widely different reasons, disapproved of the proposed cessation, and indeed held that an attempt to treat with any English party at this juncture was a mistake, ff they continued to press their conquests, they would be in a position to force good terms from whichever side should be victorious in England ; whereas the cessation would give their enemies time to sow dissensions amongst them; moreover, the loss of 10,000 men whom they were to send to the King’s aid would seriously diminish their military power, and consequently their chances of a successful resistance, should the negotiations end unsatisfactorily, or the terms granted them not be observed. The Anglo-Irish party, however, were the stronger in the Supreme Council and also apparently in the General Assembly.
Posted in The Confederation Of Kilkenny.—Part I | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Above : Picture Of Wentworth
The prosperity of Ireland was, however, to be sought—such was the Deputy’s view—not for her own sake, but that she might minister to the prosperity of England and the power of the English Crown. There¬fore, any branch of Irish industry which seemed to threaten to rival or interfere with a similar industry in England must be at once repressed.
Posted in THE Viceroyalty of Wentworth (A.DS 1633-1640) | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Above: The Expedition of Thurot
Posted in Penal Laws Index | No Comments »