Anthony Pasquin [John Williams]: History of Professors of Painting in Ireland (1795); T.J. Mulvany: Life of James Gandon; John O"Keeffe: Reminiscences, vol. I; Taft: American Sculpture; W.G. Strickland: Dictionary of Irish Artists (2 vols., 1913).
IRELAND AT PLAY
By THOMAS E. HEALY,
_Editor of "Sport," Dublin_.
On the face of the earth there is no nation in which the love of clean and wholesome sport is more strongly developed than in the Irish. Against us it cannot be urged that we take our pleasures sadly. We enter into them with entire self-abandon, whole-hearted enthusiasm, and genuine exuberance of spirit. There is nothing counterfeit about the Irishman in his play. His one keen desire is to win, be the contest what it may; and towards the achievement of that end he will strain nerve and muscle even to the point of utter exhaustion. And how the onlookers applaud at the spectacle of a desperately contested race, whether between horses, men, motorcars, bicycles, or boats, or of a match between football, hurling, or cricket teams! It matters not which horse, man, car, cycle, boat, or team is successful: the sport is the thing that counts; the strenuousness of the contest is what stimulates and evokes the rapturous applause. At such a moment it is good to be alive. Scenes similar to those hinted at may be witnessed on any sports-field or racetrack in our dear little Emerald Isle almost any day of the year.
All is good fellowship; all is in the cause of sport.
No one can question that in some departments of horse-racing Ireland is today supreme. The Irish devotion to the horse is of no recent growth. Everybody knows how, in the dim and distant days when King Conor macNessa ruled at Emain, the war-steeds of the Ultonians neighed loudly in their stalls on the first dramatic appearance of Cuchulainn of Muirthemne at the northern court. Cuchulainn"s own two steeds, Liath Macha, "the Roan of Macha", and Dub Sainglenn, "Black Sanglan", are celebrated in story and song:
Never hoofs like them shall ring, Rapid as the winds of spring.
To read of the performances of Cuchulainn and his war-horses and his charioteer and friend, Laeg macRiangahra, at the famous battle of Rosnaree, and again at the last fight between the Red Branch Knights and the forces of Queen Medb of Connacht, does truly, in the words used by Sir Philip Sidney in another connection, stir the heart like the sound of a trumpet.
As time went on, the Irish war-horse became more and more famous, and always carried his rider in gallant style. Stout was the steed that, bestridden by G.o.dfrey O"Donnell at the battle of Credan-Kille, withstood the shock of Lord Maurice Fitzgerald"s desperate onslaught, and by his steadiness enabled the Tyrconnell chieftain to strike senseless and unhorse his fierce Norman foe. More celebrated still was the high-spirited animal which Art MacMurrogh rode in 1399 to his ineffectual parley with King Richard the Second"s representative, the Earl of Gloucester. The French chronicler who was a witness of that historic scene tells us that a horse more exquisitely beautiful, more marvellously fleet, he had never seen. "In coming down," he says, "it galloped so hard that, in my opinion, I never saw hare, deer, sheep, or any other animal, I declare to you for a certainty, run with such speed as it did." Edmund Spenser, the poet of _The Faerie Queene_, writing in 1596, bears this striking testimony to the Irish horse-soldier and inferentially to the Irish horse: "I have hearde some greate warriours say, that, in all the services which they had seene abroade in forrayne countreys, they never sawe a more comely horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on more bravely in his charge." The feats performed at the Battle of the Boyne, in 1690, by the Irish horse-soldiers under Hamilton and Berwick were really wonderful, and well-nigh turned disaster into victory on that memorable day which decided the fate of nations as well as of dynasties. And surely those were fleet and stout-hearted steeds that, on August 12, 1690, carried Sarsfield and his chosen five hundred on their dare-devil midnight ride from the Keeper Hills to Ballyneety, where in the dim morning twilight they captured and destroyed William of Orange"s wonderful siege-train, and thereby heartened the defenders of beleaguered Limerick.
