The successful careers of Niall M6r O’Neill Art  Mac  Murrough,  and  Murrough   O’Connor  mark  at  once  the completion of the absorption of the Normans and the end of Irish re-conquest.   Henceforward, little change in territory took place.  

 The recent conquests were held, but no new ones of importance were made. Indeed, there was but little left to win.   The Pale continued to shrink into even smaller dimensions, but the process was gradual, and was due more to internal weakness than to external attack.    

An effort would have extinguished it, but no such effort was made, and it was allowed to exist on sufferance.

While the Talbots and Butlers were thus rivals for official power, the Geraldines of both Desmond and Kildare were excluded from the favour of the House of Lancaster.

Eventually, however, the struggle forced Ormonde to cultivate the friendship of one of his traditional rivals. James, Seventh Earl of Desmond, had succeeded to the Earldom by expelling his nephew, Thomas, on the nominal ground that he had broken the ” Statute of Kilkenny ” by marrying an Irish wife.

Above: The Siege of Limerick