These vicious decrees, like similar earlier ones, fell most heavily on the colonists, and, like those, they were ignored or evaded. They were directed, indeed, against the social and economic life of the country.

Irish language, dress and customs prevailed every-where even within the Pale itself. The limits of the Pale were too narrow for its impoverished inhabitants to be able to exist if shut off from trade and intercourse with the country around.

When Mac Riocaird Butler wrote in the Saltair of Caiseal, it was in Irish ; when Desmond’s grandson placed the facts of the Great Earl’s death before the Council, it was in Irish ; Kildare’s great library in Maynooth Castle had as many books in Irish as in any other language.

Bruce soon followed up his victory, and marched for the Midlands by Kells and Granard to Loch Seudy (in the modern Co. Westmeath), where he spent Christmas. At Kells he had defeated Sir Roger Mortimer* who claimed by right of his wife, a grand-daughter of the younger Hugh de Lacy, part of the lands of Meath. Some of the De Lacys—the descendants probably of the first De Lacy’s marriage with Rose O’Connor—were in Mortimer’s army. But they resented his claims, took no part in the battle, and now openly joined Bruce. The latter opened the New Year by marching into Leinster by Naas and Kildare. At Ardscull he defeated Butler and other Leinster nobles, and afterwards captured the important centre of Castledermot. Retracing his steps, he returned to Dundalk, where he was solemnly crowned King of Ireland (1st May, 1316). The summer and autumn of 1316 he passed in desultory fighting in the north, and in the siege and ultimate capture of Carrickfergus Castle.