Writing in 1809, Lawrence, in his _History and Delineation of the Horse_, said: "From Ireland alone we import [into England] many saddle horses, as many perhaps as 1,500 in a year; upwards in some years. The Irish are the highest and steadiest leapers in the world.
Ireland has bred some good racers, and the generality of Irish horses are, it appears, warmer tempered than our own; and, to use the expression, sharper and more frigate-built."
It is not to be wondered at therefore if in such a country there developed an ardent love of the n.o.ble sport of horse-racing. The Curragh of Kildare, the long-standing headquarters of the Irish Turf Club, was celebrated far back in the eighteenth century as the venue of some great equine contests; and to this day, with its five important fixtures every year, it still holds pride of place. There are numerous other race-courses all over the country, from Punchestown, Leopardstown, Phoenix Park, and Baldoyle in the east to Galway in the west, and from The Maze in the north to rebel Cork in the south. Horse-racing has not inappropriately been termed the national pastime of Ireland. The number of people now giving their attention to it has called for a notable increase in the number of race-meetings, and stake-money is being put up on a more generous scale than at any previous time in the history of the sport. For example, the Irish Derby, run at the Curragh, was in 1914 worth 2,500; and there are besides several stakes of 1,500 and 1,000.
The result of this forward policy is that increasing numbers come to our race-meetings and that the turf has never been more popular than it is today. Men and women of wealth and position find in the national pastime a pleasant method of employing their leisure, and in expending their surplus wealth in its pursuit and in the raising of horses of the highest cla.s.s they realize that they confer a real benefit on the country.
It is, of course, now universally known that Ireland has an international reputation as a country eminently fitted for horse-breeding. If proof were needed, it would be found in the extensive purchases effected by English, French, Italian, German, Russian, and American buyers at the great Dublin Horse Show held in August every year. Horses bought in Ireland have seldom failed to realize their promise. The English cla.s.sic races and many of the princ.i.p.al handicaps on the flat have been often won by Irish-bred horses, such as Galtee More, Ard Patrick, Orby, Kilwarlin, Barcaldine, Umpire, Master Kildare, Kilsallaghan, Bendigo, Philomel, The Rejected, Comedy, Winkfield"s Pride, Bellevin, Royal Flush, Victor Wild, Bachelor"s b.u.t.ton, Irish Ivy, and Hackler"s Pride. If only a few of the star performers are here set down, it is not from lack of means to continue, but merely from a desire to avoid the compilation of a mere string of names. In France, too, the Irish racer has made his mark. It is, however, in the four-and-a-half miles" Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase, the greatest cross-country race in the world, the supreme test of the leaper, galloper, and stayer, that Irish-bred horses have made perhaps the most wonderful record. The list of winners of that great event demonstrates in an unmistakable manner that we are second to none in the art of breeding steeplechase horses. Among many other noted Irish-bred winners of this race there stand boldly forth the names of The Lamb, Empress, Woodbrook, Frigate, Come Away, Cloister, Wild Man from Borneo, and Manifesto. In fact, it is the exception when another than an Irish-bred horse annexes the blue riband of steeplechasing.
Closely allied to horse-racing is fox-hunting, and fox-hunting, as well as the hunting of the stag and of the hare, has flourished exceedingly in Ireland for a long time past. A great deal of needed employment is one of the results. Dogs are specially bred and trained for each of these branches of sport. Irish foxhounds, staghounds, harriers, and beagles have a high reputation. More native to the soil, and so interwoven with the history of the country that it is often used as one of its symbols, is the Irish wolfhound. This is probably the animal to which Aurelius Symmachus, a Roman consul in Britain, referred when, writing to his brother in Ireland in A.D.
391, he acknowledged the receipt of seven Irish hounds. The wolfhound played a sinister part in the Irish history of the eighteenth century, for, as Davis says in his poem, "The Penal Days":
Their dogs were taught alike to run Upon the scent of wolf and friar.
