The first invasions and invaders

An English invasion

Ecgfrith ( c. 645 – 20 May 685) was the King of Deira from 664 until 670, and then King of Northumbria from 670 until his death in 685.

The territory of the ancient Kingdom of Deira has a southern borderland along the river Humber, and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York, and a northern border along the river Tees. It later merged with the kingdom of Bernicia, its northern neighbour, to form the kingdom of Northumbria.

He ruled over Northumbria when it was at the height of its power, but his reign ended with a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Nechtansmere in which he lost his life. In June 684, Ecgfrith sent a raiding party to Brega in Ireland under his general Berht, which resulted in the seizing of a large number of slaves and the sacking of many churches and monasteries.

The reasons for this raid are unclear, though it is known that Ecgfrith acted against the warnings of Ecgberht of Ripon and that the raid was condemned by Bede and other churchmen.

The first recorded Viking raid

The first recorded Viking raid in Irish history occurred in AD 795 when Vikings, possibly from Norway looted the island of Lambay.

This was followed by a raid on the coast of Brega in 798, bounded on the east by the Irish Sea and on the south by the River Liffey. Brega extended northwards across the River Boyne to include Sliabh Breagha the line of hills in southern County Louth.

This was followed by raids on the coast of Connacht in 807.

These early Viking raids were generally small in scale and quick. These early raids interrupted the golden age of Christian Irish culture and marked the beginning of two hundred years of intermittent warfare, with waves of Viking raiders plundering monasteries and towns throughout Ireland.

Most of the early raiders came from the fjords of western Norway. They are believed to have sailed first to Shetland, then south to Orkney. The Vikings would have then sailed down the Atlantic coast of Scotland, and then over to Ireland. During these early raids the Vikings also travelled to the west coast of Ireland to the Skellig Islands located off the coast of County Kerry. The early raids on Ireland seem to have been aristocratic free enterprise, and named leaders appear in the Irish annals.

The Viking raids on Ireland resumed in 821, and intensified during the following decades. The Vikings were beginning to establish fortified encampments, longports, along the Irish coast and overwintering in Ireland instead of retreating to Scandinavia or British bases. The first known longports were at Linn Dúachaill (Annagassan) and Duiblinn (on the River Liffey, at or near present Dublin). They were also moving further inland to attack, often using rivers such as the Shannon, and then retreating to their coastal bases.

The raiding parties also increased in size. In 837 the annals report a fleet of sixty longships on the Liffey, carrying 1,500 men, and another one of a similar size sailing up the river Boyne, and launching attacks on the lands of Brega in the south of County Meath.

In general, from 837 onward larger Viking forces hit larger targets - such as the greater monastic towns of Armagh, Glendalough, Kildare, Slane, Clonard, Clonmacnoise, and Lismore - while smaller targets such as local churches with less material to be plundered may have escaped the Vikings' attention.

In 852, the Vikings landed in Dublin Bay and established a fortress. Dublin became the centre for trade of many goods, especially slaves.[citation needed] Bringing back new ideas and motivations, they began settling more permanently. In the tenth century an earthen bank was constructed around the city with a second larger bank built outside that in the eleventh century.

A third wave of incursions in 917 established towns as not only control centres, but also as centres of trade to enter into Irish economy and greater Western Europe.

Viking Dublin                Modern Dublin

Returning to Dublin, they set up a market town. Over the next century a great period of economic growth would spread across the pastoral country. The Vikings popularized a silver based economy with local trade and the first minting of coins in 997.

In 902 Máel Finnia mac Flannacain of Brega and Cerball mac Muirecáin of Leinster joined forces against Dublin, and "The heathens were driven from Ireland, i.e. from the fortress of Áth Cliath [Dublin]". They were allowed by the Saxons to settle in Wirral, England, but would however later return to retake Dublin.

