The Jeopardy of Leinster Lines and the system of ” Black Rents”

In Lcinster also the two important ” belts ” which connected Dublin with the south were in peril. From the slopes of the mountains the clans attacked both the road by the coast and that through the plains. The latter also was assailed on the other side by the clans of the midland ” island “, Lysaght O’Moore recapturing Dunamase and many other castles in 1329, and Conall O’Moore capturing others in 1346. The O’Connors recovered much of Ui Failghe from the Earl of Kildare, while O’Carroll saved all but the southern part of Eile from the Earl of Ormonde.

So perilous was the state of things in these important districts that the English Crown was forced to adopt a policy which was afterwards more fully developed. Mac Murrough was still ” King of Laighin ” and traditional leader of its clans. To Maurice Mac Murrough, therefore, the Crown came in 1335, and requested him to protect the roads from Dublin for which they offered (and paid) a sum of eighty marks a year. Thus was commenced the system of ” Black Rents,” or payments to Irish chiefs for protection, * O’Maolachlan, Mac Geogh.’gan, O’Molloy, etc.which alone secured toleration for English influence in the narrow territory into which it was being rapidly driven.