The Irish wolfhound is now very scarce, and a genuine specimen is a valued and highly coveted possession. The greyhound, too, figures prominently in present-day sport, and in many parts of the country are held coursing meetings, which frequently result in several spirited contests. A famous Irish greyhound was Lord Lurgan"s black and white dog, Master McGrath. Master McGrath achieved the rare distinction of winning the Waterloo Cup three times, in 1868, 1869, and 1871. When it is remembered that the Waterloo Cup is to coursing what the Liverpool Grand National is to steeplechasing, or the Epsom Derby to flat racing, the merit of this triple performance will at once be apparent.
Compared with the sports in which horse and hound partic.i.p.ate, all other outdoor pastimes in Ireland take rather a minor place. Still, the Irishman"s love of sport is diversified. Few there are who have not many inclinations, and as a nation our taste in sport is catholic. We take part in nearly every pastime; in many we excel. The prize ring has fallen from its high estate, nor is it the intention here to try to cast any glamour over it. The subject is introduced, in a pa.s.sing way, for the sole purpose of showing that, in what at least used to be the manly art of self-defense, Ireland in days gone by as well as at the present time has more than held her own. The most conspicuous of the representatives of her race in this department are perhaps Heenan, Ryan, Sullivan, Corbett, Maher, McAuliffe, McFarland, and McGoorty. There is one other prize-fighter, Dan Donnelly by name, who became a sort of national hero, of whom all Irishmen of his day were not a little proud, because he laid the English champion low, and whose performance, now haloed by the antiquity of more than a hundred years, we may with equanimity, as without offense, contemplate, with perhaps a sigh for the good old times. The famous encounter between Donnelly and Cooper took place on the Curragh, and after eleven rounds of scientific boxing Donnelly knocked his opponent over the ropes and won the world"s championship for the Emerald Isle. The spot where the battle came off has ever since been known as Donnelly"s Hollow, and a neat monument there erected commemorates the Dublin man"s pluck and skill. A ballad recounting the incidents of the fight and, as ballads go, not badly composed, had a wonderful vogue, and was sung at fair and market and other meeting place within the memory of men who are not now more than middle-aged.
A search in other domains of sport will be by no means barren of results. Take running, for instance. Who has not heard of the wondrous little Thomas Conneff from the short-gra.s.s county of Kildare? Who does not know of his brilliant performances on the track? We in Ireland, who had seen him defeat Carter, the great Canadian, over the four-mile course at b.a.l.l.sbridge one summer"s eve now nearly twenty golden years ago, knew his worth before he crossed the broad Atlantic to show to thousands of admiring spectators in America that Ireland was the breeder of fleet-footed sons, who lacked neither the courage, nor the thews and sinews, nor the staying power, to carry them at high speed over any distance of ground. May the earth lie light on Conneff, for in a small body he had a great heart!
Then there was the mighty runner, James J. Daly, a true hero from Galway, the idol of the crowd in his native land as well as in the United States. Daly was the champion long distance cross-country runner of his day at home, and he showed before various nationalities in the Greater Ireland beyond the seas that he could successfully compete with the best from all countries.
In high jumping, Patrick Davin, P. Leahy, and Peter O"Connor were for long in the foremost rank; Daniel Ahearne was famous for his hop-step-and-jump performance; Maurice Davin, Matthew McGrath, and Patrick Ryan have, each in his own day, thrown the 16-pound hammer to record distance; in shot-putting there are Sheridan, Horgan, John Flanagan, and others bearing true Irish names, who are right in front; and before their time we had a redoubted champion in W.J.M.
Barry. All previous performances in the shot-putting line have, however, been recently eclipsed by Patrick J. McDonald, of the Irish-American Club, who at Celtic Park, Long Island, on May 30, 1914, made a new world"s record by putting the 18-pound shot 46 feet 2-3/4 inches. The climax of achievement was reached when T.F. Kiely won the all-round championship of the world at New York. The distinguished part taken by Irishmen or sons of Irishmen in all departments of the Olympic games is so recent and so well known as to call for no comment. Ireland is far indeed from being degenerate in her athletes.