The Vikings never achieved total domination of Ireland, often fighting for and against various Irish kings. The Battle of Clontarf in 1014 began the decline of Viking power in Ireland but the towns which Vikings had founded continued to flourish, and trade became an important part of the Irish economy.

The Norman invasion

The Norman invasion of Ireland took place in stages during the late 12th century and led to the Anglo-Normans conquering large swathes of land from the Irish. At the time, Gaelic Ireland was made up of several kingdoms, with a High King claiming lordship over the lesser kings. The Norman invasion was a watershed in the history of Ireland, marking the beginning of more than 800 years of direct English and, later, British involvement in Ireland.

In May 1169, Anglo-Norman mercenaries landed in Ireland at the request of Diarmait Mac Murchada (Dermot MacMurragh), the deposed King of Leinster, who had sought their help in regaining his kingdom. Diarmait and the Normans seized Leinster within weeks and launched raids into neighbouring kingdoms. This military intervention had the backing of King Henry II of England and was sanctioned by Pope Adrian IV.

In the summer of 1170 there were two further Norman landings, led by the Anglo-Norman Earl of Pembroke, Richard "Strongbow" de Clare. By May 1171, Strongbow had assumed control of Leinster and seized the Norse-Irish city kingdoms of Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford. That summer, High King Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair (Rory O'Connor) led an Irish counteroffensive against the Normans, who nevertheless managed to hold most of their conquered territory. In October 1171, King Henry landed with a large army in Ireland to establish control over both the Anglo-Normans and the Irish.

Painting of the marriage of Aoife and Strongbow by Daniel Maclise 1854. This painting was originally commissioned as part of a visual programme celebrating the acquisition of colonies by Britain, to be installed in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster.

Daniel Maclise was a successful British Victorian artist, born in 1806 in Cork, Ireland, into a poor but thrifty Scottish Presbyterian family. His father, after leaving the British Army, became a shoemaker. In 1848 he presented a cartoon, sketch, and fresco specimens to the Fine-Art Committee of the Palace of Westminster for their official competition to paint frescoes in the House of Lords.   They liked his work and he was chosen to paint The Spirit of Chivalry for the House of Lords in 1848. One year later he painted a companion fresco entitled The Spirit of Justice. The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife is owned by and on permanent display in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. It was initially commissioned to stand in the chamber of the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster, along with other paintings celebrating the acquisition of colonies by the British Empire. It was presented to the National Gallery in 1879 by Sir Richard Wallace, 1st Baronet, a Conservative and Unionist Member of Parliament for Lisburn from 1873 to 1885. The painting depicts; 

the ruins of the captured city of Waterford, which is the setting for the arranged marriage of the daughter of Diarmuid Mac Murrough the King of Leinster to Richard de Clare. In the foreground of the painting we see bodies of the vanquished enemy heaped on top of each other.  To the left we see the broken-stringed harp, the instrument which symbolises Ireland.   In the central midground we see Richard and Aiofe.  The victorious Richard de Clare takes his bride’s hand whilst we see his foot on top of a Celtic cross, symbolising the crushing of the Irish enemy.  This would be the start of a long period of subjugation by the English for the people of Ireland.  Facing Richard is Aoife, his bride-to-be, behind who stand a line of her bridesmaids.  Facing us in the central midground is the local religious dignitary who, with his hand raised heavenwards, blesses the couple.  The father of the bride, Diarmuid Mac Murrough, King of Leinster, stands to the right of the priest.  In the background above the ruins of the city we see wounded men and bodies being carried away by their colleagues whilst women weep and mourn the loss of their men folk. (my daily art display jonathan5485 Posted on April 15, 2012)

When the Bank of America Merrill Lynch paid for the painting to be restored in 2010–17 the Irish Independent ran a story headlined:

The day we lost our sovereignty

The Norman lords handed their conquered territory to Henry. He let Strongbow hold Leinster in fief and declared the cities to be crown land. Many Irish kings also submitted to him, likely in the hope that he would curb Norman expansion. Henry, however, granted the unconquered kingdom of Meath to Hugh de Lacy. After Henry's departure in 1172, Norman expansion and Irish counteroffensives continued.

