IRISH RHAPSODY

John Bull saw the verdant land across the Irish Sea as a plum ripe for the plucking. Norman and Saxon Lords, on the lookout for expansion, eyed the island as a land of opportunity. The medieval mind that craved wealth through conquest could not turn away from a prize so close to home.

The Irish gentry were remarkably less interested in expansion beyond their island. Their struggles tended to be focused inward.  

For centuries, Ireland's separation from the Continent and England fostered isolation from Western European Culture.  The idiosyncratic Celtic Irish way of life bore little resemblance to that of the Anglo invaders.  

Previously Viking raiders established outposts on the island and influenced all of Ireland, especially with the development of trading communities like Dublin, Waterford, and Cork. The long arm of the Papacy extended into the island. Missionaries like St. Patrick brought Catholicism that displaced the pagan ways of the Druids and the Brehons.

Apart from those influences, the Irish developed a system of governance based upon the family, sept (clan), and princely leaders. The leaders called themselves kings. They strove to be the most powerful in the land. They measured their wealth in cattle.  Power rested in possession of property and control of the people working the land. The wealthiest and most influential political leader sought honor at the Hill of Tara as High King of Ireland; that is, until the next most powerful among them supplanted him. The system of Brehon Law served the island for fifteen hundred years.

That changed abruptly in 1171. 

Dairmuit (Jeer-muit) Mac Murchadha (anglicized Mac Murrow), King of Leinster, lost the battle for power to Rory O'Conner, High King of Connacht and Dublin.  O’Conner expelled Mac Murchadha from Ireland. Mac Murchadha promptly sailed to England in 1166, where he petitioned Plantagenet King Henry II for assistance.  Henry, with the blessing of Pope Alexander III, permitted Mac Murchadha to assemble a mercenary army.

In 1155, Pope Adrian IV was the only Englishman to be elected to the Papacy.  Adrian issued a papal bull known as the Laudabiliter, which granted the Crown authority govern Ireland and enforce Irish compliance with the Continental Catholic Church.

Adrian died in 1159.  When Mac Murchadha sought help, Henry II recognized his opportunity to exercise jurisdiction over Ireland. He dusted off the Laudabiliter and used it as authority to act, an unintended outcome of Mac Murchadha's petition for English support. Mac Murchadha recruited the powerful Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare, an Anglo-Norman baron. De Clare, known as Strongbow, was precisely what Mac Murchadha needed to regain his Kingdom of Leinster.  Strongbow, however, came at a high price. Mac Murchadha promised him his daughter in marriage and the Kingdom of Leinster upon Mac Murchadha's death.

In May 1171, Dairmuit Mac Murchadha died. Strongbow became the first nonindigenous Irish King of Leinster. England vested him as Lord of Leinster.  Strongbow’s reign began eight hundred years of British hegemony in Ireland.   During that time, England obliterated Ireland's Brehon Laws and Anglicized the island's system of governance.

The power structure of Ireland's twenty-six southern counties changed significantly during the centuries of Anglo-Norman ascendancy. Vast agricultural estates regulated Irish daily life. Market towns grew beyond those established by the Vikings.  Local and international trade expanded dramatically. Foreigners, Saxon, Norman, Welsh, and Belgian colonists settled on the lands of the Anglo-Norman lords. The defunct Irish hierarchy lost its status and lifestyle. Most of the poor Irish became serfs working the estate lands.

Even as the Irish kings submitted to the more powerful invaders, the general population did not accept the yoke of foreign control. The working classes became a hot ember of resentment. Their powerlessness stoked the flames of outrage. Especially in the southern and western counties, the festering foment seethed for centuries until one day it burst into flame.

The day, 14 April 1916, Easter Monday. The place, Dublin City. A small band of Republican nationalists, fewer than two thousand, burst into Dublin. They secured the National Post Office and several other public buildings and declared the establishment of the Irish Republic. There, they clashed with British troops in a conflict known as the Easter Rising.

The British forces overwhelmed the inchoate rebellion within a week; but, that was not the end of it. The Easter Rising began eight years of urban, guerilla warfare and civil war.

Ultimately, a political solution emerged from the bloodshed and ashes. On 6 December 1921, representatives from the nascent Irish Republic and Great Britain signed a treaty that created the Irish Free State. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was the first step in the centuries-long struggle against foreign control in Ireland. The agreement, however, excluded the six northern counties and fell short of granting Ireland a state entirely independent from the will of the British Crown, an irritant to some Republicans.

Civil war broke out among Irish Republicans. The hard-liners, those who believed the treaty did not go far enough, fought the more moderate treaty supporters. For nearly two years, the Anti-Treaty Forces continued guerilla warfare against their fellow countrymen, the newly formed Irish Free State forces. By the end of 1923, the Irish Free State prevailed, and the civil conflict came to an end.

The bloody battles for Irish independence are a hundred years in the past. Many Irish look to the leaders of that time with gratitude and respect. Michael Collins, the brilliant guerrilla tactician, and diplomatic envoy, died a martyr to the cause. Richard Mulcahy, a General in the Irish Free State Military, carried on after Collins' assassination and brought the civil conflict among Republicans to an end in 1923. Eamon de Valera emerged as an astute politician guiding Ireland from war to statehood.

On 18 April 1949, Easter Monday, thirty-three years after the Easter Rising of 1916, the independent Republic of Ireland emerged as a political reality. After eight hundred years, the British yoke of authority gave way, and the right of Irish self-governance restored.

An Irish Rhapsody is not complete until we address the issue of Northern Ireland.  Six northern counties, four of which were a part of the Ulster Plantation plus County Antrim and County Down, comprise Northern Ireland.  The Kingdom of Great Britain includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.  Many Northern Irelanders are descendants of Scots, brought there during the 1750-1860 Highland Clearances, as well as many who are of English ancestry.  The late Twentieth Century conflict between the minority Catholic population and those aligned with England and Protestantism dominated politics on the island; at issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.  The civil war known as “The Troubles” cost more than three thousand lives and injured tens of thousands more.  The Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998 brought the overt hostilities to an end.  Native Northern Irish have the right to dual nationality, Irish or British, or both.

The Irish island is a divided land.  Should it continue that way?  That is a matter of heated debate.