Following a forty year period of time and money spent by the English crown
to assist the position of the colonists in Ireland, King Richard the II,
was deposed in 1399. It was during this time, in 1366, that the Statutes
of Kilkenny were passed in a futile attempt to reverse the trend of English
colonists from speaking Irish and marrying Irish partners. The 15th century
successors in Ireland were no longer interested in pouring more money into
Ireland, and expected the great magnate families, the Butlers in Ormond and
the Fitzgeralds in Desmond and Kildare, to represent the crown's interests
and defend the settlements. However the independent nature of the
Anglo-Irish lords and the Irish Parliament came to be a major problem for
the English crown toward the end of the 15th century.
Ultimately, the winners in later medieval Ireland were neither the English
Crown nor the native Irish rulers, but the Anglo-Irish lords and earls.
During the fifteenth century the area controlled by the Crown shrank to an
area around Dublin which was fortified by an earthen rampart, known as
the Pale. Intra-rivalries between the Irish rulers diffused much of their
overall power, although Gaelic liberty and culture had been on the rise since the
14th century. The increasing political influence of the Anglo-Irish Earls
of Kildare, Ormond and Desmond was at its height in the fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries.
Irish lordships were a very prominent feature in the later fifteenth
century, including the McCarthy of southwest Ireland,
the O'Donnell and O'Neill of north Ireland, the O'Connor/O'Conor,
O'Kelly and Gaelicized Burkes of Connacht, and the O'Brien of north
Munster. Some territory previously colonized had been regained by the
native Irish rulers: the southeast coastline of Clare, the Inishowen
peninsula, the Sligo lordship, the barony of Farney in Monaghan, the
arable lands bordering the bogs and mountains of Leinster.
The native Irish lords held sway in much of their traditional territories:
In Ulster, the O'Cahan, MacQuillan, Magennis, MacMahon, Maguire, O'Reilly
and Magauran; In Connacht, the MacDermot, O'Rourke, MacRannell,
O'Flaherty, O'Malley and O'Madden; In Leinster, the O'Connor Faly,
the MacMurrough, O'Ferrall, O'More, O'Toole, O'Byrne,
O'Morchoe, and the Irish of Westmeath; and in Munster the O'Sullivan and
O'Connor Kerry.
1300a
1500