The 1175 Treaty of Windsor acknowledged Henry as overlord of the conquered territory and Ruaidrí as overlord of the rest of Ireland, with Ruaidrí also swearing fealty to Henry. However, the Treaty soon fell apart; the Anglo-Norman lords continued to invade Irish kingdoms and they attacked the Normans in turn. In 1177, Henry adopted a new policy. He declared his son John to be "Lord of Ireland" (i.e. of the whole country) and authorized the Norman lords to conquer more land. The territory they held became the Lordship of Ireland and formed part of the Angevin Empire. 

The largely successful nature of the invasion has been attributed to a number of factors. These include the Normans' military superiority and castle-building; the lack of a unified opposition from the Irish; and the support of the Catholic Church for Henry's intervention.

Arrival of the Black Death

Even before the Black Death had arrived in Ireland in 1348, by 1261 the weakening of the Normans had become manifest when Fineen MacCarthy defeated a Norman army at the Battle of Callann.

A great victory by the McCarthys of Munster against the Norman invaders took place near here in 1261. The Chieftain of the McCarthy Fineens was killed in the Battle of Callan on this very spot, and was buried here where he fell.

The war had continued between the different lords and earls for about 100 years, causing much destruction, especially around Dublin. In this chaotic situation, local Irish lords won back large amounts of land that their families had lost since the conquest and held them after the war was over.

However, the severity of the demographic impact of the Black Death upon the English and Norman inhabitants of Ireland was disproportionate, in relative terms and compared to the generally more rural and geographically isolated Gaelic communities.

The Black Death spread across Asia and into Europe along continental trade routes. Epidemics that may have included plague killed an estimated 25 million Chinese and other Asians during the fifteen years before it reached Constantinople in 1347 via what we now refer to as the Silk Road.

The 13th-century Mongol conquest of China caused a decline in farming and trading. However, economic recovery had been observed at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In the 1330s, many natural disasters and plagues led to widespread famine, starting in 1331, with a deadly plague arriving soon after.

The disease may have travelled along the Silk Road with Mongol armies and traders or it could have come via ship. By the end of 1346, reports of plague had reached the seaports of Europe: "India was depopulated, Tartary, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia were covered with dead bodies".

Plague was reportedly first introduced to Europe via Genoese traders from the port city of Kaffa in the Crimea in 1347. During a protracted siege of the city by the Mongol army under Jani Beg, whose army was suffering from the disease, the army catapulted infected corpses over the city walls of Kaffa to infect the inhabitants. The Genoese traders fled, taking the plague by ship into Sicily and the south of Europe, whence it spread north. Whether or not this hypothesis is accurate, it is clear that several existing conditions such as war, famine, and weather contributed to the severity of the Black Death.

The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. The plague reduced the world population from 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. It took 200 years for the world population to recover. The plague recurred as outbreaks in Europe until the 19th century.

Because most of the English and Norman inhabitants of Ireland lived in towns and villages, the plague hit them far harder than it did the native Irish, who lived in more dispersed rural settlements. After it had passed, Gaelic Irish language and customs came to dominate the country again. The English-controlled territory shrank to a fortified area around Dublin and the Pale, whose rulers had little real authority outside (beyond the Pale).

By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared. England's attentions were diverted by the Wars of the Roses. The Lordship of Ireland lay in the hands of the powerful Fitzgerald Earl of Kildare, who dominated the country by means of military force and alliances with Irish lords and clans. Around the country, local Gaelic and Gaelicised lords expanded their powers at the expense of the English government in Dublin but the power of the Dublin government was seriously curtailed by the introduction of Poynings' Law in 1494. According to this act the Irish Parliament was essentially put under the control of the Westminster Parliament.