In international strife with England, Scotland, Wales, and France at Rugby football, Ireland has likewise won her spurs. She has never been beaten by the representatives of Gaul; and though for long enough she had invariably to succ.u.mb in compet.i.tion with the other three countries, such is not the case nowadays, nor has it been for many years past. The Irish team has ever to be reckoned with. In a.s.sociation football, too, Ireland is coming into her own. This branch of the game has developed enormously within a comparatively few seasons. The people flock in their thousands to witness matches for the princ.i.p.al league contests or cup ties. But the greatest crowds of all go to see Gaelic football, the national game; and to hurling, also distinctively Irish, they foregather in serried ma.s.ses.
Since the Gaelic Athletic a.s.sociation was founded both football and hurling have prospered exceedingly. They are essentially popular forms of sport, and the muscular manhood of city and country finds in them a natural outlet for their characteristic Celtic vigor. The Gaelic a.s.sociation has fostered and developed these sports, and has organized them on so sound a basis that interest in them is not confined to any particular district but spreads throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.
When the America Cup was to be challenged for, into the breach stepped the Earl of Dunraven and flung his gage to the holders of the trophy. This distinguished Irish n.o.bleman furnished a contender in his Valkyrie II. in the fall of 1893, and his patriotic spirit in doing so stirred the sport-loving Irish nation to the greatest enthusiasm. His lordship was not successful, but he was not disheartened. He tried again with Valkyrie III., but again he was only second best, for, though his yacht sailed to victory in home waters, she proved unequal to the task of lifting the cup. No Englishman was prepared to tempt fortune, but not so that sterling Irishman, Sir Thomas Lipton, who, win or lose, would not have it laid to the charge of Ireland that an attempt should not be made. His Shamrock, Shamrock II., and Shamrock III.--surely a deep sense of patriotism prompted nomenclature such as that--each in succession went down to defeat; but Sir Thomas has not done yet. Like King Bruce, he is going to try again, and Shamrock IV. is to do battle with the best that America can range against her. All honor to Lord Dunraven and to Sir Thomas Lipton for their persistent efforts to engage in generous rivalry with the yachtsmen across the sea.
Lawn-tennis, cricket, and golf we play, and play well; to rowing many of us are enthusiastically devoted; and at handball our young men--and some not so young--are signally expert. The champion handball player has always been of Irish blood. Baseball we invented--and called it rounders. It is significant that the great American ball game is still played according to a code which is scarcely modified from that which may be seen in force any summer day on an Irish school field or village green. Perhaps something of hereditary instinct is to be traced in the fact that many of the best exponents of American baseball are the bearers of fine old Irish names.
This brief and cursory review of Ireland at Play must now conclude.
It is scarcely more than a glossary, and not a complete one at that.
It may, however, serve to show that Ireland"s record in sport, like her record in so many other things set forth in this book, is great and glorious enough to warrant the insertion of this short chapter among those which tell of old achievements and feats of high emprize.
REFERENCES:
Racing--Irish Racing Calendar: 1790-1914, 124 vols. (Dublin, Brindley and Son); The Racing Calendar: 1774-1914 (London, Weatherby and Sons). Breeding--The General Stud Book: 1908-1913, 22 vols. (London, Weatherby and Sons). Racing and Breeding Generally--c.o.x: Notes on the History of the Irish Horse (Dublin, 1897). Boxing and Athletics--Files of _Sport_ and _Freeman"s Journal_.
THE FIGHTING RACE
By JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE,
_President, American Irish Historical Society_.
I.--THE FIGHTING RACE AT HOME.
"War was the ruling pa.s.sion of this people," says MacGeoghegan, meaning the Milesians who were the latest of the peoples that overran ancient Ireland up to the coming of Christ. How many races had preceded them remains an enigma of history not profitable to examine here, but whoever they were, or in what succession they arrived, they must, like all migrating people, have been prepared to establish themselves at the point of the spear and the edge of the sword. Two races certainly were mingled in the ancient Irish, the fair or auburn haired with blue eyes, and the dark haired with eyes of gray or brown. The Milesians appear to have reached Ireland through Spain.
