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GAELIC REVIVAL
The political revival of the Gaelic communities in the
later Middle Ages had a number of stages. Those
Gaelic rulers who retained some territory after the
Anglo-Norman invasion relied at first on the protection
of the English king to keep the aggression of the
Anglo-Irish barons within bounds. This policy failed
during the long minority of King Henry III, when
several of his council of regency, such as Earl William
the Marshal and the chancellor Hubert de Burgh, were
closely connected to the barons in Ireland. Their
encouragement led to a renewed westward expansion,
the conquest of Connacht by Richard de Burgh, and
attempts by the FitzGerald lord of Sligo to conquer
Donegal, and by the Fitzgeralds of Desmond, or south
Munster, to expand into the southwest at the expense
of the MacCarthaig lords.

Attempts to Revive the High Kingship
of Ireland

These pressures led about the middle of the thirteenth
century to a general movement among the younger
generation of Gaelic princes to withdraw their alle-
giance from King Henry and his son, the Lord Edward,
and to take up arms to recover lost territory. Important
local victories were won by Gofraid Ua Domnaill: at
Credran (1257) against the Fitzgerald lords of Sligo;
and by Fingin and Cormac Mac Carthaig at Callan
(1261) and Mangerton (1262) respectively, against the
Fitzgeralds of Desmond, which halted the momentum
of conquest. Brian Ua Néill, the king of Tír Eogain in
mid-Ulster, hatched a more ambitious plan for an alli-
ance with the heirs of Ua Conchobair, king of Connacht,
and of Ua Briain, king of Thomond or North Munster,
in support of Brian’s own claim to be king of all the
Irish of Ireland. This hope perished with the defeat and

death of Ua Néill at the battle of Downpatrick (1260).

In 1263, the king of Norway, Haakon Haakonson,

came with a fleet to assert his lordship of the western

Isles of Scotland. He was asked to extend his expedi-

tion to Ireland and accept the kingship of the Irish, but

this came to nothing, as Haakon refused and died

shortly afterwards. The final attempt to put forward a

single king over Ireland as an alternative to the English

king’s lordship came between 1315 and 1318, when

Edward Bruce invaded with a Scottish army and

claimed the kingship of Ireland, supported by Domnall

Ua Néill and other Gaelic chiefs.

Decline of the Colony in the Fourteenth

Century

After the collapse of this ambitious attempt at coun-

trywide resistance, with the defeat and death of

Edward Bruce near Dundalk in 1318, the more effec-

tive recovery of Gaelic power took place at a regional

level during the fourteenth century. It happened as

much through the weakness of the Anglo-Irish colony

as any added strength on the part of the Irish. The

fourteenth century saw an extended decline in weather

conditions across northern Europe, leading to bad har-

vests and famines. In Ireland this took greatest effect

in the cereal-growing regions of the south and east,

where the English colonists were concentrated. Simi-

larly the plague known as the Black Death, which

swept across Europe from 1347 to 1349, entered Ireland

through the major seaports, which were inhabited by

the Anglo-Irish; the Gaelic communities, engaged in

pastoral farming and living dispersed in rural settle-

ments, were less severely affected.

Poverty and depopulation in the Anglo-Irish colony

led to a fall in financial profits for aristocratic land-

owners and less taxation revenue for the English