[Sidenote: The Irish recover ground under Edward II. and his successors.] In other parts of Ireland the Celts were more successful. In 1317 or 1318 the O'Carrolls gained a victory over Sir Edmund Butler, but Clyn places his loss at about two hundred only. More important was the battle of Disert O'Dea, in which Richard de Clare was defeated and slain. This fight destroyed the pretensions of the De Clares, and the O'Briens remained supreme in Thomond as long as such supremacies lasted anywhere. In Leinster, too, the Irish became more and more troublesome, and Clyn unwillingly records successes of the O'Nolans and O'Tooles over the Poers and other settlers. The dissensions of the colonists were yet more fatal than the prowess of the natives. Eva's descendants were for ever fighting among themselves, and it was the Red Earl's jealousy of Sir Edmund Butler which prevented a united effort from being made against Bruce. 'After having violently expelled us,' wrote the Irish to John XXII., 'from our spacious habitations and patrimonial inheritances, they have compelled us to repair, in the hope of saving our lives, to mountains and woods, to bogs and barren wastes, and to the caves of the rocks, where, like the beasts, we have long been fain to dwell.' The close of Edward II.'s reign saw them everywhere ready to descend from their hills, and to emerge from their woods. For nearly two hundred years the history of Ireland is in the main a history of Celtic gains at the expense of Anglo-Normans and Englishmen; if, indeed, anarchy can rightly be accounted gain to any race or community of men. [Sidenote: The last Earl of Ulster is murdered, 1333. The De Burgos and other Anglo-Normans assume Irish names and habits.]