They came swiftly to power, more than a thousand years before our Lord, and divided the country into four provinces or kingdoms, with an _ard-ri_, or high-king, ruling all in a loose way as to service, taxes, and allegiance. The economic life was almost entirely pastoral. Riches were counted in herds of cattle. "Robustness of frame, vehemence of pa.s.sion, elevated imagination," Dr. Leland says, signalized this people. Robust, they became athletic and vigorous and excelled in the use of deadly weapons; pa.s.sionate, they easily went from litigation to blows; imaginative, they leaned toward poetry and song and were strong for whatever religion they practised. The latter was a polytheism brought close to the people through the Druids. Some stone weapons were doubtless still used; they had also brazen or bronze swords, and spears, axes, and maces of various alloys of copper and tin. Socially they remained tribal. Heads of tribes were petty kings, each with his stronghold of a primitive character, each with his tribal warriors, bards, harpers, and druids, and the whole male population more or less ready to take part in war.
The great heroes whose names have come down to us, such as Finn, son of c.u.mhal, and Cuchulainn, were reared in a school of arms. Bravery was the sign of true manhood. A law of chivalry moderated the excess of combat. A trained militia, the Fianna, gave character to an era; the Knights of the Red Branch were the distinguishing order of chevaliers. The songs of the bards were songs of battle; the great Irish epic of antiquity was the_ Tain Bo Cualnge_, or Cooley Cattle-raid, and it is full of combats and feats of strength and prowess. High character meant high pride, always ready to give account of itself and strike for its ideals: "Irritable and bold", as one historian has it. They were jealous and quick to anger, but light-hearted laughter came easily to the lips of the ancient Irish.
They worked cheerfully, prayed fervently to their G.o.ds, loved their women and children devotedly, clung pa.s.sionately to their clan, and fought at the call with alacrity.
Nothing, it will be seen, could be further from the minds of such a people than submission to what they deemed injustice. The habit of a proud freedom was ingrained. Their little island of 32,000 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean, the outpost of Europe, lay isolated save for occasional forays to and from the coasts of Scotland and England.
The Roman invasions of western Europe never reached it. England the Romans overran, but never Scotland or Ireland. Self-contained, Ireland developed a civilization peculiarly its own, the product of an intense, imaginative, fighting race. War was not constant among them by any means, and occupied only small portions of the island at a time, but, since the bards" best work was war songs and war histories, with much braggadocio doubtless intermixed, a different impression might prevail. Half of their kings may have been killed in broil or battle, and yet great wars were few. If is undoubted that Scotic, that is, Irish, invasion and immigration peopled the western sh.o.r.es of Scotland and gave a name to the country. In the first centuries of the Christian era they were the men who with the Picts fought the Romans at the wall of Severus. The Britons, it will be remembered, enervated by Roman dominance, had failed to defend their "border" when Rome first withdrew her legions.
At this time, too, began the first appearance of Ireland as a power on the sea. In the fourth century the high-king, Niall of the Hostages, commanding a large fleet of war galleys, invaded Scotland, ravaged the English coasts, and conquered Armorica (Brittany), penetrating as far as the banks of the Loire, where, according to the legend, he was slain by an arrow shot by one of his own men. One of the captives he brought from abroad on one of his early expeditions was a youth named Patrick, afterwards to be the Apostle of Ireland.
Niall"s nephew, Dathi, also ard-ri, was a great sea king. He invaded England, crossed to Gaul, and marched as far as the Alps, where he was killed by lightning. He was the last pagan king of Ireland. In perhaps a score of years after the death of Dathi, all Ireland had been converted to Christianity, and its old religion of a thousand years buried so deep that scholars find the greatest difficulty in recovering anything about it. This conservative, obstinate, jealous people overturned its pagan altars in a night, and, ever since, has never put into anything else the devotion, soul and body, of its sacrifices for religion. Christianity profoundly modified Irish life, softened manners, and stimulated learning. Not that the fighting propensities were obliterated. There were indeed many long and peaceful reigns, but the historians record neat little wars, seductive forays and "hostings", to use the new-old word, to the heart"s content. The Irish character remained fixed in its essentials, but, under the influence of religious enthusiasm, Ireland progressed and prospered in the arts of peace. It would undoubtedly have shared the full progress of western Europe from this time on, but for its insularity. Hitherto its protection, it was now to be its downfall. A hostile power was growing of which it knew nothing.
The Nors.e.m.e.n--the hardy vikings of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark--had become a nation of pirates. Undaunted fighters and able mariners, they built their shapely long ships and galleys of the northern pine and oak, and swept hardily down on the coasts of England, Ireland, France, Spain, and Italy, and the lands of the Levant, surprising, ma.s.sacring, plundering. In France (Normandy), in England, and lastly in Ireland they planted colonies. Their greatest success was in England, which they conquered, Canute becoming king. Their greatest battles and final defeat were in Ireland. From the end of the eighth century to the beginning of the eleventh the four sh.o.r.es of Erin were attacked in turn, and sometimes all together, by successive fleets of the Nors.e.m.e.n. The waters that had been Ireland"s protection now became the high roads of the invaders. By the river Shannon they pushed their conquests into the heart of the country. Dublin Bay, Waterford Harbor, Belfast Lough, and the Cove of Cork offered shelter to their vessels. They established themselves in Dublin and raided the country around. Churches and monasteries were sacked and burned.
To the end these Nors.e.m.e.n were robbers rather than settlers. To these onslaughts by the myriad wasps of the northern seas, again and again renewed, the Irish responded manfully. In 812 they drove off the invaders with great slaughter, only to find fresh hordes descending a year or two later. In the tenth century, Turgesius, the Danish leader, called himself monarch of Ireland, but he was driven out by the Irish king, Malachi. The great effort which really broke the Danish power forever in Ireland was at the battle of Clontarf, on Dublin Bay, Good Friday, 1014, when King Brian Boru, at the head of 30,000 men, utterly defeated the Danes of Dublin and the Danes of oversea. Fragments of the Northmen remained all over Ireland, but henceforth they gradually merged with the Irish people, adding a notable element to it"s blood. One of the most grievous chapters of Irish history, the period of Norse invasion, literally shines with Irish valor and tenacity, undimmed through six fighting generations.
As Plowden says:
"Ireland stands conspicuous among the nations of the universe, a solitary instance in which neither the destructive hand of time, nor the devastating arm of oppression, nor the widest variety of changes in the political system of government could alter or subdue, much less wholly extinguish, the national genius, spirit, and character of its inhabitants." This is true not only of the Danish wars which ended nine hundred years ago, but of many a dreadful century since and to this very day.
Now followed a troubled period, Ireland weakened by loss of blood and treasure, its government failing of authority through the defects of its virtues. It was inevitable, sooner or later, that England, as it became consolidated after its conquest by William the Norman, should turn greedy eyes on the fair land across the Irish sea. It was in 1169 that "Strongbow"--Richard, earl of Pembroke--came from England at the invitation of a discontented Irish chieftain and began the conquest of Ireland. Three years later came Henry II. with more troops and a Papal bull. After a campaign in Leinster, he set himself up as overlord of Ireland, and then returned to London. It was the beginning only. An English Lord Deputy ruled the "Pale", or portion of Ireland that England held more or less securely, and from that vantage ground made spasmodic war upon the rest of Ireland, and was forever warred on, in large attacks and small, by Irish chieftains.
The Irish were the fighting race now if ever. Without hope of outside a.s.sistance, facing a foe ever reinforced from a stronger, richer, more fully organized country, nothing but their stubborn character and their fighting genius kept them in the field. And century out and century in, they stayed, holding back the foreign foe four hundred years. It is worthy of note that it was the Norman English, racial cousins, as it were, of the Nors.e.m.e.n, who first wrought at the English conquest of Ireland. When some of these were seated in Irish places of pride, when a Butler was made Earl of Ormond and a Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, it was soon seen that they were merging rapidly in the Irish ma.s.s, becoming, as it was said, "more Irish than the Irish themselves." Many were the individual heroic efforts to strike down the English power. Here and there small Irish chiefs accepted the English rule, offsetting the Norman Irish families who at times were "loyal" and at times "rebel." The state of war became continuous and internecine, but three-fourths of Ireland remained unconquered. The idea of a united Ireland against England had, however, been lost except in a few exalted and a few desperate b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A gleam of hope came in 1316, when, two years after the great defeat of England by the Scotch under Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn, Edward, the victor-king"s brother, came at the invitation of the northern Irish to Ireland with 6,000 Scots, landing near Carrickfergus. He was proclaimed king of Ireland by the Irish who joined him. Battle after battle was won by the allies. Edward was a brilliant soldier, lacking, however, the prudence of his great brother, Robert. The story of his two years of fighting, ravaging, and slaying, is hard at this distance to reconcile with intelligible strategy. In the end, in 1318, the gallant Scot fell in battle near Dundalk, losing at the same time two-thirds of his army. For two years Scot and Irish had fought victoriously side by side. That is the fact of moment that comes out of this dark period.
The following century, like that which had gone before, was full of fighting. In 1399, on Richard II."s second visit to Ireland, he met fierce opposition from the Irish septs. MacMorrough, fighting, hara.s.sing the king"s army from the shelter of the Wicklow woods, fairly drove the king to Dublin. The sanguinary "Wars of the Roses"--that thirty years" struggle for the crown of England between the royal houses of York and Lancaster, 1455 to 1485--gave Ireland a long opportunity, which, however, she was too weak to turn to advantage; but fighting between Irish and English went on just the same, now in one province, now in another.
In the reign of Henry VIII. a revolt against England started within the Pale itself, when Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, known as Silken Thomas, went before the Council in Dublin and publicly renounced his allegiance. He took the field--a brave, striking figure--in protest against the king"s bad faith in dealing with his father, the Earl of Kildare. At one time it looked as if the rebellion (it was the first real Irish rebellion) would prosper. Lord Thomas made combinations with Irish chieftains in the north and west, and was victor in several engagements. He finally surrendered with a.s.surances of pardon, but, as in many similar cases, was treacherously sent a prisoner to London, where he was executed.
Queen Mary"s reign was one of comparative quiet in Ireland. Her policy towards the Catholics was held to be of good augury for Ireland. The English garrison was reduced with impunity to 500 foot and a few horse: but another and darker day came with Elizabeth. Her coming to the throne, together with her fanatic devotion to the Reformation and an equal hatred of the old religion and all who clung to it, ushered in for Ireland two and a half centuries of almost unbroken misfortune. You cannot make people over. Some may take their opinions with their interest; others prefer to die rather than surrender theirs, and glory in the sacrifice. The proclamations of Elizabeth had no persuasion in them for the Irish. Her proscriptions were only another English sword at Ireland"s throat. The disdain of the Irish maddened her. During her long reign one campaign after another was launched against them. Always fresh soldier hordes came pouring in under able commanders and marched forth from the Pale, generally to return shattered and worn down by constant harrying, sometimes utterly defeated with great slaughter. So of Henry Sidney"s campaign, and so of the ill-fated Ess.e.x. Ulster, the stronghold of the O"Neills and the O"Donnells, remained unconquered down to the last years of Elizabeth"s reign, although most of the greater battles were fought there. In Hugh O"Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and "Red" Hugh O"Donnell, prince of Tyrconnell, Ireland had two really great soldiers on her side. The bravery, generalship, prudence, and strategy of O"Neill were worthy of all praise, and Red Hugh fell little short of his great compatriot. In battle after battle for twenty years they defeated the English with slaughter. Ireland, if more and more devastated by campaigns and forays, became the grave of tens of thousands of English soldiers and scores of high reputations.